Throughout history humans have had a fascination with the end of days. Like all good myths this originated from the time before the written word existed. This seems to be a polygenetic invention without regard to religion, language, or geography.
Some psychologists opine that this obsession indicates a deep-seated disaffection with the status quo and a desire to begin anew. Others feel that it is a way of exposing particular dissatisfaction with certain aspects of life and the need to reform those aspects lest they lead to disaster.
American culture is no different from any other about this fascination but we may have cornered the market on this peculiar pass time. The Millerites of the 1840s was one of the first of these movements in America to predict the end of times and the first to fail (The event was aptly named the Great disappointment).
And it’s not just devout christians. In my lifetime we have had three great non religious predicted end times come and go. As I grew up in the 1980s everyone around me knew that World War III was a certainty. It was only a matter of time. We were all suddenly taken aback in 1989 when 40 years of cold war just crumbled away with a wall.
Y2K was the next secular doomsday. The prediction that faulty computer coding along with the change of the millennium would lead us to a stone age existence as all computerized machines suddenly failed. This turned out to be nothing but a sales bonanza for bottled water companies and freeze-dried food makers.
2012 was the latest and greatest of the doomsdays. At least two cable TV networks spent the last five years basing the majority of their programming around a vaguely defined end date of December 21, 2012. Survivalists cropped up again, buying up land in far off places and stocking up on supplies. The local museum even had a special exhibit on the Mayan 2012 predictions that extended its tour long past the alleged doomsday and just recently closed. The date came and went without a hiccup.
My question is what now? We have seemingly run out of these expiration dates. Some dates still exist out there to be sure, but none are as powerful or in the near future. The world situation is arguably less volatile than the worst days of the cold war. Global warming seems to be a somewhat ill-defined and unsatisfactory bogey man. Will we create another date just because there is an unconscious need for doomsday? Can’t we instead just begin to work on living and making the world a better place?
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