Rupture or Rapture?
From Greek democracy to Christian love to modernity’s promise of utopia – the human story has been a series of grand narratives, each consuming and evolving beyond the one that came before. Reason eclipsed faith, freedom eclipsed tyranny and industry eclipsed the agrarian way of life.
Transition was not always easy, but even when we stumbled and regressed – enduring bubonic plagues, barbarian invasions and interminable periods of darkness – there was always the unspoken assumption that, through it all, we will persist … that despite all the moral, spiritual and ideological blows, the human story goes on.
But then the world was ablaze in one brutal war after another. We bore witness to the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki – a seemingly endless nightmare of genocide, sorrow and sin. We suffered losses of existential capital like never before, and our faith in the inherent goodness of man began to waver. And just as our spiritual house was beginning to crumble, violent fissures tore across our physical world. Ocean levels rose, glaciers melted and the arctic biomass began to release trillions of tons of frozen methane stored over the course of aeons. It suddenly dawned on us that this millennium-long human adventure of ours may be reaching a climax, that over the next few years, we may be living through what could well be humanity’s final rapture moment: peak oil, peak water, peak food, peak everything … even peak sanity and peak TIME!
Not even Nietzsche could have foretold the mystical amalgamation of melancholy, terror and life-affirming ecstasy weaving its way through the last chapters of man.
72 comments on the article “Rupture or Rapture?”
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Dks
Great Commentary
Dks
Great Commentary
justin123
Hm. This type of commentary will always be a "good point", because it has been true for generations. We've had trouble defining and adjusting to modernism since at least 1900. Religious wars of armageddon are the norm of human society, going back to the invention or religion. Time will always seem shorter and shorter. Humankind has perpetually lived on the brink of apocalypse.
But the fact is, some of us have it good, and others don't. In the west, most of us still live better than any emperor in history, recession/globalwarming/terrorism/censorship be damned. Real struggle and suffering exists outside this relatively stable, if uncertain, way of life.
Look at Iran. The Green movement is purest distillation of everything adbusters has ever stood for. Anti-authoritarianism, in the face of an undeniable cruel authority. Opposition to traditional conservative thought. Globalism. Mass organization and communication. People running around in masks to avoid the tear gas.
And not just tear gas. Bullets (not the fun rubber ones you get in Europe). Arrest. Torture. Execution.
These people are fighting for their most basic rights and dignity, and here we sit wondering if our own fun time on the carousel of modernism is ending. Stop Moping! Stand up for these people, and others, who are standing up and being cut down for what is undeniably right.
Adbusters, seriously, you should devote your next issue primarily to the Iranian movement. Dissect and analyze it all you want. Support it, or question its motives, whatever. This is what you've been talking about, and this is what is happening.
justin123
Hm. This type of commentary will always be a "good point", because it has been true for generations. We've had trouble defining and adjusting to modernism since at least 1900. Religious wars of armageddon are the norm of human society, going back to the invention or religion. Time will always seem shorter and shorter. Humankind has perpetually lived on the brink of apocalypse.
But the fact is, some of us have it good, and others don't. In the west, most of us still live better than any emperor in history, recession/globalwarming/terrorism/censorship be damned. Real struggle and suffering exists outside this relatively stable, if uncertain, way of life.
Look at Iran. The Green movement is purest distillation of everything adbusters has ever stood for. Anti-authoritarianism, in the face of an undeniable cruel authority. Opposition to traditional conservative thought. Globalism. Mass organization and communication. People running around in masks to avoid the tear gas.
And not just tear gas. Bullets (not the fun rubber ones you get in Europe). Arrest. Torture. Execution.
These people are fighting for their most basic rights and dignity, and here we sit wondering if our own fun time on the carousel of modernism is ending. Stop Moping! Stand up for these people, and others, who are standing up and being cut down for what is undeniably right.
Adbusters, seriously, you should devote your next issue primarily to the Iranian movement. Dissect and analyze it all you want. Support it, or question its motives, whatever. This is what you've been talking about, and this is what is happening.
Anonymous
I don't feel like this commentary has said anything new or productive. If we're basically fucked in this author's opinion, what does it do just stating this fact? I think we've all heard this before; I feel like I hear it every day in every news article I read.
Instead of using our energy to wallow poetically about the end, shouldn't we spend that energy instead looking for answers to avert this potential apocalypse instead? We can't know for sure that it is inevitable to succeed. I say 'Transition or bust!' If it comes to bust, so be it. But if we beat all the odds and make it to transition times and survive, won't we be glad we gave it our all instead of giving up believing it futile to even try?
The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto uprising had a higher survival rate than those who just went along and didn't resist. We can't give up. Not yet. Not ever. Not till we ARE all dead can there be no hope.
Anonymous
I don't feel like this commentary has said anything new or productive. If we're basically fucked in this author's opinion, what does it do just stating this fact? I think we've all heard this before; I feel like I hear it every day in every news article I read.
Instead of using our energy to wallow poetically about the end, shouldn't we spend that energy instead looking for answers to avert this potential apocalypse instead? We can't know for sure that it is inevitable to succeed. I say 'Transition or bust!' If it comes to bust, so be it. But if we beat all the odds and make it to transition times and survive, won't we be glad we gave it our all instead of giving up believing it futile to even try?
The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto uprising had a higher survival rate than those who just went along and didn't resist. We can't give up. Not yet. Not ever. Not till we ARE all dead can there be no hope.
Anonymous
What a funny website!
The whole notion of discussing post-postmodern, anti-corporate anarchy, using a tool provided by, and only by, free market/corporate capitalism (an Internet linked computer), is an exercise in the absurd.
And so-called anarchists calling for revolution through, among other things, refusal to work? News flash! Living off the grid, unless you're hypocritically leaching off of the government dole as a back-up, is the most work intensive, grinding and tenuous form of existence out there.
It is primitive, brutal tribalism at best.
And the minute you start organizing and specializing for efficiency(within your tribe or between tribes) you need 1)ownership of goods to be traded 2)rules of trade (money, quality control, regulation) 3)corporate formation (to organize large trades between tribes) and 4)laws and law enforcement (to protect those who work hard and conduct commerce from lazy, work averse, anarchist thieves).
Back to square one.
Better to participate within the very free system in which you were lucky enough to be born, and reform it one step at a time through peaceful persuasion and democratic participation.
Anonymous
What a funny website!
The whole notion of discussing post-postmodern, anti-corporate anarchy, using a tool provided by, and only by, free market/corporate capitalism (an Internet linked computer), is an exercise in the absurd.
And so-called anarchists calling for revolution through, among other things, refusal to work? News flash! Living off the grid, unless you're hypocritically leaching off of the government dole as a back-up, is the most work intensive, grinding and tenuous form of existence out there.
It is primitive, brutal tribalism at best.
And the minute you start organizing and specializing for efficiency(within your tribe or between tribes) you need 1)ownership of goods to be traded 2)rules of trade (money, quality control, regulation) 3)corporate formation (to organize large trades between tribes) and 4)laws and law enforcement (to protect those who work hard and conduct commerce from lazy, work averse, anarchist thieves).
Back to square one.
Better to participate within the very free system in which you were lucky enough to be born, and reform it one step at a time through peaceful persuasion and democratic participation.
Bruce F.
I wholeheartedly agree with you,
was just reading the latest adbusters and in some parts it was actively promoting anarchy and violent revolution/ protest in the street. This is a dangerous and naive and irresponsible view that may incite people to behave in dangerous suicidal ways. This attitude leads to nihilism, mob rule and absolute violence.
Those who write this trash will be among the first to be killed by the mob, then its the strongest, most violent, toughest and best armed that will rule. Do you want that?
Bruce F.
I wholeheartedly agree with you,
was just reading the latest adbusters and in some parts it was actively promoting anarchy and violent revolution/ protest in the street. This is a dangerous and naive and irresponsible view that may incite people to behave in dangerous suicidal ways. This attitude leads to nihilism, mob rule and absolute violence.
Those who write this trash will be among the first to be killed by the mob, then its the strongest, most violent, toughest and best armed that will rule. Do you want that?
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