tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/apocalypse-1983/articlesApocalypse – The Conversation2024-03-17T12:54:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247252024-03-17T12:54:12Z2024-03-17T12:54:12ZEvangelical bestsellers reveal diverse — and sometimes dangerous — ideas about morality<p>The bestselling evangelical Christian fiction of the 21st century couldn’t be more morally different — from itself. </p>
<p>For example, William Paul Young’s 2007 novel <em>The Shack</em> is about the kidnapping, abuse and murder of a child. Selling <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/books-magazines/books/this-man-wrote-a-small-book-for-his-family-and-it-became-a-bestseller/news-story/61e659773e0b5e0e0f4028fced403e05">more than 20 million copies</a>, it tries to understand how such evil can occur in a universe with a good and all-powerful God. Theologically wrestling with these events, it centres on ethics of harm, healing and reconciliation.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the most popular evangelical fiction of the turn of the 21st century was the 12-volume <em>Left Behind</em> series, about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-to-know-about-the-antichrist-148172">coming of the Antichrist</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/03/1167715957/armageddon-shows-how-literal-readings-of-the-bibles-end-times-affect-modern-time">the final End Times or Armageddon</a>. The series has sold more than <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/71026-lahaye-co-author-of-left-behind-series-leaves-a-lasting-impact.html">80 million copies</a>. Its violent action dwells on the persecution of Christians by <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/1/21">the global United Nations, led by the Antichrist</a>. It emphasizes themes of proper authority, in-group loyalty and traditional ideas about sex, sexuality and gender. </p>
<p>Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), developed by <a href="https://jonathanhaidt.com/">social psychologist Jonathan Haidt</a> and others, suggests that human societies configure their moral expectations differently from group to group, but they do so based on universal considerations of care, justice, liberty, purity, loyalty and authority. </p>
<p>At first, MFT seems to show that the spectrum of values represented in <em>The Shack</em> and <em>Left Behind</em> are just a matter of a diversity of ethical opinion. </p>
<p>But my new open-access research reveals a flaw within MFT itself: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13530">the moral intuitions exhibited by <em>Left Behind</em> are associated with social dominance and authoritarianism</a>.</p>
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<img alt="Four adults seen in a row." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579409/original/file-20240303-16-mky93v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579409/original/file-20240303-16-mky93v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579409/original/file-20240303-16-mky93v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579409/original/file-20240303-16-mky93v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579409/original/file-20240303-16-mky93v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579409/original/file-20240303-16-mky93v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579409/original/file-20240303-16-mky93v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The story of ‘The Shack’ focuses on care after harm has been done.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Lionsgate)</span></span>
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<h2>Care, justice, liberty</h2>
<p>In MFT’s terms, <em>The Shack</em> prioritizes the ethics of care, justice and liberty. It has lots of theological dialogue about God’s fairness in the face of evil and suffering. Its explanations about <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/christianity/christianity-general/original-sin">free will and original sin</a> are traditional Christian theology and their persuasiveness depends on a reader’s prior beliefs.</p>
<p>It also focuses on care after harm has been done. The bereaved father of the daughter has a weekend away <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Trinity-Christianity">with the Christian God as Trinity</a>, healing and establishing friendships with God. The daughter is in heaven — compensation for a harm that cannot be undone. The novel is egalitarian: God the Father is an African American woman, God the Spirit an Asian American woman and God the Son a Middle Eastern looking man. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/popular-christian-novel-the-shack-finds-a-surprising-solution-to-the-problem-of-evil-polytheism-135668">Popular Christian novel ‘The Shack’ finds a surprising solution to the problem of evil: Polytheism</a>
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<p>Other moral foundations are present but less important. God’s authority is challenged. Group loyalty is downplayed. We feel revulsion at the killer’s pedophilia, but the focus is on the harms of abuse and murder, not so much violated sacredness.</p>
<h2>Authority, loyalty, sanctity</h2>
<p><em>Left Behind</em>’s moral foundations are nearly opposite to <em>The Shack</em>. They emphasize authority, loyalty, sanctity and justice as vengeance. The series is about overturned authority. It depicts the Antichrist as the UN Secretary-General usurping God’s proper rule.</p>
<p>Haidt notes that <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/73535/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt/">for conservatives, care is “blended” with loyalty</a>, and the same is true of the <em>Left Behind</em> series. The authors deem their Christian characters (who are occasionally martyred) worthy of care, but not so much <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/1/21">the billions of humans who suffer and die</a> during the tribulations. </p>
<p>In one sequence, the protagonist mocks abortion providers for losing business because unborn babies have been swept into heaven as the End Times begin. When the Antichrist refers to “fetal material that vanished,” we detect that the book frames abortion as being a problem about sexual sanctity, not a problem about harm.</p>
<h2>Apocalyptic genre</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581368/original/file-20240312-24-rnt6zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man standing near an orange fiery hoop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581368/original/file-20240312-24-rnt6zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581368/original/file-20240312-24-rnt6zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581368/original/file-20240312-24-rnt6zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581368/original/file-20240312-24-rnt6zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581368/original/file-20240312-24-rnt6zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581368/original/file-20240312-24-rnt6zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581368/original/file-20240312-24-rnt6zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Poster of the 2000 film ‘Left Behind’ based on the fiction of the same name.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Namesake Entertainment/Cloud Ten Pictures)</span></span>
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<p><em>Left Behind</em>’s genre — apocalypse — is also concerned with God’s justice, but the book’s justice entails revenge. In the final novel <em>Glorious Appearing</em>, warrior Jesus slays the Antichrist’s army, creating a <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/1/21">“river of blood several miles wide and now some five feet deep.”</a> He then sentences most of the human race to eternal torture in the fires of hell.</p>
<p>The series does not feature egalitarianism: white Christian men are in charge of the Tribulation Force. Men and women are (supposedly) equal before God, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-complementarianism-the-belief-that-god-assigned-specific-gender-roles-became-part-of-evangelical-doctrine-158758">God has made them to “complement” one another</a> with different gender roles, with men in spiritual authority over their wives and children. </p>
<p>Insofar as female, non-white and Jewish characters come to God and accept the authority of evangelical white men, they can be considered part of the group.</p>
<h2>Not all ‘moral foundations’ are moral</h2>
<p>MFT proponents might argue that these two examples allow us to see the full range of ethics in contemporary (white) evangelical literary tradition and its cultures — even if evangelical cultures are lopsidedly conservative, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/">as their support for Donald Trump shows</a>. </p>
<p>On the contrary, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13530">my open-access article shows</a>, moral psychologists have empirically demonstrated that the authority, loyalty and sanctity intuitions preferred by conservatives are not actually matters of ethics at all. Rather, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-014-0223-5">MFT’s critics argue</a>, they are “dispositions associated with authoritarianism and social dominance.” </p>
<p>We might better think of authority, loyalty and sanctity intuitions as preferences for order rather than truly ethical foundations. Those preferences may have their place in human societies, but treating them as equal to ethics of care, justice and equality is a moral relativism that masks dangerous authoritarian tendencies.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/republicans-draw-from-apocalyptic-narratives-to-inform-demoncrat-conspiracy-theories-170529">Republicans draw from apocalyptic narratives to inform 'Demoncrat' conspiracy theories</a>
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<h2>Dramatization of a disordered world</h2>
<p>Even though <em>Left Behind</em> might be beloved by conservative “value voters,” its chief values, it seems, are not moral values at all. </p>
<p>The series emphasizes the Christian Right’s struggle amid declining demographics and challenges to its political power. The series also encourages the perception of threat among the Christian Right, and a continued sense of persecution by liberal secular elites. </p>
<p>What MFT does illuminate is <em>Left Behind</em>’s continued cultural power. <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/left-behind-rise-of-antichrist-review-kevin-sorbo-1235505908/">The series was adapted to film a sixth time just last year</a>, yielding yet another dramatization of a disordered world where loyalty, sanctity and authority are upended. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HOQV1VzwsG8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Official trailer for ‘Left Behind: Rise Of The Antichrist’ (2023).</span></figcaption>
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<p>Those intuitions find expression in apocalypse: an <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/1/21">extreme moral dualism wherein the besieged community’s political foes are imagined as the enemies of God</a> who must be opposed until God’s Kingdom arrives to restore order and deliver retributive justice. </p>
<h2>Range of moral foundations</h2>
<p>We can read contemporary Christian fiction for the considerable range of moral foundations that it expresses. Doing so reveals that our morals do not so much come from our religious traditions as much as another possibility: our psychological predispositions find the values we already have in culturally mediated religious traditions. </p>
<p>Christianity is a big space. Some people might be challenged by its moral tenets, but many more might discover confirmation of their political and psychological preferences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Douglas receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p>The ‘Left Behind’ series emphasizes themes of authority, loyalty and sanctity, but they are preferences for order, not moral matters.Christopher Douglas, Professor of American Literature and Religion, University of VictoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2193862024-01-03T13:43:45Z2024-01-03T13:43:45ZHow religion and politics will mix in 2024 – three trends to track<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565883/original/file-20231214-19-v45zg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C2995%2C1953&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Attendees at evangelist Franklin Graham's 'Decision America' tour in Turlock, Calif., in 2018. The tour was to encourage Christians to vote.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/attendees-hold-hands-and-pray-as-rev-franklin-graham-speaks-news-photo/963640408?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Religion is likely to play a big role in voters’ choices in the 2024 presidential election – much as it did in previous years. Despite an overall shift away from participation in <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/05/14/democrats-religion-census-secular-00095858">organized religion in the U.S. populace</a>, religious rhetoric in the political arena has intensified. </p>
<p>In the 2016 race, evangelical voters contributed, in part, to Republican nominee Donald Trump’s victory. Those Americans who identified as “weekly churchgoers” not only showed up at the polls in large numbers, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/">but more than 55% of them supported Trump</a>. His capture of <a href="https://www.prri.org/spotlight/religion-vote-2016/">66% of the white evangelical vote</a> also tipped the scales in his favor against his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Evangelical support for Trump continued to be strong in the 2020 presidential election. However, Joe Biden <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/324410/religious-group-voting-2020-election.aspx">drew fellow Catholics to his camp</a> and convinced some evangelicals, as well, to vote in his favor. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/09/faith-leaders-back-biden-evangelicals-trump">Biden received public endorsement</a> from 1,600 Catholic, mainline Protestant and evangelical faith leaders. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://www.umt.edu/history/people/?ID=1174">historian and a religious studies scholar</a> who recently published <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Religion-and-Social-Protest-Movements/Shearer/p/book/9781138090262">a book exploring the role of religion in political movements</a> such as anti-abortion campaigns. Historical evidence can help identify trends that will likely influence the mix of religion and politics in the year ahead. </p>
<p>From my perspective, three key trends are likely to show up in 2024. In particular, the run-up to the elections seems poised to feature intensified end-times rhetoric, more claims of divine support and relative silence from the evangelical community on the rise in Christian nationalism. </p>
<h2>1. End-times rhetoric</h2>
<p>End-times rhetoric has long played a prominent role in American politics. In 2016, as presidential candidate <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/magazine/hillary-clinton-campaign-final-weeks.html">Clinton told</a> The New York Times, “As I’ve told people, I’m the the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.” Three years before, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/8/13494798/apocalypse-election-history-trump-clinton-cruz-johnson-goldwater">Texas Sen. Ted Cruz had warned</a>, “We have a couple of years to turn the country around or we go off the cliff to oblivion.” </p>
<p>Indeed, American leaders have rallied adherents through <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2017/12/29/political-scientist-studies-apocalyptic-political-rhetoric/">apocalyptic rhetoric</a> since the inception of the country. Ever since Puritan John Winthrop first called America a “<a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/Winthrop%27s%20City%20upon%20a%20Hill.pdf">city on the hill</a>” – meaning a shining example for the world to follow – the threat of losing that divinely appointed status has consistently been employed by presidential candidates. </p>
<p>John F. Kennedy employed that exact image of the “city on the hill” in a <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/node/11516">1961 speech on the cusp of his inauguration</a>, claiming that – with “God’s help” – valor, integrity, dedication and wisdom would define his administration. </p>
<p>Part of Ronald Reagan’s rise to fame included “<a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/reagans/ronald-reagan/time-choosing-speech-october-27-1964">A Time for Choosing</a>,” a speech in which he nominated Republican presidential candidate <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/8/13494798/apocalypse-election-history-trump-clinton-cruz-johnson-goldwater">Barry Goldwater and warned</a>, “We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.” In <a href="https://www.reaganfoundation.org/media/128652/farewell.pdf">his farewell address 25 years later</a>, Reagan also revived the city on the hill image while lauding U.S. freedoms. </p>
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<img alt="President Trump, in a navy blue suit, prays with his supporters standing on either side." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565887/original/file-20231214-25-l4aaco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565887/original/file-20231214-25-l4aaco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565887/original/file-20231214-25-l4aaco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565887/original/file-20231214-25-l4aaco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565887/original/file-20231214-25-l4aaco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565887/original/file-20231214-25-l4aaco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565887/original/file-20231214-25-l4aaco.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Faith leaders pray over U.S. President Donald Trump during a ‘Evangelicals for Trump’ campaign event held at the King Jesus International Ministry on Jan. 3, 2020, in Miami.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/faith-leaders-pray-over-us-president-donald-trump-during-a-news-photo/1191478084?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In a late 2022 announcement of his presidential election bid, Trump asserted “<a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/former-president-trump-announces-2024-presidential-bid-transcript">the blood-soaked streets of our once great cities are cesspools of violent crimes</a>,” drawing on apocalyptic imagery, in reference to drug-smuggling and illegal immigration. By March 2023, at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference, he predicted that “<a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/trump-speaks-at-cpac-2023-transcript">if they [Democrats] win, we no longer have a country</a>.”</p>
<p>Biden has likewise drawn on the image of final battles. In a speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Sept. 1, 2022, he said that he and his supporters are in “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/01/remarks-by-president-bidenon-the-continued-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-nation/">a battle for the soul of this nation</a>.” </p>
<h2>2. Divine mandate</h2>
<p>Since the establishment of the republic, many U.S. political leaders have claimed a divine mandate. God, they asserted, guided the founding of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20474628">country’s democratic institutions</a>, ranging from popular elections to the Constitution’s balance of powers. </p>
<p>George Washington, for example, claimed in a June 1788 letter to his secretary of war, Benjamin Lincoln, that “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/GEWN-04-06-02-0326">the finger of Providence has so manifestly pointed</a>” to the founding of the United States. The previous year, Benjamin Franklin gave a speech to the Constitutional Convention <a href="https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/benfranklin.htm">in which he noted</a>: “God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his aid?” </p>
<p>By 1954, in the middle of the Cold War, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill <a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/mandestiny.htm">adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance</a>, a reassertion of Washington’s earlier claim.</p>
<p>Scholars have long documented how those in power <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197652534.003.0006">employ claims of divine authority</a> to legitimize their role in a host of different countries. Recently, some U.S. politicians and public commentators have shifted to claiming divine authority for anti-democratic actions. </p>
<p>Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator at the time, prayed right before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that those seeking <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/09/20/crisis-of-faith-christian-nationalism-and-the-threat-to-u-s-democracy">to “seize the power” would do so “providentially</a>.” </p>
<p>The claim by conservative radio celebrity Eric Metaxas that the insurrection was “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/11/christian-religion-insurrection-capitol-trump/">God’s battle even more than our battle</a>” defined the event as divinely inspired. This kind of assertion by such influential voices intensifies the commitments of those seeking to undermine democratic electoral processes.</p>
<p>Regardless of the outcome of the 2024 election, the switch from historical claims of divine authority for democracy to divine authority to challenge democracy is already obvious and apparent.</p>
<h2>3. White supremacy and Christian nationalism</h2>
<p>In the U.S., religious and racial identities have been <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/02/16/race-in-the-religious-lives-of-black-americans/">intertwined from the country’s inception</a>. Although also expressed in more subtle and systemic forms, during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, <a href="https://voices.uchicago.edu/religionculture/2017/06/26/the-klan-white-christianity-and-the-past-and-present-a-response-to-kelly-j-baker-by-randall-j-stephens/">white supremacists</a> made the most explicit claims of divine favor on the part of white people in general and people of Nordic descent in particular. </p>
<p>They promoted <a href="https://theconversation.com/nazi-germany-had-admirers-among-american-religious-leaders-and-white-supremacy-fueled-their-support-213635">Nazi ideology</a> and <a href="https://www.overdrive.com/media/3586908/the-religion-of-white-supremacy-in-the-united-states">developed new organizations that repackaged similar philosophies</a> while drawing on religious claims. </p>
<p>The overtly white supremacist and virulently antisemitic <a href="https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/christian-identitys-new-role-extreme-right">Christian Identity movement</a>, a North American new religious movement that gained popularity in the 1980s among organized white supremacist groups, claimed that people of color, who they deemed “<a href="https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/christian-identitys-new-role-extreme-right">mud races</a>,” were created by God as inferior. They also asserted that the religious covenant – between God and people – spelled out in the Bible <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christian-Identity">applied only to people of European descent</a>. </p>
<p>Likewise, the unapologetically white supremacist “<a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/events/christianity-and-the-alt-right-exploring-the-relationship">alt-right movement</a>” that coalesced in 2010 around the philosophies of biological racism and the belief in the superiority of white peoples around the world have likewise mixed overt white supremacy with religious doctrines. </p>
<p>This close connection between religious claims and white supremacy among overtly racist organizations has shown up in mainline political arenas as well. In this case, the trend is one of omission. Evangelical leaders have consistently failed to condemn or disassociate themselves from leaders with overt white supremacy connections.</p>
<p>When given an opportunity to condemn white supremacists during the first 2020 presidential debate, Trump instead addressed the Proud Boys, a violent white supremacist group, by saying, “<a href="https://www.debates.org/voter-education/debate-transcripts/september-29-2020-debate-transcript/">Stand back and stand ready</a>.” His decision to hire staff like <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2017/10/06/breitbart-emails-trace-neo-nazi-moves-of-steve-bannon-milo-yiannopoulos-report/?sh=4633a6fb925c">white nationalist Steve Bannon</a> during his first presidential campaign and to dine with white supremacist Nick Fuentes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/us/politics/trump-nick-fuentes-dinner.html">in November 2022</a> continued that pattern. </p>
<p>Appeals to white supremacy have also surfaced in the current Congress. In spring of 2023, 26 members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-denounce-white-supremacy-letter-raskin-1786300">refused to sign a letter denouncing white supremacy</a>. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether these trends will continue in their current forms, transition to new ones or be displaced by rhetorical strategies as yet unimagined. What is most certain is that religion and politics will continue to interact.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tobin Miller Shearer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 2024 elections may see a more intense end-times rhetoric, claims of divine support and a failure to condemn the rise in Christian nationalism, writes a religion scholar.Tobin Miller Shearer, Professor and Chair, History Department: Director of the African-American Studies Program, University of MontanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2076802023-07-05T12:24:46Z2023-07-05T12:24:46ZAI is an existential threat – just not the way you think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534922/original/file-20230629-25452-lnyw5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2991%2C1482&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">AI isn't likely to enslave humanity, but it could take over many aspects of our lives.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/humanoid-robot-controlling-business-people-royalty-free-illustration/1363296681">elenabs/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The rise of ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence systems has been accompanied by a sharp <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/06/21/as-ai-spreads-experts-predict-the-best-and-worst-changes-in-digital-life-by-2035/">increase in anxiety about AI</a>. For the past few months, executives and AI safety researchers have been offering predictions, dubbed “<a href="https://venturebeat.com/ai/ai-doom-ai-boom-and-the-possible-destruction-of-humanity/">P(doom)</a>,” about the probability that AI will bring about a large-scale catastrophe.</p>
<p>Worries peaked in May 2023 when the nonprofit research and advocacy organization Center for AI Safety released <a href="https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk">a one-sentence statement</a>: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.” The statement was signed by many key players in the field, including the leaders of OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, as well as two of the so-called “godfathers” of AI: <a href="https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/hinton_4791679.cfm">Geoffrey Hinton</a> and <a href="https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/bengio_3406375.cfm">Yoshua Bengio</a>.</p>
<p>You might ask how such existential fears are supposed to play out. One famous scenario is the “<a href="https://www.economist.com/special-report/2016/06/23/frankensteins-paperclips">paper clip maximizer</a>” thought experiment articulated by Oxford philosopher <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oQwpz3QAAAAJ&hl=en">Nick Bostrom</a>. The idea is that an AI system tasked with producing as many paper clips as possible might go to extraordinary lengths to find raw materials, like destroying factories and causing car accidents. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/cyberlaw-podcast-how-worried-should-we-be-about-existential-ai-risk">less resource-intensive variation</a> has an AI tasked with procuring a reservation to a popular restaurant shutting down cellular networks and traffic lights in order to prevent other patrons from getting a table.</p>
<p>Office supplies or dinner, the basic idea is the same: AI is fast becoming an alien intelligence, good at accomplishing goals but dangerous because it won’t necessarily align with the moral values of its creators. And, in its most extreme version, this argument morphs into explicit anxieties about AIs <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/05/03/should-we-stop-developing-ai-for-the-good-of-humanity/">enslaving or destroying the human race</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A paper clip-making AI runs amok is one variant of the AI apocalypse scenario.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Actual harm</h2>
<p>In the past few years, my colleagues and I at <a href="http://umb.edu/ethics">UMass Boston’s Applied Ethics Center</a> have been studying the impact of engagement with AI on people’s understanding of themselves, and I believe these catastrophic anxieties are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02094-7">overblown and misdirected</a>.</p>
<p>Yes, AI’s ability to create convincing deep-fake video and audio is frightening, and it can be abused by people with bad intent. In fact, that is already happening: Russian operatives likely attempted to embarrass Kremlin critic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/25/kremlin-critic-bill-browder-says-he-was-targeted-by-deepfake-hoax-video-call">Bill Browder</a> by ensnaring him in a conversation with an avatar for former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Cybercriminals have been using AI voice cloning for a variety of crimes – from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/14/huge-bank-fraud-uses-deep-fake-voice-tech-to-steal-millions/">high-tech heists</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/voice-deepfakes-are-calling-heres-what-they-are-and-how-to-avoid-getting-scammed-201449">ordinary scams</a>. </p>
<p>AI decision-making systems that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Math-Destruction-Increases-Inequality/dp/0553418815">offer loan approval and hiring recommendations</a> carry the risk of algorithmic bias, since the training data and decision models they run on reflect long-standing social prejudices.</p>
<p>These are big problems, and they require the attention of policymakers. But they have been around for a while, and they are hardly cataclysmic. </p>
<h2>Not in the same league</h2>
<p>The statement from the Center for AI Safety lumped AI in with pandemics and nuclear weapons as a major risk to civilization. There are problems with that comparison. COVID-19 resulted in almost <a href="https://covid19.who.int/">7 million deaths worldwide</a>, brought on a <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxiety-and-depression-worldwide">massive and continuing mental health crisis</a> and created <a href="https://unctad.org/meeting/world-economic-situation-after-covid-19-shock-and-policy-challenges-ahead">economic challenges</a>, including chronic supply chain shortages and runaway inflation. </p>
<p>Nuclear weapons probably killed <a href="https://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html">more than 200,000 people</a> in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, claimed many more lives from cancer in the years that followed, generated decades of profound anxiety during the Cold War and brought the world to the brink of annihilation during the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962. They have also <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/05/04/rattling-nuclear-saber-what-russia-s-nuclear-threats-really-mean-pub-89689">changed the calculations of national leaders</a> on how to respond to international aggression, as currently playing out with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>AI is simply nowhere near gaining the ability to do this kind of damage. The paper clip scenario and others like it are science fiction. Existing AI applications execute specific tasks rather than making broad judgments. The technology is <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/cyberlaw-podcast-how-worried-should-we-be-about-existential-ai-risk">far from being able to decide on and then plan out</a> the goals and subordinate goals necessary for shutting down traffic in order to get you a seat in a restaurant, or blowing up a car factory in order to satisfy your itch for paper clips. </p>
<p>Not only does the technology lack the complicated capacity for multilayer judgment that’s involved in these scenarios, it also does not have autonomous access to sufficient parts of our critical infrastructure to start causing that kind of damage.</p>
<h2>What it means to be human</h2>
<p>Actually, there is an existential danger inherent in using AI, but that risk is existential in the philosophical rather than apocalyptic sense. AI in its current form can alter the way people view themselves. It can degrade abilities and experiences that people consider essential to being human. </p>
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<span class="caption">As algorithms take over many decisions, such as hiring, people could gradually lose the capacity to make them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/robot-selecting-candidate-photograph-royalty-free-image/924555488">AndreyPopov/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>For example, humans are judgment-making creatures. People rationally weigh particulars and make daily judgment calls at work and during leisure time about whom to hire, who should get a loan, what to watch and so on. But more and more of these judgments are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/mopp-2021-0026">being automated and farmed out to algorithms</a>. As that happens, the world won’t end. But people will gradually lose the capacity to make these judgments themselves. The fewer of them people make, the worse they are likely to become at making them.</p>
<p>Or consider the role of chance in people’s lives. Humans value serendipitous encounters: coming across a place, person or activity by accident, being drawn into it and retrospectively appreciating the role accident played in these meaningful finds. But the role of algorithmic recommendation engines is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-is-killing-choice-and-chance-which-means-changing-what-it-means-to-be-human-151826">reduce that kind of serendipity</a> and replace it with planning and prediction.</p>
<p>Finally, consider ChatGPT’s writing capabilities. The technology is in the process of eliminating the role of writing assignments in higher education. If it does, educators will lose a key tool for teaching students <a href="https://doi.org/10.1187%2Fcbe.06-11-0203">how to think critically</a>. </p>
<h2>Not dead but diminished</h2>
<p>So, no, AI won’t blow up the world. But the increasingly uncritical embrace of it, in a variety of narrow contexts, means the gradual erosion of some of humans’ most important skills. Algorithms are already undermining people’s capacity to make judgments, enjoy serendipitous encounters and hone critical thinking. </p>
<p>The human species will survive such losses. But our way of existing will be impoverished in the process. The fantastic anxieties around the coming AI cataclysm, singularity, Skynet, or however you might think of it, obscure these more subtle costs. Recall T.S. Eliot’s famous closing lines of “<a href="https://allpoetry.com/the-hollow-men">The Hollow Men</a>”: “This is the way the world ends,” he wrote, “not with a bang but a whimper.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Applied Ethics Center at UMass Boston receives funding from the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
Nir Eisikovits serves as the data ethics advisor to Hour25AI, a startup dedicated to reducing digital distractions.
</span></em></p>From open letters to congressional testimony, some AI leaders have stoked fears that the technology is a direct threat to humanity. The reality is less dramatic but perhaps more insidious.Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass BostonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2078632023-06-16T15:57:54Z2023-06-16T15:57:54ZCormac McCarthy: where to begin reading his searing, brutal and unforgettable novels<p>The novelist Cormac McCarthy was suspicious of punctuation, profoundly interested in violence, respected skill and physical labour, and loved the richness of the English language. He was particularly fond of short, declarative sentences and the word “and”.</p>
<p>McCarthy’s much lamented death at 89 has attracted international headlines and a renewed interest in his writing. He leaves behind 12 novels covering historical and speculative fiction.</p>
<p>A journey through McCarthy’s work is not for the fainthearted, nor the weak-stomached. These are stories of society’s outcasts – those who have found themselves out of time, out of place, or simply out of luck. McCarthy’s world is often grim, populated by oddballs, criminals, misfits and hard, violent men.</p>
<p>For those unfamiliar with his writing, now is the perfect time to delve into his work. After a master’s degree on <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1949/faulkner/biographical/">William Faulkner</a>, my own journey with McCarthy began with the <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/cormac-mccarthy/the-border-trilogy/9781509852024">Border Trilogy</a>, consisting of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/469571.All_the_Pretty_Horses">All the Pretty Horses</a> (1992), <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/365990.The_Crossing">The Crossing</a> (1994) and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40470.Cities_of_the_Plain">Cities of the Plain</a> (1998).</p>
<p>Fascinated with these frontier novels about life in the ranches and deserts of the US-Mexico borderlands in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, I followed McCarthy back to Faulkner by reading his first three novels – <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/46506">The Orchard Keeper</a> (1965), <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40471">Outer Dark</a> (1968), and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/293625.Child_of_God">Child of God</a> (1973). Then I turned to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/no-country-for-old-men-by-cormac-mccarthy-324490.html">No Country For Old Men</a> (2005) and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview4">The Road</a> (2006). </p>
<p>This journey led not only to a PhD, but also <a href="https://utpress.org/title/cormac-mccarthys-literary-evolution/">my first book</a>, following my exploration of McCarthy’s archive at Texas State University.</p>
<p>Despite all the hardship and horror in his works, I found myself sustained by McCarthy’s unique prose. Like the father from the dream that ends No Country For Old Men, McCarthy was always “fixin’ to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold” – a place where humanity could endure, despite all that assailed it. </p>
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<h2>Finding his place</h2>
<p>McCarthy’s work divides into two sections – one spanning the period 1965-1979 and the other from 1985-2022. The first section is southern, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/themes/the-gothic">gothic</a> and <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/modernist-literature-guide">modernist</a>, set in McCormac’s native Appalachia.</p>
<p>The Orchard Keeper (1968), Outer Dark (1968) and Child of God (1973) – lie within the <a href="https://oxfordre.com/literature/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-304;jsessionid=74B948F711A923966362B58FBF58A32C#:%7E:text=Southern%20Gothic%20is%20a%20mode,angst%2Dridden%20sense%20of%20alienation.">southern gothic tradition</a> of <a href="https://www.georgiawomen.org/flannery-oconnor">Flannery O’Connor</a>, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/6215/carson-mccullers?tab=penguin-biography">Carson McCullers</a> and William Faulkner.</p>
<p>Despite plots featuring murder, incest and necrophilia, McCarthy seeks the humanity in the grotesque. Even Lester Ballard, the necrophiliac murderer of his third novel is “a child of God much like yourself perhaps”, a statement that brings home the horror of Lester’s tale. </p>
<p>The final novel of this first period is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/394469">Suttree</a> (1979). One of the contenders for McCarthy’s masterpiece, it took him a decade to write. Set amongst the down-and-outs of Knoxville, Tennessee, Suttree is a pitch-black comedy that brings the modernist style of James Joyce to the world of John Steinbeck, its power a combination of high art and low action. </p>
<h2>Dark deeds and bad people</h2>
<p>The second period of McCarthy’s career begins with the other candidate for his masterpiece, <a href="https://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/blood-meridian/">Blood Meridian</a> (1985). Marking McCarthy’s move to the south-west, Blood Meridian is a novel of violence, based on the activities of scalp-hunter John Glanton. McCarthy’s fifth novel introduces readers to Judge Holden, a giant albino capable of horrific acts of calculated violence and the malevolent heart of the book.</p>
<p>Blood Meridian’s overwhelming style reflects the overwhelming violence it depicts. A text where a single sentence can run for a full page, Blood Meridian is a sprawling, endlessly rewarding deconstruction of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-myth-american-frontier-got-start-180981310/">America’s frontier mythology</a>. </p>
<p>The Border Trilogy features common protagonists, most notably the superlative cowboy John Grady Cole, and displays McCarthy’s respect for the skills of the frontier, even as he marks the obsolescence of those very abilities. Evoking the tropes of the American Western, the trilogy continues the project begun in Blood Meridian to expose America’s idealisation of its cowboy past. </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/no-country-for-old-men-by-cormac-mccarthy-324490.html">No Country For Old Men</a> (2005), McCarthy’s final western, came to international attention with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/dec/12/no-country-for-old-men-critics-poll-2008">Coen Brothers’ film adaptation</a>. This novel draws on the sparse style and hard-bitten tropes of the thriller to present the pursuit of Llewelyn Moss by the unstoppable hitman Anton Chigurh.</p>
<h2>Apocalypse and humanity</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview4">The Road</a> (2006) is McCarthy’s best-known novel. His only future-set tale deals with the struggles of a nameless man and boy to survive in the wreckage of a post-apocalyptic America. The Road depicts the end of society, but also the moment that the values and language of that society also end. Heartbreaking at times, it wrings maximum effect out of its minimalist style.</p>
<p>McCarthy’s final two novels are a pair. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/26/the-passenger-by-cormac-mccarthy-review-a-deep-dive-into-the-abyss">The Passenger</a> (2022) is a return to Suttree, but one in which its similar cast of grotesques and ne’er-do-wells is filtered through McCarthy’s interest in mathematics and its implications for our understanding of ourselves and the world.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/stella-maris/cormac-mccarthy/9780330457446">Stella Maris</a> (2022) is told through a series of dialogues between doomed mathematics genius Alicia Western and her therapist, in the lead up to the suicide with which McCarthy begins the novel. </p>
<p>If you are coming to McCarthy’s novels for the first time, your best entry point depends upon which version of McCarthy you find most appealing. A great western, All the Pretty Horses is the most accessible. The Road is a also popular starting point, demonstrating McCarthy’s style at its most distilled.</p>
<p>But for me, the clear candidate for the great American novel must be the fevered, searing Blood Meridian. Here, McCarthy’s greatest novel plunges deepest into the American darkness and violence that so fascinated him throughout his career.</p>
<p>McCarthy was a delver into the dark, fixated by the awful violence and terrifying rage that lies beneath the surface of the safe and sanitised stories America tells about itself. In doing so, he sought to expose the sometimes unpalatable truth of American history. In a time when this history seems more contested than ever, McCarthy’s searching, unflinching prose will be much missed. If ever there was time to read him, it is now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Robert King has received funding from the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, and Lillian Gary Taylor Visiting Fellowship in American Literature. </span></em></p>A journey through McCarthy’s work is not for the fainthearted, nor the weak-stomached. But these tales of society’s outcasts and misfits are hugely rewarding.Daniel Robert King, Teaching Fellow in American Literature, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1997372023-06-12T12:24:46Z2023-06-12T12:24:46ZIf humans went extinct, what would the Earth look like one year later?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523673/original/file-20230501-28-b9wqpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C0%2C9664%2C5116&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A glimpse of a post-apocalyptic world.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/post-apocalyptic-urban-landscape-royalty-free-image/1331834934?phrase=post+apocalypse+city&adppopup=true">Bulgar/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>If humans went extinct, what would the Earth look like one year later? – Essie, age 11, Michigan</strong> </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if everyone suddenly disappeared? </p>
<p>What would happen to all our stuff? What would happen to our houses, our schools, our neighborhoods, our cities? Who would feed the dog? Who would cut the grass? Although it’s a common theme in movies, TV shows and books, the end of humanity is still a strange thing to think about. </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://www.design.iastate.edu/faculty/carlton/">an associate professor of urban design</a> – that is, someone who helps towns and cities plan what their communities will look like – it’s sometimes my job to think about prospects like this. </p>
<h2>So much silence</h2>
<p>If humans just disappeared from the world, and you could come back to Earth to see what had happened one year later, the first thing you’d notice wouldn’t be with your eyes. </p>
<p>It would be with your ears. </p>
<p>The world would be quiet. And you would realize <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/noise-pollution/">how much noise people make</a>. Our buildings are noisy. Our cars are noisy. Our sky is noisy. All of that noise would stop.</p>
<p>You’d notice the weather. After a year without people, the sky would be bluer, the air clearer. The wind and the rain would scrub clean the surface of the Earth; all the <a href="https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/blogpost/young-and-old-air-pollution-affects-most-vulnerable">smog and dust that humans make</a> would be gone.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523677/original/file-20230501-22-fqdsd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration of a large city park with a deer standing in the middle of a tree-lined path." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523677/original/file-20230501-22-fqdsd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523677/original/file-20230501-22-fqdsd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523677/original/file-20230501-22-fqdsd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523677/original/file-20230501-22-fqdsd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523677/original/file-20230501-22-fqdsd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523677/original/file-20230501-22-fqdsd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523677/original/file-20230501-22-fqdsd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">It wouldn’t be long before wild animals visited our once well-trodden cities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/life-after-people-royalty-free-image/1078643476?phrase=post+apocalypse+city&adppopup=true">Boris SV/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Home sweet home</h2>
<p>Imagine that first year, when your house would sit unbothered by anyone. </p>
<p>Go inside your house – and hope you’re not thirsty, because no water would be in your faucets. Water systems require constant pumping. If no one’s at the public water supply to <a href="https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-does-water-get-to-my-faucet">manage the machines that pump water</a>, then there’s no water.</p>
<p>But the water that was in the pipes when everyone disappeared would still be there when the first winter came – so on the first cold snap, the frigid air would freeze the water in the pipes and burst them. </p>
<p>There would be no electricity. Power plants would stop working because no one would <a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-does-electricity-work-118686">monitor them and maintain a supply of fuel</a>. So your house would be dark, with no lights, TV, phones or computers. </p>
<p>Your house would be dusty. Actually, there’s dust <a href="https://www.highlightskids.com/explore/science-questions/what-is-dust-made-of#:%7E">in the air all the time</a>, but we don’t notice it because our air conditioning systems and heaters blow air around. And as you move through the rooms in your house, you keep dust on the move too. But once all that stops, the air inside your house would be still and the dust would settle all over.</p>
<p>The grass in your yard would grow – and grow and grow until it got so long and floppy it would stop growing. New weeds would appear, and they would be everywhere. </p>
<p>Lots of plants that you’ve never seen before would take root in your yard. Every time a tree drops a seed, a little sapling might grow. No one would be there to pull it out or cut it down. </p>
<p>You’d notice a lot more <a href="https://www.pestworldforkids.org/pest-guide/mosquitoes/">bugs buzzing around</a>. Remember, people tend to do everything they can to get rid of bugs. They spray the air and the ground with bug spray. They remove bug habitat. They put screens on the windows. And if that doesn’t work, they swat them. </p>
<p>Without people doing all these things, the bugs would come back. They would have free rein of the world again.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524515/original/file-20230504-25-39fi1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Surrounded by hills and mountains is an isolated two-lane road, cracked and crumbling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524515/original/file-20230504-25-39fi1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524515/original/file-20230504-25-39fi1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524515/original/file-20230504-25-39fi1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524515/original/file-20230504-25-39fi1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524515/original/file-20230504-25-39fi1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524515/original/file-20230504-25-39fi1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524515/original/file-20230504-25-39fi1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Given enough time, roads would start to crumble.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/destroyed-asphalt-road-earthquake-consequences-royalty-free-image/1284881863?phrase=apocalypse%2B">Armastas/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<h2>On the street where you live</h2>
<p>In your neighborhood, critters would <a href="https://sciencetrek.org/sciencetrek/topics/urban_wildlife/facts.cfm">wander around, looking and wondering</a>. </p>
<p>First the little ones: mice, groundhogs, raccoons, skunks, foxes and beavers. That last one might surprise you, but North America <a href="https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/beaver">was once rich with beavers</a>. </p>
<p>Bigger animals would come later – deer, coyotes and the occasional bear. Not in the first year, maybe, but eventually.</p>
<p>With no electric lights, the rhythm of the natural world would return. The only light would be from the Sun, the Moon and the stars. The night critters would feel good they got their dark sky back.</p>
<p>Fires would happen frequently. Lightning might <a href="https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/lightning-">strike a tree or a field</a> and set brush on fire, or hit the houses and buildings. Without people to put them out, those fires would keeping going until they burned themselves out. </p>
<h2>Around your city</h2>
<p>After just one year, the concrete stuff – roads, highways, bridges and buildings – would look about the same. </p>
<p>Come back, say, a decade later, and cracks in them would have appeared, with little plants wiggling up through them. This happens because the Earth is constantly moving. With this motion comes pressure, and with this pressure come cracks. Eventually, the roads would crack so much they would look like broken glass, and <a href="https://www.weekand.com/home-garden/article/science-trees-breaking-sidewalks-18025841.php">even trees would grow through them</a>.</p>
<p>Bridges with metal legs would slowly rust. The beams and bolts that hold the bridges up would rust too. But the big concrete bridges, and the <a href="https://kids.kiddle.co/Interstate_Highway_System">interstate highways, also concrete, would last for centuries</a>.</p>
<p>The dams and levees that people have <a href="https://damsafety.org/kids#:%7E:">built on the rivers and streams of the world</a> would erode. Farms would fall back to nature. The plants we eat would begin to disappear. Not much corn or potatoes or tomatoes anymore. </p>
<p>Farm animals would be easy prey for bears, coyotes, wolves and panthers. And pets? The cats would go feral – that is, they would become wild, though many would be preyed upon by larger animals. Most dogs wouldn’t survive, either. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ItYE6y0zMgI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An asteroid hit and a solar flare are two of the ways the world could end.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Like ancient Rome</h2>
<p>In a thousand years, the world you remember would still be vaguely recognizable. Some things would remain; it would depend on the materials they were made of, the climate they’re in, and just plain luck. An apartment building here, a movie theater there, or a crumbling shopping mall would stand as monuments to a lost civilization. The Roman Empire collapsed more than 1,500 years ago, yet you can see <a href="https://www.headout.com/blog/ruins-in-rome/#:%7E">some remnants even today</a>.</p>
<p>If nothing else, humans’ suddenly vanishing from the world would reveal something about the way we treated the Earth. It would also show us that the world we have today can’t survive without us and that we can’t survive if we don’t care for it. To keep it working, civilization – like anything else – requires constant upkeep. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlton Basmajian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Maybe it was a nuclear war, devastating climate change, or a killer virus. But if something caused people to disappear, imagine what would happen afterward.Carlton Basmajian, Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning, Urban Design, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1796252022-03-25T12:07:56Z2022-03-25T12:07:56ZWith threats of nuclear war and climate disaster growing, America’s ‘bunker fantasy’ is woefully inadequate<p>At the end of the Academy Award-nominated film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Don’t Look Up</a>,” with a meteor hurtling toward Earth, the movie’s three scientist-protagonists gather with family and friends for a last supper around a dinner table in central Michigan. </p>
<p>Having exhausted their efforts at action, they eat the food they’ve prepared and purchased, give thanks and pray before “dying neighborly” – to borrow a phrase <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/later-simple-stories/oclc/50189417">coined by poet and writer Langston Hughes in 1965</a>.</p>
<p>“Dying neighborly” was something of a common refrain in the small number of stories told by those writers and artists in the 1960s and 1980s who recognized the dangers of nuclear war but were unwilling or unable to accept <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814769195/one-nation-underground/">the only measure recommended by the government</a>: to buy or build your own shelter and pretend that you’d survive. </p>
<p>These stories didn’t get as much attention or acclaim as “Don’t Look Up.” But they continue to influence how the climate emergency or nuclear war is depicted in books and films today. </p>
<h2>Shelter or die?</h2>
<p>Faced with a Congress unwilling to fund large-scale sheltering measures, the <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780192846167.001.0001/oso-9780192846167-part-1">Kennedy administration decided instead</a> to encourage the private development of the individual shelter industry and to establish <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/fallout-shelter">dedicated spaces within existing public structures</a>.</p>
<p>Although in Europe and elsewhere, vast public shelters were built, the <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780192846167.001.0001/oso-9780192846167-chapter-5">community bomb shelter</a> was almost universally rejected in the U.S. as communistic. As a result, sheltering was available primarily to the military, government officials and those who could afford it. The practicality and the morality of private shelters were debated publicly. The morality or survivability of nuclear war itself seldom was.</p>
<p>Hughes’s phrase comes from “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/later-simple-stories/oclc/50189417">Bomb Shelters</a>,” one of his “Simple Stories.” These were brief and humorous vignettes of the serious issues faced by Jess and Joyce Semple, a fictional working-class Black couple living in Harlem. In this story, Jess vainly tries to adapt <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814769195/one-nation-underground/">the government’s basement and backyard bomb shelter initiative</a> to his cramped urban neighborhood. </p>
<p>With so many people living in every rooming house, “Even if the law required it, how could landlords build enough shelters for every roomer?” he wonders. “And if roomers built their own shelters – me and Joyce living in a kitchenette, for instance. … How would we keep the other roomers out in case of a raid?” </p>
<p>Jess then imagines Joyce’s response following an air raid test: “Thank God, you’re saved, Jess Semple! But let’s tear that shelter down tomorrow. I could not go in there and leave them children and Grandma outside. … If the bomb does come, let’s just all die neighborly.”</p>
<p>The opposite of dying neighborly was the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192846167.003.0002">mainstream debate</a> over the right to shoot someone you didn’t want intruding into your private shelter. </p>
<p>This debate was dramatized in <a href="https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/the-twilight-zone-classic/video/659852108/the-twilight-zone-the-shelter/">a 1961 episode</a> of “The Twilight Zone,” in which desperate neighbors storm the entrance to the basement shelter of the only suburban family with enough foresight to build one. </p>
<p>Yet as <a href="https://www.bobdylan.com/books/chronicles-volume-one/">musician Bob Dylan</a> recalled of the mostly working-class region of Minnesota where he was raised, nobody was much interested in building shelters because, “It could turn neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend.”</p>
<h2>Resignation and retreat</h2>
<p>The binary Cold War equation of “shelter or die” meant that the only story that effectively expressed resistance to the premise of nuclear weapons was to die with dignity, according to one’s values.</p>
<p>And it meant that stories of resistance were nearly always elegiac retreats to traditional values of community, religion or family that echoed the hodgepodge collective at the dinner table in “Don’t Look Up.”</p>
<p>In Lynne Littman’s low-budget 1983 drama “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrt7mfA5OEqJ8QqR7nsgFKlBIadSVlkGn">Testament</a>,” the citizens of an isolated northern California community cling to their liberal small-town values until they succumb to nuclear fallout from a war viewers never see. Near the end of the film, the surviving and adopted members of the Wetherly family make their last, meager supper a testament to what they have already lost.</p>
<p>In Helen Clarkson’s 1959 novel, “<a href="http://www.pages.drexel.edu/%7Eina22/301/NOVEL-Last_Day2.htm">The Last Day</a>,” the members of a Massachusetts island community pool their resources, take in urban refugees, and even tolerate dissenting voices as they die peacefully, one by one, from nuclear fallout.</p>
<h2>‘We’ve already survived an apocalypse’</h2>
<p>Stories of active resistance, radical policy proposals and advocacy for change really were there for the telling <a href="https://www.mrdanzak.com/book">during the Cold War</a>, and they’re certainly <a href="http://billmckibben.com/">there today</a>. </p>
<p>But most of the stories that get told, and especially on the biggest platforms, are still formed by the “shelter or die” scenario. This constrains the way change is imagined. </p>
<p>Whether it’s a meteor strike, climate disaster or nuclear war, the end has nearly always been told in the same way for over 60 years: abruptly, hopelessly and completely. Any solutions tend to be limited to the kinds of short-term reactions or speculative technological quick fixes we see in “Don’t Look Up” rather than long-term change or human-centered initiatives.</p>
<p>Until culture finds effective ways of telling other stories than the one I call the “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/cold-war-space-and-culture-in-the-1960s-and-1980s-9780192846167?cc=us&lang=en&">bunker fantasy</a>,” it will be difficult to sustain effective action in response to the climate emergency or the persistent threat of nuclear war.</p>
<p>This is not to say that the bunker fantasy story is useless as a tool for activism or change. <a href="https://deadline.com/2022/01/dont-look-up-netflixs-second-biggest-film-all-time-1234908110/">As the popularity</a> of “Don’t Look Up” demonstrates, the specter of instant apocalypse can be galvanizing and focusing on a large scale. And in the right hands, its form can be bent toward messages other than “shelter or die.” </p>
<p>But a better use to which we can put the bunker fantasy today is to show how partial a story it really is. The more storytellers can learn to recognize the limitations of certain forms, the more open readers and viewers may be to conceptualizing what the end of the world means.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=weekly&source=inline-weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s an accident that the examples I’ve found of “dying neighborly” all come from marginalized perspectives: African Americans in Harlem; rural working-class communities in the upper Midwest; female writers. In many ways, these people – as Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo speculative fiction writer Rebecca Roanhorse observes – have “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/books/indigenous-native-american-sci-fi-horror.html">already survived an apocalypse</a>.” </p>
<p>In other words, if you’ve experienced genocide, slavery, colonizing, patriarchy or the explosion of an atomic bomb, you don’t need the specter of imminent destruction to focus your attention. You know all too well that apocalypse is not the end of human history. It has always been part of it.</p>
<p>When survival is something you’re thinking about every day of your life, apocalypse is not a newly emerging threat but an ongoing existential condition. And perhaps the best way to learn how to survive cataclysm while retaining your humanity is by listening to the stories of those who have already been doing it for centuries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David L. Pike does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The end is often envisioned the same way: abruptly, hopelessly and completely. How does this constrain the range of possible solutions?David L. Pike, Professor of Literature, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1705292022-01-04T20:30:05Z2022-01-04T20:30:05ZRepublicans draw from apocalyptic narratives to inform ‘Demoncrat’ conspiracy theories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439223/original/file-20220103-48933-1x6t5jv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C15%2C5184%2C3430&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Biblical narratives of good versus evil are influencing political rhetoric.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/republicans-draw-from-apocalyptic-narratives-to-inform--demoncrat--conspiracy-theories" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In the United States, a “demoncrat” is an occasional slur among conservatives for a Democratic Party politician or voter, implying that the party is, well, demonic. </p>
<p>While demoncrat is not quite popular usage, the concept, it turns out, is widespread. A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute indicates that 18 per cent of Americans believe that the “<a href="https://www.prri.org/research/competing-visions-of-america-an-evolving-identity-or-a-culture-under-attack/">government, media and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation</a>.”</p>
<p>Similar numbers believe “a storm is coming soon” and that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” </p>
<p>As with the original <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/5/13842258/pizzagate-comet-ping-pong-fake-news">2016 Pizzagate conspiracy</a> — in which Democratic officials, including Hillary Clinton, were accused of involvement in child sex-trafficking — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/12/republicans-are-becoming-qanon-party/">and the larger QAnon conspiracy movement</a>, the enemies are Democratic Party politicians or voters. How did we get here?</p>
<h2>Apocalyptic perspectives</h2>
<p>Conservative propaganda organs such as Fox News, One America News Network and Newsmax <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2018.1477532">circulate these fantasies to their viewers</a>, but I would like to suggest they do not originate there. Their beginnings may have more to do with apocalypse, an important element of Christian theology that is dominant among conservative white Christians, especially evangelicals.</p>
<p>Apocalypse is cluster of ideas that characterizes two books in the Bible: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/apocalyptic-literature">Daniel and Revelation</a>. The context for both books were similar theological crises: How was it that God’s people — Jews or followers of Jesus — could suffer so under a hostile empire? </p>
<p>The Book of Daniel was written in the context of oppression. In the 160s BCE, <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7083/apocalypse-against-empire.aspx">Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV forbade Jews from circumcising their boys</a>. The sacred Jerusalem temple may have been violated with a statue of Zeus. A military parade turned into a planned massacre, with Jews murdered or sold into slavery.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439199/original/file-20220103-104494-1ol1i3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a photograph of a Bible page reading THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439199/original/file-20220103-104494-1ol1i3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439199/original/file-20220103-104494-1ol1i3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439199/original/file-20220103-104494-1ol1i3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439199/original/file-20220103-104494-1ol1i3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439199/original/file-20220103-104494-1ol1i3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439199/original/file-20220103-104494-1ol1i3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439199/original/file-20220103-104494-1ol1i3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Christian right draw from apocalyptic narratives of good versus evil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>While it’s not as clear what kinds of persecutions early followers of Jesus faced in the Roman Empire, the Book of Revelation also addressed questions of why God allowed his followers to face misery and destruction. In the <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=c9K_6NN3llcC&lpg=PR9&ots=dIioJMSqof&lr&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">apocalyptic theology</a> they articulated, Daniel and Revelation hit upon some new answers to the problem of suffering. </p>
<p>God, it was thought, had cosmic enemies whose servants control the human empires that persecuted God’s people. God would intervene soon in a cosmic battle to <a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/tools/video-gallery/a/apocalyptic-literature">restore his kingdom</a>, bringing reward or punishment in an afterlife.</p>
<p>Apocalypse repopulated the cosmos with <a href="https://theconversation.com/popular-christian-novel-the-shack-finds-a-surprising-solution-to-the-problem-of-evil-polytheism-135668">divine beings</a>, including the invisible powers that sponsored their political opponents. What marks apocalyptic theology is this extreme moral dualism, in which one’s political opponents are the enemies of God, controlled by demonic forces. </p>
<p>While apocalyptic theology has <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300190519/when-christians-were-jews">always been part of Christianity</a>, it was rejuvenated in the 19th century and became dominant in white evangelicalism. It informs the world view of conservative white Christians, many of whom regard their political opponents in the Democratic Party as demonically controlled — even worshippers of Satan.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1207526347289038849"}"></div></p>
<h2>Democracy “left behind”</h2>
<p>Democracy and apocalypse are incompatible. The <a href="https://www.tyndale.com/sites/leftbehind/"><em>Left Behind</em> series, by Christian fundamentalist authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins</a>, is a fictionalization of the apocalyptic events portrayed in the Book of Revelation. </p>
<p>In the novels, the charismatic Antichrist is elected as the secretary general of the United Nations where he imposes a one-world religion, takes away Christians’ religious freedoms and violently persecutes believers. Conspiring behind the scenes with international financiers — and aided by hypnosis — he rises to power through democratic elections that he manipulates.</p>
<p>Elections, in other words, do not confer legitimacy. The authors, as well as the series’ Christian characters and readers, understand the larger supernatural forces conspiring behind elections: The demonic manipulates the democratic. And aside from demons, apocalypse breaks democracy’s norms because extreme moral dualism <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/apocalypse-now-and-then-how-a-biblical-genre-shapes-american-politics/">delegitimizes one’s opponents</a>.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LNWElnhxjMY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">British director Vic Armstrong directs the 2014 production of <em>Left Behind</em>, starring Nicolas Cage.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a new research article, I argue that <em>Left Behind</em> illuminates why conservative white Christians have come to imagine themselves as persecuted: <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/1/21/htm">they have been compelled in recent decades to share political and cultural power with other groups</a>. With 80 million copies of the series sold, <em>Left Behind</em> both reflects and influences readers in its mode of apocalyptic politics, where political opponents are portrayed as the servants of Satan who must be resisted, sometimes violently. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/evangelical-leaders-like-billy-graham-and-jerry-falwell-sr-have-long-talked-of-conspiracies-against-gods-chosen-those-ideas-are-finding-resonance-today-132241">Evangelical leaders like Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell Sr. have long talked of conspiracies against God's chosen – those ideas are finding resonance today</a>
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<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433579/original/file-20211123-25-pd94ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart showing different groups and their level of detachment from reality" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433579/original/file-20211123-25-pd94ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433579/original/file-20211123-25-pd94ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433579/original/file-20211123-25-pd94ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433579/original/file-20211123-25-pd94ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433579/original/file-20211123-25-pd94ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433579/original/file-20211123-25-pd94ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433579/original/file-20211123-25-pd94ww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Disinformation researcher Abbie Richards categorizes different conspiracy theories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://conspiracychart.com/">(Abbie Richards)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Abbie Richards, an American disinformation researcher, recently ranked contemporary conspiracy theories. It is no accident that some of the conspiracy theories most detached from reality and most dangerous have Satanic or religious components in which the world is ruled by a “<a href="https://twitter.com/abbieasr/status/1466211523035078664">supernaturally powerful group</a>.” Such conspiracies are descendants of — or close cousins to — apocalypse.</p>
<p>But even in the absence of belief in demons, apocalyptic politics marks the conspiracy theories behind the “Big Lie” that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/10/why-do-some-still-deny-bidens-2020-victory-heres-what-data-says/">the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump</a>. And conspiracy theories invite counter conspiracies.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/one-year-after-the-january-6-capitol-attack-the-us-is-still-dealing-with-the-fallout-from-trumps-big-lie-174308">One year after the January 6 Capitol attack, the US is still dealing with the fallout from Trump’s ‘Big Lie’</a>
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<p><em>Rolling Stone</em> recently reported <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">new allegations in the investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection</a> that “<a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/74622/stopthesteal-timeline-of-social-media-and-extremist-activities-leading-to-1-6-insurrection/">Stop the Steal</a>” rally organizers were planning with members of Congress and White House officials. </p>
<p>Chief of Staff Mark Meadows <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/mark-meadows-powerpoint-january-election-results-trump-1658076">developed a PowerPoint</a> to share plans to manipulate America’s creaky electoral machinery to overturn the democratic will of the voters and to swear in the defeated Donald Trump for a second term.</p>
<p>In apocalyptic politics, all uses of power by the good side are considered fair. It contends that the demoncrats, illegitimate even if elected, must be prevented from seizing power from God’s chosen people in his favoured nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170529/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Douglas receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>Apocalyptic thinking undermines democracy because it delegitimizes political opponents, turning them into enemies of God.Christopher Douglas, Professor of American Literature and Religion, University of VictoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1720142021-12-08T18:46:51Z2021-12-08T18:46:51ZApocalypse, booze and Christmas: An ancient ABC<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432911/original/file-20211119-25-1xrimqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C7249%2C4869&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A priority given to beer and bubbly shows the strong link between Christmas and alcohol.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/apocalypse--booze-and-christmas--an-ancient-abc" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>For consumers of festive beverages, the news is bad: this holiday season, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8375338/guinness-supply-chain-crisis-liquor-shortages-holidays/">Guinness may not be</a> on tap and <a href="https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/10/22/supply-chain-alcohol-shortage-holidays/">glass for bottling wine</a> is scarce. Climate disasters, like British Columbia’s floods, have <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bc-floods-rail-impact-1.6250554">further weakened already troubled supply chains</a>. </p>
<p>In the United Kingdom, <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/trains-full-wine-set-save-22120166">seasonal “booze trains”</a> are being pressed into service to prevent empty shelves. Facing shortages of everything <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/essentials/supply-chain-issues-holiday-shopping-shortages-2021/">from turkeys to toys</a>, prioritizing beer and bubbly shows the strong link between Christmas and alcohol.</p>
<p>It’s a link that goes back to the beginnings of the holiday. Although early Christian writings don’t indicate when Jesus was born, <a href="https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/1673/merry-saturnalia-and-other-myths-about-christmas-that-don-t-seem-to-go-away">his conception became associated with the spring equinox</a>. Assuming a nine-month pregnancy, Christians began to mark the birth on Dec. 25. </p>
<p>As it happened, a tipsy, somewhat scandalous celebration already ran from Dec. 17 to 23. <a href="https://herodotushistoryblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/25/io-saturnalia-a-very-roman-christmas/">Ancient descriptions of Saturnalia</a> — a Roman holiday in honour of the god Saturn — sound surprisingly familiar: gift-giving, social gatherings and excessive drinking. Seneca the Younger (died 65 CE) wrote: “It is now the month of December, when the greatest part of the city is in a bustle.” The festival also emphasized social reversals, for instance when <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/how-did-the-romans-celebrate-christmas/">the enslaved were served a meal as if they were temporarily the masters</a>.</p>
<h2>The story of Christmas</h2>
<p>The story that Christmas was deliberately invented to “Christianize” Saturnalia sometimes circulates but is not historically accurate. Instead, as Christianity became the Empire’s religion and Saturnalia was suppressed, midwinter revelry transferred organically from one holiday to the other. </p>
<p>During the Middle Ages dancing and drinking were so synonymous with Christmas that English <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/christmas-under-puritans">Puritans famously banned it from 1644-59</a>. A preacher of the day compared Christmas to “the sacrifices of Bacchus,” the ancient god of wine. </p>
<p>Yet amid the winter revelries, stories about justice and a better world continued. <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/ritual-and-revelry-the-story-of-wassailing">Impoverished wassailers</a> demanded access to food and shelter, at least for an evening.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An illustration of a Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past flying over the city." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432912/original/file-20211119-19-1kkbiqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432912/original/file-20211119-19-1kkbiqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432912/original/file-20211119-19-1kkbiqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432912/original/file-20211119-19-1kkbiqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432912/original/file-20211119-19-1kkbiqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432912/original/file-20211119-19-1kkbiqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432912/original/file-20211119-19-1kkbiqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past soar over the town.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In his 1843 <em><a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/dickens-and-construction-christmas">A Christmas Carol</a></em>, Charles Dickens and his famous character Scrooge were part of another re-invention of the holiday. In <em><a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-679-41223-6">The Battle for Christmas</a></em>, author Stephen Nissenbaum describes how Victorian entrepreneurs like Dickens and his 20th-century successors domesticated the season, building today’s emphases on children — and mass consumption. </p>
<p>Nissenbaum maintains that adult merrymaking, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-evolution-of-the-holiday-celebration/2012/12/23/af80e6b6-4874-11e2-820e-17eefac2f939_story.html">over-drinking and the whiffs of scandal</a> at Christmas parties and New Year’s celebrations echo Christmas’s bacchanalian past. </p>
<p>Thanks to pop culture, the festival remains linked with liquor. In 2016, a social media post went viral with a <a href="https://www.countryliving.com/entertaining/news/a40893/hallmark-drinking-game/">Hallmark Christmas movie drinking game</a>. Scorecards keep track of cliché moments to down a drink: when two love interests kiss, when it begins to snow and, notably, when some Scrooge has their “Christmas conversion.” </p>
<h2>All Scrooge-types</h2>
<p>Despite the commercialization of Christmas, the focus on inverting rich and poor hasn’t disappeared. Dickens said <em>A Christmas Carol</em> was <a href="https://charles-dickens.org/a-christmas-carol/">“raising the Ghost of an Idea” about social reform</a>. Miserly Scrooge is frightened into facing how caring about others is the essence of the holiday. </p>
<p>Like all Scrooge-types since, from Dr. Seuss’s <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/lookingcloser/2011/12/dr-seusss-how-the-grinch-stole-christmas-2000/"><em>Grinch</em></a> through <a href="https://elf.fandom.com/wiki/Walter_Hobbs"><em>Elf</em>’s Walter Hobbs</a> to Candace Cameron Bure in Hallmark’s <a href="https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/let-it-snow/about"><em>Let It Snow</em></a>, the original Scrooge repents of his anti-humanity stance. </p>
<p>To show he will put people above profits, Scrooge hosts a Christmas feast for his abused employee, Bob Cratchit and family. Scrooge pours Cratchit a hot cup of an intoxicating drink called the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/25/460576292/smoking-bishop-a-boozy-christmas-drink-brimming-with-english-history">“Smoking Bishop”</a>. In contemplating his death, Scrooge improves his life, and a celebratory toast is not far behind.</p>
<h2>Apocalypticism</h2>
<p>As a New Testament scholar and historian, I cannot help but think of another ancient narrative that used visions of impending calamity to improve present systems. </p>
<p>Apocalypticism was an ancient Jewish movement <a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/tools/video-gallery/j/jesus-and-apocalyptic-pagels">to which Jesus subscribed</a>. It drew on Hebrew traditions such as <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2055&version=NRSV">Isaiah 55’s vision of the end of time</a>. In this awaited post-apocalyptic world, the poor buy fine wine “without money,” and live forever in a realm of justice and peace where the social order is as reversed as a permanent Saturnalia. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/charles-dickens-the-man-who-invented-christmas-plagiarized-jesus-87936">I’ve asked before whether Dickens was perhaps inspired by one of Jesus’s parables</a>. I’ve also written about <a href="https://somethinggrand.ca/pairings-the-bible-and-booze/">pairing the qualities of a mimosa with the anticipatory fervour</a> in early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic texts. </p>
<p>These ancient passages illustrate the long-held hope that cataclysmic futures might bring more equitable presents, which early Christians believed began with the first Christmas.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An nativity illustration from an old German Bible." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432914/original/file-20211119-21-aqhvkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432914/original/file-20211119-21-aqhvkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432914/original/file-20211119-21-aqhvkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432914/original/file-20211119-21-aqhvkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432914/original/file-20211119-21-aqhvkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432914/original/file-20211119-21-aqhvkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432914/original/file-20211119-21-aqhvkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An nativity illustration from an old German Bible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Alcohol is water-thirsty</h2>
<p>This year, apocalypse, booze, and Christmas come together yet again amid overlapping environmental and social crises. At the climate talks in Glasgow, <a href="https://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/insights/cop26/the-cop26-whisky/">COP26 Scotch</a> was hand-bottled “within a stone’s throw of the negotiations.” The Scotch Whisky Association used the limited edition to showcase its “sustainability commitments.” </p>
<p>Alcohol is water-thirsty; <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/alcohol-climate-crisis-environment-b1812946.html">distillers, brewers and winemakers are aware of its environmental impact</a>. Brewing a pint of beer requires almost 150 litres of water, wine about two-thirds that amount. One of the reasons the Hebrew scriptures refer to wine more than beer is that <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/shekhar-is-it-wine-or-beer">ancient Palestine was a water-starved area</a> where <a href="https://outline.com/8wqwXs">wine production made more sense</a>.</p>
<p>Dickens knew, as scholars of the humanities know, that <a href="https://theconversation.com/childrens-books-can-do-more-to-inspire-the-new-generation-of-earth-warriors-97580">stories shape societies</a>. Facing our own hour of darkness, Dickens’ “Ghost of an Idea” and his archetypal tale of a last-minute conversion to the greater good is more relevant than ever. </p>
<p>Like Scrooge, our political and corporate leaders have a choice: whether to put people above profits, or to think only of the balance sheet. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/earth-day-at-50-a-look-to-the-past-offers-hope-for-the-planets-future-135885">climate scientists have been saying for a long time</a>, it is the last stroke of 12. </p>
<p>While shelves empty and the “booze trains” run, humanity’s ancient midwinter dreams of equality and justice still wait.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172014/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Robert Anderson receives funding from CUPFA, the Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association</span></em></p>While shelves empty and the “booze trains” run, humanity’s ancient festival dream of equality and justice awaits.Matthew Robert Anderson, Affiliate Professor, Theological Studies, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1658372021-08-10T14:03:39Z2021-08-10T14:03:39ZApocalyptic films have lulled us into a false sense of security about climate change<p>The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)‘s sobering <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58130705">“code red for humanity”</a> report comes on the heels of months of devastating weather events around the world. Our front pages have been dominated by photos that look as if they’ve come from a film – images of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-58147674">heroic teams tackling forest fires</a> against a bright orange sky, of planes dropping water and fire retardant, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/europe/german-floods-kill-least-133-search-survivors-continues">cars sinking into flooded streets</a> and destroyed buildings.</p>
<p>One image – that of a ferry, carrying evacuees from the Greek Island of Evia, surrounded by fire, helpless and in the middle of crisis – drew comparisons to the ferry scenes in the 2005 remake of War of the Worlds. In the film, people poured onto a vehicle ferry in a desperate attempt to escape the extraterrestrial invasion.</p>
<p>In Greece, the ferry made safe landing, and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58141336">all passengers were accounted for</a>. But in the film, few, bar the protagonists, survived that moment. While War of the Worlds ends happily – with the alien lifeforms that had ravaged the world succumbing to their vulnerability to microbes on Earth – the footage from Greece is just one scene in a story for which the ending is not yet fully written. </p>
<p>It might seem frivolous to compare such moments to films, but these comparisons play an important role in helping us to comprehend and make sense of particular moments in history. Like all works of art, films reveal much about the social and political zeitgeist in which they are conceived and produced, often acting as magnifying lenses for humankind’s hopes and anxieties. </p>
<p>Psychoanalysis researcher Vicky Lebeau <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/psychoanalysis-and-cinema/9781903364192">has noted</a> that films can reveal the desires and fears of the societies that watch them. We have seen this in science fiction films, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Day the Earth Stood Still, which flourished <a href="https://www.humanities.org/blog/movie-critic-robert-horton-discusses-sci-fi-films-the-cold-war-and-today">during the cold war</a>, inspired by the space race and the arms race.</p>
<p>The proliferation of blockbuster disaster films just before the turn of the millennium (Twister, Dante’s Peak, Armageddon, Deep Impact, to name a few), fed off theories that <a href="https://davefox990.medium.com/what-disaster-movies-say-about-us-536a5dabbad1">the world would end</a> as we entered the year 2000. And it is also no accident that during the early months of the COVID pandemic the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/contagion-coronavirus-download-watch-online-otorrent-warner-bros-cast-twitter-a9403256.html">most watched films online</a> were Contagion, Outbreak and 28 Days Later –- all of which depict degrees of pandemic apocalypse.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415428/original/file-20210810-15-7k1ul5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415428/original/file-20210810-15-7k1ul5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415428/original/file-20210810-15-7k1ul5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415428/original/file-20210810-15-7k1ul5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415428/original/file-20210810-15-7k1ul5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415428/original/file-20210810-15-7k1ul5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415428/original/file-20210810-15-7k1ul5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A video of people being evacuated from the Greek island of Evia drew comparisons with the 2005 remake of War of the Worlds.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Apocalypse now?</h2>
<p>Through these stories, directors have offered us an enthralling yet terrifying glimpse of what the end of the world might look like. It could be caused by zombies (Walking Dead, I Am Legend, Shaun of the Dead), biological demise (Children of Men, Logan’s Run), climate change (The Day After Tomorrow, Snowpiercer, Flood), nuclear accident or war (Dr. Strangelove), or ancient prophecy (2012).</p>
<p>However, none of these are truly end-of-world narratives. Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films start with the risk of total destruction, but more often than not, after the cataclysmic event of the story, a form of normality returns –- balance is restored to the world and life can once again move forward. This way of storytelling brings these films closer to the true meaning of apocalypse. </p>
<p>The root of the word “apocalypse” comes from the ancient Greek term αποκαλύπτειν (apokalýptein), which <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/apocalypse">translates roughly</a> as “unveiling” or “revealing”. The implication being that the near destruction of the city or planet allows for a new understanding, a shift in priorities and a new way of seeing the world – or a renewed and better existence. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1423980516181741570"}"></div></p>
<p>The scenes of flooding and fires that fill our news programmes echo those we see in movies. But for them to be truly apocalyptic, rather than merely world ending, they must reveal something to us. As we watch the real-world events unfold, the IPCC report makes clear what they reveal – that humans have changed the climate and we are on a trajectory to make much of our environment unlivable. But unlike the films, not everyone is going to be saved in 90 thrilling minutes.</p>
<p>By comparing reality to films, we are seeking the hope for renewal that these apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives give us. Nevertheless, they are ultimately fiction. While rehearsing the end of the world through film can exorcise fears, at the same time they may have desensitised us, lulling us into a false sense of security that all will be well in the end – and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20130731-the-lure-of-the-disaster-movie">that we are immortal</a>. </p>
<p>If our own apocalypse is a three-act film, then the last 200 years of environmental harms have been the setup, the exposition. We are now at the moment of confrontation. We all, as the lead characters, must confront the reality of what is around us. If not, the third act, the resolution, may not be the ending we hope for. As French philosopher Jacques Derrida warned: “the end approaches, but the apocalypse is long lived”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Climate disasters are drawing comparisons to apocalyptic films. Their happy endings may have given us a false sense of hope.Doug Specht, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of WestminsterSilvia Angeli, Visiting Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1564932021-03-10T19:08:14Z2021-03-10T19:08:14ZCurious Kids: could octopuses evolve until they take over the world and travel to space?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388462/original/file-20210309-15-gj25je.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C5%2C3371%2C1988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong><em>Michael, aged 14</em>, asks:</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the faster part of human evolution is over, and squids and octopuses continue to evolve, could there be an apocalypse where the cephalopods take over the world?</p>
<p>If they continue to get smarter, octopuses would be much more suited as conquerors of Earth because they could live nearly anywhere. They have abilities similar to what we would call superpowers: they can fit into any hole that fits their beak, they can camouflage, they can regenerate their lost limbs and more. If and when they eradicate humans, they would be better suited to space travel. In orbit, they could manoeuvre much more easily and fit in smaller spaces. </p>
<p>So if they simply started evolving a smarter brain, what stops all this from happening? Why has this not happened already? Why have so few creatures evolved an intelligent brain?</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>As Michael points out, octopuses are famous for their alien-like abilities, from regrowing damaged arms to changing their skin colour and texture. They use this colour-shifting <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-comic-book-superpowers-that-really-exist-in-animals-81352">power</a> to camouflage and, interestingly, as a strange <a href="https://www.livescience.com/53514-octopuses-lead-social-lives.html">visual language</a> to talk to other octopuses. </p>
<p>A little known fact is they actually belong to a category of animals (phylum) called Mollusca, which is largely made up of snails. Yep, octopuses are like souped-up snails who lost their shells and grew a rather large brain. The coolest thing about them is their intelligence, which evolved completely independently from our own. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E3N0i_KM8cI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An octopus escapes a boat through a tiny hole.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They use tools to solve problems (like us) and they can open <a href="https://animals.howstuffworks.com/marine-life/cant-open-that-childproof-bottle-ask-an-amazing-octopus.htm">child-proof containers</a> (not always like us). And just last week, <a href="https://theconversation.com/clever-cuttlefish-show-advanced-self-control-like-chimps-and-crows-155795">research</a> found a cuttlefish (another cephalopod, cousins of octopuses) passed an intelligence test designed for toddlers that showed they have advanced self control. </p>
<p>Humans no doubt have a lot more to learn about what these mysterious creatures are capable of. But what we do know can start to answer Michael’s excellent question: could octopuses one day rule the world? </p>
<p>(Before we go further we should state <a href="https://qz.com/1446229/let-us-finally-resolve-the-octopuses-v-octopi-debate/">the plural of octopus is “octopuses”</a> — not necessarily “octopi” — given the word has Greek rather than Latin routes.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387947/original/file-20210305-23-2zyy4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Large orange octopus" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387947/original/file-20210305-23-2zyy4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387947/original/file-20210305-23-2zyy4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387947/original/file-20210305-23-2zyy4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387947/original/file-20210305-23-2zyy4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387947/original/file-20210305-23-2zyy4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387947/original/file-20210305-23-2zyy4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387947/original/file-20210305-23-2zyy4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The giant Pacific octopus can grow to almost five metres across.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Big-brained but short-lived</h2>
<p>Let’s first consider their nervous system. Like us, octopus have large brains compared to their body size – easily the biggest of all invertebrates (animals without a backbone) and of comparable size to many vertebrates, such as frogs. </p>
<p>It is, however, hard to compare brain size between marine animals and land animals, because the laws of physics differ in water and air. Animals are weightless in water but on land body shape and size is limited by gravity. </p>
<p>An octopus brain is made up of about 500 million brain cells (neurons). This is seven times more than a mouse and about the same as a marmoset monkey. Humans, on the other hand, have 86 billion brain cells. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ydrc489USbM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An octopus changing colour and texture.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Testing octopus intelligence can be a problem, because the animals frequently outsmart scientists. For example, scientists can struggle to get an octopus to solve a maze, because they often climb out and crawl over the top to reach their food reward. And that’s assuming they haven’t already <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/160414-inky-octopus-escapes-intelligence">escaped from their aquarium home</a> and are crawling around the lab.</p>
<p>Unlike us though, octopuses don’t live for very long. The <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/facts/giant-pacific-octopus">giant Pacific octopus</a> might live up to five years, but most live for just a year and some as little as six months. They hatch from eggs fully formed and ready to go. They never see their parents and have to learn everything on their own.</p>
<p>So yes, octopuses have big brains and are crazy-smart. But could they take over the world if they kept evolving?</p>
<h2>Why they evolve so slowly</h2>
<p>Compared to other species, octopuses actually evolve really, really slowly. There are about 300 different species of octopus, which have been around for at least 300 million years. In that time, they haven’t changed much. </p>
<p>Modern humans, by comparison, have only existed for 200,000 years and in that time, have taken over the planet (and badly damaged it in the process). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388660/original/file-20210309-15-1lebvx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An orange octopus with vibrant blue circles" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388660/original/file-20210309-15-1lebvx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388660/original/file-20210309-15-1lebvx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388660/original/file-20210309-15-1lebvx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388660/original/file-20210309-15-1lebvx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388660/original/file-20210309-15-1lebvx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388660/original/file-20210309-15-1lebvx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388660/original/file-20210309-15-1lebvx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A blue-ringed octopus, a highly venomous species found in tide pools and coral reefs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Evolution occurs when the DNA code is gradually changed in small steps over vast amounts of time. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/octopuses-can-defy-their-genetic-instructions-and-its-slowed-down-their-evolution-75663">octopus have a unique method</a> of actively editing their RNA molecules instead. RNA are messages sent from DNA, which tells genes what to do and when. </p>
<p>The ability to edit RNA means they can adapt quickly to new problems, bypassing the need for long-term changes to occur in the DNA — the standard evolutionary process most living things follow. Scientists think this rule-breaking approach may be a reason why octopuses evolve so slowly, and why they are one of the brainiest beasties in the ocean.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/octopuses-can-defy-their-genetic-instructions-and-its-slowed-down-their-evolution-75663">Octopuses can defy their genetic instructions – and it's slowed down their evolution</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<p>But lets face it. Despite all their tricks, octopuses are still working from a snail blueprint, and there’s only so much you can do with that toolbox. They are also highly constrained by their very short life-span. </p>
<p>So, the first item on an evil octopus to-do list for taking over the world is to live well beyond your first birthday. Second on the list might be to develop “cumulative culture” by learning from others like humans do. We already know an octopus can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQwJXvlTWDw">learn by watching other octopuses</a>, but as yet we don’t have evidence of culture.</p>
<p>Very few creatures display intelligence comparable to humans and understanding why is a long-standing scientific question. The most likely explanation is that brain tissue is extremely expensive to maintain, in terms of energy required to keep brain cells firing. So there need to be big benefits to justify the expense. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388669/original/file-20210310-19-1c03szv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Octopus camoflaging with coral" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388669/original/file-20210310-19-1c03szv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388669/original/file-20210310-19-1c03szv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388669/original/file-20210310-19-1c03szv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388669/original/file-20210310-19-1c03szv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388669/original/file-20210310-19-1c03szv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388669/original/file-20210310-19-1c03szv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388669/original/file-20210310-19-1c03szv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Octopuses can bypass standard evolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vlad Tchompalov/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scientists think <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/23/17377200/human-brain-size-evolution-nature">one benefit</a> of having a big brain is so humans can keep track of complex social relationships (octopuses, on the other hand, are soliltary) and develop culture. Nature tends to provide animals with just enough smarts to get by, and nothing more. </p>
<h2>They might do OK in space</h2>
<p>Its hard to imagine an octopus ever evolving to take over the land. Octopus have no hard parts other than their beak. So while they <em>can</em> move on land, with no bones to hold them up against gravity, they really struggle. </p>
<p>They also have <a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-do-gills-work-150375">gills</a> which need water to pass over them to breathe. Strangely, they can also “breathe” using their skin. When resting, about 40% of their oxygen comes from the water passing over their skin rather than their gills. Trouble is that only works while the skin is wet. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/clever-cuttlefish-show-advanced-self-control-like-chimps-and-crows-155795">Clever cuttlefish show advanced self-control, like chimps and crows</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But because they live in water and octopuses are neutrally buoyant (they neither float nor sink), gravity is largely irrelevant. This means they would do rather well in space where there’s no gravity — assuming they could take water with them. </p>
<p>In short, octopuses are very intelligent animals and one of the smartest creatures in the ocean. But their short life span and vulnerabilities on land are serious handicaps when it comes to taking over the world. </p>
<p><em>The Conversation, for one, welcomes any new cephalopod overlords</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156493/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Culum Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If octopuses simply started evolving a smarter brain, what stops them from ruling over humans? Why has this not happened already? An expert explains what these cephalopods might be capable of.Culum Brown, Professor, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1532632021-01-18T15:05:30Z2021-01-18T15:05:30ZEmpty cities have long been a post-apocalyptic trope – now, they are a reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379226/original/file-20210118-21-o4xmrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-looking-straight-down-on-1495413731">Matt Gush/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Carry out a Google image search of the phrase “28 Days Later” and among the many stills and publicity images for the 2002 <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/">horror film</a>, one will find a scattering of photographs of London taken during the first COVID-19 lockdown in late March and early April 2020.</p>
<p>At that time, some Londoners described the emptiness of the city as feeling “like the apocalypse or a scene from 28 Days Later”. The comparison of life to art, it seemed, was obvious, exerting an eerie, uncanny effect.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eCdRFMp8Xwo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Dead cities are enduring images in post-apocalyptic literature and cinema. They are rooted in the straightforward power of contrast – between the normally bustling city and its empty double – a city which is only buildings, both strangely familiar and also alien.</p>
<p>Dating back at least to Edward Gibbon’s claim to have conceived of his monumental <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/04/100-best-nonfiction-books-decline-and-fall-of-the-roman-empire-edward-gibbon">History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</a> in 1764 while he “sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol”, the image of the solitary (always male) ruin gazer of the future became popular in the 19th century, usually as a way of questioning imperial hubris. </p>
<h2>London ruined</h2>
<p>One of the earliest images of London as a dead city was French engraver Gustave Doré’s final plate in the 1872 book <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2015/dec/28/london-pilgrimage-gustave-dore-historic-visions-capital-city">London: A Pilgrimage</a>, where a New World visitor from the far future (the New Zealander) comes to gaze upon the ruins of imperial London, just as Gibbon had done so a century earlier in Rome.</p>
<p>This image, as well as seminal science fiction texts like John Wyndham’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/sep/02/johnwyndham">The Day of the Triffids</a> (1951), is filtered through the lenses of newly available HD digital cameras in the famous four minute sequence in 28 Days Later, when motorcycle courier Jim wanders through an empty London. This sequence completely subverts the clichéd tourist itinerary (from the Palace of Westminster to Piccadilly Circus) in its uncanny sequence of images of emptiness. </p>
<p>When director Danny Boyle shot these sequences in 2001, it was still possible to experience this kind of emptiness for real – for just a few minutes around dawn in the summer months. Since then, though, 24/7 culture had enveloped capital cities like London, swallowing up any remaining moments of silence and emptiness. That is, until the unprecedented lockdowns imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic – a microscopic agent wielding enough destructive power to shut down entire cities for weeks on end.</p>
<p>The point made in 28 Days Later is that the empty city resonates with us on both an imaginative and historical level. As photographer Chris Dorley-Brown has <a href="https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/chris-dorley-brown-london-during-lockdown-photography-170620">argued</a>, in relation to his own images of London in lockdown, he felt that like Jim in 28 Days Later, he was “the last person left alive”. An uncanny experience became familiar to many: walking empty city streets fused the very real material world with a long history of imaginative visions of dead cities. </p>
<h2>The camera accuses</h2>
<p>In one panning aerial shot from the heart of the city in that sequence in 28 Days Later, a CGI-insertion appears very briefly: a supplicating statue that does not exist in the real London. This, I argue in my book <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-dead-city-9781784537166/">The Dead City</a>, is a direct visual reference to the statue in the iconic photograph of the ruins of central Dresden in the immediate aftermath of the Allied fire bombings of February 1945 taken by Richard Peter.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378862/original/file-20210114-21-12o9djd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378862/original/file-20210114-21-12o9djd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378862/original/file-20210114-21-12o9djd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378862/original/file-20210114-21-12o9djd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378862/original/file-20210114-21-12o9djd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378862/original/file-20210114-21-12o9djd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378862/original/file-20210114-21-12o9djd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Peter, the ruins of Dresden, 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fotothek_df_ps_0000010_Blick_vom_Rathausturm.jpg">Deutsche Fotothek</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is imagination invading reality. There is, I think, a sense that we (the film’s viewers) are <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-dead-city-9781784537166/">being accused</a> by this spectre of history. The statue serves to remind us that, just like the presence of this image in the film, the bombing of Dresden was not some accident, but a deliberately planned assault on a city designed to cause the maximum amount of damage and loss of life. It reminds us that all historical monuments, when contemplated in a sustained way, point equally to tragedy and defeat (usually someone else’s) as they do to celebration and victory. </p>
<p>What all this shows is that when the appearances we take for granted are eviscerated, when all manner of human occupations are suddenly forced into shutdown, when buildings are in space but out of time, there may be opportunities for richer meanings to emerge – meanings that are normally kept at bay in the bustling city. Locked down cities may seem like a negative image of the places people value but, notwithstanding the very obvious suffering signified by such emptiness, there’s an opportunity to mine their uncanny nature for insights.</p>
<p>One useful lockdown exercise, then, might be to pay attention to things in the city that we would either generally ignore or which seem to posses only negative connotations: the countless memorials and landmarks that are all but invisible to us because they’re so familiar; closed retail units inviting a different kind of window shopping; hoardings and other advertisements signifying absence rather than presence; empty streets hinting at some other city that came before the cars. Here, history returns as something that hasn’t yet been settled, asking for our attention, our participation even. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man walking in front of deserted Eiffel Tower." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379230/original/file-20210118-21-huw45y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379230/original/file-20210118-21-huw45y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379230/original/file-20210118-21-huw45y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379230/original/file-20210118-21-huw45y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379230/original/file-20210118-21-huw45y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379230/original/file-20210118-21-huw45y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379230/original/file-20210118-21-huw45y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Empty cities provide a chance to look at the familiar with a different eye.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/jSKjkV4Oc5Q">Fran Boloni/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en">FAL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I would argue that this kind of awareness of history is much closer to how we actually experience it than any history book would lead us to believe. In the empty city, there’s no arrow of time – no A to B. Rather, time present, past and future slide across each other like trains at a railway junction. In certain images we find in dead cities – whether real or imaginary – we can discover openings to this kind of time, in all its complex unfolding and intertwining.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Dobraszczyk received funding from the Independent Social Research Foundation in 2016 for his research on dead cites and the imagination.</span></em></p>Dead cities are enduring images in post-apocalyptic literature and cinema.Paul Dobraszczyk, Lecturer in Architecture, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1530912021-01-13T05:00:06Z2021-01-13T05:00:06ZWorried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378461/original/file-20210113-21-rwemte.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5568%2C3692&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Mariuz/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood. </p>
<p>The research <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full">published today</a> reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now. </p>
<p>The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades. The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own.</p>
<p>Our paper was authored by 17 leading scientists, including those from Flinders University, Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Our message might not be popular, and indeed is frightening. But scientists must be candid and accurate if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Girl in breathing mask attached ot plant in container" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378462/original/file-20210113-21-1vk2ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378462/original/file-20210113-21-1vk2ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378462/original/file-20210113-21-1vk2ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378462/original/file-20210113-21-1vk2ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378462/original/file-20210113-21-1vk2ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378462/original/file-20210113-21-1vk2ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378462/original/file-20210113-21-1vk2ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humanity must come to terms with the future we and future generations face.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Getting to grips with the problem</h2>
<p>First, we reviewed the extent to which experts grasp the scale of the threats to the biosphere and its lifeforms, including humanity. Alarmingly, the research shows future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than experts currently believe.</p>
<p>This is largely because academics tend to specialise in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15487733.2007.11907989">one discipline</a>, which means they’re in many cases unfamiliar with the <a href="https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/fragile-dominion-by-simon-levin-and-simon-a-levin-9780738203195">complex system</a> in which planetary-scale problems — and their potential solutions — exist. </p>
<p>What’s more, positive change can be impeded by governments <a href="https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/embr.201643381">rejecting</a> or ignoring scientific advice, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0884-z">ignorance of human behaviour</a> by both technical experts and policymakers.</p>
<p>More broadly, the human <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0884-z">optimism bias</a> – thinking bad things are more likely to befall others than yourself – means many people underestimate the environmental crisis. </p>
<h2>Numbers don’t lie</h2>
<p>Our research also reviewed the current state of the global environment. While the problems are too numerous to cover in full here, they include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25138">halving</a> of vegetation biomass since the agricultural revolution around 11,000 years ago. Overall, humans have altered almost <a href="https://ipbes.net/global-assessment">two-thirds</a> of Earth’s land surface</p></li>
<li><p>about <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6471/eaax3100">1,300 documented</a> <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0906-2">species extinctions</a> over the past 500 years, with many more unrecorded. More broadly, population sizes of animal species have declined by more than <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/living-planet-report-2020">two-thirds</a> over the last 50 years, suggesting more extinctions are imminent</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-mass-extinction-and-are-we-in-one-now-122535">What is a 'mass extinction' and are we in one now?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<ul>
<li><p>about <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/">one million</a> plant and animal species globally threatened with extinction. The combined mass of wild mammals today is less than <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506">one-quarter</a> the mass before humans started colonising the planet. Insects are also <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-ento-011019-025151">disappearing rapidly</a> in many regions</p></li>
<li><p>85% of the global wetland area <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/mf/mf14173">lost</a> in 300 years, and more than 65% of the oceans <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8615">compromised</a> to some extent by humans</p></li>
<li><p>a halving of live coral cover on reefs in less than <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1674">200 years</a> and a decrease in seagrass extent by <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6471/eaax3100">10% per decade</a> over the last century. <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13785">About 40%</a> of kelp forests have declined in abundance, and the number of large predatory fishes is <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1467-2979.2003.00103.x">fewer than 30%</a> of that a century ago.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378178/original/file-20210112-15-1ornvrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="State of the Earth's environment" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378178/original/file-20210112-15-1ornvrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378178/original/file-20210112-15-1ornvrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378178/original/file-20210112-15-1ornvrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378178/original/file-20210112-15-1ornvrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378178/original/file-20210112-15-1ornvrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378178/original/file-20210112-15-1ornvrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378178/original/file-20210112-15-1ornvrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Major environmental-change categories expressed as a percentage relative to intact baseline. Red indicates percentage of category damaged, lost or otherwise affected; blue indicates percentage intact, remaining or unaffected.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frontiers in Conservation Science</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A bad situation only getting worse</h2>
<p>The human population has reached <a href="https://www.prb.org/2020-world-population-data-sheet/">7.8 billion</a> – double what it was in 1970 – and is set to reach about 10 billion by 2050. More people equals more food insecurity, soil degradation, plastic pollution and biodiversity loss. </p>
<p>High population densities make pandemics more likely. They also drive overcrowding, unemployment, housing shortages and deteriorating infrastructure, and can spark conflicts leading to <a href="https://theconversation.com/by-inciting-capitol-mob-trump-pushes-u-s-closer-to-a-banana-republic-152850">insurrections</a>, terrorism, and war.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-we-need-to-focus-on-increased-consumption-as-much-as-population-growth-138602">Climate explained: why we need to focus on increased consumption as much as population growth</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Essentially, humans have created an ecological <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp">Ponzi scheme</a>. Consumption, as a percentage of Earth’s <a href="https://www.footprintnetwork.org">capacity to regenerate itself</a>, has grown from 73% in 1960 to <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/7/3/58">more than 170% today</a>. </p>
<p>High-consuming countries like Australia, Canada and the US use multiple units of fossil-fuel energy to produce one energy unit of food. Energy consumption will therefore increase in the near future, especially as the global middle class grows.</p>
<p>Then there’s climate change. Humanity has already exceeded global warming of 1°C this century, and will almost assuredly <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/">exceed 1.5 °C</a> between 2030 and 2052. Even if all nations party to the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris Agreement</a> ratify their commitments, warming would still reach between 2.6°C and 3.1°C by 2100.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="people walking on a crowded street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364900/original/file-20201022-18-iwc4eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364900/original/file-20201022-18-iwc4eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364900/original/file-20201022-18-iwc4eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364900/original/file-20201022-18-iwc4eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364900/original/file-20201022-18-iwc4eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364900/original/file-20201022-18-iwc4eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364900/original/file-20201022-18-iwc4eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The human population is set to reach 10 billion by 2050.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The danger of political impotence</h2>
<p>Our paper found global policymaking falls far short of addressing these existential threats. Securing Earth’s future requires prudent, long-term decisions. However this is impeded by short-term interests, and an economic system that <a href="https://theconversation.com/piketty-challenges-us-to-consider-if-we-need-to-rein-in-wealth-inequality-67552">concentrates wealth among a few individuals</a>.</p>
<p>Right-wing populist leaders with <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07236-w">anti-environment agendas</a> are on the rise, and in many countries, environmental protest groups have been labelled “<a href="https://theconversation.com/extinction-rebellion-terror-threat-is-a-wake-up-call-for-how-the-state-treats-environmental-activism-129804">terrorists</a>”. Environmentalism has become weaponised as a political ideology, rather than properly viewed as a universal mode of self-preservation.</p>
<p>Financed <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-fossil-fuelled-climate-denial-61273">disinformation campaigns</a>, such as those against climate action and <a href="http://alert-conservation.org/issues-research-highlights/2014/11/27/progress-in-the-battle-against-illegal-logging">forest protection</a>, protect short-term profits and claim meaningful environmental action is too costly – while ignoring the broader cost of not acting. By and large, it appears unlikely business investments <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ecosoc6972.doc.htm">will shift at sufficient scale</a> to avoid environmental catastrophe.</p>
<h2>Changing course</h2>
<p>Fundamental change is required to avoid this ghastly future. Specifically, we and many others suggest: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224">abolishing</a> the goal of perpetual economic growth</p></li>
<li><p>revealing the true cost of products and activities by forcing those who damage the environment to pay for its restoration, such as through <a href="https://theconversation.com/carbon-pricing-works-the-largest-ever-study-puts-it-beyond-doubt-142034">carbon pricing</a></p></li>
<li><p>rapidly eliminating fossil fuels</p></li>
<li><p>regulating markets by curtailing monopolisation and limiting undue corporate influence on policy</p></li>
<li><p>reigning in corporate lobbying of political representatives</p></li>
<li><p>educating and <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/katharine_wilkinson_how_empowering_women_and_girls_can_help_stop_global_warming">empowering women</a> across the globe, including giving them control over family planning.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A coal plant" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378465/original/file-20210113-15-6b1vqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378465/original/file-20210113-15-6b1vqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378465/original/file-20210113-15-6b1vqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378465/original/file-20210113-15-6b1vqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378465/original/file-20210113-15-6b1vqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378465/original/file-20210113-15-6b1vqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378465/original/file-20210113-15-6b1vqv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The true cost of environmental damage should be borne by those responsible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Don’t look away</h2>
<p>Many organisations and individuals are devoted to achieving these aims. However their messages have not sufficiently penetrated the policy, economic, political and academic realms to make much difference.</p>
<p>Failing to acknowledge the magnitude of problems facing humanity is not just naïve, it’s dangerous. And science has a big role to play here. </p>
<p>Scientists must not sugarcoat the overwhelming challenges ahead. Instead, they should <em>tell it like it is</em>. Anything else is at best misleading, and at worst potentially lethal for the human enterprise.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mass-extinctions-and-climate-change-why-the-speed-of-rising-greenhouse-gases-matters-56675">Mass extinctions and climate change: why the speed of rising greenhouse gases matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Corey J. A. Bradshaw receives funding from the Australian Research Council. The Rockefeller Foundation provided funding for elements of this research via a Bellagio Writer's Fellowship to CJAB and PRE.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel T. Blumstein receives funding from the US National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Ehrlich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Humanity is destroying Earth’s ability to support complex life. But coming to grips with the magnitude of the problem is hard, even for experts.Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders UniversityDaniel T. Blumstein, Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los AngelesPaul Ehrlich, President, Center for Conservation Biology, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1481722020-10-19T19:00:21Z2020-10-19T19:00:21ZFive things to know about the Antichrist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363859/original/file-20201016-15-5el5wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C999%2C789&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Luca Signorelli's Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist ( c. 1499 and 1502). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luca_Signorelli_-_Sermon_and_Deeds_of_the_Antichrist_-_WGA21202.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the history of the West over the last 2000 years, there has never been a time when someone hasn’t been <a href="https://www.insider.com/apocalypse-end-of-world-predictions-theories-2019-1">predicting the end of the world</a>. </p>
<p>And now, with a seemingly insoluble <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/climate-change#tab=tab_1">climate crisis</a>, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-26/coronavirus-climate-change-disasters-2020-hell-of-a-year/12696260">pandemic surges</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6a6bab93-21fc-4bd6-b309-86e394e3869b">savage wildfires and hurricanes</a>, and a renewed <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-18/this-nuclear-arms-race-is-worse-than-the-last-one">nuclear arms race</a>, seems no time to stop.</p>
<p>Many of us feel, as poet John Donne put it in <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44092/an-anatomy-of-the-world">The Anatomy of the World</a> in 1611, “Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone”. </p>
<p>The Christian tradition tells us to be on the lookout for the Antichrist, who will appear <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1John%202:18">shortly before the big finish</a>. Vast amounts of Christian ink have been used to try and work out when he will come and just how we might identify him when he does.</p>
<p>Here, then, are five things to know just in case:</p>
<h2>1. He is the Son of Satan</h2>
<p>The Antichrist was the perfectly evil human being because he was completely opposite to the perfectly good human being, Jesus Christ. </p>
<p>Just as Christians came to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, so they thought that the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Antichrist">Antichrist was the Son of Satan</a>. Jesus was born of a virgin. So the Antichrist would be born of a woman who was apparently a virgin, but was really a whore. Where Christ was God in the flesh, the Antichrist was Satan in the flesh.</p>
<p>In The Christian New Testament there are only three passages that mention the Antichrist, all in the letters of John (I John 2.18-27, I John 4.1-6, 2 John 7). They suggest the end of the world should be expected at any moment. </p>
<p>Over the first several centuries of the Christian tradition, the scholars of the early Church started to pore over an array of other Biblical characters, finding references to the Antichrist within them: the “abomination of desolation” in the books of Daniel and Matthew; “the man of lawlessness” and “<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/4/1/77/htm">the son of perdition</a>” in a letter of Paul.</p>
<p>The book of Revelation <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Revelation-to-John">describes a singular figure</a> as “the beast from the earth” and “the beast from the sea” whose number is 666. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Religious painting of the antichrist with many heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363861/original/file-20201016-23-f0d5fu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Blake’s The number of the beast is 666 (1805-1810).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/william-blake/the-number-of-the-beast-is-666">Wikiart</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-things-to-know-about-the-traditional-christian-doctrine-of-hell-119380">5 things to know about the traditional Christian doctrine of hell</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. He is an earthly tyrant and trickster</h2>
<p>By the year 1000, the main outlines of the first of two narratives about the Antichrist was in place thanks to a noble-born Benedictine monk and abbot named <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810104321108">Adso of Montier-en-Der</a> (c. 920-92) who wrote a treatise on the subject. </p>
<p>According to him, the Antichrist would be a Jew from the tribe of Dan and born in Babylon. He would be brought up in all forms of wickedness by magicians and wizards. He would be accepted as the Messiah and ruler by the Jews in Jerusalem. Those Christians whom he could not convert to his cause, he would torture and kill. </p>
<p>He would then rule for seven years before being defeated by the angel Gabriel or Christ and the divine armies, prior to the resurrection of the dead and the Final Judgement. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-god-good-in-the-shadow-of-mass-disaster-great-minds-have-argued-the-toss-137078">Is God good? In the shadow of mass disaster, great minds have argued the toss</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. Past popes have been accused</h2>
<p>By the year 1400, another narrative of the Antichrist had arisen. Now he was no longer the tyrant outside of the Church but the deceiver within it. In short, he was the Pope or even the institution of the papacy and the Church themselves. </p>
<p>As the English religious radical <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/early-christianity-biographies/john-wycliffe">John Wycliffe</a> (c. 1329-84) put it, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the Pope may obviously be the Antichrist, and yet not just that sole single individual… but rather the multitude of popes holding that position … along with the cardinals and bishops of the church.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was the position on the Antichrist adopted by Protestants at the time of the 16th century <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/reformation/reformation">Reformation</a>. <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/theologians/martin-luther.html">Martin Luther</a> (1483-1546) was convinced that he was living in the last days. For him, the Pope fitted all the criteria for the Antichrist. The Pope, he declared, “is the true end times Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A papal figure from behind." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363866/original/file-20201016-21-q7kfdo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Popes, old and new, have been targets for those on the lookout for the Antichrist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1476461386254-61c4ff3a1cc3?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2389&q=80">Unsplash/Nacho Arteaga</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/apocalypse-now-why-the-movies-want-the-world-to-end-every-year-11496">Apocalypse Now: why the movies want the world to end every year </a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. He is one and many</h2>
<p>Within conservative Christianity over the last century, Antichrists have multiplied. “The Antichrist” has become a general category available for application to an array of individuals, collectives, and objects as the demonic “other”. </p>
<p>Generally, predictions of a tyrant outside the church now dominate the idea of a deceiver within it. </p>
<p>American presidents are <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/11/white-house-shooter-and-obama-the-antichrist-were-other-presidents-called-the-antichrist.html">well represented</a>. When it comes to accusations of being the Antichrist, usually from the conservative religious right, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama have all been mentioned. Donald Trump is gaining popularity as <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/stephen-long-should-we-call-trump-antichrist/12335450">a worthy candidate</a> with ethics scholar D. Stephen Long suggesting he represents: “not a single person but a political pattern that repeats itself by taking on power to oppress the poor and the just”. </p>
<p>American evangelist Jerry Falwell, known for <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/jerry-falwell-polarizing-preacher-merged-religion-politics-dies-at-73/">his controversial views on apartheid, homosexuality, Judaism, climate change and the Teletubbies</a>, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/05/did-jerry-falwell-think-i-was-the-antichrist.html">once said</a>: “The Antichrist will be a world leader, he’ll have supernatural powers”.</p>
<p>Hilary Clinton is, to the best of my knowledge, the only <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/197138-montana-gop-house-front-runner-calls-hillary-clinton-the-anti-christ">female candidate</a>. US Republican politician Ryan Zinke who was US Secretary of the Interior in the Trump Administration from 2017 until his resignation in 2019, threw the accusation in 2014. She later <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/hillary-clinton-ryan-zinke-antichrist_n_59b87e38e4b02da0e13d4666?ri18n=true">reassured him</a>, at Trump’s inauguration, that she wasn’t.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9780230610354_7">Osama bin Laden</a> was a favourite until his death, as was Saddam Hussein. </p>
<p>Marks of the beast have even been discerned by some in supermarket <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/12/upc-mark-of-the-beast/">barcodes</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-your-pets-microchip-has-to-do-with-the-mark-of-the-beast-114493">pet microchips</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Firewalker amid blaze." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363865/original/file-20201016-23-13hfzlr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How close are we to a fiery end?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/9ByGZyc1nIo?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink">Unsplash/Alexandre Boucey</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-over-fiction-on-the-apocalyptic-super-blood-moon-47916">Fact over fiction on the 'apocalyptic' super blood moon</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>5. He dies in the end</h2>
<p>According to the Christian tradition, the Antichrist will finally be defeated by the armies of God under the leadership of Christ with the Kingdom of God (on earth or in heaven) to follow. </p>
<p>So, in spite of current appearances, Christianity holds firmly to the hope that evil will be finally overcome and that goodness will ultimately prevail. </p>
<p>The core idea of the Antichrist — of evil at the depths of things — lays upon all of us the ethical imperative to take evil seriously. Whether the end is nigh or not, we should work to minimise harm and maximise the good in the here and now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148172/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip C. Almond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Christian tradition says the Antichrist will come before the end of the world as we know it. So it’s good to know some background on him … or her … or them.Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1460602020-09-16T11:20:45Z2020-09-16T11:20:45ZWhy San Francisco felt like the set of a sci-fi flick<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358184/original/file-20200915-20-19fcg73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=642%2C0%2C2353%2C1419&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On the morning of Sept. 9, San Franciscans woke up to a transformed cityscape.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Wildfires-Smoky-Skies/37b2b6fb5f384f4e8c1f48ac09f05171/36/0">AP Photo/Eric Risberg</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Sept. 9, many West Coast residents looked out their windows and witnessed a post-apocalyptic landscape: silhouetted cars, buildings and people bathed in an overpowering orange light that looked like a jacked-up sunset.</p>
<p>The scientific explanation for what people were seeing was pretty straightforward. On a clear day, the sky owes its blue color to smaller atmospheric particles scattering the relatively short wavelengths of blue light waves from the sun. An atmosphere filled with larger particles, like woodsmoke, scatters even more of the color spectrum, but not as uniformly, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2020/09/10/the-science-behind-mysterious-orange-skies-in-california/#52bc361f6cab">leaving orangish-red colors for the eye to see</a>.</p>
<p>But most city dwellers weren’t seeing the science. Instead, the burnt orange world they were witnessing was eerily reminiscent of scenes from sci-fi films like “<a href="https://twitter.com/Klee_FilmReview/status/1303748616507531264">Blade Runner: 2049</a>” and “<a href="https://twitter.com/Prince_Kropotkn/status/1303761059887550464">Dune</a>.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1303748616507531264"}"></div></p>
<p>The uncanny images evoked sci-fi movies for a reason. Over the past decade, filmmakers have increasingly adopting a palette rich with hues of two colors, orange and teal, which complement one another in ways that can have a powerful effect on viewers.</p>
<h2>Writing color into the script</h2>
<p>When we dissect movies in my design classes, I remind my students that everything on the screen is there for a reason. Sound, light, wardrobe, people – and, yes, the colors.</p>
<p>Actor, writer and director Jon Fusco <a href="https://nofilmschool.com/2016/06/watch-psychology-color-film">has suggested</a> “writing color as an entire character in your script,” since colors can subtly change the way a scene can “resonate emotionally.”</p>
<p>Set and costume designers can influence color palettes by sticking to certain palettes. But art directors can also imbue scenes with certain hues via “color grading,” in which they use software to shift colors around in the frame.</p>
<p>In her short film “Color Psychology,” video editor Lilly Mtz-Seara <a href="https://vimeo.com/169046276">assembles a montage</a> from more than 50 films to show the emotional impact intentional color grading can lend to movies. She explains how different palettes are used to emphasize different sentiments, whether it’s pale pink to reflect innocence, red to capture passion or a sickly yellow to denote madness.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Frames from Lilly Mtz-Sear's 'Color Psychology' that highlight emotional effects of different palettes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357774/original/file-20200913-16-yc0lvy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357774/original/file-20200913-16-yc0lvy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357774/original/file-20200913-16-yc0lvy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357774/original/file-20200913-16-yc0lvy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357774/original/file-20200913-16-yc0lvy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357774/original/file-20200913-16-yc0lvy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357774/original/file-20200913-16-yc0lvy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Different color palettes are used to evoke different emotional responses in viewers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://vimeo.com/169046276">LidiaSeara/Vimeo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The most powerful complement of them all</h2>
<p>So why orange and teal? </p>
<p>In the 17th century, Isaac Newton created his “<a href="http://web.mit.edu/22.51/www/Extras/color_theory/color.html">color wheel</a>.” The circle of colors represents the full visible light spectrum, and people who work in color will use it to assemble palettes, or color schemes.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.canva.com/learn/monochromatic-colors/">A monochromatic palette</a> involves tints from a single hue – <a href="https://www.schemecolor.com/monochromatic-blues-color-scheme.php">lighter and darker shades of blue</a>, for example. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_color">A tertiary palette</a> divides the wheel with three evenly spaced spokes: bright reds, greens and blues. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358219/original/file-20200915-14-46b5nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The color wheel." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358219/original/file-20200915-14-46b5nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358219/original/file-20200915-14-46b5nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358219/original/file-20200915-14-46b5nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358219/original/file-20200915-14-46b5nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358219/original/file-20200915-14-46b5nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358219/original/file-20200915-14-46b5nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358219/original/file-20200915-14-46b5nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A version of the color wheel created by Isaac Newton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-color-circle-to-symbolize-the-human-mind-and-soul-life-news-photo/917742598?adppopup=true">Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the most striking combinations are two hues 180 degrees apart on the color wheel. Due to a phenomenon called “<a href="https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2006/bridges2006-517.pdf">simultaneous contrast</a>,” the presence of a single color is intensified when paired with its complement. Green and purple complement one another, as do yellow and blue. But, according to German scientist, poet and philosopher <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/09/goethes-theory-of-colors-and-kandinsky.html">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</a>, the strongest of the complementary pairings exist in the ranges of – you guessed it – orange and teal.</p>
<p>For movie makers, this color palette can be a powerful tool. Human skin matches a relatively narrow swath of the orange section of the color wheel, <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7e/3b/2f/7e3b2fbcfa0baae19047f54d8f97dd40.jpg">from very light to very dark</a>. A filmmaker who wants to make a human within a scene “<a href="https://cdn.onebauer.media/one/empire-tmdb/films/76341/images/tbhdm8UJAb4ViCTsulYFL3lxMCd.jpg?quality=50&width=1800&ratio=16-9&resizeStyle=aspectfill&format=jpg">pop</a>” can easily do so by setting the “orange-ish” human against a teal background.</p>
<p>Filmmakers can also switch between the two depending on the emotional needs of the scene, with the oscillation adding drama. Orange evokes heat and creates tension while teal connotes its opposite, coolness and languid moodiness. For example, the orange and pink people in many of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGTkgB62754">the chase scenes</a> in “Mad Max: Fury Road” stand out against the complementary sky-blue background. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358257/original/file-20200915-16-102qfex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358257/original/file-20200915-16-102qfex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358257/original/file-20200915-16-102qfex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358257/original/file-20200915-16-102qfex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358257/original/file-20200915-16-102qfex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358257/original/file-20200915-16-102qfex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358257/original/file-20200915-16-102qfex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The chase scene from ‘Mad Max: Fury Road.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warner Bros. Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Oranges and teals are not the sole province of sci-fi movies. David Fincher’s thriller “Zodiac” <a href="https://youtu.be/tnFSymJ3Qgg">is tinged with blues</a>, while <a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTlhNmVkZGUtNjdjOC00YWY3LTljZWQtMTY1YWFhNGYwNDQwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjc1NTYyMjg@._V1_UY1200_CR85,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg">countless</a> <a href="https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/horrormovies/images/c/cf/1002004000000704.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190314174712">horror</a> <a href="https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path%5B6%2F7%2F2%2F0%2F6720372%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5D">movies</a> deploy a reddish-orange palette. There’s even been some backlash to orange and teal, with one filmmaker, Todd Miro, <a href="http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html">calling their overuse</a> “madness” and “a virus.”</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Nonetheless, given the frequency with which sci-fi films wish to subtly unsettle viewers, the palette continues to find frequent application in the genre.</p>
<p>As for West Coast residents unnerved by the murky air and bizarre landscapes, they’re probably wishing their lives felt a lot less like a movie.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johndan Johnson-Eilola does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The eerie San Francisco skyline evoked sci-fi movies for a reason. Filmmakers are increasingly using color grading to tinge their films with two hues, orange and teal, to unsettle viewers.Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Professor of Communication and Media, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1353272020-05-05T18:11:41Z2020-05-05T18:11:41ZWill humans go extinct? For all the existential threats, we’ll likely be here for a very long time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332634/original/file-20200505-83736-1bjqlmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tragedy-victim-human-skull-desert-1179542422">RomanRaD/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Will our species go extinct? The short answer is yes. The fossil record shows everything goes extinct, eventually. Almost all species that ever lived, over 99.9%, are extinct. </p>
<p>Some left descendants. Most – plesiosaurs, trilobites, <em>Brontosaurus</em> – didn’t. That’s also true of other human species. Neanderthals, Denisovans, <em>Homo erectus</em> all vanished, leaving just <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/were-other-humans-the-first-victims-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction-126638">Homo sapiens</a></em>. Humans are inevitably heading for extinction. The question isn’t <em>whether</em> we go extinct, but <em>when</em>. </p>
<p>Headlines often suggest this extinction is imminent. The threat of <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/space-agency-ups-risk-of-asteroid-earth-collision">earth-grazing asteroids</a> is a media favourite. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/11/elon-musk-colonise-mars-third-world-war">Mars</a> is regularly mooted as a bolt hole. And there is the ongoing menace of the climate emergency.</p>
<p>Humans have vulnerabilities. Large, warm-blooded animals like us don’t handle ecological disruptions well. Small, cold-blooded turtles and snakes can last months without food, so they survived. Big animals with fast metabolisms – tyrannosaurs, or humans – require lots of food, constantly. That leaves them vulnerable to even brief food chain disruptions caused by catastrophes such as <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/340/6135/941">volcanoes</a>, <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2006PA001349">global warming</a>, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2016.0007">ice ages</a> or the <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1214">impact winter</a> after an asteroid collision.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327303/original/file-20200411-192985-1fefl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327303/original/file-20200411-192985-1fefl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327303/original/file-20200411-192985-1fefl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327303/original/file-20200411-192985-1fefl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327303/original/file-20200411-192985-1fefl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327303/original/file-20200411-192985-1fefl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327303/original/file-20200411-192985-1fefl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tyrannosaurus quickly became extinct when impact winter made food scarce.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We’re also long-lived, with long generation times, and few offspring. Slow reproduction makes it hard to recover from population crashes, and slows natural selection, making it difficult to adapt to rapid environmental changes. That doomed mammoths, ground sloths, and <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/292/5523/1888">other megafauna</a>. Big mammals reproduced <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/671995">too slowly</a> to withstand, or adapt, to human overhunting.</p>
<p>So we’re vulnerable, but there are reasons to think humans are resistant to extinction, maybe uniquely so. We’re a deeply strange species – widespread, abundant, supremely adoptable – which all suggest we’ll stick around for a while.</p>
<h2>Everywhere and abundant</h2>
<p>First, we’re everywhere. Geographically widespread organisms fare better during catastrophes such as an <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/268/5209/389">asteroid impact</a>, and <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/105/Supplement_1/11528">between mass extinction events</a>. Large geographic range means a species doesn’t put all its eggs in one basket. If one habitat is destroyed, it can survive in another.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22823/14871490">Polar bears</a> and <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/712/121745669">pandas</a>, with small ranges, are endangered. <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/41688/121229971">Brown bears</a> and red foxes, with huge ranges, aren’t. Humans have the largest geographic range of any mammal, inhabiting all continents, remote oceanic islands, in habitats as diverse as deserts, tundra, and rainforest. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327302/original/file-20200411-109282-1t4n0pd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327302/original/file-20200411-109282-1t4n0pd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327302/original/file-20200411-109282-1t4n0pd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327302/original/file-20200411-109282-1t4n0pd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327302/original/file-20200411-109282-1t4n0pd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327302/original/file-20200411-109282-1t4n0pd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327302/original/file-20200411-109282-1t4n0pd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humans exist everywhere, making us difficult to eradicate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And we’re not just everywhere, we’re abundant. With 7.8 billion people, we’re among the most common animals on Earth. Human biomass <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506">exceeds that of all wild mammals</a>. Even assuming a pandemic or nuclear war could eliminate 99% of the population, millions would survive to rebuild.</p>
<p>We’re also generalists. Species that survived the dinosaur-killing asteroid rarely relied on a single food source. They were <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jeb.12882">omnivorous mammals</a>, or predators such as <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/20/6/556/205786">alligators and snapping turtles</a> that eat anything. Humans eat thousands of animal and plant species. Depending on what’s available, we’re herbivores, piscivores, carnivores, omnivores.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332624/original/file-20200505-83745-3wcwmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332624/original/file-20200505-83745-3wcwmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332624/original/file-20200505-83745-3wcwmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332624/original/file-20200505-83745-3wcwmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332624/original/file-20200505-83745-3wcwmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332624/original/file-20200505-83745-3wcwmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332624/original/file-20200505-83745-3wcwmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not picky eaters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crocodile-head-closeup-south-africa-1488773522">Alexander Narrina/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But most importantly, we adapt unlike any other species, through learned behaviours — culture - not DNA. We’re animals, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1001342">we’re mammals</a>, but we’re such weird, special mammals. We’re different. </p>
<p>Rather than taking generations to change our genes, humans use intelligence, culture and tools to adapt our behaviour in years or even minutes. Whales took millions of years to evolve flippers, pointy teeth, sonar. In millenia, humans invented fishhooks, boats and fish-finders. Cultural evolution outpaces even viral evolution. Viral genes <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1002243">evolve in days</a>. It takes a second to ask someone to wash their hands. </p>
<p>Cultural evolution isn’t only faster than genetic evolution, it’s different. In humans, natural selection created an animal capable of intelligent design, one that doesn’t blindly adapt to the environment, but consciously reshapes it to its needs. Horses evolved grinding molars and complex guts to eat plants. People domesticated plants, then cleared forests for crops. Cheetahs evolved speed to pursue their prey. We bred cows and sheep that don’t run. </p>
<p>We’re so uniquely adaptable, we might even survive a mass extinction event. Given a decade of warning before an asteroid strike, humans could probably stockpile enough food to survive years of cold and darkness, saving much or most of the population. Longer-term disruptions, like ice ages, might cause widespread conflicts and population crashes, but civilisations could probably survive. </p>
<p>But this adaptibility sometimes makes us our own worst enemies, too clever for our own good. Changing the world sometimes means changing it for the worse, creating new dangers: nuclear weapons, pollution, overpopulation, climate change, pandemics. So we’ve mitigated these risks with nuclear treaties, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-political-history-of-cap-and-trade-34711212/">pollution controls</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/mar/08/rise-use-contraception-global-population-growth-family-planning">family planning</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/solar-power-is-beginning-to-eclipse-fossil-fuels-11581964338">cheap solar power</a>, vaccines. We’ve escaped every trap we set for ourselves.</p>
<p>So far.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327330/original/file-20200412-138728-1ci0d68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327330/original/file-20200412-138728-1ci0d68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327330/original/file-20200412-138728-1ci0d68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327330/original/file-20200412-138728-1ci0d68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327330/original/file-20200412-138728-1ci0d68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327330/original/file-20200412-138728-1ci0d68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327330/original/file-20200412-138728-1ci0d68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pessimistic scenarios could lead to the breakdown of civilisation.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Interconnected world</h2>
<p>Our global civilisation also invented ways to support each other. People in one part of the world can provide food, money, education,and vaccines to vulnerable people elsewhere. But interconnectivity and interdependence also create vulnerabilities. </p>
<p>International trade, travel and communications link people around the world. So <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393338827/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=the+big+short&qid=1586628329&sr=8-3">financial gambles on Wall Street</a> destroy European economies, violence in one country inspires murderous extremism on the other side of the globe, a virus from a cave in China spreads to threaten the lives and livelihoods of billions.</p>
<p>This suggests a limited optimism. <em>Homo sapiens</em> have already survived over 250,000 years of <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/292/5517/686">ice ages</a>, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25967">eruptions</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plagues-People-William-McNeill/dp/0385121229">pandemics</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp/1471111237/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+making+of+the+atomic+bomb&qid=1586620485&s=books&sr=1-1">world wars</a>. We could easily survive another 250,000 years or, longer. </p>
<p>Pessimistic scenarios might see natural or manmade disasters leading to widespread breakdown of social order, even civilisation and the loss of most of the human population – a grim, post-apocalyptic world. Even so, humans would likely survive, scavenging society’s remains, Mad Max-style, perhaps reverting to subsistence farming, even becoming hunter-gatherers.</p>
<p>Survival sets a pretty low bar. The question isn’t so much whether humans survive the next three or three hundred thousand years, but whether we can do more than just survive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135327/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas R. Longrich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Large numbers, huge ranges, and adaptibility make the human species very difficult to eradicateNicholas R. Longrich, Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology and Paleontology, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1356392020-04-13T12:16:15Z2020-04-13T12:16:15ZAncient texts encouraged hope and endurance when they spoke of end times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327010/original/file-20200409-187559-xmp2p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C4%2C987%2C608&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 14th-century Last Judgment relief from a facade of Orvieto cathedral in Umbria. Italy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/last-judgement-by-lorenzo-maitani-and-assistants-relief-news-photo/1150944710?adppopup=true">De Agostini via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-pictures-of-new-york-city-empty-streets-2020-3">streets deserted</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospital-capacity-crosses-tipping-point-in-u-s-coronavirus-hot-spots-11585215006">hospitals full</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6778532/coronavirus-morgues-bodies-deaths/">morgues struggling</a> to cope with the number of bodies, it isn’t surprising that some people are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-apocalyptic-novels.html">making comparisons</a> with the apocalypse. </p>
<p>The idea of an apocalypse, a time of catastrophic suffering, has existed for thousands of years.</p>
<p>Although things seemed bleak during ancient times of crisis, my <a href="https://kimhaineseitzen.wordpress.com/">research</a> on ancient apocalypticism and its <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300090888/cosmos-chaos-and-world-come">long history</a> suggests that cultivating hope during times of chaos was essential.</p>
<h2>Ancient apocalypticism</h2>
<p>The word apocalypticism comes from the ancient Greek word “apokalypsis,” meaning a “revealing” or a “revelation.” Scholars define <a href="http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/apocalypticism-in-the-bible-and-its-world/336490">apocalypticism</a> as a social and religious movement that sees the world in stark terms, such as dramatic visions that reveal a battle between good and evil and a coming judgment day. </p>
<p>In more general terms, apocalypticism explained the cause of a crisis and how people should respond to it. The future, in most forms of apocalyptic thinking, meant imminent cataclysmic change: a new kingdom, a new world order. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327011/original/file-20200409-92027-1mmc17g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327011/original/file-20200409-92027-1mmc17g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327011/original/file-20200409-92027-1mmc17g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327011/original/file-20200409-92027-1mmc17g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327011/original/file-20200409-92027-1mmc17g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327011/original/file-20200409-92027-1mmc17g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327011/original/file-20200409-92027-1mmc17g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327011/original/file-20200409-92027-1mmc17g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image of woman sitting on the scarlet beast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apocalypse_27._The_woman_sitting_on_a_beast._Revelation_17_v_3._Hooghe._Phillip_Medhurst_Collection.jpg">Phillip Medhurst / Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apocalyptic ideas are an important theme in the Bible. The biblical <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14078.html">Book of Revelation</a>, for example, was written during a time of political upheaval when Christians were being persecuted. </p>
<p>Its dramatic visions included the “woman sitting on a scarlet beast…with seven heads and ten horns.” This vision, which probably alluded to the tyranny of imperial political authorities, was paradoxically a source of inspiration for early Christians, because it gave voice to their suffering. </p>
<p>But long before Revelation was written, apocalyptic thinking took root in ancient Judaism during times of significant political <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/jesus-9780195124743?cc=us&lang=en&">unrest</a>, violent oppression and social devastation. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300139686/book-daniel">Book of Daniel</a> reflects one such crisis: Parts of this book were written in response to the conquests of Jerusalem by a Seleucid king named Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus desecrated the Jewish sacred temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C. by setting up an altar to the God Zeus within the temple’s precincts. </p>
<p>The book addresses the suffering of the people, it recalls the history of violence and portrays this history with terrifying visions. But it also speaks of a coming judgment day that will be followed by a new kingdom – a kingdom that is everlasting and stands in contrast to the oppression of earlier times. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311393/the-complete-dead-sea-scrolls-in-english-by-geza-vermes/">Dead Sea Scrolls</a>, dating to the period just after the apocalyptic writings in the Book of Daniel, spoke of impending terrible battles between good and evil.</p>
<p>Much of what scholars know about the Jewish community that wrote and preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls, speaks to a people in the throes of what appeared to be the end times.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/327976/the-historical-figure-of-jesus-by-e-p-sanders/">origins</a> of Christianity lie in early Jewish apocalyptic worldviews: John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostle Paul all seemed to have apocalyptic worldviews and preached messages about the imminent end times. </p>
<p>With its emphasis on a coming judgment day, one often accompanied by dramatic and destructive transformations, apocalypticism seems pessimistic. It certainly speaks to dire circumstances, as well as to fear and suffering. </p>
<h2>Apocalyptic hope</h2>
<p>But there is an important feature of apocalypticism that is often overlooked and it helps to explain why it continues to resurface throughout <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674003958">history</a> and in our own times. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327144/original/file-20200410-63156-1bu18yr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327144/original/file-20200410-63156-1bu18yr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327144/original/file-20200410-63156-1bu18yr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327144/original/file-20200410-63156-1bu18yr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327144/original/file-20200410-63156-1bu18yr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327144/original/file-20200410-63156-1bu18yr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327144/original/file-20200410-63156-1bu18yr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327144/original/file-20200410-63156-1bu18yr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=980&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St. John the theologian writing the Book of Revelation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.ebyzantinemuseum.gr/?i=bxm.en.exhibit&id=50">Theodoros Poulakis/Byzantine and Christian Virtual Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In powerful and important ways, apocalypticism was about <a href="http://www.paulistpress.com/Products/2242-1/apocalyptic-spirituality.aspx">hope</a>. The ancient Greek word for hope – elpis – illuminates just how closely associated fear and hope were in the ancient world: <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/2404/theological-dictionary-of-the-new-testament.aspx">Elpis</a> referred to the anticipation or expectation of a good and safe future, but it could also refer to the fear of the unknown.</p>
<p>Apocalypticism cultivated a sense of meaning and encouragement through dire circumstances. It sought to make sense of suffering, and it predicted an end to suffering. In doing so, it gave people hope. Above all, apocalyptic thinking bonded people together in uncertain and challenging times. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800631734/Paul-The-Man-and-the-Myth">Paul</a> wrote that the judgment day will come “like a thief in the night” and he encouraged his followers to have “steadfastness of hope” in the midst of crisis. The <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300144888/revelation">Book of Revelation</a> speaks repeatedly about “patient endurance” and it calls for love and faith during times of persecution and oppression.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-new-oxford-annotated-bible-with-apocrypha-9780190276072?cc=us&lang=en&">Book of Daniel</a> writes poetically of those who “will shine like the brightness of the sky” in the time after the apocalypse. Other apocalyptic texts, such as the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140194/old-testament-pseudepigrapha-volume-1">Sibylline Oracles</a>, describe poetically a coming light, a “life without care,” and a time when the “earth will belong equally to all.” </p>
<p>It is this quality of hope and endurance that might be most important for our own time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327154/original/file-20200410-136931-1cda56e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327154/original/file-20200410-136931-1cda56e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327154/original/file-20200410-136931-1cda56e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327154/original/file-20200410-136931-1cda56e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327154/original/file-20200410-136931-1cda56e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327154/original/file-20200410-136931-1cda56e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327154/original/file-20200410-136931-1cda56e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People watch a firefighter play his trumpet from the top of a ladder for residents cooped up at home, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, offering a sign of hope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Brazil-One-Good-Thing-Rio-Fi-/325f662011ed4323bd515d9fc111e2da/4/0">AP Photo/Leo Correa</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Haines-Eitzen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some people are comparing current times with the apocalypse. In ancient texts, apocalyptic messages cultivated endurance and encouragement through dire circumstances.Kim Haines-Eitzen, Professor of Early Christianity, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1354752020-04-06T11:47:42Z2020-04-06T11:47:42ZWhy pandemics are the perfect environment for conspiracy theories to flourish<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325321/original/file-20200403-74243-kcyh93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/coronavirus-sick-man-corona-virus-looking-1669051054">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A bioengineered virus, a genetic mutation induced by 5G technology, a big pharma conspiracy, a plot single-handedly masterminded by Bill Gates or Georges Soros. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, conspiracy theories <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-a-breeding-ground-for-conspiracy-theories-heres-why-thats-a-serious-problem-132489">have spread like the virus itself</a>.</p>
<p>The whiff of conspiracy that inevitably seems to trail pandemics is nothing new. When the 1918 flu pandemic hit the Americas, it was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/03/23/spanish-flu-chinese-virus-trump/">blamed on German submarines spreading the virus</a>. During the 1630 plague in Milan, the combination of folk superstitions and widespread anxiety led to the trial, torture and execution of two citizens falsely accused of spreading the pestilence – a case minutely examined by the Italian novelist <a href="http://www.letteraturaitaliana.net/pdf/Volume_8/t229.pdf">Alessandro Manzoni</a>. </p>
<p>In his work on witchcraft, Carlo Ginzburg tells of <a href="https://www.adelphi.it/libro/9788845932168">persecutions against lepers and Jews in 14th century France</a>. According to some chronicles, rumour had it that the Jews, acting on behalf of the Muslim prince of Grenada, had bribed the lepers so they would contaminate public fountains and wells in order to kill the Christians. Clearly, contemporary tales of viral bioweapons build upon a very old theme.</p>
<p>Like conspiracy theories, pandemics are about an invisible and powerful enemy hiding among us. Like pandemics, conspiracy theories are contagious or, as we say today, “viral”. But beyond these superficial similarities, they are connected by deeper affinities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325323/original/file-20200403-74243-1pzsk0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325323/original/file-20200403-74243-1pzsk0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325323/original/file-20200403-74243-1pzsk0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325323/original/file-20200403-74243-1pzsk0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325323/original/file-20200403-74243-1pzsk0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325323/original/file-20200403-74243-1pzsk0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325323/original/file-20200403-74243-1pzsk0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The great plague of Milan in 1630 spawned talk of conspiracy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/f24fumfe">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Apocalypse now</h2>
<p>Pandemics are surrounded by a sense of impending apocalypse. Throughout history, they have been understood as final tribulations, a sign of the end time. In 1523, during a plague outbreak, while the richest inhabitants of Florence had scrambled for their countryside villas, those who had remained in the city were barricaded in their homes and trying to make sense of their predicament. </p>
<p>Florentine statesman Niccolò Machiavelli, who witnessed the episode first hand, <a href="http://www.storiaeletteratura.it/catalogo/epistola-della-peste/8530">observed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many are looking for the cause behind this affliction, some say the predictions of the astrologists threaten us, others that the prophets had predicted it; there are those who remember some prodigy … so that everyone concludes that not only the plague, but an infinite number of other calamities are to befall us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today, only religious fundamentalists interpret the coronavirus pandemic as an omen of the final judgement or end times. Yet, apocalyptic thinking does not necessarily have to be religious or to countenance the end of earthly existence. </p>
<p>Italian anthropologist Ernesto de Martino proposed the idea of “<a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_ASSR_161_0127--apocalyptic-issues-in-italian.htm">cultural apocalypses</a>” to designate the sense that a specific historical world is ending. For de Martino and his contemporaries in the mid-20th century, this manifested itself in the sense of existential crisis permeating post-war culture and in the actual possibility of atomic annihilation, but he intended the notion to apply to a wide range of historical situations. </p>
<p>We are living through such a cultural apocalypse today, as it becomes increasingly clear that the world as we know it is fast becoming a thing of the past and that whatever lies ahead will be utterly different. We have become the quarantined spectators of an unfolding catastrophe that underscores the frailty of the world we took for granted and of our own presence in it. </p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320763/original/file-20200316-128086-glagrj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/expert-guide-to-conspiracy-theories-83678">Expert guide to conspiracy theories</a>, a series by The Conversation’s Anthill podcast. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-anthill-podcast-27460">Listen here</a>, on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-anthill/id1114423002?mt=2">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/265Bnp4BgwaEmFv2QciIOC?si=-WMr1ecDTsO_6avrkxZu8g">Spotify</a>, or search for The Anthill wherever you get your podcasts.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>When paranoia prevails</h2>
<p>The impression that the world is dissolving and our impotence to stop this can make us feel a paralysing anxiety, incompatible with any productive form of social and cultural life. For de Martino, ancient mythologies, religions and even progressive secular cultures have contained this risk by emphasising a future around which a community could exist.</p>
<p>Without this, the apocalyptic experience becomes totally alienating. When all the certainties grounding our existence are shaken, it is easy to feel paranoid. Or, <a href="https://www.einaudi.it/catalogo-libri/antropologia-e-religione/antropologia/la-fine-del-mondo-ernesto-de-martino-9788806143565/">as de Martino put it</a>, to sense hostile forces and feel victim of “conspiracies, machinations, curses”. Conspiracy theories and paranoid visions are the flipside of a cultural crisis in which the idea of a shared future has collapsed.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.bollatiboringhieri.it/libri/ernesto-de-martino-il-mondo-magico-9788833917771/">an earlier work</a>, de Martino observed that extreme situations of “suffering and deprivation” could trigger such existential crises. He mentioned wars, but he might as well have added pandemics. Self-isolation and quarantine epitomise the idea of being removed from the world and any sense of community. In these conditions it is easy to succumb to paranoia, especially if it is stirred up by cynical and reactionary politicians. </p>
<p>Unlike religious ideas of apocalypse, the secular version of conspiracy theories offers no element of redemption. Conspiracy theories perpetuate the paranoid sense of disaffection and powerlessness – the idea that evil forces are at work, which one has little power to stop. They further isolate people and deprive them of feeling that they can shape their own world, let alone make it a better one. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/3075-nine-lives-of-neoliberalism">political culture of the past 50 years</a> has failed to offer the vast majority of people a sense of their own worthiness and to protect them against the existential risk of losing their livelihoods – indeed, their world. The current pandemic pushes us into the terminal phase of this crisis. The only way out consists of turning apocalyptic ideas on their head and ensuring that the end we are witnessing will not be an endless agony but a new beginning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicolas Guilhot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Like conspiracy theories, pandemics are about an invisible and powerful enemy hiding among us.Nicolas Guilhot, Senior Research Associate, CNRS and Visiting Professor, City College of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1236512019-10-08T12:23:13Z2019-10-08T12:23:13ZFundamentalism turns 100, a landmark for the Christian Right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295839/original/file-20191007-121051-gxto9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C32%2C5398%2C3538&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christian fundamentalists have become a politically powerful group since the movement's foundation in 1919.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/649879327?src=tYC8s-EhwheQWAZKj9_FfQ-1-21&size=huge_jpg">Raul Cano/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>These days, the term “fundamentalism” is often <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=hst_fac_pub">associated with a militant form of Islam</a>. </p>
<p>But the original fundamentalist movement was actually <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=hst_fac_pub">Christian</a>. And it was born in the United States a century ago this year.</p>
<p>Protestant fundamentalism is still very much alive. And, as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/susan-l-trollinger-and-william-vance-trollinger-jr-righting-america-at-the-creation-museum-baltimore-johns-hopkins-university-press-2016-2695-pp-344-isbn-978-1-4214-1951-0/6448C35DF86684FBF419A1B1D166AE7F">Susan Trollinger and I</a> discuss in our <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/righting-america-creation-museum">2016 book</a>, it has fueled today’s culture war over gender, sexual orientation, science and American religious identity.</p>
<h2>Roots of Fundamentalism</h2>
<p>Christian fundamentalism has roots in the 19th century, when Protestants were confronted by two challenges to traditional understandings of the Bible. </p>
<p>Throughout the century, scholars increasingly evaluated the Bible as a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">historical text</a>. In the process they raised questions about its divine origins, given its seeming inconsistencies and errors.</p>
<p>In addition, Charles Darwin’s 1859 book “<a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=eng_fac_pub">On the Origin of Species</a>” – which laid out the theory of evolution by natural selection – raised profound questions about the Genesis account of creation. </p>
<p>Many American Protestants easily squared their Christian faith with these ideas. Others were horrified. </p>
<p>Conservative theologians responded by developing the doctrine of <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=eng_fac_pub">biblical inerrancy</a>. Inerrancy asserts that the Bible is errorless and factually accurate in everything it says – including about science. </p>
<p>This doctrine became the theological touchstone of fundamentalism. Alongside inerrancy emerged a system of ideas, called <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God%27s%20Empire&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">apocalyptic or “dispensational premillennialism</a>.” </p>
<p>Adherents of these ideas hold that reading the Bible literally – particularly the Book of Revelation – reveals that history will end soon with a ghastly apocalypse. </p>
<p>All those who are not true Christians will be slaughtered. In the wake of this violence, Christ will establish God’s millennial kingdom on Earth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295837/original/file-20191007-121088-1mhtrcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christian fundamentalists have remained consistent in their core beliefs for a century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1535472?src=ES6KBBIsK_9SunrzYTxe-Q-2-92&size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Setting the stage</h2>
<p>A series of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God%27s%20Empire&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">Bible and prophecy conferences</a> spread these ideas to thousands of Protestants across the United States in the late 19th century. </p>
<p>But two early 20th-century publications were particularly key to their dissemination. </p>
<p>The first was author <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">Cyrus Scofield’s 1909 Reference Bible</a>. Scofield’s Bible included an overwhelming set of footnotes emphasizing that the errorless Bible predicts a violent end of history which only true Christians will survive.</p>
<p>The second was “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">The Fundamentals</a>,” 12 volumes published between 1910 and 1915 which <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469633435/guaranteed-pure/">made the case</a> for biblical inerrancy while simultaneously attacking socialism and affirming capitalism. </p>
<p>“The Fundamentals” provided the name of the future religious movement. But there was not yet a fundamentalist movement. </p>
<p>That came after World War I. </p>
<h2>The birth of the Fundamentalist Movement</h2>
<p>After Woodrow Wilson’s April 1917 declaration of war on Germany, the government <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/12/propaganda-america-wwi/">mobilized a huge propaganda campaign</a> designed to demonize the Germans as barbarous Huns who threatened Western civilization. Many conservative Protestants traced Germany’s devolution into depravity to its <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=hst_fac_pub">embrace of Darwinism and de-emphasis of the Bible’s divine origins</a>. </p>
<p>Six months after the war’s end, William Bell Riley – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God's%20Empire&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">pastor of Minneapolis’ First Baptist Church</a> and a well-known speaker on the Bible’s prophecies regarding the end of history – organized and presided over the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God%27s%20Empire&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">World’s Conference on Christian Fundamentals in Philadelphia</a>. </p>
<p>This five-day May 1919 meeting attracted over 6,000 people and an all-star lineup of conservative Protestant speakers. It produced <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DE-HQpppDd8C&lpg=PP1&dq=God%27s%20Empire&pg=PA38#v=onepage&q=God's%20Empire&f=true">the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association</a>, which birthed a movement that influences American political and social life today. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807861912/in-the-beginning/">summer and fall of 1919</a> Riley sent teams of speakers to spread the fundamentalist word across the U.S. In addition to promoting biblical inerrancy and apocalyptic premillennialism, they attacked socialism and Darwinism. </p>
<p>Soon, Riley and his newly minted fundamentalists began trying to <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hst_fac_pub">capture control of major Protestant denominations</a> and <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hst_fac_pub">eliminate the teaching of Darwinian evolution</a> from American public schools.</p>
<p>The anti-evolution crusade had some success in the South. <a href="http://www.antievolution.org/topics/law/">Five states</a> passed laws banning the theory of evolution from classrooms. </p>
<p>In March 1925 Tennessee <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090520091924/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/tennstat.htm#">made it illegal</a> to teach “that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” Four months later a science teacher named John Scopes was tried and convicted of violating the statute.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295834/original/file-20191007-121071-3rkohb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A historic marker outside the Dayton, Tenn., courthouse where the 1925 Scopes Trial was held.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Scopes-Monkey-Statue/fa25ca37ffb94b1d808de61f4a5d003c/59/0">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fundamentalism after Scopes</h2>
<p>Though the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">Scopes Trial</a> brought ridicule by the national media, fundamentalism did not wither away. </p>
<p>Instead, it <a href="https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=hst_fac_pub">continued to advance</a> during the 20th century. And it remained remarkably consistent in its <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">central commitments</a> of biblical inerrancy, apocalyptic premillennialism, creationism and patriarchy – the idea that women are to submit to male authority in church and home. </p>
<p>Fundamentalists also embraced political conservatism. This commitment grew more intense as the 20th century progressed. </p>
<p><a href="https://rightingamerica.net/books/gods-empire-william-bell-riley-and-midwestern-fundamentalism/">Fundamentalists</a> despised <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal</a>. They saw welfare to the poor and increased taxes on the rich as an indefensible expansion of government powers. </p>
<p>When the Cold War brought the United States into conflict with the Soviet Union, their concerns about the all-encompassing, anti-Christian state <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">intensified</a>. </p>
<p>Then came the 1960s and 1970s. </p>
<p>Fundamentalists bitterly <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">opposed</a> the civil rights and feminist movements, the Supreme Court’s rulings <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-engel-v-vitale">prohibiting school-sponsored prayer</a> and <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade">affirming a woman’s right to an abortion</a>, and President Lyndon Johnson’s programs that sought to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307834/the-fierce-urgency-of-now-by-julian-e-zelizer/">eliminate poverty and racial injustice</a>.</p>
<h2>Fundamentalists go political</h2>
<p>Understanding Christian America to be under deadly assault, in the late 1970s these politically conservative fundamentalists began to organize. </p>
<p>The emergent Christian Right attached itself to the Republican Party, which was more aligned with its members’ central commitments than the Democrats.</p>
<p>In the vanguard was Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell Sr. His “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">Moral Majority</a>” sought to <a href="https://theconversation.com/revisiting-the-legacy-of-jerry-falwell-sr-in-trumps-america-79551">make America Christian again</a> by electing “pro-family, pro-life, pro-Bible morality” candidates. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295819/original/file-20191007-121075-2fm4q6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Ronald Reagan with pastor Jerry Falwell Sr., in March 1983.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Reagan_with_Jerry_Falwell_C13442-5A-1.jpg">White House/ Ronald Reagan Presidential Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the 1980s, the movement has become increasingly sophisticated. Christian Right organizations like <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">Focus on the Family and Concerned Women of America</a> push for laws that reflect the fundamentalist views on everything from abortion to sexual orientation.<br>
By the time Falwell died, in 2007, the Christian Right had become the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lOf-CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=Righting%20America%20at%20the%20Creation%20Museum&f=false">most important constituency in the Republican Party</a>. It played a crucial role in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/opinion/trump-christian-right-values.html">electing Donald Trump in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>After one century, Protestant fundamentalism is still very much alive in America. William Bell Riley, I wager, would be pleased.</p>
<p>
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<header>William Trollinger (with co-author Susan Trollinger) is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/righting-america-creation-museum">Righting America at the Creation Museum</a></p>
<footer>Johns Hopkins University Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
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</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johns Hopkins University Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</span></em></p>Protestant fundamentalism was officially born in the United States in 1919, fueling a culture war that continues today.William Trollinger, Professor of History, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1215322019-08-22T12:36:57Z2019-08-22T12:36:57ZWhite nationalists’ extreme solution to the coming environmental apocalypse<p>White nationalists around the world are appropriating the language of environmentalism. </p>
<p>The white nationalist <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/8/3/20753049/el-paso-walmart-cielo-vista-mall-shooting-what-we-know">who allegedly massacred 22 people in El Paso in early August</a> posted a four-page screed on the chatroom 8chan. In it, the shooter blames his attack on the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and the impending “cultural and ethnic replacement” of whites in America. </p>
<p>The shooter also refers directly to the lengthy manifesto written by the man who allegedly murdered 52 in March in attacks motivated by Islamophobia on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. </p>
<p>The Christchurch shooter called himself an “ecofascist” who believes there is no <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/white-nationalists-discover-the-environment/595489/">“nationalism without environmentalism.”</a> The El Paso shooter titled his rant “An Inconvenient Truth,” apparently in reference to <a href="https://www.algore.com/library/an-inconvenient-truth-dvd">Al Gore’s 2006 documentary</a> warning about the dangers of climate change. He also praised “<a href="https://www.seussville.com/books/book_detail.php?isbn=9780394823379">The Lorax</a>,” Dr. Seuss’ classic story about deforestation and corporate greed.</p>
<p>The prominence of environmental themes in these manifestos is not an oddity. Instead, it signals the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15691497-12341514">rise of ecofascism as a core ideology of contemporary white nationalism</a>, a trend I uncovered when conducting research for my recent book, <a href="http://www.beacon.org/Proud-Boys-in-the-White-Ethno-State-P1470.aspx">“Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination</a>.”</p>
<h2>The roots of ecofascism</h2>
<p>Ecofascists combine anxieties about the demographic changes they characterize as “white extinction” with fantasies of pristine lands free of nonwhites and free of pollution. </p>
<p>Ecofascism’s roots trace back to early 1900s when <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/ecofascism-lessons-from-the-german-experience/oclc/33131890">romantic notions of communion with the land took hold in Germany</a>. These ideas found expression in the concept of “lebensraum” or living spaces, and in attempts to create an exclusive Aryan fatherhood in which <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2018/09/eco-fascism-ideology-marrying-environmentalism-and-white-supremacy">“blood and soil” racial nationalism</a> reigned supreme. The concept of lebensraum was integral to the expansionist and genocidal policies of the Third Reich.</p>
<p>There is a long thread that ties xenophobia to right-wing environmentalism. In the U.S., strains of ecofascism appeared in the incipient environmental movement, espoused by racialists like <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42628761">Madison Grant</a>, who in the 1920s championed the preservation of native flora including California’s redwood trees, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/environmentalisms-racist-history">while demonizing nonwhite immigrants</a>. </p>
<p>After World War II, in the name of protecting forests and rivers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html">nativist organizations opposed to arrivals from non-European countries</a> stoked fears of overpopulation and rampant immigration. </p>
<p>A meme popular online among the far-right and ecofascists is <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/what-is-eco-fascism">“save trees, not refugees.”</a> Often ecofascist memes take the form of emojis like <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2018/09/eco-fascism-ideology-marrying-environmentalism-and-white-supremacy">the popular Norse rune known as Algiz, or the “life” rune</a>. This rune, favored by Heinrich Himmler and the SS, is one of many alternative symbols to swastikas that circulate online to dog whistle neo-Nazism allegiances. </p>
<h2>Deep ecology</h2>
<p>Many ecofascists today gravitate toward <a href="http://www.deepecology.org/deepecology.htm">“deep ecology,”</a> the philosophy developed by the Norwegian Arne Naess in the early 1970s. Naess wanted to distinguish “deep ecology,” which he characterized as reverence for all living things, from what he viewed as faddish “shallow ecology.” </p>
<p>Jettisoning Naess’ belief in the value of biological diversity, far-right thinkers have perverted deep ecology, imagining that the world is intrinsically unequal and that racial and gender hierarchies are part of nature’s design. </p>
<p>Deep ecology celebrates a quasi-spiritual connection to the land. As I show in my book, in its white nationalist version only men – white or European men – can truly commune with nature in a meaningful, transcendent way. This cosmic quest fuels their desire to preserve, by force if necessary, pure lands for white people. </p>
<p>White nationalists today look to the Finnish ecofascist Pentti Linkola, who advocates for stringent immigration restriction, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2019/mar/20/eco-fascism-is-undergoing-a-revival-in-the-fetid-culture-of-the-extreme-right">“the reversion to pre-industrial life ways, and authoritarian measures to keep human life within strict limits.”</a></p>
<p>Reflecting on Linkola’s ideas, the white nationalist webzine Counter-Currents impels white men to take ecofascist action, saying that it is their duty to “safeguard the sanctity of the Earth.”</p>
<h2>Why partisan labels don’t apply</h2>
<p>This background helps to explain why the Christchurch shooter called himself <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/what-is-eco-fascism">an “ecofascist”</a> and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59nmv5/eco-fascism-the-racist-theory-that-inspired-the-el-paso-and-christchurch-shooters-and-is-gaining-followers">discussed environmental issues in his rambling screed</a>.</p>
<p>The El Paso shooter offered more specific examples. In addition to mentioning the “The Lorax,” he criticized Americans for failing to recycle and for wanton waste of single-use plastics. </p>
<p>Their crusade to save white people from erasure through multiculturalism and immigration mirrors their crusade to preserve nature from environmental destruction and overpopulation.</p>
<p>The conventional wisdom in the public is that <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbw55j/understanding-the-alt-rights-growing-fascination-with-eco-fascism">environmentalism is the province of liberals</a>, if not of the left, with its commitments to environmental justice and carbon neutrality.</p>
<p>Yet the ubiquity of environmental concerns among white nationalists shows that distinctions between liberal and conservative are not necessarily germane when assessing the ideologies of the far-right today. </p>
<p>If current trends continue, the future will be one of intensified global warming and extreme weather patterns. There will be an increase in climate refugees, often seeking respite in the global north. In this context, I think that white nationalists will be primed to merge the prospect of climate calamities with their anxieties about white extinction. </p>
<p>Census projections indicate that around 2050 the U.S. will become <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/us/white-americans-minority-population.html">a majority nonwhite country</a>. For white nationalists, this demographic clock ticks more loudly each day. Both the Christchurch and the El Paso shooters invoke the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/04/the-french-origins-of-you-will-not-replace-us">“Great Replacement” theory</a>, or the distorted idea that whites are being demographically outnumbered, to the point of extinction, by immigrants and racial others.</p>
<p>Given the patterns I see emerging, I believe that the public needs to recognize ecofascism as a dangerous cloud gathering on the horizon. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Minna Stern does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>White nationalists in the US and Europe are appropriating the language of environmentalism.Alexandra Minna Stern, Professor of American Culture, History, and Women's Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1188672019-06-24T09:09:34Z2019-06-24T09:09:34ZWe spoke to survivalists prepping for disaster: here’s what we learned about the end of the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280753/original/file-20190621-61767-19c6l8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/remains-destroyed-houses-sunset-apocalyptic-landscape-343138097?src=QM2UQruE-wE3KnHBQJ083w-1-98&studio=1">Nouskrabs/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are all fucked. A crude though oft-uttered sigh which tries to encapsulate an intense, but vague anxiety we experience on many fronts. What’s causing it? The possibility of climate-induced <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/climate-change-and-the-new-age-of-extinction">population extinction</a>, the development of so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">NBIC</a> (nano-bio-info-cogno-) technologies, global financial collapse and the exponential development of <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-essential-guide-to-the-rise-of-the-intelligent-machines-30228">potentially malevolent machine intelligence</a>, to name but a few. <a href="https://theconversation.com/doomsday-clock-moves-closer-to-midnight-but-can-we-really-predict-the-end-of-the-world-36632">The Doomsday Clock</a>, a symbolic gauge of our risk of <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1030.1553&rep=rep1&type=pdf">obliterating humanity</a>, has never been closer to “midnight”.</p>
<p>Of course, the end of humanity is as old as humanity itself – astrologists and religious orders have predicted that the world will end for millenia. But the types of risks we’re concerned by today really are quite distinctive to our era: they are irreversible, they have planetary (and in some cases extra-planetary) reach, and they have new technological textures. These risks have been described as “existential” because they threaten to cause, as the philosopher Nick Bostrom <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Superintelligence.html?id=7_H8AwAAQBAJ">has written</a>: “The extinction of Earth-originating intelligent life or to otherwise permanently and drastically destroy its potential for future desirable development.”</p>
<p>As a result, the phenomenon of “prepping” – a predominantly American phenomenon of storing food, water and weapons, and developing self-sufficiency skills for independently surviving disasters – is on the rise. This can be seen in the increasing amount of literature, podcasts, <a href="https://theconversation.com/apocalypse-now-why-the-movies-want-the-world-to-end-every-year-11496">movies</a> and TV shows on the subject, fictional and “<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tv-viewers-guide-to-surviving-the-apocalypse-20060">real</a>”, along with the inevitable growth in related <a href="https://www.finder.com/doomsday-prepper-statistics">consumer</a> markets (such as camping equipment and bushcraft courses) that speak to the anxiety of existential risk. Growing prominence in Europe brought us to research this area. </p>
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<h2>Beyond tin foil hats</h2>
<p>Media accounts tend to focus on the peculiarities of prepping through extreme examples: reports of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand">Silicon Valley elite</a> buying up bolt holes in remote New Zealand or the tin-foil hat wearing, forest-inhabiting eccentric. But prepping is not a marginal subculture, but a precautionary response people have to permanent crisis, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2019.1631875">our research</a> reveals. By analysing and engaging with online forums and speaking at length with a series of self-identified preppers, it became clear that most preppers aren’t so out of the ordinary. </p>
<p>Listening to preppers, you can begin to understand their reasoning. They often talk about their prepper lives as originating from some trigger or turning point – such as an insider seeing financial collapse firsthand and the house of cards it reveals, or the difficulties that come with illness or unemployment. After these realisations, our interviewees explained that they transition from being a woefully under-prepared to a prepared individual.</p>
<p>Our research concentrated on European preppers, who are somewhat differentiated from the American stereotype. We found that the European prepper views the culture of their American counterparts as political, religious, weaponised and misogynistic. They feel that the media attention this receives delegitimises the emphasis on rationality and practicality that is embedded into their practices.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280759/original/file-20190621-61729-3jwtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The grid: far from trustworthy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/high-voltage-power-lines-197286998?src=MPU_7kb9OGAtW9PLxn9AdA-1-83&studio=1">Naufal MQ/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, common sense is the most valued currency in European prepper culture. They are profoundly distrustful of the ability of institutions to face crises. And in comparison to some popular accounts, we found that preppers are often more concerned with mundane failures of the system (electricity cuts or pension losses) than the more spectacular apocalyptic aesthetics associated with prepping culture (such as environmental collapse or nuclear fallout).</p>
<p>They know they are ridiculed and stigmatised – a consequence of the American stereotype. Their online forums are filled with warnings: if you are a journalist, keep out. They are concerned with “op-sec” (operational security): concerns about personal privacy and the strategic advantage of withholding information about the location of resources in the eventuality that any “prep” may be put into practice. Again, such practices are framed within the narrative of common sense. Common sense is claimed in order to reject its opposite: paranoia.</p>
<h2>Bin bags and radios</h2>
<p>Preppers consider people who don’t prepare – the rest of society – as shockingly ignorant of the world around them. It is “we” who are abnormal. The dependent civilian is variously viewed as oblivious, dilettantish, complacent and trusting, while the prepper is watchful. Preparation is seen as a type of foresight that is missing in ordinary consumers. </p>
<p>A prepper looks at the world differently: far from a smart, interconnected and highly functioning infrastructure subject to the rule of law, the city is a jungle where the lone prepper negotiates manifold dangers. This is why they carry “preps” with them at all times – from fire-making equipment to bin bags to radios – in their pantries, in their cars, on their person. One prepper told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I always carry two or three bin bags so I can make shelter no matter where I go. One of the bin bags can be used to make a roof and I could fill the others with leaves to create comfort and heat.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/280760/original/file-20190621-61751-1hq4kx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Commercial heaven or chaotic hell?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-midtown-manhattan-sunset-st-453884227?src=KZZd7XhsbRKk0KVITiVcFA-1-16&studio=1">TierneyMJ/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Preppers pour scorn on consumer-centric technological interfaces such as social media and invest their time in pre-digital technologies like primitive fire and farming. Again, common sense is the most valued currency. </p>
<p>So what will happen to the rest of us? The prepper has trained for a world without a market system and considered what will happen when the dependent civilian comes calling. In common scenarios (such as electricity cuts, council water repairs) preppers tend to depict themselves as generous, helping out dependant neighbours despite the mocking it still often brings.</p>
<p>But in the ashes of a more serious consumer collapse, our conversations revealed an implicit subtext that when the shit does hit the fan, it will be everyone for themselves. And ultimately, it will be your neighbour that presents the biggest threat. Again, this is the common sense reality for preppers living in a world where the majority of people are seen as under-prepared, for whatever disaster we may befall.</p>
<h2>Prepper lessons</h2>
<p>When we think about escaping the constraints of the capitalistic dominant economy we are often met with utopian connotations of a “sustainable society” that places emphasis on community, cooperation, sharing and caring. The preppers offer a different take on what a “sustainable” world looks like, one grounded in ideologies of protectionism and self-preservation.</p>
<p>This echoes the 17th-century philosopher <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/hobbess-leviathan">Thomas Hobbes’s</a> famous suggestion that in the absence of institutions humans would become trapped in a cycle of violence – “a warre of all against all”. In other words, community is dangerous and consumption requires bunkering down. </p>
<p>Such individualistic “prepper” modes of thinking are likely to germinate further within society, particularly in the face of the current climate crisis. And this must be considered when we think of the practicalities of alternative systems to the neoliberal marketplace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We spoke at length with a series of self-identified preppers. It became clear that most aren’t so out of the ordinary.Gary Sinclair, Lecturer in Marketing, Dublin City UniversityNorah Campbell, Associate Professor in Marketing, Trinity College DublinSarah Browne, Assistant Professor in Marketing, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1079812018-12-21T11:00:51Z2018-12-21T11:00:51ZFallout 76: the lingering appeal of the post-apocalypse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250716/original/file-20181214-185258-11vnf4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Apocalyptic visions of the future have a popular place in the gaming imagination. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/2d-digital-illustration-destroyed-city-1173100816?src=VHF0E_ZnaBojvwKlP7CUGA-1-0">SugaBom86/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The release of <a href="https://fallout.bethesda.net/">Fallout 76</a>, the latest in Bethesda’s nuclear-themed video game franchise, is going down as a blockbuster game done badly. </p>
<p>Described by Brandin Tyrrel from IGN Entertainment as a “<a href="https://me.ign.com/en/fallout-76/155496/review/fallout-76-review">technically shaky</a>” game of contradictory experiences and monotonous play, sales of the title are already 80% down on Fallout 4 which was released in 2015. One reviewer described his time playing Fallout 76 as “<a href="https://www.pcworld.com/article/3323056/gaming/fallout-76-review.html">almost hell, West Virginia</a>” in reference to American singer-songwriter John Denver’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vrEljMfXYo">Country Roads</a> (1971) track employed to market the game. Usually a safe commercial tactic (think <a href="https://www.callofduty.com/uk/en/">Call of Duty</a> and <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/buy-now/battle-royale">Fortnite</a>), Bethesda’s decision to transform a rich single-player game into an online multiplayer experience has massively backfired. It’s a shame, as the series traditionally has much to offer those interested in American culture.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fortnite-gamers-are-motivated-not-addicted-98718">Fortnite gamers are motivated, not addicted</a>
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<p>Fallout has proven so well-liked and successful because of its detailed exploration of one of the video game industry’s favourite settings: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170815-why-video-games-are-obsessed-with-the-apocalypse">the end of the world and the post-apocalypse</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250781/original/file-20181216-185240-1sh0xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250781/original/file-20181216-185240-1sh0xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250781/original/file-20181216-185240-1sh0xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250781/original/file-20181216-185240-1sh0xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250781/original/file-20181216-185240-1sh0xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250781/original/file-20181216-185240-1sh0xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250781/original/file-20181216-185240-1sh0xcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fallout 76.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bethesda Game Studios</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.playthepast.org/?p=4101">Stories of the Cold War going hot</a>, and of dangerous forces taking over, have been a staple of the video game narrative for some time. In the early 1980s, when US President Ronald Reagan embarked on a period of saber-rattling with the Soviet Union, titles such as Atari’s <a href="https://www.retrogames.cz/play_080-Atari2600.php?language=EN">Missile Command</a> (1980), Access’ <a href="https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Raid_over_Moscow">Raid Over Moscow</a> (1984) and Coleco’s <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/colecovision/wargames-">WarGames</a> (1984) – based on the 1983 American Cold War sci-fi movie of the same name, starring Matthew Broderick – all explored public attitudes around nuclear war. As film studies professor <a href="http://gamestudies.org/1802/articles/mcclancy">Kathleen McClancy contends</a>, the Fallout series itself is an exercise in Cold War nostalgia.</p>
<p>More recently, titles such as <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/the-last-of-us-part-ii-ps4/">The Last of Us</a> (2013), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Survive">Just Survive</a> (2015) - now discontinued - and <a href="https://www.guerrilla-games.com/play/horizon">Horizon Zero Dawn</a> (2017) have entertained different kinds of apocalyptic endgames. It seems there is no let up in the desire for disaster fiction.</p>
<h2>Playing on society’s fears</h2>
<p>Across almost five decades of play, video games have raised intriguing ideas about the end of <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/gamer-nation">America as a nation</a>, as well as what might emerge in its place. Themes of technology that has run amok, of evil rogue leaders, and of imminent environmental collapse, are commonplace, reflective of society’s own fears. </p>
<p>In Naughty Dog’s highly-acclaimed The Last of Us, players follow a Texan father and a teenage girl as they navigate a United States devastated by a fungus contagion. In one early scene they wade through a flooded, <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-last-of-us-and-the-post-apocalypse-by-darran-anderson">destitute metropolis</a>, a clear allusion to the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005. Video games have continually offered valuable social, political and ecological commentary.</p>
<p>Unlike other media, video games have also granted people the opportunity to explore apocalyptic scenarios for themselves. Video games have encouraged gamers to psychologically process conflicts such as the Cold War and the <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479805228/">War on Terror</a> as intimate events; allowing the traditional spectator to become an active (albeit fictional) participant. For example, in New World Computing’s <a href="https://classicreload.com/nuclear-war.html">Nuclear War</a> (1989), a Spitting Image-style satire of superpower conflict, players saw “their” thumbs on screen pressing red buttons to release nuclear arsenals, linking them directly to the ensuing carnage, while in Crytek’s <a href="https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/crysis/crysis-2">Crysis 2</a> (2011), the player, serving as a US Marine, defends New York City block by block from (extraterrestrial) terrorists. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/red-dead-redemption-2-can-a-video-game-be-too-realistic-106404">Red Dead Redemption 2: can a video game be too realistic?</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Going nuclear</h2>
<p>The Fallout series has allowed gamers to explore the radioactive American wasteland in greater detail than most titles. In Fallout, players work long hours to scavenge resources, eek out an existence, and ultimately contribute to a new society. </p>
<p>In Fallout 76, the action takes place in an <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/13/17969452/fallout-76-west-virginia-locations">impressively rendered West Virginia</a> – a rewarding experience of atomic-themed tourism. The West Virginia Tourism Board and State Governor Jim Justice both worked with Bethesda on promoting the title, and in-game locations closely resemble their real-life, non-radioactive counterparts. The locations also resemble actual ghost towns of the atomic age, with the abandoned Ferris Wheel at Tyler County Fairgrounds in the game eerily reminiscent of that found in the deserted amusement park of Pripyat, near Chernobyl.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250678/original/file-20181214-185249-1xpk6f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250678/original/file-20181214-185249-1xpk6f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250678/original/file-20181214-185249-1xpk6f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250678/original/file-20181214-185249-1xpk6f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250678/original/file-20181214-185249-1xpk6f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250678/original/file-20181214-185249-1xpk6f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250678/original/file-20181214-185249-1xpk6f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Radioactive Dodgems in Pripyat, Chernobyl.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-broken-rusty-metal-radioactive-yellow-1110976361?src=4MJJMy5uUzextWdJ5IR27Q-1-0">ByBatman/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>However, what is missing in the new Fallout title is an engrossing narrative to back up the apocalyptic visuals. With its new multiplayer focus and decision to cast aside computer-controlled characters (all characters in the game are played by other players), Bethesda has produced a game of limited story and cultural relevance. Fallout 76 exists as a stripped down version of prior Fallout games, a digital ruin to wander through but without purpose.</p>
<p>While exploring the atomic wasteland is always strangely alluring, as players we typically want a deeper motivation: be it some people to save or a valid reason to rebuild. While Bethesda’s catchy slogan of “Reclamation Day” (a play on Independence Day) initially promises exactly that, of rebuilding a nation, there is simply not enough reason to survive the apocalypse in Fallout 76.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Wills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Post-apocalyptic visions reflect society’s fears – and gamers get to immerse themselves in it.John Wills, Scholar in American Studies/Cultural Studies, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073422018-12-20T21:37:13Z2018-12-20T21:37:13ZUnderstanding apocalyptic events through literature<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251031/original/file-20181217-185255-3crs08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The movie 'Children of Men,' based on the book of the same name by P.D. James, shows how people come together in a tragedy. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>In recent years, we have seen an epic scale of destruction caused by <a href="https://www.globalpolicy.org/war-on-terrorism.html">war, terrorism</a>, <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/">global warming</a>, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/05/united-nations-world-food-program-body-declares-famine-conditions-in-parts-of-yemen-conflict-humanitarian-crisis-middle-east-congress-trump-saudi-arabia-mohammed-bin-salman-jamal-khashoggi-pressure-en/">famine</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/erasing-history-why-islamic-state-is-blowing-up-ancient-artefacts-78667">obliteration of human cultural artifacts</a>.</p>
<p>These events could be considered apocalyptic — either on a global scale, or as threats to specific communities.</p>
<p>When I began studying apocalypses in literature four years ago, my focus was on events like <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wxDw7y0l0mYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=holocaust+apocalypse&ots=WP5ZB2bIBv&sig=-MxaqD2tkQO2DEqE-L81kcdLFZU#v=onepage&q=holocaust%20apocalypse&f=false">the Holocaust</a> and <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/twins-of-the-apocalypse-what-hiroshima-and-the-climate-threat-have-in-common-excerpt/">the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki</a>. I wanted to understand what sense we could make of humanity when the world has seen such apocalyptic situations. </p>
<p>But I discovered the study of apocalypse is a deeper well than most people can fathom. The root meaning of “apocalypse,” means “uncovering” or “lifting of the veil,” which indicates that a revelation may be made at the end. </p>
<p>As a student of both Western and Eastern literatures and cultures, I benefit from the cultural differences in the readings of apocalypses. In subcontinental Indian, especially Hindu, culture and texts, <a href="https://medium.com/@ak.merchant/eschatology-and-messianic-expectations-as-found-in-the-scriptures-of-hinduism-and-their-fulfillment-4c4a835671b7">apocalypses are not linear but cyclical</a>. South Asian literature may offer different connotations in cultural terms for personal apocalyptic events as well. </p>
<p>The end of times has a special quality: that of sifting what is important from what is superficial and unnecessary. This distillation is not limited to material things that one carries across the final calamity. And apocalypses don’t necessarily have to be all-encompassing in terms of destruction. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251545/original/file-20181219-45413-1tixint.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Apocalyptic stories can be small-scale and personal as in ‘The Great Gatsby,’ which reveals much more than the surface glitz and glamour.‘</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">source</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apocalyptic events can even be smaller in scale, both destroying and revealing at a very personal level. Small-scale personal apocalypses also push us to re-evaluate and streamline our ideas and conceptions about our lives. </p>
<h2>Revelations</h2>
<p>Opposing ideas exist about how to deal with apocalyptic events in a literary sense. Literary and cultural critic <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/">Jacques Derrida</a>, in a glib statement about catastrophe, said that a total annihilation of human species, especially by nuclear fallout, is “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/464756?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">fabulously textual</a>.”</p>
<p>Derrida meant that while text looks like innocent marks on a page, in fact texts can have an explosive and unpredictable impact on readers. He was also pointing out a political and existential conundrum: while we find ourselves waiting for an absolute, final annihilation, all we can do is talk and write about it. </p>
<p>Philosopher and cultural critic <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/">Theodor Adorno</a> presents an opposing school of thought with his much-debated idea that “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jan/11/poetry-after-auschwitz">it is barbaric to write poetry after Auschwitz</a>.”</p>
<h2>An apocalyptic reading list</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251563/original/file-20181219-45416-86b8po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Things They Carried.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My upcoming course, “Reading the End of the World,” taught simultaneously in Saskatoon and in Ahmedabad, India, will look at both micro- and macro-level apocalypses. Our Saskatoon students will communicate with <a href="https://ahduni.edu.in/">our Ahmedabad students</a> taught by my colleague, Chirag Trivedi, via video-conferencing technology. The model allows for students across continents to generate ideas for research and discuss texts across cultures in new ways.</p>
<p>Our course’s reading list explores what can be revealed through threats, destruction or personal crisis. Here is a list of some of the texts we will be studying:</p>
<p><strong>“Bullet in the Brain” in <em>The Night in Question</em> (1996)</strong></p>
<p>Tobias Wolff’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/09/25/bullet-in-the-brain">“Bullet in the Brain”</a> is one of the <a href="https://www.theodysseyonline.com/bullet-the-brain-tobias-wolff">most remarkable short stories in contemporary North American literature</a>. This story is a testament to what revelation and destruction can do simultaneously for one life; absolute destruction is intricately linked to ultimate epiphany.</p>
<p><strong>“A Temporary Matter” in <em>The Interpreter of Maladies</em> (1999)</strong> </p>
<p><a href="https://lithub.com/what-am-i-trying-to-leave-behind-an-interview-with-jhumpa-lahiri/">Jhumpa Lahiri’s</a> story is about a couple realizing it is time to call an end to their relationship. </p>
<p><strong>“Squatter” in <em>Tales from Firozsha Baag</em> (1987)</strong> </p>
<p>Rohinton Mistry’s “Squatter” is a classroom favourite, about the importance of bowel movements.</p>
<p><strong>“We So Seldom Look on Love” in the collection of the same title (1992)</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.barbaragowdy.com/">Barbara Gowdy</a> explores necrophilia in the short story “We So Seldom Look on Love.” </p>
<p><strong>“The Things they Carried” in the collection with the same title (1990)</strong> </p>
<p>Tim O’Brien’s “The Things they Carried” gives heft to all the objects that soldiers carry in time of battle. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251561/original/file-20181219-45388-1785eua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><strong><em>Walking with the Comrades</em> (2011)</strong> </p>
<p>Arundhati Roy’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/walking-with-the-comrades-by-arundhati-roy/2011/11/07/gIQAIPR2yO_story.html?utm_term=.fc0a3570bd91"><em>Walking with the Comrades</em></a>, first <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/walking-with-the-comrades/264738">published in 2010 as an essay in <em>Outlook</em> magazine</a>, is in-depth understanding of what underground anti-capitalist revolution and disenfranchisement mean.</p>
<p>I anticipate multi-dimensional, revivifying and boundary-pushing conversations with my students and my colleague, discussions in which we will explore how we might behave, what we may learn from, and what we can do about the threats that we face.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sheheryar Badar Sheikh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The end of times, and any small-scale apocalypse, has a special quality: that of distilling what is important from what is superficial and unnecessary.Sheheryar Badar Sheikh, Graduate Student and TSDF Fellow, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1046532018-10-11T13:45:50Z2018-10-11T13:45:50ZThe Walking Dead: how apocalyptic dramas help us navigate turbulent times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240220/original/file-20181011-154561-1npp025.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AMC</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>These are politically chaotic times, but looking at the current crop of TV drama, viewers might agree the signs have been there for a while. Writers have long been obsessing over the end of the world, pumping out apocalyptic visions that eager audiences have been lapping up. Think dark alternative histories, catastrophic disasters – natural and political – plagues, vampires and zombies. Lots of zombies.</p>
<p>Amazon brought us <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-High-Castle-Season/dp/B00RWYM2GM">The Man in the High Castle </a> (2015-ongoing), the BBC gave us <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08ghxqb">SS-GB</a> (2017), Channel 4 served up the <a href="https://www.hulu.com/press/show/the-handmaids-tale/">Handmaid’s Tale</a> (2017-ongoing), Netflix produced <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4421578/">Containment</a> (2016), a remake of Belgian drama <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tc919">Cordon</a>, and last but certainly not least, there is Fox’s <a href="https://www.amc.com/shows/the-walking-dead">Walking Dead</a> (2010-ongoing). All are spectacular, horrifying, gripping visions detailing the collapse of the world as we know it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240229/original/file-20181011-154573-1siijnz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Handmaid’s Tale is a chilling vision of power, religion and female oppression which some believe is already being echoed in America.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hulu</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>It’s not about the zombies</h2>
<p>The Walking Dead series has been among the most popular and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/09/dead-show-walking-is-the-walking-dead-limping-towards-doom-or-glory">returned for a ninth season</a> on October 8. If its sister show <a href="https://www.amc.com/shows/fear-the-walking-dead">Fear the Walking Dead</a> is taken into account, this represents an astonishing 13 series depicting the collapse of civilisation. That’s a lot of end-of-the-world drama, but as Jungian psychologist <a href="http://www.marie-louisevonfranz.com/en/homepage.html">Marie-Louise von Franz</a> noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People who are emotionally gripped by a story or an idea repeat it endlessly and cannot stop talking about it or telling and retelling it… It is a means of [releasing] a strong emotional impact.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Drama matters because it sketches out in the imagination a sense of what is possible. It’s never about the zombies. In the popular imagination lurks the possibility of nuclear annihilation, pandemics, misogyny and repression, religious fundamentalism, extreme nationalism and environmental collapse. Humanity has moved from being at the mercy of nature to having the power to destroy it. No wonder our speculative drama is so dark.</p>
<p>Apocalypse narratives in themselves are nothing new. Popularly they are associated with excessive visions of destruction and death, but the word “apocalypse” is derived from the Greek word apokalypsis (the opening word, in fact, of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/texts/revelation.shtml">Revelation 1:1</a>), which simply means “uncovering” or, as the book itself is called: Revelation. Apocalypse literature is about revealing what has been hidden.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240230/original/file-20181011-154577-18pvn4m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Walking Dead is about a group of survivors struggling after the zombie apocalypse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AMC</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The biblical Book of Revelation is only one of a number of texts reaching back into pre-Christian times, coinciding with periods of great political and cultural upheaval, which continue to be written well into the medieval period. There are Coptic, Syriac and even Islamic versions of apocalypse all arising in times of crisis and change.</p>
<h2>Post apocalypse</h2>
<p>Most of these writings contain a degree of pessimism and a concern with the end of history and cosmic cataclysm, but they are really there to encourage the oppressed. Apocalypse scholar <a href="https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/john-j-collins">John J Collins</a> points out that most apocalyptic writing entails a challenge to view the world in a radically different way. It is a revolutionary imagination designed to generate visions not of what is, but of what might be. The real focus of apocalypse literature isn’t about the spectacle of collapse, but about what comes after.</p>
<p>As religious studies academic <a href="http://www.mille.org/people/CV-Oleary.html">Stephen O'Leary</a> explains in his essay in the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=syjuuAEACAAJ&dq=he+Encyclopaedia+of+Apocalypticism+Volume+3&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi78YbL1fndAhWSZlAKHUydDY0Q6AEIMjAC">Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Modern media, particularly television and film, occupy a role in our society analogous to religious narratives, art and drama in the pre-modern period… as a source of theatre for the collective imagination.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But writers of our contemporary apocalypse narratives seem to be suffering from a failure of that imagination. They are adept at the first part of traditional apocalypse narratives detailing what is wrong, with accompanying visions of the old world being swept away, but what about the second part? What comes next? What else?</p>
<p>If we accept that they are reflecting a concern with the end of the world as we know it, what should there be in its place? Isn’t it time we had some stories that show hints as to how we overcome, resist or even avoid such things? An occasional chink of light, or possibility of hope for an outcome that doesn’t feature survivors endlessly killing each other over dwindling resources would be welcome.</p>
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<p>The Walking Dead dramas have been moving in that direction. The season four finale of spin-off show Fear the Walking Dead saw the survivors set off on a mission to help other people and foster a sense of community – a marked change of direction from the “survival at any cost” narrative up until that point.</p>
<p>Halfway through season eight of The Walking Dead, a character called <a href="http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/Georgie_(TV_Series)">Georgie</a> was introduced, who gave the Hilltop survivors community a book called A Key to the Future, which explained how to build medieval technology (such as windmills and aqueducts) to help the community become more self sufficient. Again, quite a shift from battling over the leftovers of civilisation that had marked the series up until that point.</p>
<p>Season 8 focused on a storyline of emancipation, where various communities banded together to break free from The Saviours, a group who demanded tithes of supplies with threats and extreme violence. The first episode of the ninth season of The Walking Dead was called <a href="http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/A_New_Beginning_(TV_Series)">A New Beginning</a>, with trailers suggesting the new series will explore how or if those remaining can find a way to live together peacefully.</p>
<p>Or perhaps not. Audiences for this undead franchise have been falling (though still high in comparison to rival shows), so maybe viewers are still more interested in violence and high-octane action than any notions of lasting peace and working together. Audiences may revel in visions of “burning it all down”, but eventually thoughts must turn to what comes next. Let’s hope the writers are ready to embrace a true revolution of the imagination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104653/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catriona Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The real focus of end-of-days narratives isn’t the spectacle of collapse, but about what comes after and how it challenges our world view.Catriona Miller, Senior Lecturer in Media, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/887752017-12-08T00:47:52Z2017-12-08T00:47:52ZWhy Trump’s evangelical supporters welcome his move on Jerusalem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198213/original/file-20171207-11285-1iw2c1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why Jerusalem matters to evangelicals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/20792787@N00/2719431101/in/photolist-59iN88-GiQhH6-dHPrvg-3K7vCr-dtre5X-nQK1Vq-ddvvp5-e7enA-57QXLK-FkhQfd-aBW5G1-pcxn2N-5qTpak-4s4iGh-UUv7ZY-59bgVj-59iQta-dZ87UJ-58aEa8-e7GR7z-V9GgEv-57Vjus-dqqiC-CNnMjc-TTL7Wh-JmqF4t-2Y9XRr-QptiaS-V9GZya-TV3weF-59nYGh-57ggfr-vFRFd8-CKoJeF-pMVAhf-883sKk-881WCx-ohMgn9-VbiERp-9Hxjr-4s4wS5-TV61Si-V8eNy4-UZpFMn-oZYaDz-TVkYBM-88R9Ur-UyxG4h-TWCJUg-58NstS">jaime.silva</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Trump’s announcement on Wednesday, Dec. 6 that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/politics/trump-embassy-israel-jerusalem.html">received widespread criticism</a>. Observers quickly recognized the decision as related not so much to national security concerns as to domestic U.S. politics and promises candidate Trump made to his evangelical supporters, who <a href="https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/standing-with-israel/68574-paula-white-samuel-rodriguez-mike-huckabee-and-jentezen-franklin-all-agree-on-this-one-thing">welcomed the announcement.</a>. </p>
<p>Historian <a href="http://dianabutlerbass.com/">Diana Butler Bass</a> posted on <a href="https://twitter.com/dianabutlerbass/status/938425601035329536">Twitter</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Of all the possible theological dog-whistles to his evangelical base, this is the biggest. Trump is reminding them that he is carrying out God’s will to these Last Days.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is true that evangelicals have often noted that their support for Trump is based in their conviction that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-most-evangelicals-dont-condemn-trump/2017/09/01/64baab1c-8e79-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html?utm_term=.070151a01269">God can use the unlikeliest of men to enact his will</a>. But how did conservative American Christians become invested in such a fine point of Middle East policy as whether the U.S. Embassy is in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem?</p>
<p>For many of President Trump’s evangelical supporters this is a key step in the progression of events leading to the second coming of Jesus. There’s an interesting story as to how that came to be.</p>
<h2>Ushering in the kingdom of God</h2>
<p>The nation of Israel and the role of the city of Jerusalem are central in the “end-times” theology – a form of what is known as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about2%20/Living_in_the_Shadow_of_the_Second_Comin.html?id=BV-RKAAACAAJ">“pre-millennialism”</a> – embraced by many American conservative Protestants. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198214/original/file-20171207-11280-1r8vajm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198214/original/file-20171207-11280-1r8vajm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198214/original/file-20171207-11280-1r8vajm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198214/original/file-20171207-11280-1r8vajm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198214/original/file-20171207-11280-1r8vajm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198214/original/file-20171207-11280-1r8vajm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198214/original/file-20171207-11280-1r8vajm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evangelical Christians from various countries wave flags as they show their support for Israel in Jerusalem in a march held in October 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While this theology is often thought of as a “literal” reading of the Bible, it’s actually a reasonably new interpretation that dates to the 19th century and relates to the work of Bible teacher John Nelson Darby.</p>
<p>According to Darby, for this to happen the Jewish people must have control of Jerusalem and build a third Jewish temple on the site where the first and second temples – destroyed centuries ago by the Babylonians and Romans – once were. In Darby’s view this was a necessary <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about2%20/Living_in_the_Shadow_of_the_Second_Comin.html?id=BV-RKAAACAAJ">precursor to</a> the rapture, when believers would be “taken up” by Christ to escape the worst of the seven-year-period of suffering and turmoil on Earth: the Great Tribulation. This is to be followed by the cosmic battle between good and evil called <a href="https://bible.org/seriespage/13-armageddon-and-second-coming-christ">Armageddon</a> at which Satan will be defeated and Christ will establish his earthly kingdom. All of this became eminently more possible when the modern state of Israel was established in the 1940s.</p>
<p>But to understand the power of this way of looking at the world, it is necessary to do more than point to theological tenets. It is their dissemination through culture that determines which thought systems take hold and which ones are lost to history.</p>
<p>As author of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/building-gods-kingdom-9780199913787?cc=us&lang=en&">“Building God’s Kingdom</a>,” I focus on various aspects of conservative American Protestantism in American culture and politics. In my research I have seen how some thought systems get lost in history and others take hold. </p>
<p>Here is what happened with the end-time narrative that made it a core undercurrent to how these Christians look at the world and history. </p>
<h2>The origins of this narrative</h2>
<p>The end-times framework was popularized in the 1970s with an inexpensive and widely available paperback by evangelist and Christian writer Hal Lindsey called “The Late Great Planet Earth.” Lindsey argued that the establishment of the state of Israel in the 1940s set up a chain of events that would lead to <a href="http://www.zondervan.com/the-late-great-planet-earth">Jesus’s return</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198216/original/file-20171207-11282-1u7gyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198216/original/file-20171207-11282-1u7gyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198216/original/file-20171207-11282-1u7gyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198216/original/file-20171207-11282-1u7gyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198216/original/file-20171207-11282-1u7gyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198216/original/file-20171207-11282-1u7gyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198216/original/file-20171207-11282-1u7gyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/waitingfortheword/5732613867">Waiting For The Word</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He calculated a date for that return in the 1980s. Lindsey, like many end-times prognosticators before him, argued that he lived in the “first time in history” when the biblical prophecies could possibly be fulfilled. This, he thought, was due in large part to the reestablishment of Israel.</p>
<p>Despite his claim to be reading the Bible literally, Lindsey’s interpretation was far from literal. He said, for example, that the locusts predicted in the one of the plagues in the book of Revelation were “really” helicopters. </p>
<p>As adults were reading Lindsey’s book, a generation of young people watched an “evangelistic” film, “A Thief in the Night,” in church services and youth group meetings. </p>
<figure>
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<p>Beginning with an ominous ticking clock, the film begins at the rapture. It shows how all the faithful Christians suddenly disappeared. For those who remained, there was one more chance to accept the Gospel but that chance required living through extreme persecution. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://religionandpolitics.org/2012/11/09/the-end-is-always-with-us-the-40th-anniversary-of-a-thief-in-the-night/">film scared young people</a> into conversion by depicting the experiences of these young Christians who were suffering because they had arrogantly dismissed warnings from their friends, families and churches to repent and had missed the rapture.</p>
<p>According to scholar Amy Frykholm, an estimated <a href="http://religionandpolitics.org/2012/11/09/the-end-is-always-with-us-the-40th-anniversary-of-a-thief-in-the-night/">50 million to 300 million people</a> viewed “A Thief in the Night.” </p>
<h2>The end-times and the culture wars</h2>
<p>The use of popular media to spread a terrifying vision of the end of history to draw young people into repentance continued in the 1980s with the apocalyptic novels of Frank Peretti. The Peretti novels depicted a vibrant and active spiritual world in which cosmic forces of good and evil were vying for supremacy all around us.</p>
<p>As the book presented it, every person is obliged to play a part for one side or the other in very literal ways. This applies to all people: “True Christians” were meant to fight on God’s side, and the rest on the side of Satan. The first of these was called <a href="https://www.tyndale.com/search?q=this+present+darkness&f=">“This Present Darkness</a>.” </p>
<p>Though clearly recognized as fictional, these books were also perceived as “real.” For example, while the seat of the diabolical scheming was the fictional local college and the chief antagonist was a fictional professor, it wasn’t lost on readers that they were to perceive colleges and professors as likely enemies. </p>
<p>The depiction of literal “good guys” and “bad guys” as regular people aligned with God and Satan, respectively, played into the increasingly divisive culture war battles of the time. These books were powerful and effective until a decade later when they were replaced in popular Christian culture by the “Left Behind” series, co-authored by <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Skipping_Towards_Armageddon.html?id=bYdJXHpKsxQC">culture warrior Tim LaHaye</a>. </p>
<p>These 16 books and four films, released over the course of a decade, also trace the lives of the latecoming believers who had missed the rapture and were now part of the <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814740057/">“Tribulation Force,”</a> as they endured the post rapture world and sought to remain faithful despite persecution. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/07/13/the-left-behind-series-was-just-the-latest-way-america-prepared-for-the-rapture/?utm_term=.9428931059b9">The series’ successes</a> included a New York Times best-seller, while seven others set sales records. The entire series sold more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/07/13/the-left-behind-series-was-just-the-latest-way-america-prepared-for-the-rapture/?utm_term=.9428931059b9">65 million copies.</a></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198220/original/file-20171207-11299-1cfe6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198220/original/file-20171207-11299-1cfe6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198220/original/file-20171207-11299-1cfe6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198220/original/file-20171207-11299-1cfe6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198220/original/file-20171207-11299-1cfe6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198220/original/file-20171207-11299-1cfe6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198220/original/file-20171207-11299-1cfe6at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/natashapadgitt/24908467308/in/photolist-DX5pwU-DX5fhw-UdyfE9-nRaxBA-npoe24-DX5jyN-22ec12H-WLsBLm-SAg9Vz-neAiGd-4mnEwL-paVVmE-2Mngim-fLhouW-Tw7oi9-iPhHKt-VTnEr9-9fBti9-TQ3wk4-nburpP-YDsagX-4dJW78-phxbeH-cbxTFu-aY2v26-SRwJzm-5Y5sMe-fVMZqz-9fDfvv-W8wcKA-pwsV7W-h475g3-2NWGwp-fKZMXD-p931tM-Pdc2v-225YdBg-57R3KD-nhgNpc-2NWGRR-wvgJC-WrtoQZ-XhwXuV-Tf5eJh-W6T3jE-a5HgXn-CTJ5ew-aY2uV4-DX5mcC-i5aAq">Natasha Padgitt</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>It’s impossible to overemphasize the effects of this framework on those within the circles of evangelicalism where it is popular. A growing number of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/03/evangelical-christians-religion-politics-trump">young people who have left evangelicalism</a> point to end-times theology as a key component of the subculture they left. They call themselves “exvangelicals” and <a href="https://chrisstroop.com/2017/09/23/whos-afraid-of-the-rapture-some-thoughts-on-conservative-christian-apocalypticism-and-its-consequences/">label teachings like this as abusive</a>. </p>
<p>It’s hard to get away from the invocation of mythic narratives in American politics. They get used often and are invented and reinvented to be deployed at different times in history. While supporters and opponents of the Trump announcement <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/06/politics/american-evangelicals-jerusalem/index.html">agree</a> that the results might be cataclysmic, some of the supporters are happy. That is because they are reading it through a lens that promises the return of Jesus and the establishment of God’s kingdom.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: in a previous version of this article the date of President Trump’s announcement about moving the US embassy to Jerusalem was incorrect. It has been corrected to Dec. 6.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Ingersoll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many American evangelicals believe that the establishment and protection of Israel set up a chain of event for the return of Jesus. What were the origins of this narrative?Julie Ingersoll, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/779572017-05-26T02:03:33Z2017-05-26T02:03:33ZNo problem too big #1: Artificial intelligence and killer robots<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170081/original/file-20170519-12250-1ylz1bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4500%2C2997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Imagine a world where artificial intelligence is in control and humans are brink of extinction. What went wrong? What could we have done?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is the first episode of a special Speaking With podcast series titled <strong>No Problem Too Big</strong>, where a panel of artists and researchers speculate on the end of the world as though it has already happened.</em></p>
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<p>It’s not the world we grew up in. Not since artificial intelligence. The machines have taken control.</p>
<p>Three fearless researchers gather in the post-apocalyptic twilight: a computer scientist, a mechanical engineer and a sci-fi author.</p>
<p>Together, they consider the implications of military robots and autonomous everything, and discover that the most horrifying post-apocalyptic scenario might look something like unrequited robot love.</p>
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<p><em><strong>Joanne Anderton</strong> is an award-winning author of speculative fiction stories for anyone who likes their worlds a little different. More information about Joanne and her novels can be found <a href="http://joanneanderton.com/wordpress/">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p><em>No Problem Too Big is created and hosted by Adam Hulbert, who lectures in media and sonic arts at the University of New South Wales. It is produced with the support of The Conversation and University of New South Wales.</em></p>
<p><em>Sound design by Adam Hulbert.</em></p>
<p><em>Theme music by <a href="https://phonkubot.bandcamp.com">Phonkubot</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Additional music:</em></p>
<p><em>Beast/Decay/Mist by Haunted Me (via <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Haunted_Me/Humming_Ghost/Haunted_Me_-_04_-_Beast_Decay_Mist">Free Music Archive</a>)</em></p>
<p><em>Humming Ghost by Haunted Me (via <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Haunted_Me/Humming_Ghost/Haunted_Me_-_01_-_Humming_Ghost">Free Music Archive</a>)</em></p>
<p><em>Additional audio:</em></p>
<p><em>Stephen Hawking interview, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFLVyWBDTfo">BBC News</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77957/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Hulbert is affiliated with The University of New South Wales</span></em></p>In this special Speaking With podcast episode, a panel of artists and researchers speculates on the end of the world due to artificial intelligence and killer robots, as though it has already happened.Adam Hulbert, Sonic Arts Convener, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.