(Side note: the song “Losing My Religion,” came on while I was preparing this post.)
One line that caught my attention in Kirsch’s book as we read from the second half was this line: “Apocalyptic fancies, no matter how weird or woozy, were capable of taking on the quality of revealed truth. . . . The sure and urgent expectation of the end-times was, quite literally, a fact of life in the middle ages” (Kirsch 157). The thing that is most hard for me to grasp is what it is like to live in a world not where we are aware that some people think this is a real way the history of our world is going, but a general political belief held by society.
I can’t help but think of this sort of “group think” and be reminded of things like the current political state of America because there is the phenomenon of having the population (mostly) split itself into two like-minded camps of thought where religion plays different, and yet specific roles. I was reading a quote from Sandra Fluke who spoke at the Democratic National Convention and she said “Over the last six months, I’ve seen what these two futures look like. And six months from now, we’ll all be living in one, or the other. But only one.” Now, full disclosure, I think that political elections are extremely important and take it seriously, but reading that statement, I actually found myself a tad bit anxious like the “fate of the world,” rested in my hands. It is really interesting to look at how political speak uses the idea of a future history, and of a sort of apocalypse not only in its speeches against other campaigns, but in general. I would need to do more research, but I am super curious to see how this past election utilizes religious talk, and apocalyptic talk, as part of its “language arsenal.”
Hi Amy,
Your observations about “political speak” today perceptively update some of the Kirsch’s discussion in the last chapter. What most captured my interest about your quote from Fluke was the binary perspective she put forward—it will be one or the other. In contrast, Kirsch suggests that the “changin’ times” that Dylan and others noted after the 60s civil rights movements means that our culture contains increasingly multiple and often contending perspectives—from traditional religion to politics to popular culture. Each of those camps often has multiple points of view within it as well. Certainly, our internet age makes it harder to maintain a single ideology (though conspiracy theory suggests the opposite in a Big Brother scenario!). As you investigate political rhetoric, it will be interesting to see if given statements lean toward images of doom or millennial aspiration (and which do both). As Kirsch notes, following A. Y. Collins, this does not necessarily mean a given group is actually victimized since they may be in power yet envision themselves as victims of another group.
Hey Amy,
Agree with Lee that the ways in which apocalyptic belief has infiltrated our society and especially our political system are extremely complex and numerous. However, I agree with you that the binary mentality of Fluke’s comment is increasingly important in our current society with the approaching date of 12-21-12. I know that this date stems from the Mayan theory of the apocalypse but they seem to be interchangeable in the minds of citizens who have not looked deeply into the event but are aware of the approaching date. Once this date is over, we will either be in one place or another, as Fluke said, and the increasing anxiety that is approaching with both the vital upcoming election and this massive apocalyptic date is understandable considering the media’s role in both these seemingly different, but somewhat connected events. Let’s talk about this!