apokalupsis eschaton

What exactly is an apocalypse? I asked myself this question as I started to tally up the natural disasters of the last year and began to wonder if the apocalypse was near… I had always thought the apocalypse meant “the end of the world,” and that it would be signified by a great many natural disasters leading to the extermination of man, if not the implosion of the earth itself. But is that actually the definition of apocalypse? Well, sort of. After a bit of research (ok, after browsing Wikipedia, which is hardly research) I found that the actual definition of apocalypse is a revelation or disclosure of hidden things (usually concerning the future). We often interpret this as the revelation of all things at the end of the world (a Judeo-Christian belief).

So, if we go by the definition that it is a revelation of future events, you could say that the apocalypse is not near – it is here! The apocalypse is not the end of the world, it is the preview. Is this the trailer for a movie coming to a theater near you:

Tsunami: 275,000 people killed
El Nino: Biblical rains and floods in Southern California send homes diving off cliffs
Hurricane Katrina and flooding of New Orleans: 1,242 people killed and over a million people displaced from their homes
Pakistan-Indian Earthquake: around 25,000 people killed, millions displaced

And these are just the major disasters. Forget the flames licking Southern California, or the deaths in Iraq – they are puny by comparison.

But then I wonder, have there really been more disasters this year than in years past, or am I just more aware of them? Have our preparation and responses to these disasters really been so dismal, or do we just have unreasonably high expectations? I don’t know the answers.

When I returned from my trip Peru I was stunned to find New Orleans mostly under water. With the government and social ties literally washed away, the people fulfilled Hobbes’ theory that without government man would be in a state of “nature red in tooth and claw.” The entire ordeal illustrated the vast incompetence of our leadership in the United States, and it greatly affected my faith in our form of government. The reason that people enter into the "social contract" and pay taxes and allegiance is for protection in return - from foreign attacks, from natural disasters, from hunger and pain. But when forced to actually fulfill its obligation to protect its people, our government failed, and failed knowingly! In the aftermath of the storm, social chaos ensued.

Granted, when you look at a disaster like Katrina in comparison with a Tsunami or the recent Earthquake, you might say that things could have been worse. But things could have been a whole lot better.
I am not sure whether the multitude of recent disasters is meant to be some sort of revelation of hidden knowledge by a higher power – but if we are smart, we will look at them as precisely that. I wish that people would realize that the apocalypse is never near. It is either here or it is not and it means nothing if you do not open your eyes to see it.

Americans at their finest...