Western civilization and its apocalyptic world view
Posted By monica on January 18, 2011
The Mayan Calendar is “ending.” That, at least, is the “buzz,” and the prophets of apocalypse have assured us that this surely signifies either the final destruction or complete transformation of the entire planet.
But why?
Western civilization is unique in regards to its apocalyptic world view. It is only the monotheistic or so-called Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity and Islam, that think of time as a straight line, leading from a mysterious beginning to an all-too-predictable end. Most religious or spiritual traditions around the world perceive time as a circle rather than a straight line. Endless rounds of cycles repeat themselves, varying only in their nuances, forever and forever. The Taoist yin-yang symbol is in the form of a circle. Buddhists refer to the endless round of reincarnation as the Wheel of Life. Many Native Americans understand life as a Medicine Wheel, yet another circle.
Western civilization seems hard-wired to exist in constant anticipation of its own demise. Early Christians lived in the passionate belief that Jesus Christ was soon to return. No one knew precisely how long – all the same, everyone was convinced that the moment could not be long.
The belief in an imminent apocalypse remained very much alive. From Edgar Cayce’s prediction of a giant earthquake which would send California plunging into the sea, through ritual suicide over the appearance of a random comet, to the Y-2K panic, we continue to anticipate our own extinction. We are simply programmed by culture to imagine an “end of time.”
The Classic Maya, who flourished from about 200 until about 900 CE, lived in the tropical forests of Central America. Their entire civilization rose, fell, and was reborn again in perfect isolation from the apocalyptic speculations of Western civilization. All the same, if they predicted the end of the world, we are culturally inclined to believe them.
But did they, in fact, perceive their so-called calendar end date of December 21, 2012 as the literal end of time, and therefore of human existence? And why should we project our doomsday scenarios onto the Maya and their calendar?
In fact, the Maya, the Toltecs, the Aztecs and the Hopi all shared a concept which we might call “Cycles of Emergence.” According to this shared cultural view, the world has been created and destroyed a number of times. Each world the gods have brought into being has been created with the hope that humankind will walk the Road of Life properly Their continuing attempt to create a perfect being, one who will honor the sacred, is the foundation of evolution. The world is always in a state of emergence, never static. It is constantly developing.
If the so-called “end date” of the Mayan Calendar symbolizes anything, it symbolizes the beginning of another world cycle of emergence, one which may very well have its own beauties, its virtues, and its difficulties.
Despite the fact that the contemporary Maya themselves have expressed a healthy skepticism and a cautionary outlook regarding this date – or even whether the date itself is accurate – we still tend to think of it as a kind of historic watershed that looms before us. And while there are many who see it as doomsday, there are perhaps just as many who perceive it as the advent of a utopia. Cybernetic technology will save the world. The Goddess will return. The “first will become last and the last become first” in a dramatic social reversal of all the world’s evils.
No wonder the Maya are skeptical. And perhaps we should be as well.
The fervor over 2012 has spawned any number of creative responses in our culture – from books laden with dense mathematical formulas to splashy Hollywood disaster movies, to works of fiction.
Monica Camuglia’s novel, Falllacy 2012, explores the possibility that many of our speculations are misguided. Focusing on the work of a scientist whose research has raised doubts about the supposedly apocalyptic nature of the Mayan Calendar end date – as well as the actuality of the “end date” itself – Camuglia raises the question as to whether many of our most precious and passionate assumptions are in fact based on a web of fallacy and misunderstanding.
A child of the anxiety-ridden post-modern world, Sophia Belmonte has retreated to the serenity of a Mediterranean island in search of inner peace. But like countless seekers and bohemians of former years, she discovers that white-washed villages and sun-splattered beaches cannot allay her psychological turmoil.
Her encounter with a Mayan Calendar researcher named Nathan spins Sophia’s small world into a larger, indeed global, view. As researcher Nathan and his muse Sophia wind their way through the world in a series of labyrinthine intrigues worthy of a Dan Brown novel, it becomes more and more apparent that such wild assumptions or – as Camuglia would say – “fallacies,” not only skew our view of the world but can lead to danger and even violence.
Inspired by Nathan’s relentless dedication to his research, Sophia watches her own personal “fallacies” fade into insignificance as she comes to see that her own destiny is not – and never can be – separate from the destiny of human as a whole, the destiny embodied in the wisdom of an ancient people who saw through the veil of time itself.
Unlike the characters in Camuglia’s novel, we need not be pursued by the dark fallacies of those who refuse to accept the fact that each new day will continue to dawn. As the novel reminds us, time is a dance and we are all dancing it together.
John Kennington
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