The more despair I feel, the more I throw myself into the service of others. In some ways it’s selfish, to please others for the sake of your own good feelings. But from the outside it’s noble. Really, my self is the only thing I have to offer the world.
Though he should be lauded for being instrumental in attacking corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, Martin Luther actually whipped himself out of guilt because he had desires, that’s how messed up he was. Luther’s “view” was that of a self-loathing, sinful wretch.
Hey, you don’t have to tell me - just look up what Luther recommended be done to the Jewish people of Europe. He was a nasty piece of work in many ways.
From Wikipedia:
He [Martin Luther] proposed “What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews”:[1]
- “First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools … This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians …”
- “Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.”
- “Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.”
- “Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb …”
- “Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside …”
- “Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them …”
- "Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow … But if we are afraid that they might harm us or our wives, children, servants, cattle, etc., … then let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., … then eject them forever from the country
Martin Luther was an interesting, complicated guy. There’s a lot to admire about him and a lot that is, to put it mildly, not nearly so admirable. But that’s off-topic for this thread.
The notion that this world is not our (permanent, ultimate) home—we’re just passing through—is a fairly common one, expressed in a number of songs, such as the oft-recorded folk song “I Am a Pilgrim” (whose title may well allude to Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, which has a similar theme).
I don’t think this is wishful thinking at all. Humans survive best when we survive in groups. Plus, we have examples of people undergoing massive apocalyptic disasters, who don’t immediately turn to murder and cannibalism to survive. Think about any mass famine, like Ethiopia in the late 80s - how many instances of cannibalism were there?
People have some innate resistance to falling quite that low, no matter how hard the circumstances. The few times some of us have fallen that low (Hello, Donner party!), they were so out there that we still remember them, decades or centuries later.
I would have to disagree. In The Personal Reformation of Martin Luther , there is this:
The fear of death prompted him to become a monk. And it was the fear of the wrath of God that consumed him for the next five years—so much so, in fact, that he did everything within his power to placate his guilty conscience and earn the favor of God.
Of all of the monks in the monastery, he became the most fastidious. He dedicated himself to the sacraments, fasting, and penance. He even performed acts of self-punishment like surpassing sleep, enduring cold winter nights without a blanket, and, in an attempt to atone for his sins, even whipping himself.
His (in his view) “rational approach” to his own unavoidable apocalypse was to dedicate his life to being ready to die a righteous and saved human being. Other people would take the opposite approach and cram as much personal pleasure and outright debauchery as possible into their remaining lives.
The answer give to the OP depends very much on what any individual would consider a “rational approach”.
The OP makes a massive assumption that despair or panic are the only reasonable responses to a true belief in near-term localized “catastrophe”.
It seems you’re saying that “emptying my bank account and living it up while I can” should represent an honest belief in the disruptions humanity will face due to climate change, while continuing to go to work and paying my rent means I don’t believe in it? If I really believed in imminent global economic collapse I would kill myself (because reasons), and the fact that I haven’t done so means I don’t actually believe it?
I think you’re missing a key element here, which is that humanity rarely (if it ever has) exists in an ideal environment. Sadness, disruption, inconvenience, hardship, and death are always part of life. Each individual feels more or less bleak about any given circumstance based on a lot of factors. It’s also possible to feel content about somethings and panicked about others. There is no one emotional response to life that is more factually accurate than another.
At some point you are going to die of something, even if it’s old age. So why don’t you (or anyone) do those things now?
The answer is that you probably aren’t going to die of something tomorrow.
The war in Ukraine, while terrible, is not happening right here in New Jersey.
Whether or not climate change happens, I can’t predict how it will eventually impact my 8 year old. And it doesn’t alleviate me of my obligation to raise him as best I can.
I would hope if these things upset you (or anyone for that matter), you would look for ways to make a positive impact on society (such as you are able).
Maybe spend less time online and just go out and live your life. I feel like it’s easy to get sucked into these apocalyptic rabbit holes of doom and gloom where people just endlessly gripe about everything they feel is wrong with the world.
And, there’s an implication in the OP that those Ukrainians who are living in the midst of war (or pick another people living through crisis) should be doing those things. Going through an invasion, famine or political oppression? Stop working. Jump up and down and scream. Do drugs. Maybe off yourself. Stop teaching your children or preparing them for anything. Joy is dead.
The OP describes the extremes a person not only should go to, but must, if they are to be deemed ‘living by their convictions’.
A consequence of this would be religious violence the likes we haven’t seen on this planet yet.
If the people who cared about me knew for certain I would spend eternal damnation for missing church than punching me in the face every time I didn’t go is their only moral solution.
Agreed.
mrAru and I have a liking for SF/fantasy and on long roadtrips tend to knock scenarios back and forth on various subjects. One of these is an agreed tactic of running away when possible [i.e. Jews in Germany] or preparing safe spaces - commonly a bunker hidden under the house springs to conversation, what we would put in it, would we have a secret exit off a moderate distance from the place [like in a garden shed a couple hundred feet away, or a hidden exit off in the woods outside of a decent perimeter] Security aspects [break and bulled resistant glass, those security rolling shutters on all doors and windows, with one door openable by remote control and powered by a battery backup, security alarms and cameras] even escape options [adult tricycles have a bit of cargo space, so a bug out bag and some basic supplies are possible, and don’t need to worry about running out of fuel, or hte fuel going bad over time] and even where to run to or a meet up point [a bucket point, an agreed upon meeting place, we change ours periodically]
One can also prepare ones living area, adding a secure home, solar panels with a set of replacement panels stored for replacement, a source of water [deep well, spare pump and controller, water storage ability] and ground prepped for and used for gardening, with a spare set of seeds sealed and in nitrogen in case the saved from the previous season seeds fail] Guns and ammo also can come in useful for hunting and defense, fishing gear is nice if you are near fishing.
Some great points made so far. Given me something to think about, especially that “rationality” might not be the best perspective with which to approach this. The point that there’s always something is a compelling one as well, although I think my OP deals more with people who predict a specific imminent event that would make me going to work on Monday ultimately pointless.
@Jay_Z, your point about using the loaded word “courage” is well taken. I wonder if “putting your money where your mouth is” or “walking the walk” is better?
Which brings up an excellent point that I’d been thinking about, but forgot to mention (though Sitnam’s reply alluded to it): most of the people who do “walk the walk” by my thinking are generally thought of as weird at best (e.g. some preppers, some antinatalists) to outright dangerously delusional at worst (the mentioned religious fanatics), and I’m not sure how to reconcile that, other than to say it’s probably an indication of the answer I’m looking for.
There we get into the old “I’m not a pessimist, I’m facing reality” debate. It’s a classic.
While I get your point, it seems counterintuitive to me that every single person who says “we’re fucked” when discussing the environment or American politics is depressed or has mental health issues.
While I definitely get your point, my basic thesis is that this hypothetical person knows they’re right. Thus my pondering whether not absolutely living by that belief means they don’t really believe what they’re saying.
Hm, I see how it can be viewed that way, but as I mentioned, the “if Trump wins, I’m moving to Canada” stuff sort of goes along the same lines. We made fun of those people for not actually doing it for very similar reasons. If you actually truly believe that the Supreme Court will lock in eternal Republican rule or cause civil war next summer and that American democracy is finished, is there a reason you wouldn’t be trying literally anything possible to get out of the country, practical obstacles be damned? So those “I’m moving to Canada” folks really didn’t intend to “walk the walk,” right? That’s why that acquaintance of mine sticks in my head so much.
I can see how it might be interpreted that way, and yeah, it is pretty offensive. For what it’s worth, I was thinking more along the war causing global thermonuclear exchanges, rather than “just” the current direct fighting.
Thanks again for the replies so far; y’all have given me a lot of meat to chew on.
Meaning can be found in small actions, like helping a friend or enjoying a hobby. Drugs, too, temporarily at least. So the belief that human civilization is in decline does not necessarily prevent you from having a personally meaningful existence. I think true despair would be if you were unable to find meaning in those small things.
Nobody knows enough to be certain what the future will be. Yes, there are serious threats to civilization or even the human race but we can’t be sure we’re doomed.
But let’s put that argument aside. Let’s say we absolutely one hundred percent know that the world will end in twenty years. How should you react?
Can you do anything to avoid this fate? No. Being cheerful won’t change events. Neither will despairing. The premise is that our fate is fixed.
So what’s the best course of action? Despair for twenty years and then die? Or be cheerful for twenty years and then die? I feel the cheerful people are living better even if their cheerfulness is delusional.
Now let’s go back to my original argument and say that the end of the world is very likely but not certain. Now cheerfulness is wrong because it can prevent people from working on possible solutions because they refuse to see the problems exist. We need to motivate people to expect the worst so we can work on avoiding it.
But despair is still a bad idea. Despair is giving up in the face of adversity rather than fighting against that adversity.
This framework does not take into account any consideration of time. Personally, I believe in the “unavoidable bleak future” scenario; I think the world we know today will be very different – indeed, intolerable for many - in the near term owing to climate change. But “near term” will still be beyond the lifetime of everyone alive on the planet today. That doesn’t mean those who “go on with normal life as best they can” believing all along in certain doom “lack the courage of their convictions”; it means they have a reality-based sense of things. It means they recognize that while abdicating responsibility in the modern world might give them an obligation-free existence while they await certain doom, if that doom is delayed long enough, their lives are likely to be significantly more unpleasant over the medium-and-longer-terms.
Similarly, a loss of perspective leads to equally unfavorable outcomes. We had Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress for two years; did the U.S., democracy or the world end? Did it palpably impact most people’s lives? I’m not saying it wasn’t awful (or that it didn’t come uncomfortably close to ending any of those things), just that it did not result in an unavoidably bleak future (yet). Those who based extreme actions on it doing so failed to maintain a reality-based perspective on how the U.S. government works or the history of the country and the challenges it has faced in the past.
I think cynicism regarding current life and the future is the only sane response to events (and non-events) taking place in the world today which spell needless suffering for millions of people. At the same time, it is essential that such cynicism be coupled with a reality-based perspective that takes into account good, bad and still-uncertain variables which might plausibly affect one’s quality of life.
Bottom line: be prepared.
At an individual level, I already know the future is bleak: I’m going to grow old and die.
I still try to make the best of my life, in terms of enjoyment and achievement, and be considerate and kind to people around me.
So, on the civilization level, I don’t see why knowing we’re done for would change all that much. Eg I would still want to encourage scientific progress just to know as much as we can in the time we have.
The only real difference is that it would make sense to leave relics / time capsules for some other civilization to discover. There’s no need for me to try to do this on an individual level.
Your exact words were “Why would it not be rational to sit down with your eight year old, and honestly tell them that they’re screwed, and they have no future except one of suffering?” I can’t think of any situation where it would be rational to tell them that, no matter how sure you are. Better to help them develop some skills and a mindset for surviving or coping with this hypothetical bleak future.
Even in the worst scenario I can imagine, say a planet-killing asteroid that we know will hit the Earth in a few months, I wouldn’t sit my kid down and say “sorry kid, you’re screwed. An asteroid strike is about to devastate the entire planet. Billions will die instantly in the initial blast wave, then the world will be plunged into perpetual darkness and cold, and the few remaining survivors will envy the dead. Ok, go out and play now, champ!”
Yes, but part of that is because we can look at what the preppers are actually doing, and evaluate their plans. Far too many of them don’t seem to really have plans for how to survive after the collapse of civilization, they seem far more focused on role-playing some kind of movie hero fantasy. I’m talking about the guys hoarding dozens, sometimes hundreds, of guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Sure, a few guns would probably be a good idea, with a mix of rifles, shotguns, and whatnot for different jobs, but there’s not much point to having dozens of guns - you can’t use them all at once. Having an extra 10 AR-15s doesn’t make you any safer. And meanwhile, what other equipment could you have bought with that money?
After the Fall, electricity, gas, oil and all that will likely be scarce. Anything you need to build, or grow, will need old-fashioned hand-powered tools. How many of these “preppers” have the tools to build a log cabin? How many of them have the skills? Do they even know what an adze is, and why you want one?
If you really believed that civilization was going to fall, and wanted to survive that long-term, you’d be looking to learn all those old skills, and collect the tools you need to make use of those skills.
And that’s also why a society would develop - no one person has all the skills you’d need. I’m pretty sure I could do at least a half-assed job of building a log cabin, and even have some of my great-grandfather’s tools he used to do just that, but I’ve got no idea how to weave cloth, or sew clothes, or pickle things, or any number of critical skills.
If this society collapses and humans survive, and it’s happened before, then it’s back to tribalism and not individual paranoids. For social and psychological reasons as well as skill sharing. And rituals and traditions, no matter how irrational you think they are. That life is going to be a lot more healthy that living individually.
Death comes to all of us. Some quicker than others. Plenty of people get six months to live and that’s what they have. They get their affairs in order. Being excessively doomy through that process isn’t healthy and is arguably cowardly. I’m reminded of the Onion article about a man’s short cowardly battle with cancer mocking such a thing.