reading log: american apocalyptic

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@@ -6,6 +6,49 @@ author: Joe Carstairs
 
 ## 2026-04-29
 
+### @{american-apocalyptic}
+
+The big idea in this book is that apocalyptic is an American civic religion that
+cuts across the usual religious identity-markers. She was particularly
+interested in how American apocalyptic feeds prepper culture.
+
+I like that she showed how climate apocalypse narratives are not self-contained
+but draw on much wider symbolic resources. Americans are already living in an
+apocalyptic culture. For my dissertation, this means I can't recommend a kind of
+apocalyptic literature as if I get to control how it is received. Prepper
+culture was also an interesting excursion into one way that green apocalypses
+can make things happen. I thought her distinctions between big-A Apocalypse and
+small-a apocalypses and between religious and secular apocalypse were helpful.
+
+Some interesting observations from the Introduction:
+
+- Apocalypse can be understood as The End Of The World As We Know It --
+  TEOTWAWKI is a common acronym in prepper circles
+- Small-a apocalypses happen frequently: Noah, Trail of Tears, Hiroshima,
+  Nagasaki, WW2
+- Secular apocalyptic developed in the twentieth century, particularly after
+  1950ish. Traditional religious apocalyptic gives meaning to the events and
+  contains supernatural events and cosmic transformation, but in contrast,
+  secular apocalyptic tends to present cataclysms as meaningless, secular, and
+  without redemption. However, they may imply that when the old world is swept
+  away, it may make room for a new one.
+
+Some interesting observations from Chp7, 'Climate apocalypse':
+
+- Capital-A Apocalypses vs small-a apocalypses
+- 'Anthropocene' discourse is a secular eschatology
+- Delf Rothe has three models of Anthropocene discourse: catastrophism (disaster
+  movies), modernism (technological progress), realism (quietism?)
+- Problems with realism: it presumes that ecological harms are natural and/or
+  inevitable, thus frees oppressors from accountability
+- Narratives of impending catastrophe don't inspire action: see Chp 3 on the
+  mass media
+- McNeish 2017: moralising apocalypses to get you to recycle are self-defeating
+- Ertelt 2018: climate apocalypse is borne out of nuclear winter discourse, thus
+  inherits its fatalism, and continues to function as a secular religion
+- Preppers have an ethic of care, 'eco-piety'
+- Preppers also have an ethic of self-preservation and a 'lifeboat narrative'
+
 ## 2026-04-28
 
 ### @{apocalyptic-dimensions}