Tiscali Notizie, Italy

Is it the beginning of the end - or the end of the beginning?

 

 

Tiscali Notizie, Italy

The Fiscal Decline of the 'Apocalypse'

 

"Once prospects, horizons and available options are exhausted, the civilization that we knew - and how we knew it - end in implosion. It’s not just a question of the market and its borders; it is above all a problem of vision and planning. … As a matter of fact, if we think carefully about it, the Apocalypse itself is an extreme form of nostalgia for the future."

 

By Christian Caliandro

                                        

 

Translated by Katharine Townsend

 

July 19, 2011

 

Italy - Tiscali Notizie - Original Article (Italy)

Armageddon: We obssess about it, make movies about it, read books about it and even plan for it. But is a final end anything we can contemplate? And isn't considering 'the end' a kind of 'nostalgia for the future?'

 

WORLD TO COME CHURCH VIDEO: October 21, 2011 - It is NOT Doomsday!, July 17, 00:31:15RealVideo

What will the end look like? For almost three years now, it is "the end" that seems to suit our reality. There are times - like this one - that we find ourselves either consciously or unconsciously reflecting on the concept of the end. The economic and social crisis of these years is a gap - a pit that we must inevitably overcome to produce a contemporary sense of the end, the apocalypse.

 

So it is that even when it comes to terminology, the apocalypse, associated with the economic environment, jumps out at us on almost a daily basis: “Barack Obama evokes Armageddon to make it clear to Americans that now is the time that 'there must be shared sacrifice in order to avoid the August 2 deadline for default.' It is within this context that he evoked the biblical Book of Revelation - which gave the title to a 1998 Hollywood film starring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck - at a press conference in the Brady Press Room of the White House. … Up to now, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and FED Chairman Ben Bernanke have used the term 'catastrophe' to describe the impact of a default - the inability of the state to meet its financial obligations - but Obama’s use of Armageddon aims to convey to a nation of believers the conviction that the worst is imminent, from the suspension of Social Security checks to a freeze in military salaries." (See article by M. Molinari in La Stampa, Now we will avoid Armageddon.)

 

So from (nuclear) fallout to (economic) default, the distance seems to be shorter than one might think.

 

What are the characteristics of the contemporary apocalypse? First of all, it’s show business. Surely enough, even in the end times, an entire civilization can be properly televised and broadcast - transmitted through spectacular multi-faceted information systems that infiltrate our social, cultural, and imaginary lifestyle: all for entertainment.

 

This involves a series of significant variations on the theme of the neo-laconic philosopher who discovers in his old age the pleasure of writing prophetically, from Slavoj Zizek's Living at the End of Time to rock groups composed entirely of holograms that pepper their songs with musical and visual references to the final destruction (as in the latest album of Gorillaz).

 

 

SEE ALSO ON THIS:
News, Switzerland: Notion: 'Pay Politicians Based on Performance'
Salzburger Nachrichten, Austria: Debt Ceiling Attack By Republicans 'Backfires'
Gazeta, Russia: America's Astonishing 'Battle for the Ceiling'
People's Daily, China: U.S. Game of Chicken Threatens Creditors and Economy
Die Zeit, Germany: U.S. Risks 'Plunging World' Into New Financial Crisis
O Globo, Brazil: Global Economy Hangs on 'Mood' of U.S. Voters
The Telegraph, U.K.: Down on the Fourth of July: The United States of Gloom
Financial Times Deutschland, Germany: For Americans, a Dour Independence Day
Financial Times Deutschland, Germany: Who Cares about the U.S. Economy?
Folha, Brazil: U.S. Conservatives Threaten to Plunge U.S. into 'Lost Decade'
Rzeczpospolita, Poland: Who Can Replace America as the World's Policeman?
Kayhan, Iran: Instead of Celebrating July 4, Obama Should Repent for Flight 655
The Nation, Pakistan: Seeing the Fourth of July Through Pakistani Eyes
Yezhednevniy Zhurnal, Russia: Why Unlike U.S., Russia Lacks Holiday to Freedom

 

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It seems clear that in the contemporary sense of the apocalypse, there is a certain feeling of impermanence (a rather paradoxical truth, but interesting in its own way). Once prospects, horizons and available options are exhausted, the civilization that we knew - and how we knew it - end in implosion. It’s not just a question of the market and its borders; it is above all a problem of vision and planning.     

Posted by WORLDMEETS.US

 

The idea is spreading that, once the world that was so familiar to us comes to an end, we might be better off after all. Be happier. Most likely, it is with this in mind that the development of the post-apocalyptic point of view thrives today as an account of what comes AFTER the end and the configuration of a new beginning - however and in whatever way - whether it be rudimentary, approximate or precarious.

 

As a matter of fact, if we think carefully about it, the Apocalypse itself is an extreme form of nostalgia for the future. As the “precog” Agatha in Minority Report says - a film inspired by the splendid Philip K. Dick short story - “I’m tired of the future!”

 

Indeed, in recent decades, it has been impossible to even imagine the future. Thus, the end of times and the apocalypse represent the very impossibility of imagining and planning for the future - or future's end.

 

CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

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[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US July 25, 5:43pm]

 







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