Reading sections from Frank Kermode‘s A Sense of an Ending and the introduction to Elizabeth K. Rosen’s Apocalyptic Transformation, I was introduced to a way of looking at the Apocalypse that up until this point had only occurred to me fleetingly, and never hit me head on. No doubt the apocalypse (be it in a biblical literal sense, or through a secular cause) is a tremendously prevalent thought in Western culture that influences us and our way of seeing the world in innumerable ways–both authors acknowledge that–but the idea that we not only love the apocalypse (perhaps too much, according to Rosen), but need it as a sense-making device to help cope with the randomness of the universe and the contingent nature of existence struck me as radical at first, and then upon further consideration as completely accurate.
Kermode talks of arbitrary divisions throughout time or–to use the term he uses–saecula, that we implant in our lives because we thrive on the idea of epochs. This struck me as particularly intriguing because if one looks closely enough, one can see these divisions in a plethora of places, from progression through school systems marked by various graduation ceremonies, to people adding various “life events” on their facebook profiles. We all are, in a very literal sense, epoch creators. Acclaimed author Joan Didion said it best, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live”. With that in mind, it seems only natural that we feel a need to create a grand ending to all life.It might just come down to this: the world is a large and scary place, and by imagining and ending to it, however outlandish the ending might be, we gain a measure of imagined control over the chaos that’s extremely comforting.
We are the apocalypse’s clingy and overly dependent lover.
I agree with your statements involving our “epoch-creator” tendancies and was wondering if you felt our attachment to history, both scientific and biblical was similar. Is the beginning of the world like its end?
I definitely think our attachment to the beginning is like our preoccupation with the end; Kermode says something similar in his piece, talking about establishing “fictive concords” with both the beginning and end in order to orient ourselves and deal with floating somewhere in the middle of history.
But beyond what Kermode says, I think both collectively and individually, history is merely a mythology that survives based on consensus; it’s all essentially fiction, but it’s comforting, and it gives us purpose and a sense of ourselves, so we choose to believe.
Hi Eric,
Yay! This post, in combination with the two readings, is incredibly enlightening to me. I completely agree with this requirement for the apocalypse due to our obsession with an epoch. This thought opens up space for many new questions. Where does hubris and self-involvement fall into this? In our time, a pompous attitude seems to be rabid (possibly it has always been). Is this desire for an epoch in our lifetimes the source of our love for the apocalypse? And echoing Danielle’s question, where does this epoch-love fall in our interest in time? In history? Well, although I think that the love of story-telling is one of the causes of the attraction to history, I think that the combination of our pompousness and our love of an epoch comes together perfectly to develop our attraction to a story or prophecy that will occur in our time, i.e. the apocalypse.
This is a very important step to make in my thinking of the apocalypse. Thank you.
Hey Colby,
I think hubris plays a part for some people, but if I had to pinpoint a main motivator for our epoch creating tendencies and preoccupation with the apocalypse, I’d say it’s fear. It’s kind of a terrifying series of thoughts, when one considers them: that we’re all here out of chance, that there’s no underlying order to the chaos, that we’re largely insignificant specks floating somewhere in the midst of history. Believing in a grand end to history that’s fated to come sometime soon, people can eschew their own smallness and find some sort of solidity and importance in their existences. Maybe you’re right though–maybe it is just arrogance and I’m giving people too much credit, haha.
To your other questions, I think our need for solidity and, as Kermode says, orientation, drives us to establish a connection with the past as well as the future. Your point about a love of story-telling definitely comes into play; it’s probably a big factor in our love of both the beginning and the end.
You’ve given me a lot to think about here, thanks!