[Greetings, Winds readers. This is Chester from The Adventures of Chester. Here's a new post, humbly submitted for your reading and commenting pleasure.]
Kurt Andersen recently discussed the draw of apocalyptic ideas in a piece in New York Magazine entitled, Why Everyone Has Apocalypse Fever:Millions of people - Christian millenarians, jihadists, psychedelicized Burning Men - are straight-out wishful about The End. Of course, we have the loons with us always; their sulfurous scent if not the scale of the present fanaticism is familiar from the last third of the last century - the Weathermen and Jim Jones and the Branch Davidians. But there seem to be more of them now by orders of magnitude (60-odd million "Left Behind" novels have been sold), and they're out of the closet, networked, reaffirming their fantasies, proselytizing. Some thousands of Muslims are working seriously to provoke the blessed Armageddon. And the Christian Rapturists' support of a militant Israel isn't driven mainly by principled devotion to an outpost of Western democracy but by their fervent wish to see crazy biblical fantasies realized ASAP - that is, the persecution of the Jews by the Antichrist and the Battle of Armageddon.Andersen hypothesizes that while there have always been apocalypse-obsessed groups, the reason they seem to have sprung so vividly into the public consciousness is due to a collision of demography and culture:When apocalypse preoccupations leach into less-fantastical thought and conversation, it becomes still more disconcerting. Even among people sincerely fearful of climate change or a nuclearized Iran enacting a "second Holocaust" by attacking Israel, one sometimes detects a frisson of smug or hysterical pleasure.
As in the excited anticipatory chatter about Iran’s putative plans to fire a nuke on the 22nd of last month - in order to provoke apocalypse and pave the way for the return of the Shiite messiah, a miracle in which President Ahmadinejad apparently believes. Princeton’s Bernard Lewis, at 90 still the preeminent historian of Islam, published a piece in The Wall Street Journal to spread this false alarm.
I don't think our mood is only a consequence of 9/11 (and the grim Middle East), or climate-change science, or Christians' displaced fear of science and social change. It's also a function of the baby-boomers' becoming elderly. For half a century, they have dominated the culture, and now, as they enter the glide path to death, I think their generational solipsism unconsciously extrapolates approaching personal doom: When I go, everything goes with me, my end will be the end. It's the pre-apocalyptic converse of the postapocalyptic weariness of the hero in The Road: "Some part of him always wished it to be over."Andersen is a bit too tough on Christians for my taste, but his article is still pretty interesting and should be read in its entirety.
Nevertheless, let me offer a different explanation for these various competitive apocalypses:
Perhaps an unmentioned factor is the sensational media. The press encourages a worldview that is both utopian and cynical at the same time: utopian for constantly using hindsight to espouse an "if-only" no-place that can never truly exist. At the same time, cynical, for finding the flaws in all who would aspire to leadership of any kind -- no matter how trifling or inconsequential they might be, they are all too frequently allowed to define the man behind the image. It might provoke laughter to argue such a position in the midst of "Foleygate," but the main point stands: while one Congressman might be a sexual predator, most, from both parties aren't. But who in the electorate can rattle off their names on a regular basis?
Robert Kaplan wrote a piece for Policy Review some time ago, entitled The Media and Medievalism, in which he argued that the press is the true totalitarian of our time:The medieval age was tyrannized by a demand for spiritual perfectionism, making it hard to accomplish anything practical. Truth, Erasmus cautioned, had to be concealed under a cloak of piety; Machiavelli wondered whether any government could remain useful if it actually practiced the morality it preached.1 Today the global media make demands on generals and civilian policymakers that require a category of perfectionism with which medieval authorities would have been familiar.What does this have to do with a preponderance of apocalyptic visions?[ . . . ]
In The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History (2002), the academic Philip Bobbitt builds on this notion. He observes that, "In the market-state, the media have begun to act in direct competition with the government of the day." The media "are more nimble than bureaucrats hampered by procedural rules," even as they are "protected in many countries by statutes and constitutional amendments." He adds that the "critical function of the media in the market-state is similar to that of the political parties of the Left in the nation-state." Bobbitt is not here calling the media left-wing. For all one knows, he may believe that they have become, in certain quarters, dangerously right-wing. No, Bobbitt leads one on the path of a different insight: that the essential role of the left has always been to question and expose authority. For it has been the left's very fear of authority that makes it uncomfortable with the concept of leadership. People on the left rarely write books about leadership and taking charge: That is the domain of business and military types. Leaders must choose, and because even right choices may produce imperfect outcomes, there will always be much to criticize - and to expose.
[ . . . ]
To the extent that the left is still vibrant, I am suggesting that it has mutated into something else. If what used to be known as the Communist International has any rough contemporary equivalent, it is the global media. The global media's demand for peace and justice, which flows subliminally like an intravenous solution through its reporting, is - much like the Communist International's rousing demand for workers' rights - moralistic rather than moral. Peace and justice are such general and self-evident principles that it is enough merely to invoke them. Any and all toxic substances can flourish within them, or manipulate them, provided that the proper rhetoric is adopted. For moralizers these principles are a question of manners, not of substance.
Well, if leadership as exposed in the press is perpetually vacuous; if sentiments such as heroism are routinely traded for exposes; if virtue is tossed out in favor of sanctimony or mere moralizing, then what is left?
Nothing. A nihilistic morass with no fixed points at all with which to anchor one's life. It matters not if that fixed point is a Muslim, Christian, libertarian, idealistic, or classically virtuous one. None of these will be allowed.
So why not nuke the whole thing and start over?
I can't wait for comments.
In the absence of values people will latch on to any nutball belief that comes their way. The more certain and controlling, the better.
I disagree, Dave.
People who believe in an afterlife seem to have no problem dispatching people to it for the scantiest of reasons.
Atheist does not equal nihilist.
Chester - I did a post that perhiperally touched on this over at Armed Liberal some time ago. Take a look here
A.L.
Woah Chester...aren't you confusing the chattering classes with society as a whole? The chattering classes may end up transfixed in a nihilistic gaze into the void but the great mass of Americans (and people in general) have well established anchors to Christianity or Judaism (and a smug disregard for the chatterers).
Now, I agree with you that the elite - at least the Left elite - may well develop a strong taste for apocalyptic scenarios (hell, they have it already in worst-case global warming hysterics). I agree too that this will come at significant cost to society. But there is simply no chance that the great mass of Americans will put up with it for very long and they will certainly not vote the banner holders of such millenialism into office.
I have an alternate suggestion: about a third of the human race is no brighter than your average orangutan.
Stupid people are easily manipulated by smarter people. Some of those smarter people have discovered that religion is a sweet racket. If they weren't fleecing the suckers with apocalyptic visions it'd be Amway.
Have you heard much about Amway lately? No?
See?
There's a balance to the universe, my friend, a yin and yang if you will, with multilevel marketing as "yin" and apocalypse scams as "yang."
Of course that lacks the complexity of your idea.
I blame it on rapid change.
What do I mean by that? Rapid changes in technology, culture, and/or economics brings forth fear. Religion is the answer to fear.
M. Simon:
I believe you have hit this particular nail right on the head. Rapid change, and not only that but exponential change. Changes of a magnitude that used to take generations are now taking place in five years or so, and the pace is accelerating.
The main area for this is computers and the global Web. If Moore's Law holds for a little longer, and nobody really thinks it won't, then in about 2025 the first desktop computer with a human-brain equivalent processing power will be "born" - and about then, the future will no longer be ours and will certainly no longer be under our control.
if "God" means what we can't understand, then "he" is on his way - and will be here in twenty years or less. Maybe people are beginning to realise on an instinctive level that the human race is just about run. People will still exist, but they will have become something we can't even begin to imagine.
I disagree Fletcher,
Which of these inventions do you think people would give up first:
1. Indoor plumbing
2. Electric lights
3. The automobile
4. The internets
Life hasn't changed that much in past 50 years...I'd say the pace of change has slowed waaaaaay down recently.
I believe Chester is right, but not in the way he meant. What holds to me is that the Left has it's own religion (PC Multi-culti) that is an article of faith despite being disproved by experience and rationality, and it's own religious inquisition (the PC feeding frenzy) that happens when someone says the world is NOT FLAT.
Moreover let's enumerate the changes (that affected the Left most profoundly):
1. The idea that socialism/communism would eventually triumph and that the Soviet Union would eventually run the world or at least act as a "check" on America.
More than anything else the Left has run to embrace Islam because they want a force to replace dear Stalin and the USSR to destroy or at least "check" America. The Left has always hated individualism, freedom, and free expression not to mention rationality (see Larry Summers).
2. Rapidly accelerating suburbanization. In Southern California alone LA and OC have become essentially filled up, with hundreds of thousands priced out of the market (or unwilling to live in crime-ridden dumps) thus commuting out to the Inland Empire. Need I mention how much the Left HATES HATES HATES suburbia, private home ownership, the private auto (which gives freedom to the individual) and has tried it's best to destroy each?
3. Increased wealth by cheaper electronic production, and cost-cutting mass marketers. It's no accident as the Marxists used to say that the LEft HATES HATES HATES Wal-Mart precisely because they give more wealth to the working poor, through cost-cutting and economies of scale. And that the Left HATES HATES HATES electronics that give entertainment and individuality to the masses at prices only a Kennedy could afford before. As Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy once said, "what's the point of being rich if ordinary people have nice things too." What the Left hates more than anything is being just like everyone else (the hatred for the common man is profound among a self-selected elite).
4. The change in personal mobility and the shedding of traditional ways of life in favor of mass-market but personalized evangelism. Particularly the growth of Evangelical Christianity in the South and West where highly mobile populations seek personal and spiritual connections. That the Left HATES this change should surprise no one.
5. Air travel increasing personal mobility. We've gone from air travel being relegated to a select rich few (1903-1950) to business travelers and the leisure class (1950-1980) to pretty much everyone (1980-2001) through mass-market discounters to fear of terrorism or hatred of inconvenience leading to forgoing air travel in favor of other means (primarily the private car or teleconferencing).
These are just wide/deep social changes I can think of off the top of my head, add Gay Rights, sexual open-ness (anyone from the 1980's would have thought you insane that Bob Dole would advertise sexual dysfunction meds on TV), feminism and a profound feminizing of culture, PC multi-culti-ism (imagine Sixteen Candles Long Duc Dong today) would also fit in.
Great comments!
M. Simon, I agree that increasing technological and social change is a huge contributing factor. Andersen dismisses it way too easily.
Mental models are breaking down. People are not sure what to expect. Some would say (maybe you, Fletcher?) that the Singularity is near (which is almost like another kind of apocalypse, just one with both positive and negative versions, depending on who you read).
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand."
-Yeats
Or, you know... maybe the apocalypse is approaching.
I've recently been contemplating a theory that the feeding frenzy over Foley is a kind of manifest nihilism, and that by the time election day rolls around the public will be thoroughly sick of those promoting it, and vote again for stability. By November "change" might not be quite as attractive.
Or, you know... maybe we're approaching the constant zenith.
Great post!
I think Kurt Andersen lumped together a bunch of stuff that doesn't belong together. For example:
"On the subway home, I read the essay in the new Vanity Fair by the historian Niall Ferguson arguing that Europe and America in 2006 look disconcertingly like the Roman Empire of about 406 -- that is, the beginning of the end."
An end in some sense, for some people - but nothing to do with an End Of Days.
"I worry that such fast-and-loose talk, so ubiquitous and in so many flavors, might in the aggregate be greasing the skids, making the unthinkable too thinkable, turning us all a little Dr. Strangelovian, actually increasing the chance -- by a little? A lot? Lord knows --that doomsday prophecies will become self-fulfilling. It's giving me the heebie-jeebies."
If, to confine legitimate thought and discussion inside a small box, you define everything outside it as "unthinkable" and apocalyptic, then the world may look full of people thinking "apocalyptic" thoughts. But this need not be taken seriously.
Kurt Andersen may have managed to give himself "the heebie-jeebies." But nobody else needs to get them.
"Let's not freak out just yet."
This side of Kurt Andersen's un-courageous each way bet is the wiser one.
An apocalyptic intellectual climate conjured up by a writer scaring himself a little to have something to write about for a vacant-headed opinion piece does not require an explanation.
So I say: move on - there's nothing to see here.
As an early member of the Baby Boomers, I take grave exception to the characterization being laid upon me.
Okay, so I stopped keeping up with computer languages somewhere around C+ or maybe it was C++.
And no, I'm not about to go free climbing up El Capitan.
But I--and most of my friends--are optimistic, creative, willing to think new things. I'm no closer to death than I was at 18, when I did a lot of really stupid stuff.
I certainly don't think of myself as being 18; the mirror put the lie to that. But my attitudes are as flexible.
I respectfully suggest that a different tag be used to identify the old farts and fartesses who can't cope with change. "Loser" looks pretty good, no matter the age.
There was a rise in apocalyptic visions and beliefs at the last change of a millenium. 1000 years ago the same thing happened. There were those who were convinced that the end was nigh and looming. That took a couple of decades to die out, but it did. Perhaps the same happened in other societies in the past as they reached 1000 year milestones. I believe the same phenom is working today in human society, from Irans mullahs to the Christian preachers.
Just sayin' is all.....
The Hobo
When the universe was young and life was new an intelligent species evolved and developed technologically. They went on to invent Artificial Intelligence, the computer that can listen, talk to and document each and every person's thoughts simultaneously. Because of it's infinite RAM and unbounded scope it gave the leaders of the ruling species absolute power over the universe...
[ Remainder deleted for being overlong and off topic. "Destr1oyed for explo", write concisely and restrict comments to the subject matter of the post, please. -- Marshal Festus, 10/5/06 3:10PM ]
#16,
WTF?
M. Simon (#6), Fletcher(#8)
I blame it on rapid change.
I think there is a selfishness rooted in each one of us that make us hard to accept that in the future people will live better and longer. Therefore, we tend to join any theory in which our times are the pinnacle of human development and the future will be only the way down. It has happened in any modern times.
Rapid change keeps us reminding that it is not probable this is the case: the future will be better even though we won't enjoy it.
It's so human!
I don't think the End Times are any more popular now than they have ever been; in fact, I think they are less popular since the end of the Cold War. I think the heyday of Armageddon in my lifetime happened in the late 70s, when Hollywood was cranking out disaster movies one after another.
Andersen repeats the ignorant slander that evangelical support for Israel is millennialist and "rapturist". This belief is symptomatic of the left's growing hatred of both Christians and Israel. There have been books and novels about the rapture for years, ever since Hal Lindsay popularized it - again, in the nervous late 70s. Many evangelicals specifically reject it, insisting that the focus of Christianity is in the gospels and not in Revelations. People like Andersen prefer to look on them as an ignorant melange of Apocalypse and right-wing politics, which fuels the left's own end-of-the-world fantasies about imminent theocracy.
Further proof of tepid enthusiasm for Apocalypse is the fact that Al-Gorean scare stories about climate change have fallen surprisingly flat. They mostly succeed in terrifying children, which is not too tough.
BTW - The utter drivel in #16 has been posted to about a hundred blogs, usually under the moniker "The Damned".
So, Damned, thanks for sharing your acid trip with the entire internet. If you ever post this again on any blog that I read, I'm going to take it as a sign from the gods, and I going to find the nearest flock of sheep and kill every one of the stupid things with a claw hammer.
Journalists will only attack those in power if they have no fear of retribution. That is the benefit/cost of living in a free society.
If ever a leader comes into power who isn't afraid to shoot a few journalists, they will be adultated as if they were a god (or messiah).
If ever a leader comes into power who isn't afraid to shoot a few journalists, they will be adultated as if they were a god
You mean like Ahmadinajihad or Chavez?
Hummm...
I would like to point out, for those that do not know, (or perhaps the willfully ignorant) that Christianity itself is not a religion.
There are Christians who have a religion, but that religion is not Christianity. They're still Christians.
I have to go now, so I'll explain later.
--
Also, all talk about Apocalypses of any kind is bunk. When it happens it will have already happened before we realise it did. Then we'll look back and match up the signs. So, why even give a rat's ass?
Not kidding by the way. Stop fantasizing. You know better than that.
#16: by the way, you're trying desperately to describe God, who defies description.
God is not mocked.
You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled comments...
/is it me, or is the CAPTCHA code for WoC really annoying?
I find that looking back at past times that resemble present times is often instructive.
The period between the writing of the Old Testament and the New Testament, for example, was about 200 years, IIRC. During that time, many currents within Judaism were apocalyptic, and there was significant nihilism across the whole society. (Note the behavior at the Temple, for example, that Jesus was written to have attacked.) It was those apocalyptic writings which set up the whole story of Satan, whose appearances in the Old Testament are rather of a different character than those in the New Testament.
Another period where end-times thinking was very widespread was from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s in China, where the reaction to colonial exploitation, modernization and Japan's expansionism drove the Chinese urban elites into a set of attitudes that would not be unfamiliar to a baby boomer in the US. It was ended by the coming of the Communists and their rather brutal repressions of anything that smacked of apostasy.
I think rapid change in fundamental cultural assumptions (rather than rapid technological change, per se) is certainly a part of the drive to nihilism and apocalyptic thinking. When your cultural guideposts are torn down, you have to put up new ones, and a culture is a large body to guide to some agreement. The larger and more diverse the culture, the harder it is to come out of such a downwards spiral. On the other hand, faster and more reliable communications methods apparently shrink the "interregnum" periods of uncertainty.
Such thinking was apparently predominant in pagan Arabs starting with the expansion of the Byzantine Empire into the Arab peninsula. In combination with the disruption caused by the slow spread of Christianity, this set up a series of challenges to which the local paganism had no answer.
All of the incidents of widespread apocalyptic thinking I can think of were a combination of cultural and religious failure to answer challenges from external or internal pressure. And all of them appear to have ended with two outcomes: the founding of a new faith (usually a religion), and the death of the hidebound culture that gave rise to that faith and its replacement by a more forward-looking, confident and aggessive culture. If I am correct in my synthesis, there are interesting questions for both the West and the Arab world to answer.
I agree with Glen, the evidence that end times are "in" is manufactured. In 1976, the Omen grossed over $60 billion in the box office. If someone wants to compare 60 million copies of books (not one book, but counting all the books in the series), fine. But I don't think you can demonstrate that the end is any more "in" now than it was 20 years ago.
Interstingly enough, there is no equality among these transitions (I would judge.) Also, there is often (or was, rather) no real good way to determine what the outcome would be.
There's something in Chaos theory about 'a certain point away from equillibrium' producing a spontaneous 'new order'.
Apocalyptists think that they somehow know the outcome of this new transition for certain.
vis-a-vis the whole Christianity thing, you can see that despite the prophecies written regarding Christ, even the majority of the Jews at the time had no idea what was coming. (And those who paid attention even were misled by their own ideas.) So even if we have the message written down for us, there's no guarantee we really know what it means until it happens.
Everything else is just speculation/and or fantasy. My plan is to go into
ready-to-roll-with-world-sized-punches mode.
Having passed the apocalypse a number of times throughout human history you'd think we'd be familiar by now with the way it looks in the rearview mirror.
Demosophist: Yeah, you'd think that some of the Millenialists, having read the Bible so much, would get that the same thing that happened to the Jews preceding Christ's first coming will probably happen to us (that is, we'll be caught unawares.) In fact, he tells us we will be.. That is, the Jesus.
He tells us to ignore wars and rumors of wars and all that, and that things are going to get bad (persecutions, unrest, division) but to be of good faith. The Bible more or less says that the end could be tommorow. This is to say, for you, a living person, whether the 'end of days' is tommorow or in a million years, doesn't matter if you die in your sleep. To you, that's the end of days right there.
A few things that I've observed about Revelation.
1. It is a prediction of the End of Days.
2. The timeframe is unspecific.
3. Most of the events do not have specific amounts of time between them.
4. Many of the occurances are non-specific as to whether they are a spiritual or physical thing, or as to whether the numbers and symbols are purely symbolic, literal, or a mix.
5. In my observation it is apparent, that the occurance of the events hinges on some optional event, rather than occurring inevitably at a certain date from now.
6. The events themselves have multiple meanings. While two contradicting meanings are unacceptable, any number of meanings which re-interpret the symbols, thereby adding to the understanding, are viable.
7. The real title (that is, the non-'translated' title) of Revelation is The Revelation that is Jesus Christ.
Revelation is by far the most complex part of scripture, and it is not to be taken so lightly. It is a multi-layered allegory, and the text itself firmly resists being used as a writ for apocalyptic musings. Which is to say, anyone who seriously does has got issues. One of them probably is not actually having read it.
---
I agree, Shaw. The media's own nihilistic leanings lead them to omit news and choose commentary which lend to an apocalyptic feel. I find on days that I don't watch the news or read any world news, I have no question in my mind that life will go on far beyond the limited horizon of my perception. As much a like the hard-hitting commentary on even conservative news sites, I still get that apocalpytic vibe.
there's a 'co' condition in psychology: like co-dependency, co-alcoholism, co-narcissism. The reason why those conservative sites, like LGF, might still give you apocalyptic musings, is because they spend a lot of time breaking up the message that the MSM is sending. This results still in a lot of exposure to this nonsense.
In other words, the media chooses apocalyptic leaning topics, and even refuting their errors still keeps in place the bias towards those topics. (This means, conservative sites, quit being co-moonbats!)
The solution? Read James Lileks .
Ciao.
So much of this apocalyptic emphasis is generational. I keep coming back to Strauss & Howe because they have a model that works well enough to be reasonably predictive.
2008 is said to mark the peak of Baby Boomer power -- it usually comes when the first generational cohort reaches retirement age -- and the Boomers are notoriously judgemental and ... apocalyptic.
So, also, has it been with 'Prophet' generations stretching back over four centuries. Take as your example the US Civil War. We should not, therefore, be surprised at the decidedly apocalyptic flavour of our times ... in which the most apocalyptic generation of the entire cycle reaches the peak of their power. The rest is details.
Our hope should be that the folks in Gen X will somehow effectively be able to restrain apocalyptic old Boomers from blowing out the world's lights.
Chester:
Well, I deliberately tried to avoid the term "singularity" because in some quarters use of the word labels you as another sort of nutcase.
However, the exponential advance in technology brings forth the possiblity of an apocalypse which could indeed create either earthly Heaven or Hell.
Heaven? Anything you want when you want; no need to work for it either.
Hell? Some ideas (these may not be original with me and probably aren't):
Grey goo with an attitude; replicant nanoviruses programmed to manufacture CFCs as well as reproduce. CFCs not only destroy ozone; they are also the most efficient greenhouse gas known. Turn Earth into a Venus-style hothouse on a timescale of weeks by releasing ONE example of something far too small to see.
Or how about this one, slightly more difficult to program? A nanovirus programmed to destroy any biological host that says the words of the Shahada in Arabic. The counters to this are obvious.
Or, slightly more difficult again, simply reprogramming (by rebuilding synaptic pathways?) anyone who disagrees with the government of the day.
It took me about three minutes to come up with that collection. How long would it take something with a million times my brainpower? And how much worse and/or more subtle could the assaults get?
Fighting something like that would be considerably more difficult than a raw beginner beating Kasparov.
The human race has to grow up, FAST. I sometimes despair of us doing it in time.
M Takhallus #5,
Right. Religion is for morons, idiots like Augustine, Aquinas, Cardinal Newman, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, TS Eliot, Alvin Plantinga, and Robert George to name just a few of the truly stupid. That large numbers of people are morons is indisputable as is the fact that religion can be and often is used to fleece them. The same, however, can be said of many secular ideologies (fascism, communism, Freudianism). So I'd be a little more careful about making such a grand (not to mention needlessly offensive) generalization.
I'm out of the loop as regards End of Days. Never had any interest in it.
The comments on the character of mass media are interesting. Something about labeling the media as Left never rang true enough. Sure corporate media presents events from the scholastic, Left perspective and chooses to ignore its own abuses in authority by designating it the lesser evil in comparison to the abuses by others. I especially like the newest excuses for their abuses such as using staged photos because they convey the spirit of what was happening, if not the actuality, and the use of "well placed sources", "anonymous source", etc.., to provide the media with creative manipulation of opinion so as to press its Universalist and, yes, Moralist agenda. We can soon replace the word interviewer with inquisitor, op-ed with writ, news editor with bishop and columnist with priest. But, every bureaucracy has agents for the side of humane perception and the weakness that such a body will always suffer from is it requires the one thing the media is losing, relevance to its market. When a new thinker comes along who can translate the Wisdom of the West into contemporary language we will not only lower the boom on corporate media but also find our backbone in fighting the Jihadis.
I would say that the elites are not necessarily subscribers to apocalypticism, but those who listen to them are. I've written on nihilism at my own site before, but the reality is that the nihilist agenda leads to apocalypticism in those who are not nihilistic, particularly when the nihilists are in power. The elites preach nihilism, and the portion of the masses who pay attention feel a chill, a sense that the world is ending, and in a way it is, for the nihilists are actively working to destroy it.
Bart Hall (#31) is the only one of you equipped with a brain. The Fourth Turning covered all this (and predicted it perfectly I might add) almost 10 years ago.
Apocalype Fever is on us because :
The Boomers are in their declining years and much like every other decade since they were born, what they want and feel and think drive the nation. They're just beginning to realize the end is near, so they can't understand why the rest of us can't get with the idea that the world as we know it will end when they do.
Or perhaps they just figure if they're going to go, maybe they should just do their very best and try and take the rest of us with them.