Elements of Apocalyptic Thinking

The roots of apocalyptic thinking are so fundamental to the way we see the world that it is difficult to see this as anything other just the way the world is. However, it is not the way the world is. It is the way we see the world. Before attempting to justify that claim, let me lay out the elements of apocalyptic thinking.

First, there is a belief that their is a 'right' way that things should be and they have gotten off track from that. Second, if we don't do something to set things right, forces beyond out control will set them right for us. Further, there is an element of retribution in the forces beyond our control setting things right. That is, there is some element of punishment for not have kept things on track for ourselves.

Let's say that an unfortunate investor put money in a lot of risky "get rich quick" schemes and landing up loosing everything as well as incurring a lot of debt in the process. Consider the following two statements.

1) He got what he deserved for trying to get rich quick.

2) The probability of loosing everything increases as the riskiness of investments increases. However, there is also a chance you could win big. There are also possibilities for small losses or small gains.

The first of the two statements is more of a moral assessment than an objective assessment. People should work hard and invest prudently. If they do not, bad things will happen. The second allows for the fact that when people gamble, some people actually do win. So retribution is not built into the fabric of reality.

We would like to believe that retribution is built into the fabric of reality. Consequently, we tend to notice instances where the apparent retribution takes place, while ignoring cases where it does not. Thus, our selective data gathering tends to support what we would like to believe is the case.

There are several problems with the elements of apocalypticism. First, the 'right' way is something we impose on the world based on our human values. Doing all the 'right' things makes the human race prosper and grow. This probably not the 'right' thing for the other inhabitants of the planet. Second, the forces of nature are, well, the forces of nature. They do not bring things back into line with human values. They just do what they do. Third, although we do see elements of equilibrium in nature, equilibrium is not retribution.

We apply this apocalyptic notion of retribution to issues of all sizes from individual to social to global. And the magnitude of the retribution ranges from small hand slaps to total destruction of human life. In the next post we will take up the range of applications of this notion.

Religious Roots of Apocalyptic Thinking

About 3,500 years ago a Persian prophet named Zarathustra asserted that Gods could not be good in some cases and bad in others which was the case, at the time, in most polytheistic mythologies. He said good is good and evil is evil - setting the stage for later beliefs that the earth is a battleground between the forces of good and the forces of evil. This world view, at the risk of being simplistic, allows evil to gain ground at times only to be pushed back by the forces of good. The tension between good and evil is at the heart of apocalyptic thinking. Even if one does not believe in good and evil as a religious doctrine, the underlying concept can also be found in secular thinking. People who believe in balance and harmony see imbalances or dis-harmonies being brought back into balance and harmony as an aspect of the natural order.

Another key religious doctrine is the concept of interventionism. This can best be understood in opposition to a well know opposite doctrine. Deism, a religious view that became popular after the enlightenment, claimed that God created the world and left it to run on its own. Their view can be summed up easily in an example. Let's say you have two clock makers. One made a clock that runs perfectly and requires no further work. The other made a clock that requires constant attention and repair. Who is the better clock maker? Clearly the first one is. The deist view of interventionism is that it is like the second clock maker. Why does God have to intervene all the time? Why couldn't he have just made the world perfect and let it run?

Despite the strengths of that argument, most people are interventionist. They believe that God has a hand in things that go on in the world and that he steps in from time to time to set things right. This notion of the forces of good stepping in to set things right provides much of the religious basis for the apocalyptic view of the world.

Allowing Possibilties

Another way to increase your mental flexibility and improve your ability to be proactive with new ideas is to take an idea that you may normally reject out of hand and allow the possibility that it may be true - or, at least, that it may have merit. We tend to see life as black and white, and even the shades of gray do not allow for the variety of possibilities that are really out there. Is monarchy better than democracy? Would society be better if everybody was not equal? Should there be a mandatory age at which people are terminated? I choose these examples because they are ideas that most people would not even want to consider.

However, each of these ideas does have merit. And by finding the merit in these ideas, you can see that it is better to consider ideas than to reject them out of hand. I suspect that most people, after considering them, would still reject them. However, consider this: Monarchies can be more efficient than democracies. Regardless, of what we might want to believe, everybody is not equal. And as people age, their maintenance costs increase while their productivity decreases. Might that money not be better spent on younger people?

This exercise is useful to see that even the most offensive of ideas still have some merit. And that raises the question - what other ideas that really do have merit have we simply rejected out of hand?

In the following few posts I am going to consider a question that I alluded to earlier. In our modern secular age, do people still believe in the apocalypse? I am gong to argue that they do. I am going to argue that the children of the enlightenment are not nearly as secular and modern as they like to think that they are and that there is abundant evidence that apocalyptic thinking still dominates our modern world view. Do you think I can convince you? Well, stay tuned.

A Willing Suspension of Disbelief

I borrowed this phrase from William Coleridge who said that the enjoyment of fiction requires "A Willing Suspension of Disbelief". In other words, you have to believe, at some level, that the fictional representations are or could be true. If you read fiction with skepticism, you may fail to fully appreciate the literary experience. However, I would also like to apply this phrase to the advancement of knowledge.Which, in my opinion, also requires a willing suspension of disbelief.

At any given moment in time, most of what most people believe is not fully true or possibly out right wrong. We are constantly changing, updating and modifying our shared bodies of knowledge. These changes can come in huge jumps like Newton's theory of gravity or Einstein's theory of relativity. And they can come in little hops like the decision to exclude Pluto as a planet. Personal knowledge changes as well. Anyone can attest from their own personal experiences that things that they used to believe no longer seem to hold. The question is - how do we get from one position on what we believe to be true to another position on what we believe to be true?

It seems to me that this can be done, generally, in one of two ways: proactively or re actively. We do it re actively when we simply cannot hold an old view any longer. We do it proactively when we allow for the fact that new evidence may arise and that we may have to change our minds about some things. If we are being really proactive, we can anticipate the implications of new information and consider what might possibly be true as a result. And if we wish to be proactive, it requires a willing suspension of disbelief.

I am not going to judge whether it is better to be proactive or reactive. This is probably a matter of personal taste, personality, disposition, flexibility and any number of other things. I can say that for me, the preference is very much in the proactive camp. I prefer to know what might be true long before it becomes established. However, for the sake of fairness, I am going to look at the pros and cons of being reactive versus being proactive. Then I will develop an example - apocalyptic thinking. Yes, it could be true.

Believing Fiction

Last week's suggestion for improving you mental flexibility was pretty straightforward - just continue to expose yourself to new ideas. This week's suggestion is going to be a little further out there.

Next time you read a work of fiction, try an convince yourself that the story is actually true. This is not too difficult if it is a romance or detective fiction. Such things could actually happen and many times are based on true stories. However, what about horror or science fiction? Could you convince yourself that Stephen King's The Stand or Micheal Crichton's The Andromeda Strain really happened? Could you convince yourself that either is based on a true story?

Actually, the premise of The Andromeda Strain (a lethal microbial life form was brought back to earth on a space probe) is plausible. So, is the premise of The Stand (the military experiments with a deadly virus which escapes into the world). Since they are plausible, they could have really happened. Why wouldn't you have heard about them? Well, there are lots of reasons why such events might be covered up. As you look for explanations to support your claim that these things really did occur, you find that it isn't that difficult to come up with plausible scenarios. In fact, this is what conspiracy theorists do all the time.

The point here is not to make you paranoid or to turn you into a conspiracy theorist. The point is to show you that, with the proper motivation, it is not that difficult to convince yourself of something. And, if you managed to convince yourself of something here that you know is not true, how many of the other things that you believe to be true are nothing more than things you have convinced yourself of in the past for various reasons.

For any given person, much of what they believe to be truth is, in fact, not true. George Washington never did cut down a cherry tree. And the people in Columbus's Day did not believe the world was flat. Many of you believed, at some point, that Pluto was one of the nine planets. Similarly, for any given person, some of what they believe to be false, is, in fact, true. Nobody has it all exactly right. But your mind, vulnerable to inflexibility, will lead you to believe that you do have it exactly right. Hopefully, the mental exercise described here will help you maintain greater flexibility and allow you to update your view of the world as new information comes along.

Receiving New Ideas

There is an oft told zen story about a student who is frustrated with his inability to grasp the ideas that his master is trying to teach him.

"I am just not getting it," the student complains to the master, "what should I do?"

The master invites the student to sit and offers him some tea. The student accepts the offer and the master begins to pour tea into the students cup. The cup fills and begins to overflow onto the table.

"Master," the student exclaims, "My cup is full."

"That is your problem," the master replies, "your cup is full."

When your mind is full of things, you cannot receive new ideas. It is too full of the old ideas. And the longer the old ideas stay in there, the harder is it to replace them with new ones. This is a problem because the world is constantly changing and it is necessary to accept new ideas in order to keep up with it. After a while you become very rigid in your views. They become more inconsistent with the world around you. And you can find fewer and fewer people who would agree with you on things. So, what do you do.

Well, the answer is fairly simple, actually. You have to be diligent in your acceptance of new idea. When you read the newspaper, for example, instead of reading it from the perspective that they are all idiots and you are the only one who really knows what is going on, read it from the perspective that there may actually be something in there to be learned. That doesn't mean to just naively accept everything. But it does mean to give it a fair chance.

And, that is only a start. You should seek out new ideas and new ways of looking at things. Read books, take classes, explore new ideas. Watch movies and TV shows that you would not normally be attracted to. It has to be an active effort.

Just like you have to get off the couch and get some exercise, you have get out of the valley your mind has settled into and exercise it with some new ideas. New ideas are the key to mental flexibility and it takes effort to achieve it.

Keeping Your Mind Sharp and Agile

Over time our thinking become very rigid. Our minds shrink wrap around the things we know and resist letting in new ideas. This is not good for most people and for academics it is a disaster. It would be analogous to a professional athlete becoming soft and doughy from lack of exercise. Fortunately for professional athletes their careers are relatively short and when the natural effects of aging set in, they no longer have the demands of their profession to deal with. However, for academics this is not the case. Academics can continue to practice their profession well into old age. We have a comedic archetype of an aging academic reading from yellowing pages of notes lingering for years at deaths door while continuing to deliver lectures. This archetype is a bit unfair. But, it is not unheard of to have academics continue to work well into their 70's or even 80's. So, the question is - how do you keep your mind nimble and sharp and resist the forces of aging?

Well, part of the answer is that many academics don't. Some begin their careers fixed in their views and some acquire the rigidity over time. However, this is unfortunate and not necessary. It is possible to remain nimble and flexible in your thinking. And it is not a great deal different from maintaining physical flexibility.

In the absent of any efforts to combat inflexibility, our bodies become inflexible over time. Muscles shorten and we loose our range of motion. We combat this by stretching. And the same thing is true of mental flexibility. We combat it by stretching our minds. I would add, parenthetically, that we also become inflexible emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and in any number of other ways. The remedies there are the same - stretching. But, I am going to limit my discussion to mental flexibility.

Over the next few weeks I am going to look at three ways to maintain mental flexibility: exposure to new ideas; using fiction for mental exercise; and the pursuit of non conventional ideas. Warning: This will start out exactly as you expect and get very weird before it is all done.