Last week at Cabinet of Wonders, Emps posted a piece about the 2012 meme:
It won’t be long now until we are only four years away from 2012 and with the global economic meltdown in full effect it is tempting to worry that there might be something in it. This is exactly the climate doom-mongers and salvation-peddlers thrive in and I fully expect to see everything starting to ramp up soon. We’ve already seen some odd behaviour in Holland and an attempt to… sex up Armageddon and that is going to be nothing compared to some of the things we are going to see in the next few years.
So we are always grateful for a more level-headed analysis of the issue. I’ve previously looked at an good paper from the journal Nova Religio and so I was interested to see that Skepsis have posted what looks like the full text of an MA thesis called “‘The 2012 Phenomenon‘: A historical and typological approach to a modern apocalyptic mythology.”
I feel like I’m in a growing (or is that dwindling?) minority of people that are saying “what’s the deal with this 2012 thing?” I’ve not seen anything to really convince me that 2012 is likely to bring some sort of apocalyptic event or turning point in human history. The Mayan calendar has an end-point there – what else have we got? For me, it just seems that 2012 offers some sort of touchstone for New Age hope – it feels rather like the whole Nostradamus 1999 prediction/millennial fever all over again. Apocalyptic movements are, after all, a common part of human history. So what makes 2012 different?
Post away – convince me I need to start building a bunker and gathering cans of food!
Update: Added a new poll on the topic, which you’ll find in the info blocks on the right side of every page.
