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Hope During Armageddon



Just spotted this intriguing and scary quote from Jeff Wells, written in regard to a possible US nuclear strike on Iran:

Except for the shadows beneath the mushroom cloud apocalypse doesn’t come in an instant. The breaking of souls is incremental. We are meant to acclimatize ourselves to Hell, to raise our children in it, and teach them to expect worse to come.

I thought this would be a good chance to offer the following quote from R.D. Laing’s Politics of Experience as a more hopeful counter-point:

Yet if nothing else, each time a new baby is born there is a possibility of reprieve. Each child is a new being, a potential prophet, a new spiritual prince, a new spark of light precipitated into the outer darkness. Who are we to decide what is hopeless?

I like Laing’s quote because it seems to say that we can break the chains of hopelessness - that we don’t have to pass on our fears and frustrations to others. Maybe we could even read Laing more broadly: that not only when a new baby is born, but at each moment we have that possibility of reprieve, of turning everything around, of seeing the Kingdom redeemed. Maybe that kind of hope sounds naive in the shadow of falling nuclear bombs. But it’s the only option that enables me to wake up in the morning and keep going. Hope isn’t just naive; it’s absolutely essential.

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4 Reader Responses

  1. Nell Says:
    April 10th, 2006 at 2:08 pm

    There is an important diary right now at Daily Kos. It ends with “Strange times. Stay sharp. We could run out of space real fast”

    http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/10/43132/2276

  2. Tim Boucher Says:
    April 10th, 2006 at 2:33 pm

    But what I don’t get is that this author you link to is recognizing that there is a psyop campaign on and he’s the target, but in the same space replicates information which further plays into that campaign, without offering any antidote to it…

  3. Nell Says:
    April 10th, 2006 at 3:42 pm

    hmm, I’m not sure if I follow about how the diary further plays into that campaign? The diarist states near the end “I have rarely seen better evidence that we will have to defend our brains from military psychological operations directly. The public mood is a battlespace”
    So—-I think the important thing is for people to keep on their toes- to be aware of the possible illusions the government creates. As one official said the “Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date.” ——–’to date’
    The government can not be trusted. It must be feared that Bush would use nukes if his gut told him to. According to the New Yorker article there is a major debate happening at the highest levels of power rather or not to take military action against Iran.
    I think it is wise to assume any ‘official news’ from the Bush White House is likely to be bull-shit or possibly a form of Psyop.

  4. Tim Boucher Says:
    April 10th, 2006 at 4:47 pm

    I think it is wise to assume any ‘official news’ from the Bush White House is likely to be bull-shit or possibly a form of Psyop.

    What I’m saying is that I think any news from The New York Times or anywhere else is likely to be included in that as well. Zarqawi may be psyops, but even moreso is this “Are we going to nuke Iran?” issue. By talking about whether or not we’re going to, we’re not resisting it, but acclimatizing ourselves to and mentally/emotionally preparing for the possibility that we could or will do it. Even if we don’t do it - which we almost certainly won’t - the amount of mindshare that we’ve given to it at the end of the day is where the damage is done.

    More importantly though, saying “This is psyops” doesn’t guard us against psyops or tell us how to overcome it - it just endlessly replicates the propaganda to new audiences who believe themselves immune to it.



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