It’s the end of the world as we know it… and I’m loving it.
The End of the World is big business these days, and not just because of the year 2012. Movies, television, comic books, novels, essentially every type of media is cashing in on the apocalypse these days. Obviously a lot of this entertainment is pure fiction, fantasy meant to provide escapist relief in troubled times, but that really begs the question, why are such bleak scenarios so popular as fantasy escapism? Why do people want to imagine what surviving zombies, natural disasters, nuclear wars, and even divine Armageddon would be like?
I’m not a trained psychologist, sociologist, or anything else like that, so I can’t make an educated guess as to why everybody else is so excited about vicariously experiencing doomsday, but I have some idea about why I love them. Quite simply, it’s because part of me truly wishes these kinds of calamities would come to pass. I realize that sounds both naive and morbid, but I don’t think I’m the only person who looks at the world today and finds it overwhelming. Technology has broken down the borders between nations, and accelerated the rate of cultural change and blending. Future shock will become more and more common for younger and younger people. Despite all this break neck change, daily life for many people in the industrialized world seems monotonous and dull. You wake up, you go to work, you go home, you go to sleep. You collect your paycheck, you pay your bills, you hopefully have a little something left for a good time on the weekend or maybe a vacation. Imagine going through that same cycle for two or three, or five, or six, decades, and suddenly the desire for any escape from that kind of scenario becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
Which is precisely why I think these end of the world scenarios have become such huge sellers in entertainment. We all want to escape from the anxiety of not knowing where our next credit card payment will come from. We all want to get away from a life that seems doomed to meaningless repetition without substance. By presenting a setting in which all of the creature comforts we have grown used to, apocalyptic fiction creates a scenario in which every choice has an impact on your survival. If the species faces extinction, suddenly not only is survival an active process, it’s a struggle with purpose and meaning.
When you limit this kind of fanciful escapism to fiction, it can be a healthy release of stress and an enjoyable way to pass the time. But when you start treating fantasies like reality and letting them effect your daily life, you can find yourself on dangerous ground. Not to say there are no threats to mankind, we are in fact our own biggest threat. Prophecies about 2012 citing the Maya(n) calendar, Patrick Geryl, or Nancy Lieder on the other hand do nothing but stir up panic for the sake of profit.