I think many of us are feeling like we are falling to pieces in both the singular and collective sense. — Joshua Jones

It would help if you would share in detail why you think these are ‘end times’. Dont assume everyone understands your sentiments and shares them, you first need to give an argument for what you mean and why you mean it.

the end of the world as we know it” — Joshua Jones

Depending (a lot I suppose) on luck, other variables of which there are many, dying may appear as living. I remember reading about this woman/child (trust me to remember things) who got bitten by a rabid animal (dog/bat, I can't recall) and died 10 years later from rabies. So yeah, end of times - the earth is in its death throes but, considering how lucky I am, my end will happen way before Gaia draws her last breath. Off-topic? Hope not!

Interesting post. I'm not particularly interested in end times, although I'll tune in to see what others say.

Suggestion - your title has nothing to do with the subject, which you don't actually get to till the end of your post. I think many people who might otherwise be interested won't get far enough to realize what it is about.

Welcome to the forum.

Hi Joshs,
I understand the sentiment, but this wasn't intended to be a thread convincing people it was the end of the world. People come to a fire because they want heat, light and company - not to be convinced that they are cold, in the dark and lonely.

A better approach might be - could you tell me in what way the world as you know it is ending, or already ended?

If you dispute the premise, I understand, but this probably isn't your thread.

this wasn't intended to be a thread convincing people it was the end of the world. People come to a fire because they want heat, light and company - not to be convinced that they are cold, in the dark and lonely. — Joshua Jones

And one hopes they come to a philosophy forum prepared to have their assumptions challenged instead of just hoping to solicit confirmation of what they think they already know.

I am inspired by many thinkers who found themselves really tormented by the Fall of their Empires - Augustine, Boethius, Milton, DeLillo - there are countless others. And taking their thoughts as “dead trees of life” that we can chop into firewood - practical, applied insights - for heat and light in these times. — Joshua Jones

Im all for examining philosophical writings on end times and apocalyptic themes. They may be the best way to demonstrate that every era has its doomsayers, and that what they mark out are swings of the historical pendulum, low points within the cyclical structure of cultural change, disastrous mountains which often turn out to be molehills in historical hindsight.

The suggestion is appreciated - however, as you mentioned, I've title *is* what the post is about, although it does take a few short paragraphs to arrive. As for those who tire before reaching that point, this probably isn't their thread. Most roads take a bit to get where they are going.

One way of looking at the topic that may be more interesting to you is that the word "end" has multiple meanings, similar to the Greek word *telos*. The reason I am so consumed by the topic is that I have found the discussion of the end of the world is deeply bound to the discussion of the intent(s), purpose(s) and meaning(s) of the world (all connected t that term telos), which seems like it should concern everybody - or at least, most.

Can we at least agree the topics are related?

Now that Winter, as long predicted, has arrived... — Joshua Jones

A bit parochial. Heading into Summer in down here.

One civilisation's winter is another's summer.

I would volunteer, but my wood doesn't burn very brightly. Sorry mate.

Now that we seem to have quite definitely arrived at “the end of the world as we know it”, engines stopped, steam wafting through the air, conductors absent, and doors open, I’m not feeling fine. — Joshua Jones

That's what one gets for uncritically internalizing pop songs. :razz:

One civilisation's winter is another's summer. — Banno

Sounds like a metaphorical description of the state of Western democracy...

I am looking for people who are specifically feeling the need for “end-time philosophies” - schools of thought that you feel are especially valuable when external meaning-making and systems, and their many discoveries, fail. — Joshua Jones

I can't tell from the tone of your post whether you actually believe in end times or you are just hustling for an aesthetic experience.

Is this the sort of thing you’re talking about?



My son tells me this sense of living through the collapse of civilization is pretty common among twentysomethings.

There was also an episode of RadioLab about the curious rise of nihilism in popular culture (“In the Dust of this Planet”).

My son tells me this sense of living through the collapse of civilization is pretty common among twentysomethings.

There was also an episode of RadioLab about the curious rise of nihilism in popular culture — Srap Tasmaner

I remember nihilism and the collapse of civilization being all the rage when I was a kid 40 years ago.

It appears from the comments above that most of you don't think it's winter. If it's "summer down there," please, eat, drink, be merry. You obviously have better places to be.

I'm 51, a classics professor and counselor for many years, training to become a Jewish chaplain. I have seen countless clients end their worlds in many ways, and have come to the end of my own. In my admittedly limited read of classics for the last 30 years, I have seen many sing songs of ending. A third of the Old Testament consists of warnings and hope. Odysseus and Aeneas both, though commissioned and favored by the gods - for most, including their crews and companions and hosts, were harbingers of doom. Dante, while guiding his readers onward, understood that the way to Paradise was through the basement of Hell. This is why I'm writing.

For some of you, talk of the end seems childish. And so it should - as St. Exupery knew, often it takes a child to see and state the obvious. In modern times, most adults have learned not to talk about the obvious, although they re-enact the fall of the culture in countless personal ways. If it seems childish and not worth your time, you can move along. No one is keeping you here.

Even for those who might think our ad infinitum progress has essentially ended "the end of the world," and that apocolyptic is a paleolithic perspective, life stage, or psychological syndrome, you may want to ask why apocalyptic visions have been so carefully preserved for millennia, presumably by those who found them valuable. If you don't find them necessary, as I said, you are invited to steer by other stars and sail on. In the words of L. Cohen, "You wouldn't like it here. There ain't no entertainment, and the judgments are severe."

Perhaps you'll remember you had this chance to talk it out when the death tolls rise and rise, but then again, probably not. For those of you who've read Jenkinson, you know most fight the reality of death until their last breath, perhaps because - like you said, Mad Fool, they've been dying for a long time, and maintaining appearances is all they have left.

For those who *are* here, who don't see Winter as nihilism or the end of the world as a psychological disorder, have a seat. The modes of cultural winter are different, and that matters. Most are still thinking summer, planting seed corn in snowbanks, apparently thinking snow is just the new dirt. Up here in Maine, we know how to prep for winter - but prepping for the "big winter", since it's beyond living memory, takes some doing. The forest is not a big park, and the ocean is not a big lake. They are deeply different. And the hour is late.

In physical winter, food and heat, and light, matter, a lot. In civilizational winter, it's choice, and hope, and enduring meaning - among other things - that matter, a lot. So, collecting wisdom that we can hold on to in desperate times, that's what I was hoping to find a few folks for.

We're in the early weeks when we are letting our search algorithms keep us from troublesome truths. I imagine when civilizational winter really hits, people will get serious and start burning books, and perhaps, people. It's happened every century - with the last one being the worst yet. In the meantime, let's share them - both books, and people. What writers have you found that have kept you going, and you believe might help others?

With such an ambiguous reference to the end times, coupled with my general lack of understanding, I must say I'm not exactly incentivized to describe my thoughts.

However stories... Stories can say quite a bit, and sometimes breath life into these unnatural sentiments we have in our day to day life.

We have a short story competition going on right now. Since you seem like a rather fine writer, perhaps just give us a little short tale regarding this heralding winter, that we can enjoy and perhaps, analyze?

We're happy because its just a story, and you're happy because now, an abundance of philosophical firewood sits aside you at your leisure, ready to display its warmth.

Of course you don't have to. But in my opinion these sort of discussions are best conversed in literary manner.

What writers have you found that have kept you going, and you believe might help others? — Joshua Jones

Think about this idea.
In a Mad Max scenario, would you freely share knowledge and resources with others who might use them against you?


Further, as the saying goes, A tree with firm roots can hope to withstand a harsh storm, but it can scarcely hope to grow them once the storm is already on the horizon.

In other words, you're too late. The optimism, the positivity, the hopefulness, or the glibly adhered to nihilism that we can nowadays see and take them as a lack of criticial understanding of our dire situation, are actually a symptom of this lateness and an ad hoc attempt to deal with it.

Perhaps you'll remember you had this chance to talk it out when the death tolls rise and rise, but then again, probably not. — Joshua Jones

As someone who claims to be educated and a counsellor no less, you seem to have a penchant for emotive and passive aggressive language. Could it be that as a counsellor your work is overshadowed by your own anxieties? All this talk of burning books and burning people, Joshua - just how helpful do you think this might be?

John27,

As much as I do appreciate your offer to receive a story of my own, here at the end of the line, my storylines are - for the time being - at their end as well. I wonder if all stories end here, the way dreams end at waking. Unless sleep catches up with us, of course. If stories are dreams, and waking from these stories is life, that second sleep is death. So, perhaps arriving at the end of the line awake and alive is also learning to live between storylines - as risky as that can be.

I have no new tales to tell, just a desire to see the darkness for what it is, and some companions to share in the light.

I do have the stories that were told me - some are asking to be told - but not yet - they’re not ready, I’m not ready, and their time is - you probably guessed it - not yet. As you can tell from the comments above, there are many itching ears, but not much hunger for the truth. Good stories, the best stories, need some time and some quiet before they can be heard.

Right now, I'm just looking for new arrivals.

As someone who claims to be educated and a counsellor no less, you seem to have a penchant for emotive and passive aggressive language. Could it be that as a counsellor your work is overshadowed by your own anxieties? All this talk of burning books and burning people, Joshua - just how helpful do you think this might be? — Tom Storm

I have no new tales to tell, just a desire to see the darkness for what it is, and some companions to share in the light. — Joshua Jones

I'm with @Tom Storm. I thought a discussion of end times visions would be interesting, but you seem to be waving a flag of surrender to despair and rejecting those who disagree with you without providing evidence. Woe is us.

Hi Joshua, and welcome to the forums. You might be getting some resistance from people and scratching your head a bit. What you've brought to your post is lamentations in a poetic format. But that is not philosophy. Philosophy is when we have a problem that perplexes us that cannot currently be answered by science, or its answer seems inadequate. What is death? What is life? What are the end times?

To assist, don't assume anyone knows what you are talking about. Tell us in a straight forward manner your experiences you are having. In your case, it seems to be despair, a belief that the world is coming to an end. What does it mean to you if the world is coming to an end? Do you have specific instances you would like to discuss?

We do not discuss philosophy to nod at each other's assumptions or feelings. We come to discuss a topic, and have its assumptions challenged and questioned. I'll give you an example.

I'm middle aged, and I know, for a fact, that I'm going to die one day. I know I will age, decay, and might even meet a terrible end. I am not married, I almost certainly never will, and I have no kids. Yet I am happy. I do not feel the world is going to end, or society is collapsing. I have my own purpose in life, and I live that fulfilled.

Tell me why I'm wrong. Show me your viewpoint why I should feel like society is collapsing, or that winter is coming. Challenge me, and we shall discuss your assumptions and see if they hold up when detailed.

Tell me why I'm wrong. Show me your viewpoint why I should feel like society is collapsing, or that winter is coming. Challenge me, and we shall discuss your assumptions and see if they hold up when detailed. — Philosophim

Yes, I agree, although I think there would also be value in discussing end times visions, whether or not we think the world will end soon.

"The End of the World" will, as a fact not as a fiction, be the end of all our long striving. There will be no one left to add so much as a sigh. The heaped up detritus of culture will mean nothing ever more (or something, never more). There will be both an end to human striving, though that may not coincide with The End of the world. The planet, and it's less sentient beings may spin on for a long time--but we won't be part of that.

Our demise might occur simultaneously with the end of the world. A large meteorite striking the earth would suffice. So might a primate-destroying plague. Runaway global warming could work -- assuming the the running away went on long enough. A week of end-stage runaway global warming might be unpleasant, but a week is too quick to develop a good story. We will have plenty of time for misery once the globe becomes our rotisserie.

I enjoy a piece of well written apocalyptic fiction -- one without too many clichés, please. No zombies, please. If there is to be cannibalism, then it should wait until the bitter end, not as soon as the Internet goes down or gasoline becomes hard to get. I also appreciate the absence of grotesquely sadistic gangs romping across the countryside.

A World Made by Hand (4 volumes) by James Howard Kunstler is very good. Kunstler illustrates how difficult it will be to carry on in a world whose environment is intact, but whose technology is dead. Earth abides by George R. Stewart is a seminal work. Written in 1949, Stewarts imagines a fast plague wiping out 99.99% of the population, so only a tiny remnant remain. The story is tentatively upbeat at the end. On the Beach (1957) by Nevill Shute and A Canticle for Liebowitz (1959) by Walter Miller, Jr. are both fine nuclear apocalypse novels. The End in On The Beach is final; for A Canticle For Leibowitz, the world recovers in 2,000 years and then does the whole nuclear thing over again.

There are more such novels, of course. Somebody is scribbling out the last lines of another one, right now.

A well done apocalypse (as opposed to a half-assed piece of rubbish) raises this unpleasant question: If our light of the world could be so easily extinguished, what earthly good were we in the first place? A lot less than we like to think.

A Kant Quote comes to mind: "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." Kind of hard to top that for succinct summation.

BTW, there's nothing wrong with liking half-assed rubbish; nothing could be more human, really. We may seek the sublime, but we can be quite satisfied with low-brow dreck.

Hello, Joshua.
Thank you for making this post, and I would be happy to share a little of how I feel about the topic.

To preface, it appears that these comments might be filled with pseudo-intellectuals that are want of confidence - seeing that many fail to engage with the question, and resort to condescension. It is a shame, and we may take pity on them.

I must be honest when I do not relate to the "end times" notion axiomatically - I have felt both disillusioned with these times, perhaps due to the nature of the "crisis of meaning" in my generation. Yet, these times have also granted me great personal satisfaction in finding that meaning - civil unrest gives me hope that discussions like these - the wood to craft an allegorical "post-apocalyptic fire" - will become more common and formative. Those discussions may then lead to some great change, the collapse of society into something perhaps, more beautiful.

To climb into the post-apocalyptic framework should be a fun venture nonetheless. I have been thinking about recently the reconciliation between anti-capitalism and community. Please excuse my relative departure from traditional philosophy into the scary, watered down realm of political theory - yet much of my frameworks in this regard are rooted in some sort of an understanding of scientific socialism, where my questions exist in the path of "okay if the dialectics are true, so what now?" It appears, if we look to those proto-communist societies on the dialectic - the early-Vietnamese, the North American Native Americans, and so on - that persisted despite their locational competitors, there had existed a strong connection to family, equal labor between the sexes, and whatnot. Things like this that perpetuated a sense of non-nuclear, holistic family, was not only enshrined in recorded history of the matter, but in their own religions and philosophies. We see after the privatization of property, and thus the crafting of laws and state to protect that construct, it was organized religion that replaced the holistic community when estates divided individuals into blood families. Now, we see less and less of religious individuals, if anything, a meager increase in individuals becoming "religious" for the inclusion into an unconditional community.

Perhaps it is the case, that upon the the collapse of our current society - whether that leads to a new, unforeseen stage of the dialectic, or the end of the dialectic altogether - there will be a return to the form of community that existed before our material dialectic. We can only hope. For thinkers that saw this as a reality - consider Kropotkin, as it is more of an anarchist vision. It is no doubt that the more Leninist of the bunch failed to reasonably address the pragmatics of community-based socialist societies, however that may exist dialectically. Heck, even Ho Chi Minh didn't see such a thing realized. As far as laying the groundwork to arguing that this will happen, it would take many miles, to prove that it should happen, it would take even more.

The thought of decentralized communities, finding the systemic abolition of all constructs that cause unreconcilable conflict realized, has not only gotten me through the nihilism of macro and micro-scale crisis of society, but given me a hope of what beauty could be attained.

I ought stop before I ramble too long.

Thank you for the question, Joshua.

The generally positive trajectory of civilization, with decreased suffering, greater cures for ailments, increased prosperity, and an overall improvement in all important measures, would indicate the end of the world would be a vision of no war, and no suffering.

The end here, unless one has a literal messianic vision of the rising of the dead, would be metaphorical, as a new age of universal cooperation is ushered in.

well done apocalypse (as opposed to a half-assed piece of rubbish) raises this unpleasant question: If our light of the world could be so easily extinguished, what earthly good were we in the first place? A lot less than we like to think. — Bitter Crank

Don't be clouded by the apocalyptic visions of Christianity, That is but one vision, which lacks the unrestrained positivity inherent in other traditions.

In the end everything will be perfect. If things aren't perfect, it must not be the end

To preface, it appears that these comments might be filled with pseudo-intellectuals that are want of confidence - seeing that many fail to engage with the question, and resort to condescension. It is a shame, and we may take pity on them. — Sean Staton

We can all be grateful then that you didn’t stoop to
condescension. Btw, I’m wagering your attempt at engaging with the question gets the thumbs down from Joshua.

On the Beach (1957) by Nevill Shute — Bitter Crank

Good book. Great movie. "I think I'd like to have that tea now."

Don't be clouded by the apocalyptic visions of Christianity, That is but one vision, which lacks the unrestrained positivity inherent in other traditions. — Hanover

I wasn't thinking of Christianity; I suppose "our light of the world" might have suggested it to you. I was ironically references us as "our light of the world" not Jesus--THE light of the world.

What will probably happen is that we won't know the world is about to end. A few might see mushroom-shaped clouds in the distance (which would give some a period of time to contemplate their proximate demise. They'll have time to say, "I guess it's going to be fire and not ice." Or, in the event of runaway warming, the day before the last day might allow some to guess that the curtains are being rung down as they mop their brows and crawl deeper into the cave. On the other hand, the big meteor will not give us time to think about it. If it's disease, people will get sick and die, thinking that they are having a private deathbed experience, and not sharing death with billions of others. Of course, if they are gasping for air in the street with 20,000 other air-gasping, running sore, vomiting people are right next to them, that might be seem as a clue.

I recommend dying pleasantly before fate takes up any of these options.

"The world as we know it" is basically western capitalist growth model exported to the rest of the world.

That kind of model only became possible because we found a way to use fossil fuels that are incredibly energy-dense and easy to use (economic growth is a function of the amount of energy consumed).

As fossil fuels are finite and non-renewable, or we have to stop using them anyway, it seems that energy will become a lot more expensive as we scramble to replace fossil fuels.

So then, here we are, a bunch of people expecting a certain standard of living because that's all we have ever known... while at the same time that standard seems unsustainable because the energy isn't there longterm. Add to that that we have, along the way, seriously degraded the world we previously could rely on for subsistence... and you end up with quite the predicament

Either the model has to fundamentally change or it will collapse by itself... either way it seems enough to speak about "the end of the world as we know it".

I am inspired by many thinkers who found themselves really tormented by the Fall of their Empires — Joshua Jones

They all knew what all wise men know. The nature of change. Castles and fortresses turn to rubble, borders, names, and languages change and are inevitably buried by the sands of time, as is the flesh. Good. That is to say as their true empires were not of sand and flesh but knowledge of heart and mind, I see no fall. Only longevity. Why don't you?