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firecatI am getting the impression that Harold Camping's "Rapture on May 21" prediction is something that people are expected to express an Opinion about.
I was amused by the "Post rapture party" event announcement on Facebook.
I was less amused by the "Post rapture looting" event announcement on Facebook.
I am fascinated by how some businesses are using this as an opportunity to advertise sales, the way they use holidays. My local indie bookstore http://keplers.com is having a 20% off everything sale on May 22. They didn't call it a post rapture sale, but it was obvious what they were hinting at.
I didn't grow up in the type of Christian church where people took the end of the world stuff in the Bible literally, so I don't have much emotional charge around these types of predictions, except to think it's odd that some people actually believe in them.
But when I think about it some more, maybe it's not so odd.
People tend to believe or at least give some credence to things that other people around them are worrying about, because in the end people simply can't check everything out for themselves, and we have to rely on hearsay and decide what to trust at some point. I worried about Y2K enough to beef up my emergency kit. In the 50s-70s, lots of people worried that there would be all-out nuclear warfare (some still are). Lots of people now are worried about the effects of global warming. Those aren't the same things as rapture predictions, and they are supported by scientific data, but I haven't read much of the scientific work myself, never mind seeing how it was performed or what assumptions went into it, so I'm using a trust heuristic in deciding it's probably correct. And I trust scientists in part because I grew up with scientists.
I think that the US media helps create extreme polarization in this country by preferentially reporting on extreme polarization. And I think a lot of people consuming the media find it comforting somehow to believe in extreme polarization, and so they go around spreading the notion. And I think the reporting on this rapture prediction and the people making fun of the rapture prediction are spreading the extreme polarization notion.
This bothers me somewhat because I think that believing other people are essentially and deeply different from us--believing they are inherently nutty and we are inherently sane, or they are irredeemably stupid and we are irredeemably smart, or they are fundamentally ignorant and we are fundamentally knowledgeable--is pretty profoundly damaging to human community and conversation.
It's also really really tempting to believe those things. (At least if my own brain is any indication.) Some folks say humans are wired to think that way. A lot of human wiring is adjustable but some of it takes a lot of effort to adjust it.
I think that stuff a lot, but I can't think of too many times where doing so has led to a positive outcome.
On the other hand, being cautious about whom I trust with what does lead to positive outcomes. But I can be cautious about whom I trust without assuming they are essentially alien.
I'm pretty unclear where "making fun of people when we disagree with their beliefs" falls in terms of promoting the damaging kind of polarization. I guess I think it depends on the spirit in which the fun-making takes place. There is affectionate fun-making, which carries the sense that we think this person or group does/believes some nutty things but we recognize them as "one of us," and we also recognize ourselves as potential targets of affectionate fun-making too. That's probably reasonably harmless. And there's hostile fun-making, where we make ourselves out to be inherently superior to People Like That. That's what might be damaging, I think.
Then there's the kind of fun-making that happens in situations where someone has been/continues to be harmed by their interactions with certain groups or other people. That can be hostile, but it can also promote healing, because it can help reduce the feeling that the other group holds power over you, and it can help give you the feeling that you're not alone in your perceptions. I can't say that that kind of fun-making is overall harmful or overall helpful. It can continue a trend of polarization, but since it's reactive to existing polarization it doesn't seem fair to say it promotes polarization. And if it heals, then it can also work against polarization.
Anyway, all that is to say that in the end it's hard for me to have a firm opinion about the rapture fun-making because I think it's coming from so many different motives. I enjoy the silliness and the celebration of atheism, and I am vaguely worried about the hostile mockery.
I was amused by the "Post rapture party" event announcement on Facebook.
I was less amused by the "Post rapture looting" event announcement on Facebook.
I am fascinated by how some businesses are using this as an opportunity to advertise sales, the way they use holidays. My local indie bookstore http://keplers.com is having a 20% off everything sale on May 22. They didn't call it a post rapture sale, but it was obvious what they were hinting at.
I didn't grow up in the type of Christian church where people took the end of the world stuff in the Bible literally, so I don't have much emotional charge around these types of predictions, except to think it's odd that some people actually believe in them.
But when I think about it some more, maybe it's not so odd.
People tend to believe or at least give some credence to things that other people around them are worrying about, because in the end people simply can't check everything out for themselves, and we have to rely on hearsay and decide what to trust at some point. I worried about Y2K enough to beef up my emergency kit. In the 50s-70s, lots of people worried that there would be all-out nuclear warfare (some still are). Lots of people now are worried about the effects of global warming. Those aren't the same things as rapture predictions, and they are supported by scientific data, but I haven't read much of the scientific work myself, never mind seeing how it was performed or what assumptions went into it, so I'm using a trust heuristic in deciding it's probably correct. And I trust scientists in part because I grew up with scientists.
I think that the US media helps create extreme polarization in this country by preferentially reporting on extreme polarization. And I think a lot of people consuming the media find it comforting somehow to believe in extreme polarization, and so they go around spreading the notion. And I think the reporting on this rapture prediction and the people making fun of the rapture prediction are spreading the extreme polarization notion.
This bothers me somewhat because I think that believing other people are essentially and deeply different from us--believing they are inherently nutty and we are inherently sane, or they are irredeemably stupid and we are irredeemably smart, or they are fundamentally ignorant and we are fundamentally knowledgeable--is pretty profoundly damaging to human community and conversation.
It's also really really tempting to believe those things. (At least if my own brain is any indication.) Some folks say humans are wired to think that way. A lot of human wiring is adjustable but some of it takes a lot of effort to adjust it.
I think that stuff a lot, but I can't think of too many times where doing so has led to a positive outcome.
On the other hand, being cautious about whom I trust with what does lead to positive outcomes. But I can be cautious about whom I trust without assuming they are essentially alien.
I'm pretty unclear where "making fun of people when we disagree with their beliefs" falls in terms of promoting the damaging kind of polarization. I guess I think it depends on the spirit in which the fun-making takes place. There is affectionate fun-making, which carries the sense that we think this person or group does/believes some nutty things but we recognize them as "one of us," and we also recognize ourselves as potential targets of affectionate fun-making too. That's probably reasonably harmless. And there's hostile fun-making, where we make ourselves out to be inherently superior to People Like That. That's what might be damaging, I think.
Then there's the kind of fun-making that happens in situations where someone has been/continues to be harmed by their interactions with certain groups or other people. That can be hostile, but it can also promote healing, because it can help reduce the feeling that the other group holds power over you, and it can help give you the feeling that you're not alone in your perceptions. I can't say that that kind of fun-making is overall harmful or overall helpful. It can continue a trend of polarization, but since it's reactive to existing polarization it doesn't seem fair to say it promotes polarization. And if it heals, then it can also work against polarization.
Anyway, all that is to say that in the end it's hard for me to have a firm opinion about the rapture fun-making because I think it's coming from so many different motives. I enjoy the silliness and the celebration of atheism, and I am vaguely worried about the hostile mockery.
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no subject
Date: 20 May 2011 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 May 2011 10:45 pm (UTC)I too have never really encountered any of it enough to have emotional charge. I associate it with my father, in a way, though, because he used to joke with ministers about people with "pre-millennial" beliefs and how foolish they were. So I had the impression that for him it meant something.
no subject
Date: 21 May 2011 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 May 2011 01:17 am (UTC)On the other hand
Date: 21 May 2011 02:28 am (UTC)And we have to remember that if there's pain and suffering going on here, it's the godbotherers who are inflicting it -- see, for example, fred clark's take.
Re: On the other hand
Date: 21 May 2011 05:03 pm (UTC)Re: On the other hand
Date: 23 May 2011 01:38 am (UTC)It really amazes me, when I think about it, what a free pass we give to the most wackadoodle of beliefs and resulting life styles as long as they're clothed in something that looks superficially similar enough to "mainstream" religions. If you were making radio broadcasts and collecting that kind of money by predicting an apocalypse and possible escape from it by any reality-based, potentially falsifiable means the federal and local authorities would be all over you for fraud, possibly for child abuse if you encouraged people to inculcate the ideas in their kids, who knows what else. (And no, the Hubbardites aren't a counterexample because where they've escaped prosecution there's a plausible presumption that it's because they've got something on somebody.) If you give advice to people based on what the voices in your head tell you, they can make tax-deductible donations to your upkeep; if you give advice to people based on peer-reviewed studies of what kinds of advice have useful results in which situations, not so much.
I mean, WTF.
But then I consider the alternative, which is a bunch of late-middle-aged white guys, who already know what the voices in their heads are going to say, deciding on what's a reasonable set of beliefs and what constitutes abuse or taking money under false pretenses, and I can't see any way out of it. Just sometimes I wish I could figure out a way to get in on it...
no subject
Date: 21 May 2011 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 May 2011 11:49 pm (UTC)This is really good. It reminds me of how a lot of people categorize men and women as well with the whole Mars/Venus polarization.
I find the Rapture thing amusing on the level of "whistling in the dark." I'm the type of person who'd be making jokes even if it were respected scientists saying the world was going to end tomorrow. It's how I roll. It's how I cope. I don't believe in being mean-spirited about it though, and mostly I make my jokes around people who I know aren't taking it seriously either. Like I told my boss "have a rapturous weekend!" and he came back with "see you on Monday."
There was an article in the NYT about kids of people who believe in the rapture, and I feel kind bad for them, because that's got to be a pretty difficult situation to deal with.
no subject
Date: 21 May 2011 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 May 2011 01:32 pm (UTC)Nothing new under the sun..
Date: 24 May 2011 01:56 am (UTC)13 Feb 1844
"Millerism! Millerism! New Goods at Reduced Prices!
As the world is about to make a final settlement with every body, and then come to an end, every man should be prepared to make a respectable appearance on that great day. With this view of things the subscriber calls upon all creeds and all callings to come and be clothed, as he is just receiving and opening a splendid and well selected assortment of articles for such an event. Namely: SATINETTS, CLOTHS, JEANS, &c, LUSTRES, GINGHAMS, MERINOES, SHAWLS, CALICOS, MUSLINS, and a great many other articles too numerous to mention."