The End of the World News

Another example of The Economist's proud tradition of writing concisely and precisely.

Deep down, there is something inside everyone which yearns for the New Jerusalem

Why do end-of-time beliefs endure? (Economist.com, 16/12/04)

"[T]he apocalypse is both an end and a new beginning. In Christian tradition, the world is created perfect. There is then a fall, followed by a long, rather enjoyable (for some) period of moral degeneration. This culminates in a decisive final battle between good (the returned Christ) and evil (the Antichrist). Good wins and establishes the New Jerusalem and with it the 1,000-year reign of King Jesus on Earth."

"[Norman] Cohn ... has long detected patterns of religious apocalyptic thought in what is supposedly rational, secular belief. He has traced 'egalitarian and communistic fantasies' to the ancient-world idea of an ideal state of nature, in which all men are genuinely equal and none is persecuted. ... Nicholas Campion ... draws parallels between the 'scientific' historical materialism of Marx and the religious apocalyptic experience. Thus primitive communism is the Garden of Eden, the emergence of private property and the class system is the fall, the final gasps of capitalism are the last days, the proletariat are the chosen people and the socialist revolution is the second coming and the New Jerusalem."

"Hegel saw history as an evolution of ideas that would culminate in the ideal liberal-democratic state. Since liberal democracy satisfies the basic need for recognition that animates political struggle, thought Hegel, its advent heralds a sort of end of history—another suspiciously apocalyptic claim. More recently, Francis Fukuyama has echoed Hegel's theme. Mr Fukuyama began his book, 'The End of History', with a claim that the world had arrived at 'the gates of the Promised Land of liberal democracy'."

"Science treasures its own apocalypses. The modern environmental movement appears to have borrowed only half of the apocalyptic narrative. There is a Garden of Eden (unspoilt nature), a fall (economic development), the usual moral degeneracy (it's all man's fault) and the pressing sense that the world is enjoying its final days (time is running out: please donate now!). So far, however, the green lobby does not appear to have realised it is missing the standard happy ending. Perhaps, until it does, environmentalism is destined to remain in the political margins. Everyone needs redemption."