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Blissful Devolution: Our Rolling Judgment Day

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A World After Climate Change and Culture-Shift

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Abstract

Let me sketch out here my vision of the cloistered cornucopia of AD 2100: Management of Planet Earth is entirely rationalized. Nature still nurtures. Artificial intelligence is history. The Machine has met its Master. The rich are enraptured. The poor are happy. The ducks of demography are all in a row. Never more is heard the discouraging word. Welcome to my sanguine vision of our future totalitarian utopia .

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Never to return. An earlier version of this squirrel fable appeared in Nemeth (2010). See also Raver (1994).

  2. 2.

    How the Grinch Stole Christmas was number one at the box office. A cruel irony I suppose—if you voted for Mr. Gore.

  3. 3.

    While Al Gore is not considered a futurist, he did frequently use counterfactual (“what-if”) arguments in several books as a literary device in order to alarm the public about the threat of catastrophic AGW in the future (see Gore 1992, 2006; also Warf 2002). An Al Gore presidency in 2000 might have resulted in government AGW interventions in an attempt to “put the brakes” on anthropogenic-induced climate change See Intergovernmental Panel on Cli mate Change Fourth Assessment Report (United Nations 2007) for validation of Gore’s fears, and also Lovelock (2009) and Smith (2011) for further validation. See Allegre et al. (2012) and Weinstein (2009) for arguments denying or rejecting the scientific basis for Gore’s fears. See Idso (2011) for a remarkably optimistic (although incredibly naive) analysis of the present and future state of the world.

  4. 4.

    Sanguine is a strangely, wonderfully ambiguous term. I first thought of “bloody” (perhaps involving zombies?)—but then settled on “blissful” as more logically hewing to Jim’s intended meaning.

  5. 5.

    I contributed a chapter also written from a sanguine secular postmodernist perspective for his co-authored book Worldview Flux: Perplexed Values among Postmodern Peoples (Norwine and Smith 2000).

  6. 6.

    But then, what sentient and worldly cultural geographer has not similarly indulged in this sort of futuristic fantasizing?

  7. 7.

    That the human ape survives at all 100 years hence is a miracle. It has occurred specifically by editorial decree for the benefit of chapter authors like me, who otherwise would have nothing at all to write about. Dr. Norwine has shared his personal optimism with us, “My own belief that our species will survive into the 22nd century, notwithstanding a mean global temperature increase of ~ 5 °C (~ 10°F)—which seems, as I write these words in the autumn of 2010, the most realistic projection available for 2100 (MIT 2009), might fairly be considered hopeful hunch at best, superstitious graveyard-whistling at worst” (Norwine 2010). Scripture, on the other hand, has humankind departing its earthly abode more abruptly: “the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). “Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming ” sounds like Peter’s prediction in detail and is about as ominous and upon us as a dire prediction can get.

  8. 8.

    Judgment Day (a.k.a. Apocalypse now) is like my neighbor’s lawnmower on Memorial Day. It often seems on the verge of kicking in but never does. Failing to do so, it gets rolled back into the garage till the next try. See the website “A Brief History of the Apocalypse” (Nelson 2011) for a long annotated list of Apocalypses that never happened and End Times that have yet to arrive. Also, see Boyer (1994) and Swyngedouw (2010).

  9. 9.

    The working hypothesis that “God is dead” is a secular postmodernist perspective for futuristic storytelling that neither assures pessimistic outcomes nor precludes optimistic outcomes. A review of the literature reveals that ironic and O. Henry outcomes seem to occur more often than not in the postmodern secular canon (see, for example, “The Gift of the Magi” in O. Henry (1923)).

  10. 10.

    I teach Cultural Geography and Conservation and Resources regularly in a large public university at the undergraduate level and Philosophy and Methodology in Geography at the graduate level.

  11. 11.

    Preston James cited the essayist and author Caball (1926) as the epigraph to his classic text in geographic thought All Possible Worlds (1972), “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears that this is true.” See Kotkin (2011) for an example of remarkable present-day Panglossian optimism.

  12. 12.

    “Geosophy,” a term coined by John K. Wright (1947), means “the study of geographical knowledge from any or all points of view.” My research in search of “geosophical insight” specifically involved learning as much as possible about imaginative texts, maps, and images that relate to past, present, future, and fantasy geographies. See, for example, Manguel and Guadalupi (2000) and Moon River (2011).

  13. 13.

    This image is from a scanned copy of “The Fool” tarot card that belongs to the Rider-Waite tarot deck. The card was published in 1909 and is now in the public domain.

  14. 14.

    See “synchronicity” and Carl Jung (Wilhelm 1967).

  15. 15.

    Not speculative fiction of a familiar sort (e.g., futuristic science fictions; fantasies and so on) but of a rare category responding specifically to the question “What will Being-In-The-World be like in a hundred years?” and for lack of a more appropriate name “geosophical speculation.”

  16. 16.

    The “Naked Ape” reference here is a tribute to the audacious honesty of the Desmond Morris book by the same title (1967), a precursor to sociobiology (see Wilson 1980). This book, and Morris’s follow-up book The Human Zoo (1969), are two of the early works in the field. See also The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human An imal by Diamond (1992).

  17. 17.

    The film Three Days of the Condor (1975) exploited the idea of government agents analyzing even pulp fiction for futuristic scenarios that, if realized, might endanger national security.

  18. 18.

    I am a firm believer and thus in agreement with Joyce Carol Oates and others who claim to believe that there are only two profound stories of significant interest to humans through the ages (as an examination, the popular canon of English-language literature and film—Wuthering Heights, Pilgrim’s Progress, of Grapes of Wrath, The Terminator—can demonstrate): (1) a stranger comes to town and (2) the quest. Since strangers are perforce on a quest, these two stories actually boil down to one epic story. The Arcanum of “The Fool” imaged in the Tarot deck seems to be the epic story reduced ad absurdum.

  19. 19.

    Ecclesiastes 1:9 reads “There is nothing new under the sun.”

  20. 20.

    Controversial quantum physicist Hugh Everett III is known by his admirers as the godfather of the “many worlds interpretation” (DeWitt and Graham 1973). His contribution to science (which I apply here as a both a guide to and validation of my own futuristic storytelling) reassures me that there is an infinity of contingent yet real worlds (both past and future) that defies enumeration and inventory (DeWitt and Graham 1973). Moreover, the Internet-emancipated postmodern hypertext storytelling experience itself invites anyone to mix and match aspects of myriad contingency stories-previously-told with their own contingency story never-before-told. Postmodern storytelling described as “back to the future” genre deploys all these possibilities (realities; cf. Everett). Such emerging creative works characterized by their freewheeling remixes of unfiltered digitized source materials resulting in pseudo-original odd juxtapositions are recognized today as examples of deliberately recombinant or derived art forms and termed “mash-ups.” For example, see Grahame-Smith, Seth, and Jane Austen (2010).

  21. 21.

    “Abide” is an archaic word having the denotation “living in a certain place” and implies “living with things some might not find easy to live with.” Humans in most global warming scenarios will have to abide (and endure and cope with) increased heat and rising sea levels. “To abide” also has moral and ethical implications. My prediction scenario has humankind abiding into the future, but the high cost of abiding is socially constructing eugenics as a humane, progressive, and moral necessity (instead of the inhumane, despicable, and retrograde planning policy it was widely perceived to be after World War II ).

  22. 22.

    The term “global warming ” appeared first in the title of a scientific journal in 1975 (Broecker 1975) at which time it was modified by the adjective “pronounced” meaning measurably remarkable to the scientific community but not necessarily reason for public concern. “Catastrophic” becomes introduced into the public consciousness as a noun modifier, often accompanied by “anthropogenic,” only after the publication the 2007 IPCC Report (United Nations 2007).

  23. 23.

    Comparable for example to the Amish Ordnung, which is the German word for order, discipline, rule, arrangement, organization, or system, and it serves to regulate Amish private, public and ceremonial life. While the Ordnung as practiced at present among the Amish has local variations from group to group around the world, it could be adapted to standardization and codified and enforced to serve the purposes of a more centralized, totalitarian political system.

  24. 24.

    “Hoi Polloi” (meaning “the many”) and “Hoi Oligoi” (meaning “the few”) are Greek-language phrases thought to originate in “Pericles’ Funeral Oration” as mentioned in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. In modern English-language usage, “Hoi Polloi” denotes an undifferentiated mass of ignorant common folk (a.k.a. “the herd”) in contrast to an elite few—“Hoi Oligoi”—who lord over them. Huntington (2004) provides insight into the prevailing moral conditions under which global elites in 2010 CE might transform themselves into the Hoi Oligoi I envision in 2100 CE (note his critical use of the term “Arasu (2013)”). See also Rothkopf (2008) for Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making.

  25. 25.

    The current leaders of the global military, industrial, corporate complex.

  26. 26.

    Mao Tse Tung is said to have marveled optimistically in a time of terrible crisis: “There is great chaos under heaven and the situation is excellent!” Charismatic (predominantly male) leaders have, by definition, throughout history demonstrated they can take large masses of people where they otherwise would not want to go and actively engaging in doing things they otherwise would not want to do. Channeling humankind through real (or perceived) threats of climate change and culture shift to achieve a specified set of planned objectives 2100 CE would entail using the powers of charismatic male leadership in order to succeed. Patriarchy will persist into the future.

  27. 27.

    For example, the 99 % in the news these days are shown in contrast to a “rich” 1 %.

  28. 28.

    Consider culture not only as “learned behavior” but as “a proselytizing activity.” An astute government can both educate and re-educate its populace over time systematically through its applications of the arts and sciences of propaganda (Bernays 1928, 1969; Tye 2002). As my prediction for 2100 CE reveals, I do not underestimate a totalitarian government’s (as in the case of North Korea) transformative power of persuasion, if carefully planned. See Myers (2010) for The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Mat ters.

  29. 29.

    I recommend Brune (2007) and especially Lynn (1972, 1996, 2001) for any readers who might have thought that eugenics as part of a rational plan to “improve the human condition” has been condemned to the dustbin of history.

  30. 30.

    Needham (1956). Some Amish farmers in the USA today have a similar notion of techno-selectivity. One Amish man expressed in terms much like those used by farmer interviewed by Tzu-Kung: It’s not just what or how you use a technology, but “what kind of person you become when you use it” (Igou 2003).

  31. 31.

    Four subspecies of chimpanzees were listed as endangered on a 2011 list compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). The entire chimpanzee species was one of those wiped out during the Decade of Great Extinctions (2040 CE through 2050 CE), when AGW spawned toxicities and diseases wreaked havoc on both the mass and diversity of life throughout the biosphere . Four-fifths of the Hoi Polloi also perished. Miraculously, the Hoi Oligoi suffered no losses. Whether they benefited from a natural or an unnatural immunity has never been disclosed. Indeed the question is no longer relevant and therefore never raised.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Forrest R. Pitts, Jeffrey P. Schaeffer, Richard Symanski, Robert B. Wood, and numerous faculty and graduate students in Geography at the University of Toledo and Kent State University for reading advanced drafts, raising challenging questions, and providing critical comments and suggestions for improvements. Thanks also to Timothy K. Sanderson for his artistic interpretations in pencil that appear as the third and fourth illustrations in this essay.”

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  1. Department of Geography and Planning, The University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA

    David J. Nemeth

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Correspondence to David J. Nemeth .

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  1. Oologah, Oklahoma, USA

    Jim Norwine

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Nemeth, D. (2014). Blissful Devolution: Our Rolling Judgment Day. In: Norwine, J. (eds) A World After Climate Change and Culture-Shift. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7353-0_14

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