Spotted this rather interesting take on it all:
The end is nigh. Be positive
Richard Eckersley
September 22, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-end-is-nigh-be-
positive/2007/09/21/1189881771237.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
A FEW years ago, my then teenage son and I were watching world news
on
television. An item began about the humanitarian tragedy in Darfur,
Sudan (which
is still with us). "Can we turn this off, Dad?" my son said. I asked
why. "It's
depressing," he said. "I don't need reminding what a horrible place
the world is."
It is depressing, and it is becoming more depressing as our
perceptions of the
world and its future are increasingly shaped by images of global or
distant threat
and disaster: earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, bushfires,
disease
pandemics, war, terrorist attacks and famine. These hazards are not
new, but
previous fears were never so sustained and varied, never so powerfully
reinforced
by the frequency, immediacy and vividness of media images. This effect
seems
certain to intensify as global warming and other threats begin to
impact more
deeply on our lives.
Most of the attention on how we tackle these threats has focused on
economics
and technology. But how we react psychologically will be just as
important. This
response involves subtle and complex interactions between the world
"out there"
and the world "in here" - in our minds. These have implications for
personal
wellbeing as well as social cohesion and action.
Psychological research suggests that adaptability, being able to set
goals and
progress towards them, having goals that do not conflict, and viewing
the world as
comprehensible, manageable and meaningful are all associated with
wellbeing.
Biomedical research has shown that people become more stressed and
more
vulnerable to stress-related illness if they: feel they have little
control over the
causes of stress; don't know how long the source of stress will last
or how intense
it will be; interpret the stress as evidence that circumstances are
worsening; and
lack social support for the duress the stress causes.
Negative expectations of the future of the world and humanity are
likely to impact
on several of these states, most obviously by encouraging perceptions
of the
world as hostile, dangerous and deteriorating. These psychological
impacts will,
in turn, shape our social responses.
We are being drawn in at least three directions by suspicions of an
impending
apocalypse. The "business as usual" denial that has been the dominant
response
until recently is giving way to nihilism, fundamentalism and activism.
My intention
is to explain the way that people, individually and collectively, can
respond very
differently to the same perceptions of threat and hazard.
Let's start with apocalyptic nihilism: the abandonment of belief in a
social or moral
order; where decadence rules. At the extreme of this are today's
youthful killers,
whose apocalyptic language conveys a message that "in a world stripped
of
meaning and self-identity, adolescents can understand violence itself
as a morally
grounded gesture, a kind of purifying attempt to intervene against
the
nothingness", as a young prison literature teacher, Theo Padnos, told
American
writer Ron Powers.
What united his pupils were not their backgrounds, Padnos said, but
their
apocalyptic suspicions.
"They think and act as though it's an extremely late hour in the day,
and nothing
much matters any more."
The adolescents were drawn to the violence of movies and television,
to stories of
"post-apocalyptic heroes just like they want to be - violent,
suicidal, the sort of
people who are preparing themselves for what happens after everything
ends".
Others respond in less dramatic ways to this sense of futility. They
become even
more determined to succeed, to be a winner at all costs, or lose
themselves in the
quest for pleasure or excitement. These lifestyles have their own
hazards,
including various forms of addiction. Nihilistic inclinations are
evident at a more
mundane level in a growing political disengagement: a focus on home
and hearth,
on "tending our own patch".
This strategy has its appeal. Social researcher Hugh Mackay has said
the
happiest participants in his studies were "those whose horizons were
most
limited, and whose concerns were unremittingly local, immediate and
personal".
There is a cost, however. The sense of the world as threatening and
hostile, and
that ultimately we are all on our own, produces a fraying of
citizenship and
democracy, and a vulnerability to the politics of self-interest and
fear.
And so to apocalyptic fundamentalism: the retreat to certain belief
(whether
secular or religious); a state in which dogma rules. In an extreme
form, this is "end
time" thinking, rife among fundamentalist Christians in the US, in
which global war
and warming are embraced as harbingers of the Rapture and Christ's
return to
Earth.
Commentators are unsure how influential end-time philosophy is within
the Bush
Administration but argue that the hard questions about Bush's
religious
convictions need to be asked. Philosopher Peter Singer says the
President's
religious outlook is best represented by the Manichean idea of a force
of evil in
the world, with an apocalyptic Second Coming imminent and America as
the
divinely appointed nation set to destroy the forces of satan. This
response, and
that of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, could intensify as
calamity
deepens, possibly including a resort to the use of biochemical or
nuclear
weapons.
The growth in fundamentalist thought extends beyond religion. Neo-
liberal
economics, which underpins current political strategies throughout
most of the
world, also represents a form of fundamentalism in its rigid adherence
to an
economic doctrine in the face of the growing evidence of its failure
to deliver
promised benefits. Fundamentalism produces a comforting certainty
about life
and a call to united action against threats, both moral and physical,
but it also
generates simplistic solutions to complex problems.
Finally, the third response, apocalyptic activism: the transformation
of belief;
where hope rules. This reflects the desire to create a new conceptual
framework
or world view (stories, values, beliefs) that will make a sustainable
future possible.
The counter-trend this activism represents is evident in surveys
across the West
that show many people are making a comprehensive shift in their world
view,
values and way of life. Rejecting contemporary lifestyles and
priorities, they place
more emphasis in their lives on relationships, communities,
spirituality, nature and
the environment, and ecological sustainability.
All three responses are growing in social intensity. It's a direct
contest that, sooner
or later, will shatter the status quo. Nihilism and fundamentalism
represent
maladapted responses to threat, whatever their short-term or personal
appeal.
Because they do not deal with the root causes of the problem, they
risk amplifying
the costs to human wellbeing. As Jared Diamond has argued in his book
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, such strategies
have led in
the past to the collapse of societies confronting environmental
strains. Activism is
an adaptive response, closely associated with the drive for
sustainable
development.
Studies by American researchers Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson have
found
that about a quarter of people in Western societies are "cultural
creatives". They
represent a coalescence of social movements that are not only
concerned with
influencing government but with reframing issues in a way that changes
how
people understand the world.
Ray and Anderson say cultural creatives in the 1960s comprised less
than 5 per
cent of the population in the US. In little more than a generation,
that proportion
has grown to 26 per cent, they say.
"That may not sound like much in this age of nanoseconds, but on the
timescale of
whole civilisations, where major developments are measured in
centuries, it is
shockingly quick," they say in their book The Cultural Creatives: How
50 Million
People are Changing the World.
Surveys by the Australia Institute on downshifting find that 25 per
cent of Britons
and 23 per cent of Australians aged 30 to 59 have downshifted during
the past 10
years by voluntarily making a long-term change in their lifestyle and
earning less
money. Contrary to the popular belief that they tend to be middle-aged
and
wealthier people, downshifters are spread across age groups and social
classes.
Beyond those who are changing their lives are many more people who
are
thinking about it. Mackay, while noting the social dangers inherent in
the process
of disengagement, says many people are using this "retreat time" to
explore the
meaning of their lives and to connect with their most deeply held
values.
The gap between "what I believe in" and "how I live" is uncomfortably
wide for
many of us, and we are looking for ways to narrow it, he says. However
the search
for meaning is expressed - in religion, New Age mysticism, moral
reflection or
love and friendship - the goal is the same: "To feel that our lives
express who we
are and that we are living in harmony with the values we claim to
espouse."
Similarly, British business consultant John Whitmore has written that
he is
meeting more people in his work who secretly despise the system they
are part
of, deplore the lack of corporate values and know their products and
services are
of little consequence. They would love to be out of it and doing
something more
meaningful, he says, but feel trapped in their expensive lifestyles.
"So they don their suit and tie and serve the system, but they glance
more often
out of the window. The spirit is stirring in such people and they are
increasingly
asking themselves tough questions."
The cutting political edge of apocalyptic activism is the global
development of
what American social activist Paul Hawken describes in his book
Blessed Unrest
as the largest social movement in history. The movement is not
hierarchical and
does not have leaders and ideologies; there is no manifesto or
doctrine.
Metaphorically speaking, the movement is humanity's immune response
to
political corruption, economic disease and ecological degradation.
"The
movement is not merely a network; it is a complex and self-organising
system,"
Hawken says. The movement is made up of more than a million
organisations
with roots in the environmental, social justice and indigenous
movements:
research institutes, community development agencies, village- and
citizen-based
organisations, corporations, networks, faith-based groups, trusts and
foundations.
Hawken says: "It arises spontaneously from different economic sectors,
cultures,
regions and cohorts, resulting in a global, classless, diverse and
embedded
movement, spreading worldwide without exception. In a world grown too
complex
for constrictive ideologies, the very word 'movement' may be too
small, for it is the
largest coming together of citizens in history."
FUTURISTS have noted the human susceptibility to apocalyptic ideas,
especially
at times of rapid change, and the need for utopian ideals. Both of
these are found
in stories. Narrative studies have demonstrated the power of stories
to transport
ideas across time and space, construct meaning and identity, shape
communities, enrich social life, define social issues, even put
together shattered
lives.
The defining question of our times is this: will we make it? There is
a real and
increasing possibility that global warming, resource depletion, the
growing world
population disease pandemics, technological anarchy, and the
geopolitical
tensions, economic instability and social upheaval they generate, will
coalesce to
create a nightmare future for humanity this century.
Avoiding this fate will depend critically on the stories we create to
make sense of
what is happening and to frame our response. A key task is to ensure
these
stories reflect not the decadence and despair of nihilism or the dogma
and rigidity
of fundamentalism, but the hope and energy of activism.
Richard Eckersley researches progress and wellbeing. He is a founding
director
of Australia 21, a non-profit, public-interest research company, and a
visiting
fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health
at the
Australian National University.
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