Psychological Roots of Apocalyptic Thinking

There are two uniquely human cognitive or psychological characteristics that lead to an apocalyptic view of the world. This will not immediately make sense to the reader. But, I ask your indulgence as I develop the argument. One of these characteristics is our ability to imagine and the other is our moral sense.

Our ability to imagine allow us to, among other things, envision a world different from the one that exists. We can see a world with farms instead of chance discoveries of grain, domesticated herds rather than following wild herds, man made shelters instead of caves. Our ability to imagine allows us to create societies, governments, economies, technologies and so on. Because we can imagine a world other than the one we live in, we sometimes see the imagined world as better and try to bring it about, or wish to have it brought about.

Our moral sense allows us to see beyond our basic needs and consider the needs of others. Others can include other people we know as well as people we don't know and future people. We sometimes even extend our moral sense to animals and nature. Our moral sense allows us to consider a world in which fairness, justice, respect, orderliness, and predictability figure in heavily.

Given our imagination and our moral sense, it is possible for us to envision a world, unlike the world in which we live, where fairness, justice and so on rule. It is also possible to desire to bring such a world about or desire to have it brought about. And it is this desire, I believe, to have a fair and just world, that provides the psychological basis for apocalyptic thinking.