1. Introduction
If you’re an unbiased and attentive reader of contemporary books, printed periodicals and online news media you’ll probably notice over time a, as it were, familiar set of recurring themes, often reflecting a current, terrible event or a political circumstance.
One of those recurring themes is the anticipation of a soon to come collapse of the economic system, financial markets, or other vital devices (food supply chains, health care), and another – less violent but gloomy in a similar fashion – the incessant decline of culture, morale and social cohesion in the Western World.
Off the bat, I can only guess about the impulse behind it. Increasing click-rates or sold copies thru a controversial topic appears as one of the obvious reasons.
Selfish attention-seeking for its own sake, or an attempt to promote a political agenda can be reasons just as well.
However, such sorts of simplistic explanations I never found really convincing though they surely have their merits. They always address the distasteful elements of the human nature like greed or power-hunger, but they ignore the underlying spiritual dimension.
2. The predictions of decline and disintegration
“Certainly it is possible that the advent to power of the masses marks one of the last stages of Western civilization, a complete return to those periods of confused anarchy which seem always destined to precede the birth of every new society.” – Gustave Le Bon
When one takes the trouble to explore older literature and study some of the classics of the great thinkers and controversial minds of the more recent eras, like Gustave Le Bon (“The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”) or Karl Marx (“The Communist Manifesto”), he’ll see that their work is often rooted in a very pessimistic, even a doomsday outlook about the future.
Popular dystopian novels of the middle and late 20th century strike a similar tone, so as “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, or “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, to mention merely two.
The discussion is by no means a modern phenomenon. However, not even the appalling events of recent years, or the entire last century for that matter, proved the grim predictions as to (or the desire for, more about that later) a zombie apocalypse (one half-ironic contemporary term) quite right.
Compiling material for this article has in fact led me to a slightly altered view about the subject.
The actual question that arises is, to put it bluntly, whether people want to see the world burn.
After doing little bits of research, I hold two quite different hypotheses as to this interesting question. I’ll try to outline some of the material I came across in the following paragraphs.
2.1. Vengeance
“And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.” – The Gulag Archipelago
Crushing disappointments, rejections, suffering are intrinsic to the human existence. This inherent feature of life has been cast into a spectrum of philosophical theories across most different cultural origins and eras ever since the dawn of writing.
Undoubtedly, there exists (or has to exist) an angry and vengeful side within our human nature that blames the world for pain and suffering, and a spiritual desire for retribution seems just the logical consequence of it.
However, how this inevitable fact of life transcends the spiritual realm of every individual person varies greatly.
Since a long time I’ve held the notion that people who encounter rejections and hardship from early on in life (and therefore lack sexual, as well as other essential gratifications) usually tend to create stunning pieces of art, literature or technical inventions (you want to look up the biographies of artists like Vincent van Gogh or Ludwig van Beethoven) what is the way to “get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood”, as George Orwell put it.
Others aren’t capable to find a creative and beneficial outlet to sublime their impulses and go the destructive path. It is of no difficulty to find examples here unfortunately, for there exist far to many of them (you want to look up the biographies of mass murderers like Nikolay Yezhov or Timothy McVeigh) especially among those groups of people who believe they serve a higher political cause.
2.2. Escapism
“He [Orwell] was more insightful about the distant dangers of Communist thought-control, in the Soviet Union, than the more pressing and durable thought-control of Western consumerism” – Keith Gessen
The 21st century Western society is a world of abundance, unprecedented rises in standards of living and physical safety. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2022 doesn’t contradict this point, yet actually confirms it by all intends and purposes.
The lack of real face-to-face interaction and, by contrast, the levels of comfort and ease of our everyday lives lead one to believe, or rather feel that this can’t be the natural order of things.
Quite recently I came across a film analysis about appeals of modern zombie apocalypse movies, and the argument goes that the reason for the popularity of such movies is, by and large, that many viewers covertly wish for a scenario of this kind to happen.
Covertly I wish for civil society go down the drain in my weaker moments as well, if I am perfectly honest. But I am also perfectly aware that this is pathetic: the benefits of a stable society prevent me from going with black and ruined teeth, being paralyzed by bacteria or freezing to death in unfavorable climate conditions.
People may fancy the idea of the very freedom of a post-apocalyptic world, but only so far as access to material goods and the benefits of the industrialized age are largely maintained.
3. Further thoughts
Predictions about the end of the world have always existed, and they will continue to exist by being reformulated and sold as new insights.
Why has an apocalyptic collapse never occurred is human history, after all, though it has been prophesied since generations of writers1? In fact, the world is actually becoming more peaceful by the year as we progress (check out book 6 in the literature reference that proves it with statistics).
My short take on it is, that predictions of decline and disintegration strengthen those very antagonistic forces that prevent the ultimate breakdown of societies, a sort of anti self-fulfilling prophecy if you will.
With a more religious stance one would assert that Good will invariably defeat Evil, and the human spirit will prevail. I would kind of adapt on this, since it is basically the very same message.
So, the end of world will not happen anytime soon, particularly not in the shapes which have been predicted. Or have been hoped for covertly.
1 as I see it, the closest mankind ever came to a complete civil collapse was the Black Death that haunted the population of the Old World in the mid 14th century
4. Literature
Novels
1. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Harvill Press; ISBN 13 978-1843430858
2. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks; ISBN 13 978-1451690316
3. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley, Ernst Klett Sprachen; ISBN 13 978-3125798502
Non-fiction
4. Psychologie der Massen (The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind) – Gustave Le Bon, Alfred Kröner Verlag; ISBN 3-520 09915 2
5. Politics and the English Language – George Orwell, Sahara Publisher Books; ISBN 13 978-2491704810
6. The Better Angels of our Nature – Steven Pinker; ISBN 13 978-0141034645