Is there any good fiction or movie about a slow, completely foreseeable apocalypse, unfolding over say 50 years? Everything I can think of seems to imagine a sharp cliff over days or weeks, but decades is what seems likely.
If there’s such a thing as an end-times mass psychology I think we’re experiencing it now. Not just an isolated cult with cartoon doomsday beliefs, but a sort of now-or-never endgame mentality. Putin logic is everywhere. It’s a kind of iterated prisoner’s dilemma defection era.
Closest picture I’ve seen painted is in Margaret Wheatley’s work. She nails the articulation of the present moment and what will - iMHO - happen through our lifetime.
A world wide zeitgeist - the great awakening. Some people think apocalypse means war but it means 'awakening' or 'revelation'. We are living through the end of the era of materialism entering a new era in which mind=reality. Our collective consciousness comes to the fore as boss.
Paul Tillich spoke of how the concept of atheistic Providence is an essential part of the Enlightenment’s alternative to religion (e.g. ppl working towards their self interest serendipitously leading to truth or optimal distributions). Our current loss of faith in it is a mess.
The cult with cartoon doomsday believes is kind of important though,
Mike Pompei talking about the coming of the rupture as guiding light for middle east policy and the evangelicals pursuing a climate catastrophe maximizing politics...
Still think this is pretty mild compared to mid Cold War paranoia. I will note that the bulge of Boomers present for that is eerily replicated by a bulge of Y's right now, at roughly the same ages. Ex was millennarian expert. Haven't seen concerning signs yet.