[tt] [x-risk] Eckersley: Nihilism, Fundamentalism, or Activism: Three Responses to Suspicions of the Apocalypse

Tue Jan 15 20:22:24 UTC 2008

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From: "Hughes, James J." <James.Hughes at trincoll.edu>
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:55:56 -0500
To: For discussion of existential risks <existential at transhumanism.org>,
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Subject: [x-risk] Eckersley:  Nihilism, Fundamentalism,
	or Activism: Three Responses to Suspicions of the Apocalypse
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http://nceph.anu.edu.au/Staff_Students/Staff_pdf_papers/Richard_Eckersle
y_papers/SMH-Age_(Apocalypse).pdf

http://www.futuresfoundation.org.au/Future-News/Features:-Futures-Thinki
ng/Don't-panic-%11%11-it's-only-the-apocalypse-20070722461/

Don't panic -- it's only the apocalypse  

Written by Richard Eckersley   

Monday, 23 July 2007

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 replied. '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. While these hazards are mostly not new, previous fears were
never so sustained and varied, nor so powerfully reinforced by the
frequency, immediacy and vividness of today's 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 address these threats has focused on
economics and technology. 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 both personal wellbeing and 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 and dangerous and that circumstances
are 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. If this categorisation seems too stark,
think of the responses as tendencies or deviations from the norm, with
subtle to extreme manifestations, and which can overlap, co-exist and
change over time in individuals and groups. My intention is to highlight
the way that people, individually and collectively, can respond very
differently to the same perceptions of threat and hazard.

Apocalyptic nihilism: the abandonment of belief in a social or moral
order; decadence rules. At the extreme 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 anymore.' The
adolescents were drawn to the mythic 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. The happiest participants in his studies,
social researcher Hugh Mackay has said, 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.

Apocalyptic fundamentalism: the retreat to certain belief (whether
secular or religious); dogma rules. In an extreme form, this is 'end
time' thinking, rife among fundamentalist Christians in the United
States, 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 the hard questions about Bush's
religious convictions need to be asked. Philosopher Peter Singer says
that 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,
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.

Apocalyptic activism: the transformation of belief; hope rules. This
reflects the desire to create a new conceptual framework or worldview
(stories, values, beliefs) that will make a sustainable future possible.
The counter-trend that this 'activism' represents is evident in surveys
across the Western world that show many people are making a
comprehensive shift in their worldview, 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, a head-to-head
contest that, sooner or later, will shatter the status quo. Nihilism and
fundamentalism represent maladaptive responses to threat, whatever their
short-term or personal appeal. Because they do not address 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 reveal
that about a quarter of people in Western societies are 'cultural
creatives'. They represent a coalescence of social movements that are
not just concerned with influencing government, but with reframing
issues in a way that changes how people understand the world. Ray and
Anderson say that in the 1960s, they represented less than five per cent
of the population IN the US. In just over 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.'

Surveys on downshifting by the Australia Institute show that 25 per cent
of Britons and 23 per cent of Australians aged 30-59 had 'downshifted'
in the previous ten 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. Hugh 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 Sir John Whitmore has written
that he is meeting more and 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 over one million
organisations - maybe two - with roots in the environmental, social
justice and indigenous movements: research institutes, community
development agencies, village- and citizen-based organizations,
corporations, networks, faith-based groups, trusts and foundations.

'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 both the human susceptibility to Apocalyptic ideas,
especially at times of rapid change, and the mythic need for Utopian
ideals, both of which are embodied in stories. Narrative studies has
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
(including 'peak oil'), 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, Canberra.
His book, Well & Good, was published by Text in 2004.   This essay,
based on a chapter in the book, was published in the Sydney Morning
Herald's Spectrum magazine on 21 July 2007.

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