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Nihilism, Fundamentalism, or Activism: Three Responses to Fears of the Apocalypse By Richard Eckersley
PHOTO COLLAGE BY LISA MATHIAS WITH IMAGES COURTESY OF DANE WIRTZFELD, RICH AND MICHELLE LEGG, DALE ROBINS, AND JON HORTON / ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
Widespread fears of an apocalyptic future elicit equally dangerous responses: nihilistic thoughts and decadent lifestyles that accelerate environmental destruction, or fundamentalist intolerance that exacerbates social-political conflict. The only safe approach to suspicions of the apocalypse is adaptation through activism. THE FUTURIST
A few years ago, my 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.” The images we hold of the world affect how we think, feel, and act, and they are increasingly shaped by global or distant threat and disaster: earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, bushfires, disease pandemics, war, terrorist attacks, and famine. While these hazards are, for the most part, 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 climate change and other threats begin to impact more deeply on our lives. The boundaries between the personal and the global are breaking down. Most attempts to address these threats focus on economics and technology, but how we react psychologically to apocalyptic fears will be just as important. This response involves subtle and complex interactions between the external world and that existing in our minds. These have implications for both personal wellJanuary-February 2008
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