Are we doomed? It certainly seems like it. Polling on the issue suggests that most people expect something bad to happen in the near future. The unspoken driving force of our politics for the last decade is this sense of foreboding. Despite all the numbers people use to measure society looking good, the voters keep searching around for someone who will either fix things or stop the fixers.
One reason for the pessimism is the people in charge have been crying wolf for decades as a way to both distract people from certain topics and as a way to rally support for the ruling class. The theater of democracy requires a hero and a villain, so it is only natural to create a crisis atmosphere in which to place them. Politics is one manufactured drama after another.
Even so, there are reasons to be worried. The behavior of the authorities in response to the floods in Appalachia underscore the fact that our government is not very good at doing basic things anymore. The main road was washed out and no one thinks it will be replaced in their lifetime. The reason for that is we drive over torn up roads every day that never seem to get repaired properly.
That said, doomsday seems to be a part of the American DNA. For as long as there has been moving pictures, the end of the world has been a topic. Movies and television shows based on the end times are a stock feature. The cause of doom changes from generation to generation, but the sense of doom is constant. It is as if Americans need to be in fear in order to feel alive.
On the other hand, maybe it is that the youngest people in the Western world have the best historical perspective. Nothing lasts forever and that means what we call the West will one day draw to a close. Perhaps the birth of this nation is so recent that it remains a reminder that death is inevitable. On the other hand, maybe we suffer from a collective form of imposter syndrome.
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This Week's Show
Contents
Intro
Doomsday’s Past
Doomsday Templates
Are We Doomed?
Arc Of History
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