Albrecht D\u00fcrer woodcut \u2013 Apocalypse (image available through Wikicommons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nI admit I had no clear answer to this question.\u00a0 For me, it was unusual to encounter folks who did not operate within a cultural framework of the \u201cend times.\u201d These folks were neither for or against, but merely curious as to why this concept is so prevalent in multiple conversations of politics, art, and culture.\u00a0 One friend noted that compared to the rest of the Western world, particularly continental Europe, the United States had experienced a much smaller amount of war, pestilence, and famine when compared to the Old World.\u00a0 We are younger, richer, and arable land is plentiful and cheap.\u00a0 So why the conviction that it will all end sooner than later?<\/p>\n
My counter to this was that United States history incorporates a larger story, and the conquest of Manifest Destiny and colonialism shows that our slice of the planet is just as blood-soaked as any other land mass one cares to name.\u00a0 We also have a history of attracting religious extremists who are either fleeing religious persecution, or wish to enact their private versions of heaven on earth, which includes punishment for those not in alignment with that vision.\u00a0 This creates a mixed bag of competing ideologies. The one constant assumption is that the end is here.\u00a0 We are either harbingers of it, or powerless to prevent it.<\/p>\n
American Apocalysm is pervasive.\u00a0 It\u2019s origins may have been Judeo-Christian, but this idea directly influences, and flourishes, in contemporary Pagan discourse.\u00a0 Noticing a lot of talk online these days about the end of\u2026 fill in the blank. The end of Paganism.\u00a0 The end of capitalism.\u00a0 The end of the planet through environmental collapse.\u00a0 Those who don\u2019t agree or are less alarmist are labeled as part of the problem.\u00a0 Attacked for being non-believers, accused of being inauthentic.\u00a0 Panic.\u00a0 Disaster. Catastrophe.\u00a0 I often wonder if people who espouse these views ever take a step a step back from the conversation and examine how similar this rhetoric is to other religious dogma that they claim to be so distinct and separate from? Reductionism does not get a pass just because it comes from a Pagan source.\u00a0 Arguments that advocate a \u201cfor or against\u201d mentality for complex and nuanced challenges have always been a turn off for me.\u00a0 Feels\u00a0 too close to the blame and shame game I have witnessed and experienced in previous thought experiments.\u00a0 If one does not agree with X, then one is clearly Y.\u00a0 If you do not believe what I am selling, then you are clearly ignorant.\u00a0 There is no time to discuss alternatives, we must be in alignment because everything is on fire RIGHT NOW.<\/p>\n
I get it.\u00a0 I am a product of this mentality. I grew up and live in the United States.\u00a0 A large part of my undergraduate work favored Post-modern Literature, and I indulge in nihilistic philosophy. My humor is dark and twisted.\u00a0 I have had a lifetime of betrayal, violence, and instability.\u00a0 Personally, I have been used, abused, and discarded.\u00a0 And yet, I am still here.\u00a0 I am still smiling.\u00a0 Like REM says, \u201cIt\u2019s the end of the world, and I feel fine.\u201d\u00a0 Why is this? Because I am Pagan, and I know that every ending is a beginning.\u00a0 Nature abhors a vacuum, and energy is neither created nor destroyed. I reject the message of powerlessness.\u00a0 We have problems, we create solutions.\u00a0 I believe in magick, which is the power of choice.\u00a0 We choose to be helpless in the face of adversity.\u00a0 We choose to become heroes.\u00a0 It begins with our mindset.\u00a0 No one can choose for you.\u00a0 This concept is presented in Margaret Atwood\u2019s \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale.\u201d\u00a0 Nolite te bastardes carborundorum<\/em> \u2013 Don\u2019t let the bastards grind you down.<\/p>\nI was blessed to have the opportunity to step out of my culture and gain some context in the wider history of ideas.\u00a0 I gained perspective on American Apocalysm.\u00a0 This is a regressive tactic to keep people in fear of the unknown, to sway popular opinion and control\/predict human behavior.\u00a0 It disappoints me to see so many Pagans of different backgrounds falling for it.\u00a0 This is understandable.\u00a0 We are experiencing a massive awakening, which creates cognitive dissonance.\u00a0 It is easy to fall back into the narratives we grew up with, it is a coping mechanism.\u00a0 We disguise these familiar arguments in New Age jargon and claim it as revelation, but the dismal song remains the same.\u00a0 Repent, align, bow to the consensus or be branded a heretic.\u00a0 Ethically questionable, morally bankrupt, we will ostracize those who do not fall into line.\u00a0 Be fearful, for the end is nigh.<\/p>\n
My answer to these arguments is a resounding\u2026 Fuck No.\u00a0 I am done with arguments based in shame and guilt. The sooner we stop proselytizing American Apocalysm, the sooner we begin creating viable solutions.\u00a0 For those who are new to the conversation, my sympathies are with you, but there is simply no need to waste one\u2019s time or mental space on useless angst.\u00a0 It either turns inward, or lashes outward.\u00a0 Very few have the capacity to transmute it into effective action.\u00a0 While the adage \u201cone cannot eat money\u201d is absolutely true, likewise one cannot subsist on feelings alone.\u00a0 Outrage and righteousness create equal parts of indigestion.\u00a0 The ashes of the past grow the seeds of the future. Encountered a meme today that sums it up: Apocaloptimist \u2013 someone who knows it\u2019s all going to shit, but still thinks it will turn out OK.\u00a0 We need more of this.\u00a0 Let\u2019s create something new.<\/p>\n
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When I was a student in the Netherlands, one concept that I enjoyed playing with was the idea of American Apocalysm.\u00a0 This is a term I created to describe a cultural phenomenon that puzzled my European friends.\u00a0 My discipline was religious studies, and the majority of the Dutch folks I encountered self-identified as atheist.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2580,"featured_media":299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,103,105,102,104],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apocalysm","tag-awakening","tag-end","tag-nature","tag-reductionism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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