Tech UPTechnologyWhy are we fascinated by the apocalypse and the...

Why are we fascinated by the apocalypse and the end of the world?

 

The apocalypse, the disappearance of humanity, is one of the great themes of cinema. Whether it’s asteroids, weather catastrophes, aliens, industrial conspiracies… facing total annihilation – whether planetary or regional – is routine for the film industry. To show a button: in recent years we have been able to see that a large number of films have incorporated, in one way or another, the apocalypse as a reference: The Fifth Wave, Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Justice League , Independence Day: Counterattack, Gods of Egypt, X-Men: Apocalypse, Moonfall…

But the country that exports the apocalypse the most has changed its approach. For Karen Ritzenhoff, a professor in the communication department at Central Connecticut State University and co-editor of the book The Apocalypse in the Movies , 9/11 changed everything. “Before 9/11, even if there was a Godzilla taking over New York, or if a wave smashed the Statue of Liberty, in the end you survived. There was someone resembling a hero. But since 9/11 there is no resolution, no happy ending.” It’s not just random acts of terror that fuel our apocalyptic nightmares. We live in a 24/7 cycle of catastrophe. : plagues, floods, endless wars, all available for our viewing pleasure at the touch of a button.In addition, the news itself is spending more and more time on news that conveys a sense that “the world is going to hell”. .” Iain Hollands, the British creator of the 2015 TV series You, Me and the Apocalypse , said it very clearly. When he was preparing the series he discovered that the apocalypse was a ubiquitous theme on television grids. “Every Every time something new came out, I was like, ‘Oh no, I’ve already been screwed.’ But the audience didn’t seem to get tired of it.”

the first apocalypse

We find this passion for the end of time throughout the history of humanity. The Epic of Gilgamesh , the oldest known literary work written on clay tablets around 2000 BC, tells of an apocalypse . Thus, there was a time when the gods lived alongside humans in the city of Shuruppak, until one day, and for unknown reasons, they decided to end the human race with a huge flood. The rest of the story is well known by Jews and Christians, since the only thing that changes is the name of the protagonist: if in this Sumerian poem the protagonist is called Utnapishtim, in the Judeo-Christian poem he receives the name of Noah.

But what is it that makes the apocalypse so compelling? It is obvious that on the one hand we have the threat of the end of civilization and humanity . The world is on the brink of collapse: leaders push nations towards disaster, corporations tear the world apart in their lust for money and power, science takes an unexpected turn, technology is out of control. At any moment these destabilizing forces threaten to throw us into the void. The end is always near.

But on the other hand we have that feared end never comes . Even if billions of people die, there will always be someone who survives. It is the subgenre of post-apocalyptic worlds like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, When Fate Catches Us, Mad Max, World War Z, Galactic … Life gets tough, but humanity goes on. On very few occasions it ends with everything, as in the aforementioned The final hour and ¿Red telephone? , or in Richard Matheson’s wonderful novel I Am Legend (taken to the cinema twice irregularly: once starring Charlton Heston and once by Will Smith).

What would you do if it was the end of time?

That is why it is so attractive: what to do if the fate of the world depends on a decision? If it were us, how would we behave? We are facing stories that force us to face a heroic moment. Doomsday narratives allow us to imagine a global renaissance and play on our utopian desires . Thus, post-apocalyptic worlds are very popular in the US because Americans are convinced that if they were left alone, without bosses or government, they would do everything much better. This idea is the lifeblood of romantic stories of the Wild West, facing the Frontier with nothing but countryside ahead… and a few Native Americans to evict.

One of the most famous representatives of this point of view is the Russian nationalized American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand , a pseudonym for Alisa Zinovievna Rosenbaum. “Each individual has the right to exist for himself, without sacrificing himself for others or sacrificing others for himself” , he insisted in the middle of the 20th century: if we were left alone to do what we wanted without any control, Rand was convinced that utopia would emerge spontaneously. This is the underlying idea of many films and television series such as Jericho , which deals with a post-nuclear future in the American Midwest, where a small town survives and prospers – with difficulty, obviously – within a new world order.

Slate and new account

This is the value of apocalyptic stories: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if suddenly all the bad things disappeared, all the bad people died? The world begins anew and any atrocities we have committed on this planet – or each other – are erased in an instant.

According to University of Minnesota neuroscientist Shmuel Lissek, there’s a charm in knowing the world is going to end. “Apocalyptic beliefs make existential threats, the fear of our mortality, predictable,” says Lissek. In collaboration with Christian Grillon, he has discovered that if an unpleasant or painful experience, such as an electric shock, is predictable, we relax ; The anxiety caused by uncertainty disappears. In other words, knowing when the end will come for many of us is, paradoxically, a reason to stop worrying.

For child psychiatrist and novelist Steven Schlozman, it is the post-apocalyptic landscape that most fascinates people. “I talk to the kids and they see it as a good thing. They say ‘Life would be so simple: I’d shoot some zombies and I wouldn’t have to go to school.'” For Schlozman, people tend to romanticize the end times: in reality we talk about surviving, thriving and returning to nature. “All this uncertainty and all this fear come together and people think that maybe life is better after a disaster.” A very different way of seeing the end of time than the mythical final scene of Planet of the Apes , with a horrified Charlton Heston shouting at the foot of a half-destroyed Statue of Liberty: “I curse you all!”

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