Date Posted:13:45:14 07/05/02 Fri Author: mt. healthy mountaineer Subject: Re: End of the World In reply to:
mvd
's message, "End of the World" on 13:23:11 07/05/02 Fri
You are right about the "end of the world" undercurrent - be it Fundamentalists or ultra-environmentalists, there are people out exploiting that exposed nerve of American culture. I am not one of these people, so I can't offer a lot of insight, except to say that these people all across the political and religious sperctrums are all depending on our ignorance to help them act. I've heard people say not to worry about chemical waste - just dump it anywhere since Armageddon is just around the corner. I've heard others say that we should all live like the Amish so we never ever make any chemicals to pollute anything. Both of these depend on us being too self-absorbed to actually think for ourselves. (there's an ironic statement - too self-absorbed to actually think for himself!)
Some of it might come out of the natural concern for our own children - the world that we will leave them, etc.
In America, it might be that fear that there is nothing more - there are no more frontiers. When Daniel Boone got sick of it all he moved to Kentucky and later on to Missouri. When Brigham Young got sick of it all, he moved everybody out to Utah. We have no more Kentuckys or Utahs, unless you count outer space and there's really nowhere to go with our current level of technology. Since there's no place to go, it creates a certain fear that this must be the end.
However, I wouldn't discount the Christian influence, even in this supposed Post-Christian world. We are still influenced by Roman and Greek thought, even thousands of years later. Christian ideas (even some misshapen interpretations of supposed Christian ideas) are bound to have a major influence.
