In pre-internet days ‘The End Of The World Is Nigh’ was the warning slogan of religious nutcases on many city high streets.
I imagine nowadays there are plentiful versions of the same message to be found in social networks. For the most part these placard-carrying, rapture-dreaming, doom-mongers of the past were harmless enough and dismissed as objects of ridicule.
Given the state of the planet right now, maybe it’s time to wonder whether they were onto something after all.
The thrust of ‘The Rise of End of Times Fascism’ by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor certainly supports the view that the end of days are closer than ever. These two women warriors’ have studied the rise of the far right in Trump’s America and come to the conclusion that “the most powerful people in the world are preparing for the end of the world.”
Taylor is a new name to me but I hold Klein in such high esteem that I know she is not one to make such a dramatic claim without good reason. If anyone can be trusted to fact check it is her. Watch her eloquently explain her treatise in measured tones in a short interview for Democracy Now to understand that she is not bent on scaremongering without just cause. The evidence she and Taylor put forward is both comprehensively damning and scary as shit.
Their thesis is as simple as it is chilling. The end times are a logical and pre-planned conclusion to the capitalist model which so brazenly divides the world into winners and losers. The super wealthy have built their fortresses and bunkers knowing that catastrophes are the inevitable consequences of the policies Trump-Musk and their allies are pursuing so cynically. As Klein and Taylor write “The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants.”
The scale of the task to turn this around is huge. I’m sure am not alone in constantly feeling that it is insurmountable. But if there is a takeaway from Klein’s recent mind-expanding dialogue with ANOHNI, it is that we cannot let hope die without a fight. We cannot allow AI to replace human creativity, or stand by and accept that profits come before morality. If we do either then the end truly is nigh.
Going into specifics about what action can and should be taken is not easy. Klein and Taylor don’t have all the answers but they are sure as hell posing the right questions. I am full of admiration for their courage in raising their heads above the parapet. Their rallying cry may be vague but it is an urgent one: “we will need to build an unruly open-hearted movement of the Earth-loving faithful.”
Sign me up.
I suspect most will, like me, come to this illuminating book through the publicity surrounding Marina Abramović’s recent works of performance art like The Artist Is Present at MoMa New York (March 14 – May 31, 2010) and ‘512 Days’ at Serpentine Gallery, London in 2014 or through the numerous fascinating video interviews and talks to be found on You Tube.
