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authorJoe Carstairs <me@joeac.net>2026-07-18 16:53:00 +0100
committerJoe Carstairs <me@joeac.net>2026-07-18 16:53:00 +0100
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chp2: incorporate pre-millenialism into discussion of fatalism
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@@ -93,47 +93,70 @@ Paleontologists speculate about the causes of historic mass extinctions:
volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, cyclical climate fluctuations gone rogue?
One thing's for sure, there's nothing the dinosaurs could have done to stop it.
-'Apocalypse' is also a fatalistic concept. This fatalism is obvious whenever
-someone counts the days til doomsday. This begins with the prophet Daniel, who
-reports that 'seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and thy holy city, to
-finish the transgression' (Dan 9:24) and that 'from the time that the daily
-sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up,
-there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.' \[MORE DEMONSTRATION OF
-FATALIST MILLENIALISM\]
-
-\[EXAMPLE OF SCHOLAR SAYING THAT APOCALYPSE/CATASTROPHE IS FATALIST\]
-
-A fatalistic outlook may, at best, lead to what Kvandal & Levy call
-'ritualistic' behaviours: 'behaviours characterized by rigidity, compulsion, and
-goal demotion.' [@kvandal-2025] That is, people feel compelled to act in rigidly
-specific ways, even though they don't have a clear grasp on the practical
-outcomes of their behaviour. Calling on the cognitive science of religion, the
-authors assert that 'there is a general consensus that human beings tend to
-ritualize more of their behavior when they lose agency under conditions of
-stress, uncertainty, or hazards more generally.' They note the example of Greta
-Thunberg sailing across the Atlantic in a zero-carbon vessel to speak at the
-United Nations. The huge effort involved in that act seems disproportionate to
-the small impact had on greenhouse gas emissions. The authors also raise
-examples of civil disobedience motivated by climate pessimism. Fatalism might
-lead to politically productive behaviours. But the fact that ritualistic
-behaviours are severed from practical outcomes makes it a pretty bad bet:
+Some apocalyptic movements and worldviews have also promoted fatalisms. One
+notable contemporary movement is the modern pre-millenialist movement in the
+USA. Pre-millenialists believe in the 'Rapture,' based on an interpretation of
+Thess 4:17: 'then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
+with \[the dead in Christ\] in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.'
+
+While pre-millenialists have traditionally been notable for rejecting the
+apocalyptic vision of the USA as the New Jerusalem of Rev 21, and therefore
+been at times able to point out distortions and injustices belonging to
+mainstream American patriotic ideology [@unveiling-empire, pp. 3-15], the
+pre-millenialist outlook is inescapably fatalist. As a result, when the 'social
+gospel' movement took off in the late nineteenth century, some
+pre-millenialists condemned the movement for failing to trust God's plan to
+redeem the world in the end-times and trying to redeem the world by inferior
+and vain human efforts instead [@unveiling-empire, p. 10]. Wes Howard-Brooke
+and Anthony Gwyther have observed this contradictory situation:
+
+> \[…\] in the 1950s-1970s, pre-millenialists were also taking frequent aim at what
+> they saw as other U.S. cultural signs of the approaching End. Among their
+> targets were television \[…\], consumerism, advancing technology, changes in
+> gender roles in the family and workplace, the advent of the New Age movement,
+> rock and roll, and homosexuality. One thing was certainly true about
+> premillenialists: they were willing to look American culture in the eye and
+> not flinch. Of course, they had no desire to repair the damage or heal the
+> wounds; such malignant forces were simply further evidence that the Second
+> Coming was getting closer and closer, and hence, the Rapture of the true
+> believers. [@unveiling-empire, p. 14]
+
+In the case of the green movement, a fatalistic outlook may, at best, lead to
+what Kvandal & Levy call 'ritualistic' behaviours: 'behaviours characterized by
+rigidity, compulsion, and goal demotion.' [@kvandal-2025] While this may not
+serve as an adequate account of ritual behaviours in general, the authors'
+point is this: green activists who hold a fatalistic outlook feel compelled to
+act in rigidly specific ways, even though they don't have a clear grasp on the
+practical outcomes of their behaviour.
+
+Calling on the cognitive science of religion, the authors assert that 'there is
+a general consensus that human beings tend to ritualize more of their behavior
+when they lose agency under conditions of stress, uncertainty, or hazards more
+generally.' They note the example of Greta Thunberg sailing across the Atlantic
+in a zero-carbon vessel to speak at the United Nations. The huge effort
+involved in that act seems disproportionate to the small impact had on
+greenhouse gas emissions. The authors also raise examples of civil disobedience
+motivated by climate pessimism. Fatalism might lead to politically productive
+behaviours. But the fact that ritualistic behaviours are severed from practical
+outcomes makes it a pretty bad bet:
> By not allowing for hope that the world can be salvaged, this form of social
> activism provides outlets in which activists alleviate anxiety by obtaining a
> (simulated) sense of agency in the face of an uncontrollable threat.
> [@kvandal-2025, p. 701]
-Action directed at making you feel better might lead to change in your own life,
-but it is not necessarily going to solve the problem that made you feel anxious
-in the first place. Juli Gittinger has shown that fatalistic climate narratives
-have driven some people in the US to join the 'prepper' movement, accumulating
-stockpiles of essential goods, building emergency shelters, learning 'survival
-skills,' and collecting weapons to defend your family's patch from desperate
-outsiders. [@american-apocalyptic, see esp. chp. 3, 4] 'Prepper' culture (which
-owes its existence to Cold War fears of all-out nuclear war
-[@american-apocalyptic, pp. 48-56]) might be a minority pursuit, but it is a
-response to the same apocalyptic storytelling which is a widespread phenomenon
-in mainstream American media:
+Action directed at making you feel better might lead to change in your own
+life, but it is not necessarily going to solve the problem that made you feel
+anxious in the first place. Juli Gittinger has shown that fatalistic climate
+narratives have driven some people in the US to join the 'prepper' movement,
+accumulating stockpiles of essential goods, building emergency shelters,
+learning 'survival skills,' and collecting weapons to defend your family's
+patch from desperate outsiders. [@american-apocalyptic, see esp. chp. 3, 4]
+'Prepper' culture (which owes its existence to Cold War fears of all-out
+nuclear war [@american-apocalyptic, pp. 48-56] and is sometimes also pursued as
+a result of certain pre-millenialist beliefs [@unveiling-empire, p. 5]) might
+be a minority pursuit, but it is a response to the same apocalyptic
+storytelling which is a widespread phenomenon in mainstream American media:
> The theme of _impending catastrophe_ \[…\] frames the news story
> as more apocalyptic and therefore often becomes more sensationalized or highly