Apocalypse has become a cultural operating system A …

Apocalypse has become a cultural operating system

A new review of Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s End Times Fascism examines their argument that climate anxiety, technological disruption, extreme wealth and apocalyptic religious or political narratives are beginning to converge into a distinctive contemporary worldview. Their focus is political, but the larger cultural claim is more interesting: people who stop believing in a shared future become susceptible to radically different ideas about what—or who—is worth saving. The Guardian

Roddenberry offered a civilisation that had survived its stupidity and become curious enough to explore the universe. Much contemporary culture imagines precisely the opposite: bunker, collapse, escape, Mars colony, uploaded elite, apocalypse.

Perhaps one of the great cultural struggles of the post-human era isn’t technological at all.

It’s over which future we can still imagine collectively.