“The Aztecs thought their gods would turn against them if they were not given human sacrifices. This belief led to many wars to find victims both captured in war and those paid to the Aztecs as tribute by the people who were conquered. Human sacrifices were made to make the sun rise the next day. They believed that if the sun god were not fed human hearts and blood the sun would not rise and the world would end in disaster. The Aztecs believed that their special purpose in life was to delay that destruction. They sacrificed to the gods to avoid destruction for as long as possible.” [Emphasis added.]
(Source.)
As long as I’ve been alive, politicians (and their crotch sniffing lackeys in the press) have told me I face certain doom. They always present the same solution; I’m to repent of my ways (which are not merely incorrect but sinful), accept sacrifice (usually taxes and/or regulation), and submit to greater control by a government or organization. In exchange for my vote and taxes, wise political operatives will intercede on my behalf. Only they can stand against the mighty forces arrayed against me. I can’t do it alone. It’s only through submission to government or an organization that I can survive. My life depends on following the narrative; repentance, sacrifice, submission, and subsequent intercession.
This isn’t a one time thing. It’s perpetual. There has never been a time when a politician hasn’t been telling me I’m doomed.
This shit was writ large in the seventies. What a depressing time to grow up! Carter faffed about while OPEC throttled our oil supply and the economy tanked. Teachers and others in authority(!), told me “this is how the economy is now, the good times are over”. (I heard the same phrase “the new normal” during the Obama administration.)
Also I was told that internal combustion engine cars wouldn’t be possible when I was old enough to have a license. There would be no gasoline. (Talk about a buzzkill!)
I’m not making these things up. That’s what happened. I was just a kid. I didn’t know that everyone is always predicting the end of the world.
Shockingly… Armageddon never happened.
The 1970’s ended with a “close” race between Carter and Reagan. “Unexpectedly”, the unserious dipshit who wasn’t even liked in his own party won a 44 state blowout. (We cut out press clippings in school. I remember how the press ripped Reagan a new one all through the campaign. He was “a divorced actor” lacking Carter’s gravitas. I also remember post election talk of eliminating the electoral college. It’s no different than now. It’s a repeat motif in my life; if the “wrong” person wins, people who aren’t good at math theorize about how to “fix” it. Conversely, nobody was upset about the electoral college when Clinton or Obama won.)
I was told that Reagan was an unhinged cowboy. He would get us into WWIII with the mighty eternal Russkies. Never happened. Baltimore wasn’t vaporized and the mighty Russkies folded like a house of cards starting in 1989.
As for freezing in the dark due to OPEC and the first peak oil scare (there was a resurgence in peak oil gloom during Obama’s administration), that didn’t happen either. In fact, America has recently became a net exporter of oil. Now it’s OPEC’s balls that are in a vice. Quelle surpise!
There were countless other points of doom along the way. I liked fishing and folks got me worried that acid rain would kill all the fish. Others thought the newly discovered hole in the ozone would burn our skin. Others panicked about the emergence of crack or AIDS. Remember Y2K? I can do this all day.
Obviously, none of this mattered because mass starvation was a done deal. Here’s an excerpt from The Population Bomb (a best-selling book of the time):
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…”
The author was Paul R. Ehrlich who is a Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University. Not only did hundreds of millions of people refuse to starve, but the world death rate from starvation decreased more than at any other time in history. It wasn’t humanly possible for Ehrlich to be more wrong. Is that how you get a Stanford gig? By being very wrong?
Of course, Ehrlich didn’t get a Nobel prize. Al Gore got one. Al said this:
“Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet’s climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced – a catastrophe of our own making.”
That was in 2006. We were supposed to have a major catastrophe beyond anything we’ve experienced by 2016. Aside from millenials eating Tide pods, it didn’t happen. After Ehrlich, Al Gore is roughly the second most wrong dude; which is why he got a medal but not tenure.
So much for listening to politicians. If they were right I’d be struggling amid the tiny post apocalyptic remnant population that didn’t starve in the 1970’s or get nuked in the 1980’s.
It didn’t happen. Press announcements aside, we haven’t always been at war with Eastasia.
Having survived global warming’s doom in 2016 brings no solace. Three years later, the newest generation of doombringers gets the spotlight. I present Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
“Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?’”
So, the hot new end of the world prediction is uncreatively rescheduling 2016 for 2031. The straggling few that didn’t starve in the 1970’s, get vaporized in the 1980’s, or fall prey to global warming in the by 2016, will be toast by 2031.
We are always a decade away from doom.
Must it be this way? Yes!
There’s something deep in the hearts of humanity that reacts to it. Our minds are primed for the story of future inevitable destruction at the hands of forces we cannot fathom or control. We are inherently receptive to the leader who promises to save us from it. It’s already wired into our minds.
In any era there’s always someone using the same story. There’s always a con man offering to avert tomorrow’s doom by controlling the masses today.
It spans time and culture. In 1350 some Aztec peasant listened to a priest standing on a pyramid. The story told from the pyramid was this:
“I have to do this. If I don’t sacrifice these people lined up here the sun God will get pissed off and the sun won’t rise. You wouldn’t want to be plunged into eternal darkness would you? It is only I, the super awesome shaman priest dude doing this rite, that will keep you from total annihilation. So don’t bitch when it comes time to assess tribute and keep me in power… or you’ll all die.”
It’s the same story. One version is an Aztec priest making sure the sun God doesn’t destroy the crops. Another version is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez personally saving us from the end of everything within the next 12 years. Other versions involve starvation with Paul Ehrlich or global warming with Al Gore. Without fail, we are doomed and the only solution is to let “the right people” run things.
The story works. It’s a proven strategy. Explain that were doomed. Then demand sacrifice and power so that they, special people that they are, intercede and save us.
Not everyone falls for it, but enough do. They always have. They always will.
Don’t feel smug. You and I may know better but we are dragged along with the currents of humanity. We didn’t watch a priest on a pyramid protect us from the sun God. But we (collectively) elected a president who claimed his victory was “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”. Dude healed a planet. Pretty impressive. He got a Nobel too.
So don’t laugh when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks about doom. She’s following the story and the story works.