Doom's charms

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

OK, now for something more abstract and general, or as some of us might call it, "academic". HA! ;-D

Humankind lives in a cosmic shooting range, is the conclusion of astronomers. There are so many asteroids dashing through our Solar system that the next mass extinction seems a matter of time.

The subject ain't new for Hollywood either. We've all watched Armageddon, where Bruce Willis and his fellows were handed a nuke in a box and sent to blow a giant asteroid to pieces before it had smashed against Earth. Doesn't matter that from a strictly scientific POV that would've been a useless effort, because in result it'd substitute extinction by a massive meteorite impact with extinction by a meteorite shower. But that doesn't matter, Armageddon wasn't a movie about physics, it was about morality. It was about things like selflessness, courage and love.

And that's the point, the Apocalypse stories are not supposed to be scientific treatises, they're a social story. They don't contain facts, instead they teach moral values. People obsessed with the end of the world are seldom versed in astrophysics or cosmology, but they're not supposed to be: they speak of Good and Evil, and the meaning of life.

The whole Armageddon thing, in the form that's familiar to us, of course comes from the Bible. It's the end game, the last battle between God and His foes. Usually the final scene is the Tel Megiddo hill in Palestine. These days, about 2/3 of all Americans believe this battle is going to happen, and soon. Christian fundies are eager to interpret the wars in the Middle East as a precursor to the imminent Armageddon. New versions of the Apocalypse are being made up, be it in the shape of a nuclear catastrophe, or climate change, a global pandemic or a comet impact.

The details don't matter. The point is, the death of the world as we know it is part of our human mythology. It's being sold in millions of copies, newspapers will be fanning the story as the next deadline (December 21) approaches, and beyond that. This fatalistic, apocalyptic mindset affects politics too. It's as if people are deeply in love with their own doom.

But is it love for death, or just cautiousness? After all, various catastrophes have threatened humankind since time immemorial. Earthquakes, floods, pests, epidemics and wars have ravaged Earth and removed entire civilizations from its face. People have always stockpiled goods, built dikes... and prayed. The human reaction to disaster has always been both technical and cultural. Most of the time people have been convinced that the mercy of the god(s) is the best protection in an unpredictable world. That's why they've built temples and made sacrifices.

But here's the thing. The notion that the world can end forever was alien to the earliest cultures. Sure, the gods would often punish the mortals with catastrophes, but they'd always let them recover afterwards and start anew. Humans came and went just as the seasons do, and as the celestial bodies move cyclically in their orbits. This complex approach to life and death and the Cosmos as a whole is inherent to the big Eastern religions teaching people that the world passes from one stage to another, that the sunset is followed by sunrise, etc. Take India for example - it's rich in such cosmologies. Most of them speak of cycles of creation and destruction, even if they may have various versions from one school of thought to another. Some of these scenarios very much resemble the latest theories of science (cosmology, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, etc). But in all of these mythologies the central thing is the fate of the human soul - and implicitly, how man should live in order to ensure an exit from the endless cycle, and to reach salvation in the great Nothingness.

The yuga cycles in Hinduism

Zarathustra was probably the first sage to become familiar in the West for preaching a fundamental picture of the world that interpreted history as an eternal battle between good and evil, between the forces of truth and falseness. Man should choose either side, and one day their fate would be decided from that choice. The picture of the end of the world has undergone great development since then, becoming ever more colorful and frightening: rivers of blood and molten metal, demons slaughtering people, and the celestial entourage descending upon Earth to save the day. Probably the prophet was echoing traumatic earthly events like wars, social conflicts, anarchy and strife, and expecting, or hoping that the day of reckoning would come in his lifetime and cleanse the world of its sins.

That of course didn't happen. No destruction came to the world, and with time these cyclical cosmologies gave way to the linear notion of the world as a unique place that exists only once, its inhabitants being unique, and history moving from its one creation towards its imminent, and finite end. This mythological model turned out far more successful in winning hearts and minds. Because the idea of a finite world inhabited by infinite, immortal souls is fascinating and magical: suddenly neither life is so unremarkable, nor is the soul an eternal captive of the endless cycle of misfortune, misery and pain. The people we've loved so much are not lost forever. Those murdered and humiliated and exploited can now desperately cling to the hope that justice will be served eventually. And even if we suffer in this life, we'll definitely be happy in the afterlife. Isn't that appealing?

Zoroastrianism became the state religion in Persia in the 6th century BC, and it was most probably from there that the Jews loaned many cosmological ideas. And Christianity, and later Islam, derive from that school too. And the Doomsday is a central part of that faith system. The Apocalypse has captured the hopes and fears of billions of people ever since, and directed their actions and shaped entire societies.

Hieronymus Bosch: Last Judgment

We all know about the Book of Revelation, created somewhere around 100 AD, the last book of the New Testament. At that time the Roman Empire was persecuting Christians, throwing them to the lions, treating them like cattle, enslaving them, forcing them into prostitution - just because they refused to worship the Emperor as a half-god like the rest. John the cleric was specifically preaching to the Christian communities in Asia Minor, urging them to withstand the turmoil because salvation was coming soon. And he described in great detail how the world would be devastated by all sorts of terrible tribulations, how the four horsemen would destroy the world, but at the end Jesus would come again to defeat the infidels, cast down the forces of Evil and save the day for the true believers, taking them to Heaven while the rest would burn in Hell forever, while the Earth is being completely destroyed. Makes you want to join the club of the chosen ones, doesn't it?

John's description was specific for the time, he referred to real events, situations and persons that were relevant for the time and place, even if he dresses it all in metaphors (which, unfortunately, are being read literally by some people today - but more about this, a bit further down). John called Rome the Great Whore, he put subtle references to the Roman Emperor in the description of the Evil One and his host, and all in all in his story he infused his hope for the downfall of Rome the oppressor. That's why the Roman clerics later found some difficulties incorporating that story into the dogma, once Christianity became official religion of the Empire. Such difficulties arise from the eventual second coming of Jesus as well. Meanwhile, the metaphors in Revelation were vague enough to allow various people to interpret them as it suits their respective agendas, adjusting the story to their particular situation, and that's why they're "valid" even today, and millions of people in what presumably passes for the "developed" world, still believe in them sincerely. That's why Doomsday will never go away.

Rev. Camping has seen the truth, even if you haven't

The vagueness of the doomsday prophecies conveniently makes them tricky to translate into concrete places and dates. But that doesn't mean people haven't tried. Like that radio preacher in Oakland who called all sorts of mockery upon himself when he predicted the exact day of the Apocalypse, May 21, 2011, at 6pm. It didn't happen of course. But that hasn't stopped various Doomsday advocates from spreading the message about the next End of Times, putting bumper stickers on cars, raising huge billboards at crossroads, putting flags and signs and adverts in the media, and all in all spreading their message of doom and gloom. There are even people who've left their jobs in order to dedicate their life to "spreading the word", or move to the mountains and live a secluded life there in wait of the imminent end. Telling goodbye to relatives and friends and going into self-isolation, in hope of being among the 200 million pious souls who'll be chosen by Jesus to live on, while the rest of us die in flames.

Thousands of people in America, Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines and elsewhere are hectically preparing for the coming of the celestial master, while the "infidels" are raising toasts at wild parties commemorating the next End of the World - only to wake up with a horrible hangover on the next morning, but still alive and well.

Most interestingly, that Evangelical preacher who failed to predict Doomsday, stubbornly continued insisting that the Doomsday had actually happened, even if invisibly (spiritually?), and even though Earth had continued existing physically. A reaction that confirms the psychiatric diagnosis that people whose fanatic beliefs have been challenged and thoroughly disproven by hard evidence, would rather plunge even deeper into the labyrinth of their grotesque self-delusions as a reaction.

As was the case with Zarathustra and John, the times of extreme economic and social strife and great disillusionment are the most fruitful soil for such doomsday myths to thrive. Natural catastrophes, economic misery, cultural changes, political turmoil - all of these factors give birth to prophets, preaching repentance and doom. Self-appointed messiahs pop up like mushrooms and create isolated communities living a primitive life, or make a fortune at the expense of people's naivety. Hysterical movements are created, Crusades are summoned, witch-hunts ensue, bloody uprisings are started, cities are burned, with the name of God the Savior echoing in the air, and shouts like "Infidel! Repent! Burn in Hell!"

And almost every time astronomy comes into the equation, abused and misused and misunderstood. Be it Babylonians, Chinese, Amerindians, the ancients of the Middle East or ancient Europeans - "ancient" is often translated as "wise", therefore "experienced", and "keeper of the secret truth" that we've somehow forgotten over the ages. As if somehow the knowledge that existed in the hunter-gatherer, slave or feudal societies is somehow superior to the one accumulated today through the means of science and technology. On the other hand, all this superstition itself may've been what gave the initial push for scientific inquiry, and inspired an innovative approach. It was in 1680 when the coming of a comet caused great hue and cry across Europe, that one Isaac Newton decided to take a different approach and investigate the phenomenon by thorough observation of the comet's behavior. The end result: his conclusion that all celestial bodies move by strict laws of nature, which are very much predictable.

Now, Newton wasn't an atheist, far from it. Like everyone else at that time, he believed God was at the bottom of all this. So, like most other scientific explorers at the time, he wasn't trying to ask the question whether God had created all this mess, but how exactly he had created it. God the Creator was "common knowledge" at the time, and needed no verification. So Newton merely wanted to translate the vague pictures in the Bible into numbers and equations that would make sense. But ultimately, that's how mathematics paved the way of science gradually pushing supernatural superstition out of more and more areas of human understanding of the world. Eventually the Apocalypse itself became a scientifically explicable natural phenomenon, which also obeys strict and predictable laws of nature. But that still doesn't automatically imply more rationality. Not so fast.

Mass hysteria of the 1910s

Come 1910, Halley's Comet makes its regular approach to Earth, which happens once every 76 years. A rumor was spread that its tail would brush the Earth's atmosphere, and a chemical reaction with the hydrogen in the atmosphere would result in a toxic shower raining over everything. Mass hysteria ensued. Gas masks were sold in the millions, people were buying "anti-comet pills", doors and windows were being shut with nails and lined with wet rags, people in Central Park in New York were kneeling on the ground, praying to the skies. During the "fatal" night there was a vigil in the thousands... and in the morning after nothing had really happened, people were dancing in the streets, kissing each other and celebrating their salvation. Even scientists who were supposedly rational, were crying with relief that they had avoided disaster.

All of this means that supernatural fear of the Apocalypse is hardly a monopoly of the ancient primitive societies. Rather, it tends to transform and adjust to the epoch. It's important to put that in the context of the time - in 1910 the spirit of the time (the "Zeitgeist") was an overall picture of fear - fear of wars and revolutions, cultural pessimism and nihilism, and not least importantly, science undermining the foundations of the old mores, bringing new knowledge and increasing the uncertainty about the world that surrounds us: atoms decaying to pieces, X-rays penetrating hard matter, time and space suddenly being flexible like rubber... So confusing! And all this fatalistic nervosity finally manifested itself in 1914 with WW1. I'm not saying Halley's Comet caused WW1, but it sure was one of the things contributing to the psychotic behavior of the masses.

Ultimately, the fear of Apocalypse creates a new type of moral, and social consequences. From the POV of psychology, the apocalyptic mindset transfers their inner fear to the external world. Freud himself interpreted the apocalyptic visions of schizophrenic patients as projections of their inner catastrophe, and he described the motivation of the doom-prone individual: their despair is not necessarily caused by material discomfort (disease, war or hunger). Most of all, it's an expression of a fear for the future. When values that are supposedly unshakable suddenly and unexpectedly lose their meaning, when the well-known gives way to uncertainty and a sense of unknown, then one has had enough of it, and they react with what psychologists call "regression".

The sober analysis and pragmatic adjustment to the situation gives way to an infantile craving for a simpler world, one that used to exist in childhood. In God's (i.e. the parent's) fist of wrath hammering the greedy markets, the decadent morals and the poisoned environment, these desperate souls see the ultimate salvation from evil. Destroying the corrupted, evil world is like a cleansing catharsis that would give a new, clean beginning.

Dirk Bouts, The Fall of the Damned

Almost everyone has had such hopes and visions at some point. Bernd Michael Linke describes three "levels" of apocalyptic thinking: rational (stories giving meaning to life and directing everything to a single purpose), emotional (dividing the world into camps, good vs evil, truth vs lie, light vs darkness), and irrational (fear for the fate of the world, insecurity and disappointment, a sensation that everything is falling to pieces, and craving for a cleansing catastrophe). Once this last level is reached, apocalyptic thinking turns into madness, and any touch with reality is lost.

Another, more recent example. In 1997 when the Hale-Bopp comet came near, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate sect in San Diego locked themselves in a ranch and committed a collective suicide. They were expecting a "cleansing" of the polluted Earth, and attempted to escape their mortal bodies, hoping they'd be protected by benevolent aliens. And let me remind you, those were people of the 20th century, living in a prosperous state in the most prosperous nation of the world...

Their souls must be resting in Heaven now

Now, granted, most doomsday prophecies would hardly cause such dramatic consequences. But they almost invariably cause a change in human life, and what's more important, they often take political proportions. If one is convinced that one day they'd be summoned for judgment for their acts, they'd naturally have an incentive to be kind and helpful to their close people. But that would often lead to merciless persecution of the "infidels" as well. There are those who are devoted to God and who'd live a modest life, far away from the vanity of the material modern world, spending their time in fasting and prayer. For example, the missionary spirit and the canon of virtue has turned Mormons into pillars of capitalism - they're by definition diligent, industrious, disciplined, honorable. At the end of the day, practically every moral system could draw benefits from the apocalyptic mindset and find something useful there to promote virtue.

It's a controversial issue, how we'd interpret the influence of the linear notion of the world, as a place that was once created and is going to end at some point in the future. On one side, the hope for salvation of the eternal soul has inspired fighters for liberty and justice - from the Medieval peasant uprisings to the American movement for civil rights of the 50s and 60s. Some would go as far as to say that the apocalyptic mindset has helped for the creation of democracy and its spreading around the world, because the belief that your actions would bring consequences for you is a powerful incentive to, if not be genuinely well-intentioned, at least refrain from doing harm to others. Even if it's not done out of love for thy brother, but rather for fear of punishment.

On the other hand, I'm sure the sceptics would be eager to point out that the dark side of the "emotional level" of apocalyptic thinking has caused such perversions like a fixation on the Evil, the foe, and implicitly, the disqualification of any other-thinkers from the group of "good people" who deserve mercy and help.  After all, it was the apocalyptic morality that was at the core of the resistance to women's emancipation, it was what promoted holding vast segments of society in a semi-slave state of subordination, or the exclusion of various minorities based on arbitrary criteria. It was what self-admittedly partially pushed the leader of the most powerful nation in the history of Earth to start a military adventure overseas, regardless of the consequences. This sort of mentality is what plagues politics and politicians with a certain sense of uncompromising pretense for absolute conviction in one's own infallibility, which has been the source of so many evils.

Pat knows everything about the Evil One

And last but not least important, the Doomsday is a lucrative business. Any news of the impending Apocalypse is always a big sell. And December 21 this year is no exception. No matter that few people have even bothered to investigate in detail, and realize that it's just the end of one among many calendar cycles according to an ancient civilization that dissolved a thousand years ago. The Mayans had their sacred rituals noting various celestial events, they watched the skies eagerly and recorded the movement of the stars - good for them! But who'd ever care to investigate, and reach the conclusion that sticks out: the Mayans never had a linear notion of time! There's no Doomsday in their worldview, only an endless cycle of cycles, and no dramatic change in the world whatsoever. There was no place for an ending in their cyclical notion of the world. So why apply our linear notions to a non-linear construct? You guessed right - because there are many people who'd fall for it, and that means lots of sales. One'd think this would be a non-issue in a modern world of instant access to vast information - but in fact the richer the stream of information, the bigger the opportunities for misinformation and hence, manipulation.

Indeed, a few clicks in your Internet browser would instantly lead you to hundreds of "Survival Shop" type of frauds and charlatans, promising solar charging gadgets, mechanical radio receivers and Swiss pocket knives, Swedish "military lighters", American "folding spades", and all sorts of survivalist stuff that would gather the dust in your basement. And also expensive training courses in survival skills, somewhere high in the mountains... just to prepare you for the impending Doomsday, no doubt.

Joe and Sue are prepared!

Apparently, the apocalyptic mindset will always be part of reality, for good or for bad. No matter how advanced scientific knowledge may be. Yes, physics and other natural sciences may be taking the magic away from the celestial bodies; geology may be proving that natural catastrophes have brought multiple mass extinctions... But this knowledge still doesn't tell humans how to live, and what the meaning of it all may be - if any. And that's where the tremendous appeal of apocalyptic predictions persists. It's because they contain dramatic "instructions for action", something stable to step on in this dynamic, ever changing, and confusing world.

Back to the Armageddon movie. After lots of deadly adventures, Bruce Willis and his fellows were standing at a big problem: one of them had to remain on the asteroid and sacrifice themselves to detonate the bomb. At the last moment Bruce decided to sacrifice himself for his children and all of humankind. Carrying the American flag, of course. America always saves the world - this is Hollywood, after all. So what's the message from all that? Love and courage are more powerful than death, that's what! And, as long as there are people believing in that, humankind won't perish. Or so we're lead to believe.

Spoiler time. He died hard... for America... for humankind!

That's just one of the many messages of the Doomsday story. Banal or complicated, dangerous or harmless, redundant or useful - the trick is, there's no way to either prove or disprove them. They're just part of the endless argument what it is exactly to be human. They look for the meaning of life even if chances are that it's not there, but that's not the point. They at least provide some lighting along the landing strip at the airport of our existence, a safe passage through the labyrinth of this shooting range that we live in. Until the next asteroid impact.