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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)
Catastrophe is prominent literary feature of contemporary green rhetoric. The
word 'catastrophe' first entered English through early modern translations of
Greek plays, meaning the denouement of a plot. Through association with
tragedies, it came to acquire connotations of disaster, and in the nineteenth
century, became closely associated with the (now antiquated) 'catastrophic'
theory of geological time, according to which distinct geological epochs were
divided by sudden cataclysmic events. [@oed-catastrophe]
Anti-nuclear campaigners used the word 'catastrophe' to describe the effects of
a nuclear war, echoing this model of geological time, suggesting that a nuclear
war would have such severe, irreversible consequences that it would represent
the next great cataclysm in geological time \[EVIDENCE\].
Whether or not green rhetors explicitly use the word 'catastrophe,' they often
imply a catastrophic model of the problems they present. When Extinction
Rebellion took to the streets of the UK in 2018, this was their message:
> The science is clear – we are in the sixth mass extinction event and we will
> face catastrophe if we do not act swiftly and robustly. [@xr-declaration]
The phrase 'sixth mass extinction event' categorises the present green crisis
alongside the traditional 'big five' mass extinction events of geological
history [@eb-extinctions], remnants of the catastrophic theory of geological
time. Their 'Declaration of Rebellion' used the word 'catastrophe' once again,
alongside words such as 'cataclysmic,' 'destruction,' 'crises,' 'dying planet,'
and 'uninhabitable' to reinforce the image.
Similarly, Greta Thunberg favours an imminent, catastrophic model of climate
change:
> \[FIND QUOTE\]
Catastrophic models of ecological futures are so dominant, that it can be hard
to imagine any other kind of story. This is eloquently demonstrated by the
novelist, Charles Foster, who set himself the challenge to 'reignite' his
readers' imaginations:
> I don't believe in climate change. \[…\] 'Yes, it's very bad. Yes, we're all
> going to die. Pass the salt, please. How's your homework going, Rachel?' \[…\]
> This exhaustion of our intellect, our compassion and our capacity for alarm
> is desperately dangerous. Only imagination can reignite them. And only story
> \[…\] can do the necessary imaginative job. We're dying for want of a story.
> \[FIND PAGE NUMBERS\]
The result was _Cry of the Wild_, a short story collection. One of those stories
follows a fictional orca called Eeschin as she lives through the extinction of
her pod due to marine pollution. The denouement of the story sees Eeschin
swimming alone, the last of her clan, unable and unwilling to adopt a new clan,
facing with courage her grief and her own inevitable death. Even a talented
writer such as Foster, intentionally seeking to break new imaginative ground for
conceptualising green crises, seems unable to escape the motif of catastrophe.
This has led many people to think that this catastrophism 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. They point out that while
catastrophic narratives often place the catastrophe in a sudden event in the
near future, green issues such as climate change are often gradual, continuous
events which have already started.
In fact, the Apocalypse of St John is very different from catastrophism.
For St John, there is no impending catastrophe that his audience can avert. The
tribulations have already begun, and are largely in the hands of cosmic forces
far bigger than his audience. The exhortation is not to avert the bad thing, but
to endure it.
St John uses mythological language to place the present tribulations of his
community in a cosmic and eschatological context. This is how the call to endure
can make sense to his audience. In contrast, mere catastrophism does not do
this, and may even emphasise the meaninglessness of individual action.
John's apocalyptic imagination uses mythological language to reveal the world of
appearances for what it really is. The ideology of Empire is a pretender God,
and the suffering of the martyrs is in fact God's way of conquering evil. John
may have created a crisis for a people that didn't see one, a people that needed
'waking up'. So, while catastrophism imagines that all humanity approaches the
catastrophe more or less from the same perspective, and thus works to kill
politics, John's apocalyptic imagination imagines precisely the opposite: he
enlivens political criticism and active resistance to dominant structures by
identifying how people relate unequally to them.
So people today, when they equate apocalypticism with catastrophism, are cutting
out most of the apocalyptic imagination and distorting its message. This is now
new. This is a very traditional move which functions to shut down radical
dissent against dominant structures.
Meanwhile, those who have read the 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.
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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