• Gnomon
    3.7k
    I am looking for people who are specifically feeling the need for “end-time philosophies”Joshua Jones
    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 enlightenment (apocalypse), chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment (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 :
    "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,"

    ___Stephen Pinker
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
  • john27
    693
    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.Gnomon
    :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.
123Next
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.