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## Chapter 2
Thesis: anti-apocalyptic criticism of R mis-diagnoses the problem.
6. The effect on R's audience now is a spiralling cycle of despair
7. This has led some critics to blame apocalypticism for the failure of R
8. This is a traditional criticism of apocalypticism 'from above'
9. Apocalypse 'from below' has often worked very differently
10. This difference is due to the different interests of the readers -- a
difference which does not apply in the case of green crises
11. In fact, apocalypse can meet the critic's concerns in principle
12. (In order to do so in practice, those with power need to attack the
structures which drive the downward spiral)
Since contemporary green rhetoric doesn't work, the rhetors think they need to
increase the temperature, and drive towards increasingly dire warnings of
impending catastrophe, thinking that people just need more of a shove. They call
on the familiar symbolic language of nuclear winter. The interests of mass media
also favours sensationalist language. This only leads feelings of powerlessness
to degenerate into despair.
This has led many people to think that the end-of-the-world sensationalism is
the root cause of the problem. Some have even labelled this trope
'apocalypticism' and thus blamed the apocalyptic imagination, accusing
apocalypse as being life-denying, pessimistic, quietist, destructive, and
hopeless.
This follows a long tradition of authority distrust of apocalyptic imagination,
and the Apocalypse of St John in particular. Authorities tend to see it as
exhorting quietist expectation for a supernatural deliverance over taking
effective action for change, or exhorting sadistic pleasure in witnessing
vindictive violence, if not participating in such violence oneself. Meanwhile,
those who have read apocalypse 'from below' tend to emphasise how it has a
visionary interpretation of the tribulations of this world, and a visionary
expectation of this world being transformed, and use this vision to motivate
movements for transformational social change.
In fact, apocalyptic language is perfectly capable of meeting the critics'
concerns, and the Apocalypse of St John is an excellent demonstration of this.
The apocalyptic form is therefore not the reason that green rhetoric is failing.
As explored in chapter 1, green rhetoric is failing because it is failing to
diagnose the root causes of the problem, present a credible route to a credible
solution, and address an audience that could be persuaded to make a difference.
Were rhetors to solve these problems, they could use apocalyptic effectively.
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