A certain fascination with the end of the World

For some reason, modern society longs for its own Last Battle, Gotterdamung in Norse mythology. Our Western civilization is constantly titillated by fictional and non-fictional works about being brought to the brink of destruction (and being saved), considering how close we are to destruction, or actually being destroyed. Why is this phenomenon so widespread? Does it imply a sort of "civilization self-hate" that is pervasive in our disconnected society? Are we impatient for Gotterdamung?

There are numberless popular stories about civilization being brought to the brink of destruction and being saved, often by a lone hero. The TV series 24 is a good example, James Bond is another, and the list of popular action/adventure/thriller/sci-fi movies is very long: Independence Day, War of the Worlds, The Day After Tomorrow, Armadgeddon, Deep Impact, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Starship Troopers, The Hunt for Red October, The Terminator, The Matrix, V for Vendetta, etc. You can probably think of any number of hardback books that feature this type of story, most notably Clive Cussler.

We also seem to have a certain fascination with appreciating the closeness of destruction, and pondering life after the destruction: How close is it? How bad is it? Could it actually be better than what we have now? On the movie front, the answer is bad: The Day After Tomorrow, Blade Runner, V for Vendetta, The Matrix, Twelve Monkeys, Waterworld, Mad Max, and Robocop all paint dark futures ahead if Western civilization is lost. On the book front, it is interesting to note the number of popular non-fiction books that predict disaster: Collapse, The Future Eaters, The Weather Makers, and a LONG list of environmental and conspiracy theory books. It is immaterial whether or not these books contain factual information that is highly pertinent to future decision-making--in the environmental arena, they often do. It is highly interesting to think about whether these books are popular despite or because of their dark predictions about the future. These are books that make gloomy reading about the death of our civilization, yet we are spending our modern lives reading them, fascinated.

So, are we fixated and titillated by the prospect of the tragic end of Western society, at least in the abstract? I think so. Does this mean I think people want the world to end? Stay tuned for my next blog...