Philosophical Woodcutters Wanted
Welcome!
Now that Winter, as long predicted, has arrived, it’s time to gather round the fire. Since I had long been a committed passenger on the apocalyptic pop culture train, I thought it would just, well, keep going. I didn’t really ever anticipate actually arriving at the end of the world.
Now that we seem to have quite definitely arrived at “the end of the world as we know it”, engines stopped, steam wafting through the air, conductors absent, and doors open, I’m not feeling fine. I have the same feeling I do when snow starts flying and - although, I have dreamed of this day since I can remember dreaming, now that we’re here, my piles of firewood seem woefully insufficient. I guess that’s the only possible outcome of too much time by the window watching the world run down, and not enough time in the woods with my chainsaw.
Now that it’s here, though, I find myself in the dire straits I see thinkers have often encountered in the past. The prevalence of illness is more than merely epidemiological - I think many of us are feeling like we are falling to pieces in both the singular and collective sense.
I am looking for people who are specifically feeling the need for “end-time philosophies” - schools of thought that you feel are especially valuable when external meaning-making and systems, and their many discoveries, fail. I am inspired by many thinkers who found themselves really tormented by the Fall of their Empires - Augustine, Boethius, Milton, DeLillo - there are countless others. And taking their thoughts as “dead trees of life” that we can chop into firewood - practical, applied insights - for heat and light in these times.
I’ll be posting intermittently, as I’m able, with “logs” that seems seasoned enough to burn well, and perhaps out of these we can get a nice bonfire going, and warm ourselves enough yo talk of better times to come. If some of the above makes sense to you, what thoughts would you like to bring to the fire?
Now that Winter, as long predicted, has arrived, it’s time to gather round the fire. Since I had long been a committed passenger on the apocalyptic pop culture train, I thought it would just, well, keep going. I didn’t really ever anticipate actually arriving at the end of the world.
Now that we seem to have quite definitely arrived at “the end of the world as we know it”, engines stopped, steam wafting through the air, conductors absent, and doors open, I’m not feeling fine. I have the same feeling I do when snow starts flying and - although, I have dreamed of this day since I can remember dreaming, now that we’re here, my piles of firewood seem woefully insufficient. I guess that’s the only possible outcome of too much time by the window watching the world run down, and not enough time in the woods with my chainsaw.
Now that it’s here, though, I find myself in the dire straits I see thinkers have often encountered in the past. The prevalence of illness is more than merely epidemiological - I think many of us are feeling like we are falling to pieces in both the singular and collective sense.
I am looking for people who are specifically feeling the need for “end-time philosophies” - schools of thought that you feel are especially valuable when external meaning-making and systems, and their many discoveries, fail. I am inspired by many thinkers who found themselves really tormented by the Fall of their Empires - Augustine, Boethius, Milton, DeLillo - there are countless others. And taking their thoughts as “dead trees of life” that we can chop into firewood - practical, applied insights - for heat and light in these times.
I’ll be posting intermittently, as I’m able, with “logs” that seems seasoned enough to burn well, and perhaps out of these we can get a nice bonfire going, and warm ourselves enough yo talk of better times to come. If some of the above makes sense to you, what thoughts would you like to bring to the fire?
Comments (62)
Quoting Joshua Jones
It would help if you would share in detail why you think these are ‘end times’. Dont assume everyone understands your sentiments and shares them, you first need to give an argument for what you mean and why you mean it.
Depending (a lot I suppose) on luck, other variables of which there are many, dying may appear as living. I remember reading about this woman/child (trust me to remember things) who got bitten by a rabid animal (dog/bat, I can't recall) and died 10 years later from rabies. So yeah, end of times - the earth is in its death throes but, considering how lucky I am, my end will happen way before Gaia draws her last breath. Off-topic? Hope not!
Interesting post. I'm not particularly interested in end times, although I'll tune in to see what others say.
Suggestion - your title has nothing to do with the subject, which you don't actually get to till the end of your post. I think many people who might otherwise be interested won't get far enough to realize what it is about.
Welcome to the forum.
I understand the sentiment, but this wasn't intended to be a thread convincing people it was the end of the world. People come to a fire because they want heat, light and company - not to be convinced that they are cold, in the dark and lonely.
A better approach might be - could you tell me in what way the world as you know it is ending, or already ended?
If you dispute the premise, I understand, but this probably isn't your thread.
And one hopes they come to a philosophy forum prepared to have their assumptions challenged instead of just hoping to solicit confirmation of what they think they already know.
Quoting Joshua Jones
Im all for examining philosophical writings on end times and apocalyptic themes. They may be the best way to demonstrate that every era has its doomsayers, and that what they mark out are swings of the historical pendulum, low points within the cyclical structure of cultural change, disastrous mountains which often turn out to be molehills in historical hindsight.
One way of looking at the topic that may be more interesting to you is that the word "end" has multiple meanings, similar to the Greek word *telos*. The reason I am so consumed by the topic is that I have found the discussion of the end of the world is deeply bound to the discussion of the intent(s), purpose(s) and meaning(s) of the world (all connected t that term telos), which seems like it should concern everybody - or at least, most.
Can we at least agree the topics are related?
A bit parochial. Heading into Summer in down here.
One civilisation's winter is another's summer.
I would volunteer, but my wood doesn't burn very brightly. Sorry mate.
That's what one gets for uncritically internalizing pop songs. :razz:
Sounds like a metaphorical description of the state of Western democracy...
Quoting Joshua Jones
I can't tell from the tone of your post whether you actually believe in end times or you are just hustling for an aesthetic experience.
Is this the sort of thing you’re talking about?
My son tells me this sense of living through the collapse of civilization is pretty common among twentysomethings.
There was also an episode of RadioLab about the curious rise of nihilism in popular culture (“In the Dust of this Planet”).
I remember nihilism and the collapse of civilization being all the rage when I was a kid 40 years ago.
I'm 51, a classics professor and counselor for many years, training to become a Jewish chaplain. I have seen countless clients end their worlds in many ways, and have come to the end of my own. In my admittedly limited read of classics for the last 30 years, I have seen many sing songs of ending. A third of the Old Testament consists of warnings and hope. Odysseus and Aeneas both, though commissioned and favored by the gods - for most, including their crews and companions and hosts, were harbingers of doom. Dante, while guiding his readers onward, understood that the way to Paradise was through the basement of Hell. This is why I'm writing.
For some of you, talk of the end seems childish. And so it should - as St. Exupery knew, often it takes a child to see and state the obvious. In modern times, most adults have learned not to talk about the obvious, although they re-enact the fall of the culture in countless personal ways. If it seems childish and not worth your time, you can move along. No one is keeping you here.
Even for those who might think our ad infinitum progress has essentially ended "the end of the world," and that apocolyptic is a paleolithic perspective, life stage, or psychological syndrome, you may want to ask why apocalyptic visions have been so carefully preserved for millennia, presumably by those who found them valuable. If you don't find them necessary, as I said, you are invited to steer by other stars and sail on. In the words of L. Cohen, "You wouldn't like it here. There ain't no entertainment, and the judgments are severe."
Perhaps you'll remember you had this chance to talk it out when the death tolls rise and rise, but then again, probably not. For those of you who've read Jenkinson, you know most fight the reality of death until their last breath, perhaps because - like you said, Mad Fool, they've been dying for a long time, and maintaining appearances is all they have left.
For those who *are* here, who don't see Winter as nihilism or the end of the world as a psychological disorder, have a seat. The modes of cultural winter are different, and that matters. Most are still thinking summer, planting seed corn in snowbanks, apparently thinking snow is just the new dirt. Up here in Maine, we know how to prep for winter - but prepping for the "big winter", since it's beyond living memory, takes some doing. The forest is not a big park, and the ocean is not a big lake. They are deeply different. And the hour is late.
In physical winter, food and heat, and light, matter, a lot. In civilizational winter, it's choice, and hope, and enduring meaning - among other things - that matter, a lot. So, collecting wisdom that we can hold on to in desperate times, that's what I was hoping to find a few folks for.
We're in the early weeks when we are letting our search algorithms keep us from troublesome truths. I imagine when civilizational winter really hits, people will get serious and start burning books, and perhaps, people. It's happened every century - with the last one being the worst yet. In the meantime, let's share them - both books, and people. What writers have you found that have kept you going, and you believe might help others?
With such an ambiguous reference to the end times, coupled with my general lack of understanding, I must say I'm not exactly incentivized to describe my thoughts.
However stories... Stories can say quite a bit, and sometimes breath life into these unnatural sentiments we have in our day to day life.
We have a short story competition going on right now. Since you seem like a rather fine writer, perhaps just give us a little short tale regarding this heralding winter, that we can enjoy and perhaps, analyze?
We're happy because its just a story, and you're happy because now, an abundance of philosophical firewood sits aside you at your leisure, ready to display its warmth.
Of course you don't have to. But in my opinion these sort of discussions are best conversed in literary manner.
Think about this idea.
In a Mad Max scenario, would you freely share knowledge and resources with others who might use them against you?
Further, as the saying goes, A tree with firm roots can hope to withstand a harsh storm, but it can scarcely hope to grow them once the storm is already on the horizon.
In other words, you're too late. The optimism, the positivity, the hopefulness, or the glibly adhered to nihilism that we can nowadays see and take them as a lack of criticial understanding of our dire situation, are actually a symptom of this lateness and an ad hoc attempt to deal with it.
As someone who claims to be educated and a counsellor no less, you seem to have a penchant for emotive and passive aggressive language. Could it be that as a counsellor your work is overshadowed by your own anxieties? All this talk of burning books and burning people, Joshua - just how helpful do you think this might be?
John27,
As much as I do appreciate your offer to receive a story of my own, here at the end of the line, my storylines are - for the time being - at their end as well. I wonder if all stories end here, the way dreams end at waking. Unless sleep catches up with us, of course. If stories are dreams, and waking from these stories is life, that second sleep is death. So, perhaps arriving at the end of the line awake and alive is also learning to live between storylines - as risky as that can be.
I have no new tales to tell, just a desire to see the darkness for what it is, and some companions to share in the light.
I do have the stories that were told me - some are asking to be told - but not yet - they’re not ready, I’m not ready, and their time is - you probably guessed it - not yet. As you can tell from the comments above, there are many itching ears, but not much hunger for the truth. Good stories, the best stories, need some time and some quiet before they can be heard.
Right now, I'm just looking for new arrivals.
Quoting Joshua Jones
I'm with @Tom Storm. I thought a discussion of end times visions would be interesting, but you seem to be waving a flag of surrender to despair and rejecting those who disagree with you without providing evidence. Woe is us.
To assist, don't assume anyone knows what you are talking about. Tell us in a straight forward manner your experiences you are having. In your case, it seems to be despair, a belief that the world is coming to an end. What does it mean to you if the world is coming to an end? Do you have specific instances you would like to discuss?
We do not discuss philosophy to nod at each other's assumptions or feelings. We come to discuss a topic, and have its assumptions challenged and questioned. I'll give you an example.
I'm middle aged, and I know, for a fact, that I'm going to die one day. I know I will age, decay, and might even meet a terrible end. I am not married, I almost certainly never will, and I have no kids. Yet I am happy. I do not feel the world is going to end, or society is collapsing. I have my own purpose in life, and I live that fulfilled.
Tell me why I'm wrong. Show me your viewpoint why I should feel like society is collapsing, or that winter is coming. Challenge me, and we shall discuss your assumptions and see if they hold up when detailed.
Yes, I agree, although I think there would also be value in discussing end times visions, whether or not we think the world will end soon.
Our demise might occur simultaneously with the end of the world. A large meteorite striking the earth would suffice. So might a primate-destroying plague. Runaway global warming could work -- assuming the the running away went on long enough. A week of end-stage runaway global warming might be unpleasant, but a week is too quick to develop a good story. We will have plenty of time for misery once the globe becomes our rotisserie.
I enjoy a piece of well written apocalyptic fiction -- one without too many clichés, please. No zombies, please. If there is to be cannibalism, then it should wait until the bitter end, not as soon as the Internet goes down or gasoline becomes hard to get. I also appreciate the absence of grotesquely sadistic gangs romping across the countryside.
A World Made by Hand (4 volumes) by James Howard Kunstler is very good. Kunstler illustrates how difficult it will be to carry on in a world whose environment is intact, but whose technology is dead. Earth abides by George R. Stewart is a seminal work. Written in 1949, Stewarts imagines a fast plague wiping out 99.99% of the population, so only a tiny remnant remain. The story is tentatively upbeat at the end. On the Beach (1957) by Nevill Shute and A Canticle for Liebowitz (1959) by Walter Miller, Jr. are both fine nuclear apocalypse novels. The End in On The Beach is final; for A Canticle For Leibowitz, the world recovers in 2,000 years and then does the whole nuclear thing over again.
There are more such novels, of course. Somebody is scribbling out the last lines of another one, right now.
A Kant Quote comes to mind: "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." Kind of hard to top that for succinct summation.
BTW, there's nothing wrong with liking half-assed rubbish; nothing could be more human, really. We may seek the sublime, but we can be quite satisfied with low-brow dreck.
Thank you for making this post, and I would be happy to share a little of how I feel about the topic.
To preface, it appears that these comments might be filled with pseudo-intellectuals that are want of confidence - seeing that many fail to engage with the question, and resort to condescension. It is a shame, and we may take pity on them.
I must be honest when I do not relate to the "end times" notion axiomatically - I have felt both disillusioned with these times, perhaps due to the nature of the "crisis of meaning" in my generation. Yet, these times have also granted me great personal satisfaction in finding that meaning - civil unrest gives me hope that discussions like these - the wood to craft an allegorical "post-apocalyptic fire" - will become more common and formative. Those discussions may then lead to some great change, the collapse of society into something perhaps, more beautiful.
To climb into the post-apocalyptic framework should be a fun venture nonetheless. I have been thinking about recently the reconciliation between anti-capitalism and community. Please excuse my relative departure from traditional philosophy into the scary, watered down realm of political theory - yet much of my frameworks in this regard are rooted in some sort of an understanding of scientific socialism, where my questions exist in the path of "okay if the dialectics are true, so what now?" It appears, if we look to those proto-communist societies on the dialectic - the early-Vietnamese, the North American Native Americans, and so on - that persisted despite their locational competitors, there had existed a strong connection to family, equal labor between the sexes, and whatnot. Things like this that perpetuated a sense of non-nuclear, holistic family, was not only enshrined in recorded history of the matter, but in their own religions and philosophies. We see after the privatization of property, and thus the crafting of laws and state to protect that construct, it was organized religion that replaced the holistic community when estates divided individuals into blood families. Now, we see less and less of religious individuals, if anything, a meager increase in individuals becoming "religious" for the inclusion into an unconditional community.
Perhaps it is the case, that upon the the collapse of our current society - whether that leads to a new, unforeseen stage of the dialectic, or the end of the dialectic altogether - there will be a return to the form of community that existed before our material dialectic. We can only hope. For thinkers that saw this as a reality - consider Kropotkin, as it is more of an anarchist vision. It is no doubt that the more Leninist of the bunch failed to reasonably address the pragmatics of community-based socialist societies, however that may exist dialectically. Heck, even Ho Chi Minh didn't see such a thing realized. As far as laying the groundwork to arguing that this will happen, it would take many miles, to prove that it should happen, it would take even more.
The thought of decentralized communities, finding the systemic abolition of all constructs that cause unreconcilable conflict realized, has not only gotten me through the nihilism of macro and micro-scale crisis of society, but given me a hope of what beauty could be attained.
I ought stop before I ramble too long.
Thank you for the question, Joshua.
The end here, unless one has a literal messianic vision of the rising of the dead, would be metaphorical, as a new age of universal cooperation is ushered in.
Don't be clouded by the apocalyptic visions of Christianity, That is but one vision, which lacks the unrestrained positivity inherent in other traditions.
In the end everything will be perfect. If things aren't perfect, it must not be the end
We can all be grateful then that you didn’t stoop to
condescension. Btw, I’m wagering your attempt at engaging with the question gets the thumbs down from Joshua.
Good book. Great movie. "I think I'd like to have that tea now."
I wasn't thinking of Christianity; I suppose "our light of the world" might have suggested it to you. I was ironically references us as "our light of the world" not Jesus--THE light of the world.
What will probably happen is that we won't know the world is about to end. A few might see mushroom-shaped clouds in the distance (which would give some a period of time to contemplate their proximate demise. They'll have time to say, "I guess it's going to be fire and not ice." Or, in the event of runaway warming, the day before the last day might allow some to guess that the curtains are being rung down as they mop their brows and crawl deeper into the cave. On the other hand, the big meteor will not give us time to think about it. If it's disease, people will get sick and die, thinking that they are having a private deathbed experience, and not sharing death with billions of others. Of course, if they are gasping for air in the street with 20,000 other air-gasping, running sore, vomiting people are right next to them, that might be seem as a clue.
I recommend dying pleasantly before fate takes up any of these options.
That kind of model only became possible because we found a way to use fossil fuels that are incredibly energy-dense and easy to use (economic growth is a function of the amount of energy consumed).
As fossil fuels are finite and non-renewable, or we have to stop using them anyway, it seems that energy will become a lot more expensive as we scramble to replace fossil fuels.
So then, here we are, a bunch of people expecting a certain standard of living because that's all we have ever known... while at the same time that standard seems unsustainable because the energy isn't there longterm. Add to that that we have, along the way, seriously degraded the world we previously could rely on for subsistence... and you end up with quite the predicament
Either the model has to fundamentally change or it will collapse by itself... either way it seems enough to speak about "the end of the world as we know it".
They all knew what all wise men know. The nature of change. Castles and fortresses turn to rubble, borders, names, and languages change and are inevitably buried by the sands of time, as is the flesh. Good. That is to say as their true empires were not of sand and flesh but knowledge of heart and mind, I see no fall. Only longevity. Why don't you?
The wise men I speak of were pretty distressed by the end of the world they knew, even if they were able, to make sense of their world's end- and in some ways - sow the seeds of the next one. They weren't quite as serene as whoever it is you are quoting. Here are two wise men worth listening to.
Here's Pliny the Younger, witnessing the sudden, violent destruction of Pompeii:
“In the darkness you could hear the crying of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men. Some prayed for help. Others wished for death. But still more imagined that there were no Gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness.”
And here's Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five, an eyewitness to the firebombing of Dresdent:
“It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?”
In your defense, the "all things come and pass" view was one the main character of that novel, Billy Pilgrim, ultimately seemed forced to take, wtih the inhuman Tralfamadoreans (sp?), but it seemed to cost him his sanity, and his freedom. While the aliens may represent the embodiment of eternal wisdom, Billy himself, war-damaged survivor that he was, became a pet in their alien zoo.
Wise men who have seen even "mere" cities end seem to be far more affected by events similar to the unreal things we may soon be forced to see than we might anticipate. Does no-one remember the the rain of falling people from the twin towers? How might we also be affected by the repetition of these scenes across countless cities?
When worlds end, worldviews go with them - doubtless, in no small part due to the images burning in the minds of those who saw things they never wish to tell, but cannot unsee. So, while it's day, shouldn't we be collecting, testing, and distilling durable meaning, instead of arguing over whether or not we believe it will ever get dark?
I didn't mention burning people just for shock value - my grandfather died fighting those who burned millions - including much of my extended Jewish family. It's not hyperbole, and if you want to research the frequency of people burning when an empire, or Reich, or teikoku, falls, please - be my guest. Cities on fire is the insignia of the Fall. It's what happens.
That said, I'm a firefighter and as a clinical counselor spent several months on various disaster relief deployments - mostly hurricanes. Believe me, I'm not writing to dramatize. It's just wise to remember the fires are real - and imagine, if you haven't experienced it - what collapse actually smells like.
https://biotoopia.ee/timothy-morton-and-the-end-of-the-world/
As it happens, I live in one of the most fire prone areas on earth and many people I know have lost homes and family, including in the Black Saturday fires of 2009 which killed 173 people. I am familiar with the sound of sirens and having minutes to get out of my home. My family suffered in Europe during the war and my father spent three years in a Nazi camp. My own background is 30 plus years working in substance abuse, suicide risk intervention and acute mental health services in a city of 5 million people. I have specialised in services for the homeless and Aboriginal Australians amongst other things. I have seen almost every possible type of human misery going. I still don't buy your Apocalyptical Roadshow. Sorry JJ.
I understand this and need no invitation to leave when I am not engaged by a thread. Is this a polite way of you saying "fuck off" perhaps? Given that philosophy pretty much hinges on disagreement and critical discourse, your response seems avoidant, or perhaps fearful of difference.
But hey, don't worry, I have no intention of trolling you. I am responding in what you call "good faith".
Quoting Joshua Jones
In philosophy this kind of argument, an appeal to self-evident truth, is not really very sound now, is it? It's one of those holding statements so beloved of Christian Apologists when they describe the realm beyond reason, of faith and certainty, that Jesus died for them. "I know!" they declare.
Your premise would benefit from deeper examination and some push back. That's all I am really saying. And I bear you no ill will.
According to The Sermon on the Fall of Rome, a novel by Jérôme Ferrari, men do not necessarily notice a big or sudden change when their world crumbles. (By "a world" he means some structured polity making some philosophical sense to its members -- a self-meaningful society, not the physical world). Sometimes they do not even notice anything, and they keep living without a world around them. So Romans kept living once Rome was no more.
It's a complex book, relating the slow decomposition of a charming universe created around a village bar managed by two young friends in Corsica. This is presented in a historical perspective, with the collapse of the French colonial empire as well as that of the Roman empire always in the background. The book chapters are titled after sentences taken from The City of God of Augustine, and in particular his Sermon on the fall of Rome, pronounced after the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410.
Heh, sounds like a typical day of marriage. Really though, horror and tragedy is no laughing matter. Though neither is it so esoteric or rare it warrants some odd obsession. The greater horror would be a life without the possibility of any of these things, for at least with possibility of tragedy and loss comes appreciation of peace and gain.
Quoting Joshua Jones
They seem to be alive and quite well thanks to you. Perhaps you mean the unspoken intentions that are left up to interpretation of any who would come across them. In either case it would seem all bases are covered.
Quoting Joshua Jones
I don't think anyone would disagree, in fact this is how society (at times begrudgingly) works. That's why horror movies and roller coasters aren't boring, and in fact are some of the most exciting things we can view or experience without the actual presence of impending death.
It's a common belief that some of the "best" or most enthralling writings, creations, and acts are when one is forced to confront one's own mortality. You pose the question of why must the "swan song" outperform the dance of life, not an automatically mundane and uneventful one just a consistent and stable one. It's a fair question. I'm sure there's a fair answer. What makes you believe there isn't?
I'm not sure I completely understand the question. Are you asking for what the recovery process from the worldview would be, as if the worldview is the sickness? Or are you asking what the recovery process for such a world would look like?
I'm assuming the former, though I'm not sure I agree with the idea that it is something that one needs "to recover from"... maybe i'd rather say "cope with"?
Though I think I always had the intuition somehow that this world was not to last, it only recently fully and consciously dawned on me. Since I'm still very much in the process of re-calibrating and adjusting to a new horizon so to speak... maybe it is to early for me to say how to best deal with it.
Or maybe that is precisely how one starts to deals with it, by re-evaluating and adjusting ones plans and values so that they re-align with a fundamentally changed future. Yes, that's how I will be starting I guess, by committing to what I think I know... and re-evaluating things in light of that, which will probably take a good while.
It's not brutal at all. Just sad and a bit uplifting at the end. Those Australians, all stiff upper lip and all.
Quoting Joshua Jones
Strange as it may sound, there are those who secretly relish apocalyptic fantasies, who want to hear nothing but tragic news (one could call it ‘doom porn’) . The motives for such thinking are varied, but one cannot rule out a secret desire to bring down the high and mighty in order to exact revenge.
Quoting Joshua Jones
Here’s some durable meaning from Nietzsche that may or may not be apropos here.
“ The beginning of the slaves’ revolt in morality occurs when ressentiment itself turns creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of those beings who, denied the proper response of action, compensate for it only with imaginary revenge. Whereas all noble morality grows out of a triumphant saying ‘yes’ to itself, slave morality says ‘no’ on principle to everything that is ‘outside’, ‘other’, ‘non-self ’: and this ‘no’ is its creative deed. This reversal of the evaluating glance – this essential orientation to the outside instead of back onto itself – is a feature of ressentiment: in order to come about, slave morality first has to have an opposing, external world, it needs, physiologically speaking, external stimuli in order to act at all, – its action is basically a reaction.”
“ The blessed in the heavenly kingdom will see the torment of the damned so that they may even more thoroughly enjoy their blessedness.” Thomas Aquinas
“But there are yet other spectacles: that final and everlasting day of judgement, that day that was not expected and was even laughed at by the nations, when the whole old world and all it gave birth to are consumed in one fire. What an ample breadth of sights there will be then! At which one shall I gaze in wonder? At which shall I laugh? At which rejoice? At which exult, when I see so many great kings who were proclaimed to have been taken up into heaven, groaning in the deepest darkness together with those who claimed to have witnessed their apotheosis and with Jove himself. And when I see those [provincial] governors, persecutors of the Lord’s name, melting in flames more savage than those with which they insolently raged against Christians! When I see those wise philosophers who persuaded their disciples that nothing was of any concern to God and who affirmed to them either
that we have no souls or that our souls will not return to their original bodies! Now they are ashamed before those disciples, as they are burned together with them. Also the poets trembling before the tribunal not of Minos or of Radamanthus, but of the unexpected Christ! Then the tragic actors will be easier to hear because they will be in better voice [i.e. screaming even louder] in their own tragedy. Then the actors of pantomime will be easy to recognize, being much more nimble than usual because of the fire. Then the charioteer will be on view, all red in a wheel of flame and the athletes, thrown not in the gymnasia but into the fire. Unless even then I don’t want to see them [alive +], preferring to cast an insatiable gaze on those who raged against the Lord.”(Tertullian)
I was thinking of a book around apocalypse's and it came to mind.
This is why for a conversation, acceptance of my premise is so necessary - that the end of the world is here. "The end" - as in completion or final state - of anything is deeply connected to the purpose of that thing. This is why apocalypse has the multiple meanings of "final moment" as well as "unveiling". Deep contradiction there - if it's veiled, how is it ending? Has it even begun? And what is over and done with, exactly, except the covering?
I wish I could answer it - but which ends which is one to ponder. Does the world end the religious viewpoint, or does the religious viewpoint rest on the end of the world?
I don't quite understand though what book you meant...
Perhaps the apocalypse satisfies that need. It also may satisfy a need not for justice, but for mere simplicity, and the end of perplexity.
Question for you, though - do you think that all apocalyptic views were developed for personal psychological needs or self-justification? How can one tell genuine eschatological prophetic views* from "doom porn"?
*For the purposes of this conversation let's provisionally agree they exist - say someone last Thursday night in Mayfield, Kentucky had nightmarish views of the future
That is not an invitation to discuss philosophy. You are looking for people to agree with you on something you have already decided is right. Don't you think that's intellectually dishonest?
To everyone else that's like saying, "Its important that you accept the notion that unicorns exist before we talk about the magical powers they use."
Quoting Joshua Jones
Now this is a good example. But where do you see this happening today?
You started with, Quoting Joshua Jones
Where do you see violent destruction happening? Where is the end of the world like Pompei? If you want people on a philosophy board to discuss with you seriously, back up your premises when people ask you to provide evidence for them.
It was a book around a town that was struggling with spirituality. Apocalyptic in a very minute sense.
Which ends which...I guess it is pretty paradoxical.
Forgive me if I misconstrue your words, but I don't exactly understand how the completion/end of a thing results in its purpose. I mean, It's been long said that what matters is the journey, not the destination.
One of the axioms that guide this thread is "as above, so below"[1] that there are powerful, even determinative correlations between micro and macro.
Another is MLK Jr's famous line, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" [2]- that regarding certain universals, its presence or absence in any part qualitatively affects the whole.
The final one is this, from Talmud: Why was man created alone? Is it not true that the creator could have created the whole of humanity? But man was created alone to teach you that whoever kills one life kills the world entire, and whoever saves one life saves the world entire.[3]
You may not agree with any of the above, but each of these axioms has an admirable pedigree. Add mortality to any or all of them, and you get eschatology - which - like all fields of inquiry - presumes the existence of the subject. Those of you, like Philosophym, who equate end times with unicorns, will be unhappy here, or maybe just want to be contentious, thinking that contention leads to enlightenment. That's not how I read great philosophers - they build on foundations, posit further axioms, and develop them in concert with others. Argument means logical structure, not necessarily conflict. Ask a geometer to prove that points exist, and you miss the whole science and art. It's similar with eschatology.
But it's also *really* different. Say, "I'm dying", and it's common to get expressions of sympathy, or at least interest*. Say, "The world is dying", and it's common to get "speak for yourself."(See above). You might remember Cassandra, cursed with perfect knowledge of the future and universal incredullity. So, a good question is: What good does it do, even if true, to discuss how things change at the end of the world?
I believe a world of good, but that's what we're here to find out, and I think it's quite doable. Let's start. For example, one of the things that happen at the end of the world is a routine violation of basic human rights. One true story that sticks with me is a feverish man in a German camp that reaches out from his barracks to get an icicle from the overhang to quench his thirst. The guard, seeing this, knocks the icicle into the snowbank. The man, near his end, asks the guard "Why?" The German says in response, "Why? There is no why here."
If there is a "why" to common human decency that matters to us now, if similar encounters await us, how will we survive the loss of it? Or do you have a "why" that you believe will endure, and keep you a decent human?
*unless everyone around you is dying, when they will likely say "Shut up about it already" There's a memorable Simpsons episode where the family has all been turned into delicious treats with bites out of them, sitting in the fridge. Bart asks, "Am I the only one here in horrible pain?" Homer says, "No, but you're the only one who won't shut up about it."
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_above,_so_below#:~:text=%22As%20above%2C%20so%20it%20is,visible%20or%20invisible%20to%20astronomers. (fascinating history there)
[2]https://tssw.tulane.edu/news/injustice-anywhere-threat-justice-everywhere
[3]https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-reflections-testimonies/echoes-of-memory/to-save-the-world-entire
The end of the road is necessarily where the road is headed, or the purpose of the road. I don't really undestand the idea that it's "only the journey that matters." - isn't the destination integral to that journey? How can one possibly enjoy a journey to a miserable end?
Man, Hanover’s stuff hasn’t received any credit. As we all kind’a know, apocalypse is the Ancient Greek term for “uncovering or disclosure (naturally, regarding what is)” - and, as such, is closely related to the Ancient Greek term for truth, “aletheia”, which literally means “that which is not hidden/covered/closed off to one's notice”. Soooo … the religious interpretation of an/the apocalypse is that of, to paraphrase (I think), a disclosure to all of that all elusive absolute truth that some talk of.
Christianity interprets this uncovering of absolute truth to be linked to lots of suffering prior to its full realization (except, of course, for those who’ll be beamed up to divinity as a shortcut … not giving a hoot about the suffering of those that aren’t, angelic as beamed up ones are (sarcasm)); other cultures do not so interpret. But, as Hanover said, the so envisioned cosmic apocalypse is supposed to lead to a complete perfection of being, not to demise and destruction, as an end of affairs.
Always wanted to partake in giving rise to a new slang: rather than “that’s radical” as I grew up with, “that’s apocalyptic!” as in mind-blowing in what is revealed. But, alas, I’ve never been that cool to start new slang.
At any rate, there’s nothing apocalyptic I can think of about the new mass-extinction we’re currently living through and the related de-evolutions of civilized culture. Other than reinforcing that we humans are not as intelligent as we often like to think we are.
As to readings, Stoicism has tended to help me out. I’m thinking Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” might be a good start.
Quoting Joshs
:100:
I know, right?
The evolution of humanity is toward greater life expectancy, less hunger, less strife, less war. I extrapolate from what I see a trajectory toward perfection, not destruction.
Does this have anything to do with the "Who's the fairest of them all?" cat pic? :grin:
Quoting Hanover
I'd replace the "is" with "should be". The less hunger, strife, and war part might be questionable, as might be life expectancy in upcoming years.
Cool people don't start slang, they are the first ones to get noticed for using it. I've never been cool.
Maybe 'apoplectic" or some such. Apoplectic apocalypse. Apocalyptic apoplexy. I was going to suggest "calyptic" but it's already in the urban dictionary.
Quoting javra
Not a hoax. We're totally screwed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Only cool people have the nerve to say this of themselves.
Just caught that edit of yours. "Totally" might be too much. Cheap enough carbon recapture technology might be on the horizon. The catch is that we'd need to be investing into research for it in order for it to come about. To my knowledge, currently, not so much is being invested.
True, 'totally screwed' might be overly pessimistic. How about 'largely screwed'?
One form of carbon recapture that is on the shelf, proven, and ready to go: trees. if we all planted as many trees as we could (within the restraints of land needed for agriculture), we could soak up a lot of carbon. another approach: Agricultural methods are available which increase the carbon content of soils. A third important approach is conservation. IF (very big IF) we reduced private transportation (1 car, 1 passenger) and reduced production of many goods (fewer clothes, fewer sofas, far fewer disposable products) we could reduce CO2 output.
A side effect of obsessive tree planting is that in 60 years (about) could begin harvesting huge new reserves of carbon sequestered building material. A wooden house or wooden office building holds on to its stored carbon until it is burned up. With maintenance, a wood building can last hundreds of years. Keep it dry and don't let it catch fire.
Pumping CO2 into the ground requires a lot of energy.
Well obviously the ending has its own merit, but when all things are said and done the end of the road only really serves to look back on the journey.
I would like to bring attention to Yeats' Leda and the Swan, specifically to those unable to grapple with your premise:
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
This is a troubling poem, and we live in troubling times. If we are, as some suggest, as helpless as Leda, we have really nothing better to be doing, arguably even a duty, to muse on the impact of this 'inevitability'.
I understand a major gripe is that you aren't convinced Joshua's premise is true, and to that I say dispute it in your own post! We'd be happy to discuss. But for the record even biting into the low hanging fruit paint a pretty clear picture: climate change (!), the rise of the right wing, the commodification of art and virtue etc.; even though our economic position is steadfast, it is apparent that we are quickly falling or have recently impacted at the bottom of a Stygian well whose nature is hard to pinpoint. One of the reasons why I with genuine good faith in mind am actively encouraging you to dispute us elsewhere is that Joshua's goal has been lost to the this conflating mist of people who disagree, while offering little counter-evidence. I'm glad you're living in summer, but for those of us who aren't this kind of discussion is nothing but invalidating and to be frank, pointless.
Plus, even if it turns out Joshua and myself and countless others live in total delusion, what is lost besides engaging in thoughtful discussion of ideas? Is it not better to at least humor Joshua's thoughts even if it doesn't flow through you intuitively? I'd also like to hazard against believing the world we live in is somehow different from how it has been so far lest we enact the same mistakes our ancestors did in the past ~100 years alone; denoting thoughts not as invalid simply because you are not privy to them does little besides keep you in the pleasant shade of irony.
Anyway Joshua, back to your idea. To me, the most potent aspect of our collapse is the aforementioned commodification of art (broadly, of course). Art used to have this air about it, that whether hung on the master's easel or erupting from the rhapsodes throat, sang the grievances of the populace in relation to the time, while penetrating beyond acceptable social and political and moral barriers. This has since been lost in the mainstream as art has turned into a way to flaunts ones intellect, uniqueness, and ironically, social class, therefore being forced to stay within these bounds, with any counter-cultural movements themselves becoming a furthering of these bounds, rather than a rejection or expansion beyond of them. The forces art would push against have reworked the culture to turn art into a furthering of these very forces. The natural rebuke is that art in the past was quite literally a symbol of class status, but I feel that it was rather that these large commissions and mantle-pieces (largely confined to fine-art, mind you), used class as medium to exist rather than a depiction of that medium, and even then, they were rarely purely laudatory. I am open to thoughts on this, as frankly I hope I'm totally wrong, but I think we'll find cold prophesy in the death of art and spirit of it's time.
Therefore, I think much can be learned from the modernists. Both in pictorial, literary, musical form the way they handled the shattering of the 'Classical' human. Having seen both ends lends insight into a position I'd wager isn't that different from ours, beyond the expansion arguably the same forces therefrom, their plight and journey and reconciliation may bear hearty logs to stoke the flames. To this, I recommend imagist poets, i.e. Cookson, Doolittle, Pound, Williams, maybe Hemingway. When I am lacking inspiration for whatever reason, I generally return to a recognized source, and I think a return to 'purer' form may lend itself to a purer, or perhaps more immortal philosophy, one adequate for our newfound night.
Following this, it's implied then that we've lost something. I would agree with this idea. Something we knew about, revealed by the sun, has since rendered back into the Plutonian shore from whence it came and so my hope is that our growing campfire may not necessarily reveal to us an absolute answer immediately, but perhaps reveal richer forests. For this I recommend the Romanticists.
I'm not crazy about simple movement-hopping, but I think this return to essence in the above schools of thought may be a good staging point for our lumberjacks to harvest.
Again, I'm open to any ideas or disagreements, I just hope they advance the point of Joshua's original post rather than question, nay reject it's current validity in response to a winter you are sheltered from.
I wish you all the best.
I don't personally feel a visceral need for pessimism-confirming doomsday, or dystopian post-apocalytic, scenarios. We get enough of that in popular media. Yet the purported cause of our collective demise varies --- from nuclear winter, to proliferating zombies, to alien invasions, to environmental collapse, to who knows what --- depending on the personal demons of each prophet of doom. But, I've lived long enough to see the world go through devastating downs and then come back up --- as predicted by the Hegelian theory of History. I was born at the end of the world-wide war after the "war to end all wars" (now known as WWI). Yet, everything was coming-up roses in the post-war years. The US was on top of the world, the economy had recovered from my parent's pre-war Great Depression -- in which psychological depression was rampant -- and the environment seemed as sunny as an ear-to-ear smile.
But then, when I was in grammar school, children were taught to duck & cover, when they were warned of a nuclear attack. But, as children do, we soon noticed that the prophesied bombs never fell. Apparently, because selfish leaders learned to compromise on a middle ground : "mutually assured destruction (MAD)". So we learned to "relax and love the bomb". But, then came Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which alerted us to wake-up & smell the smog. and hear the absence of chattering birds. Yet again, humanity began to change its dangerous downward course, although the averting swerve has taken generations to respond to steering wheel inputs. Technological progress is fast, but Cultural evolution is gradual : incremental changes in each generation.
Since those early days, I've been through two economic Recessions (one ironically labeled "Great"), four more post-great-wars, each less "great" than the one before, and a series of escalating cries of environmental "wolf". I even survived the Y2K techno-lypse, and the 2012 Mayan calendar finale. But life goes on . . . So, I've learned not to awfulize the ups & downs of world events. After all, we still have feathered dinosaurs for dinner, eons after the "great" extinction. Somehow, the story continues, even though the "end times" and "latter days" are always upon the current generation. Therefore, even though I am in my own "latter days", I take heart from Steven Pinkers' well-researched assessment of humanity's rational ability to learn from its predecessor's irrational mistakes. Therefore, I intend to keep-on chopping philosophical wood until my choppin' days are done. :cool:
PS___Sorry, was that off-topic?
To paraphrase an old Zen proverb :
"Before [s]enlightenment[/s] (apocalypse), chop wood, carry water. After [s]enlightenment[/s] (apocalypse), chop wood, carry water"
.
An Assyrian clay tablet dating to around 2800 B.C. bears the inscription :
“Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/22/world-end/
Lament for Ur
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lament_for_Ur
The Better Angels of Our Nature :
[i]"Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence."
"Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity,"[/i]
___Stephen Pinker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
:100:
It's insane how much we talk about it actually. The science fiction section might as well be renamed to post-apocalyptic fiction. It ain't a sub-genre no more.