Doomsday

The “Duck and Cover” film was almost laughable.  I’m sure that people of a certain age can look back on these informative and important announcements from the Federal government not without some nostalgia and longing for a day when enemies were defined and threats confined to the latest few weapons.  The list of potential harm from the atomic bomb is underwhelming and underemphasized.  Nothing about radiation or heat or other harmful effects of the bomb.  No mention that the United States has just deployed one against Japan.  Further, the primitive safety guidelines, though somewhat protective, (“cover your neck with your coat”) are unlikely to make much of a difference in the event of true nuclear warfare.  And the civil defense worker arrives just in time to help Tony!  What did children think of these videos when they were shown in their classrooms?  I imagine a video presentation of this sort making apprehensive young school children even more worried about imminent disaster.  The fact that the average citizen knew almost nothing about the science behind atomic bombs made them entirely vulnerable and dependent on any information that the government distributed.  Additionally, since a lone man did not have any power to prevent the bomb, and since the threat of attack could only be prevented or defended by the federal government, films like these probably inspired more relief than skepticism.  Even the skeptic could try to “duck and cover.”  What did he have to lose in the case of total catastrophe?  Further, the 1950s were generally characterized by post-war quietude and conformity and belief in and reliance on the great American government that had granted them victorious in the war (though this neglects important movements that were simmering just below the surface).  The war hero is reincarnated in the civil defense worker who so kindly helps the little boy with his bicycle.  It’s your friendly hero just doing a day’s work in small-town America.  This was also an audience that had become accustomed to regularly watching newsreels of great importance during the war years.  Films had authority and anything released by the federal government even more so.

The pairing of the Strozier piece with this film suggests the threat of nuclear holocaust to which he has referred and which many Christian fundamentalists anticipate at end time.  But Strozier also points out that this end is a generalized notion of violence and warfare.  What he also notes is a curious sort of dissonance between fundamentalists external placidity as expressed through good works, charitable actions and religious devotion and an attention to violence to come at end time.  Religious fervor seems to manifest itself through intense acts of violence (and sex and domination) all in the name of salvation.  Strozier speak of indoctrination of youth that is so critical to maintaining the movement.  From a young age, children of the faith are inculcated with religious teaching and guilt to steer them in the path of the saved.  Concomitant with this teaching comes an understanding and fear of the wars at the end of the world.  Most intriguing in this piece was Strozier ideas about guilt and fears of end time.  In my own fatalist worldview, everything is going to turn out the worst it can.  It is a relief each time something does not go wrong.  But the anxiety that precedes is something to which I relate.

Apocalypse Thought as a Function of the Need for Human Identity

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On the Title
“Sense” – Just occurred to me: See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sense for the definitions of “sense.”  The title is apt and an excellent summary of Kermode’s main arguments.  I was thinking in terms of sense as in logic and sense as in prediction. Would be interesting for further discussion.

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Kermode assigns a function to fears of apocalypse.   The beginning of time obscured to man and an uncertain future equally dark for eternity, the idea of apocalypse – or the idea that there is some end, some finiteness – serves to orient him within a frame of time and history.  Dividing the intemporal into small pieces of history, however arbitrary these divisions, renders time’s “rectilinear” property manageable to the human mind, or “immanent”.  These so-called saecula, have persisted throughout history, and have traditionally been ascribed great importance.  In each generation, the designation of an oppressor or generalized antagonist serves as the Antichrist, a sign to which apocalyptic believers harken as evidence that the end is near.  Though apocalypse has failed to arrive for millennia, the frenzy endures with “extraordinary resilience.” Through what Kermode calls a “persistence of fictions,” apocalyptic faith ultimately creates a “perpetual calendar of human anxiety.”  Further, apocalypse breeds and is tied to mythology, particularly that of the Empire, perpetuating for it a role in human identity.

Kermode reduces apocalyptic fears to a device for satisfying the fundamental human psychological need for identity.  Remove for a moment all religious associations with apocalypse.  Humans are placed in the muddle/middle of some time-space continuum, unsure where their lives intersect with that of the universe.  Fear of the world’s demise, places each human existence closer to one end of this continuum.  That is, it gives context for the state of human existence.  From this perspective, the short time frame of existence gives a sense of urgency, of mystery and above all, definition.  We take for granted the requirement for an “end” in literature.  All stories, Kermode points out, must obviously have an end.  As a literary device, and if we are to take human existence as nothing more than a grand story, the seeming futility of predicting apocalypse has value in itself.  As in literature, audience expectation, is what allows the sense of peripetaia to be effectively wrought.  It is the reversal of logic that gives the story its satisfying end.  And if logic and science are one, then does this not contradict the the common perception that nature is immutable?  Kermode does not deal with the nature of nature specifically, but only the laws of nature as determined by man.  The scientific method is only a collection of observations and predictions about what we expect to happen based on past experience.  We create laws of nature; if they do not confirm to what we observe, we change the laws until we are satisfied that what we see conforms to some prescription. If cannot break free of them, we must make sense of them.  So, the projection of meaning, in this case, impending apocalypse, onto events coincidental with anticipated apocalypse is no more than the restructuring of time around apocalypse to create context.