Jones appears to be roughly three decades younger than Yours Truly — it looks like she came of age while the Left Behind books were all the rage, though she makes no mention of this.
I had my own youthful brush with apocalyptica, but I went straight to the source. After many, many long and drawn out conversations with my father (who never in my lifetime self-identified as a Fundamentalist) I came to some peace over potential apocalypses. Eventually it was impressed upon me that there’s stuff you can control, and there’s stuff you have absolutely NO control over. And the latter list is much larger than most people realize.
The first list is probably larger than most people realize also, and that is what the optimistic humanist hopes difficult conditions might reveal.
Back to the subject, Jones seems ambivalent about what youthful exposure to apocalyptic literature “prepares” a person for, and fair enough. Throw something potentially traumatizing at a kid and there’s no telling the direction that kid will run with this particular ball of memetic fever.
Over at The Christian Humanist Nathan Gilmour has a wonderful interview with Psychologist-in-training Dan Koch about “End Times Anxiety” that touches on some familiar themes for me. Koch has his own podcast. I’m not sure my curiosity vector matches up with his, by and large, but I will definitely look into his case studies of people whose End Times Anxiety affected the direction of their convictions and character.
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| In fact, the Apocalypse came and went some time ago. |
Keep meaning to come back to this. There is, you may recall, a post of just over a year ago in which I suggest that I’m going to dwell on themes apocalyptic in posts to come. Haven’t dropped the idea! I can’t keep up even when events develop at the usual pace, though, and with things getting thrown at us as they are at the moment, I’ve really gotten to feeling like getting an appropriate thought or two together is hopeless.
ReplyDeleteOn Jones, I wonder if you’re aware that the Know Your Enemy fellas did an episode with her as guest a few months back? My rough recollection is that it wasn’t one of the best of the show, but seemed worth a mention anyway. I do like her stuff generally, and on the whole I like the show quite a lot.
I'd forgotten your self-project, actually. And now that it's a Gateway 404 you can resume it in any shape you wish!
ReplyDeleteAs for Jones, this is the first she's caught my eye. Thanks for pointing out the podcast.
Oops, yeah, should’ve warned that it will look like a 404. It’s still there (and as open-ended as ever!), just requires login.
ReplyDeleteCertainly would be interested in your thoughts on what the Know Your Enemy crew have been about there since they launched last year.
I've got a bit of driving to do today. I'll give it a listen and get back to you.
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