"Conditions were ripe for a powerful strain of apocalypticism to take hold: Population growth, the rise of industry, increasing inequality, and an onslaught of natural disasters and plagues had made life feel more difficult and precarious than it had ever been. The poor and itinerant classes bore the brunt of these developments, while the wealthy were more insulated from their assault. Self-styled messiahs appeared in towns and cities promising healing and redemption to the oppressed."
"the conditions for apocalypticism-gaping inequality, pandemics, rapid technological development-are amply present. So perhaps it isn't surprising that, over the past several years, a number of scholars and political figures have warned of a coming collapse, by which they tend to mean the destruction of the basic elements of society. The philosopher Toby Ord has claimed that humanity has a one-in-six chance of being wiped out this century, and the author Jared Diamond has argued that there is a 49 percent chance of doomsday arriving by 2050."
In the Middle Ages, prophetic expectations of global collapse spread amid population growth, industrial change, inequality, natural disasters, and plagues. Those conditions produced messianic movements among poor and itinerant classes, with self-styled leaders promising healing and redistribution and urging violent redress against the ungodly. Comparable pressures exist today: widening inequality, pandemics, and rapid technological change. Prominent thinkers estimate substantial catastrophic risks in this century, and political currents infused with apocalyptic rhetoric appear in contemporary movements. Public figures and some supporters frame political leaders in religious or messianic terms as agents of radical transformation.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]