“The millennium is at once everywhere and nowhere in our culture…”

-from “The Millenia-Old History of the Apocalypse” by Anthony Grafton (1999)

According to the author or authors of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus, when asked to describe the signs of the Second Coming, cautioned his disciples against jumping to conclusions. There would be, he explained, “wars and rumours of wars”, famines, earthquakes, and false Christs. None of these would definitively signify that the end was nigh.

History shows that the Galilean sage’s warning (wise as it was) has often been ignored by the self-appointed apostles of “the good news”. Time and time again, gnomic, cryptic prophecies from the Bible, the Koran, and other Holy Writs have been appropriated by would-be diviners of God’s will. A few of these seer-hopefuls or prophets-in-waiting, like the Dominican firebrand Girolamo Savonarola, electrified the social and political spheres of their respective societies with fulminous, fire-and-brimstone sermons which linked the fate of the universe to local and regional conflicts. In recent years, nowhere have these self-made apocalypticists been more apparent than in the United States.

Perhaps the most prominent of the modern, telegenic doomsayers was the choleric pulpiteer and de facto chief propagandist of the right-wing Moral Majority movement of the late twentieth century, Jerry Falwell. Famously endorsed and lauded by Ronald Reagan, Falwell, not unlike the death cultists now thronging in certain parts of the Middle East, propagated a histrionic, Manchiean idea of geopolitics which saw the world as a battleground in a cosmic titanomachy of angels, devils, holy believers, and infidels.

Yet Falwell and his scaremongering, fundamentalist ilk, somewhat like the Puritan dissenters of seventeenth-century England, were certainly not the first radicals to clamour for orthodoxy and diagnose the state’s maladies with the “right” interpretation of prophecy. Nor were they the only ones to successfully ventriloquise the saintly dead in order to advance the security and foreign policy interests of imperial nations.

As Americans, they were in part inheritors of a unique tradition of separatism and nonconformism which, since the seventeenth century, had viewed the country as the new Promised Land, a potential haven for the faithful and base for Christ’s millennial kingdom. Once the yoke of the Red Coats was providentially cast off (as the English themselves had done with the Spanish yoke in Elizabethan times) the narrative expanded, but the apocalypse remained at the forefront of the public’s consciousness as a kind of transgenerational cynosure. One idea was forever on the lips of the American social climber: “Manifest Destiny”.

At some point in the not-so-distant past, with the democratisation and industrialisation of society, this concept became the “American Dream”. Shortly thereafter, the apocalypticists—no doubt with the help of politicos, financiers, and lobbyists in Washington, New York, and the Bible Belt—merged this hundreds-year-old ideal with the mysterious oracles pronounced (as tradition has it) by Biblical prophets and apostles like Ezekiel, Daniel, and John of Patmos.

The new bible-thumping zealots, empowered by America’s meteoric rise to international prestige as the greatest of the postwar superpowers, preached of America’s imperial glory—of its status as the White “City on the Hill”, of its position as the executor of God’s evangelical goodwill towards the nations of the earth, of its responsibility to pursue and exterminate Satan’s minions in order to accelerate the initiation of Christ’s millennium.

Though the influence of the Falwellian faction waned in the 1980s, its “us against them” rhetoric was repeatedly invoked by George W. Bush during his so-called War on Terror. Today, apocalyptic, Judeo-Christian narratives are still very much an integral part of American popular culture and public policy. Indeed, as Walter Russell Mead has recently noted in Providence Magazine: “Ideas about the eschaton, the end of the world, are much more important in American foreign policy debates than most people understand.” Biblical verses are still cherry-picked by churchmen and politicians across the country to justify America’s seemingly endless interventions in foreign governments, and references to apocalyptic tropes (e.g. the belief in the antichrist) are still made by leading media personalities.

Evidently, apocalyptic rhetoric pervades American culture, and as Professor Alison McQueen has shown in Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times, it is bound to remain that way for years to come. Her book is a study of the ways in which eschatology affected the lives and work of political realists Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Hans Morgenthau. Among other things, she argues convincingly that, in certain contexts, it is “morally appropriate” to conceptualise events in light of apocalyptic mythologies. Like the best stories, the deep-seated, emotionally-jarring tales of the end of the world can make life, with its many morally grey areas, mysteries, and catastrophes easier to understand.

Dr McQueen unveiled more of her observations in the course of our interview.

The Custodian: What was your first encounter with an apocalyptic narrative? What inspired you to write your book?

Professor Alison McQueen: I am Canadian, and I arrived in the United States for graduate school at the height of the “War on Terror”. The political rhetoric was apocalyptic: biblical tropes of scourge and salvation were everywhere. In his second inaugural address of 2005, President George W. Bush had called the terrorist attacks of September 11 a “day of fire”—yet, he assured Americans, redemption was on the horizon. “The untamed fire of freedom” would reach even “the darkest corners of the world”.

I became curious what the great canonical thinkers had made of apocalyptic politics and chose three who wrote when many people expected the imminent end of the known world: Niccolò Machiavelli, the great Renaissance theorist; Thomas Hobbes, an extraordinary philosopher of the seventeenth century, and the influential post-war political scientist Hans Morgenthau. Did these thinkers take the apocalyptic mindset seriously? Did they share it? Did they worry about it?

C: Since apocalyptic narratives have often been expressed by persons who used their self-professed supernatural insight to pontificate about the temporal world and its rulers, would it be fair to describe apocalypticism as a kind of politicisation of mystical modes of thought?

M: I would put it somewhat differently. Apocalypticism is a form of mystical thought that has always been political. Consider the most famous apocalyptic narrative in the Judeo-Christian tradition—the Book of Revelation. From what we know, this biblical apocalypse was written by John of Patmos, an itinerant prophet from Asia Minor. He may have been of Jewish birth and perhaps even a refugee from the first Roman Jewish War (66-73 CE). This was someone who was living under Roman imperial power. The Book of Revelation is, at least in part, a response to this political reality.

In the book, Babylon clearly represents Rome. So, when John of Patmos sees God’s wrathful destruction of Babylon at the end of days, his contemporary audience would have recognized this vision for what it was—a prophecy of the end of Roman imperial power and oppression. Apocalypticism, like many other forms of mystical thought, was political from the very beginning.

C: Girolamo Savonarola was an impressive figure, arguably the most effective “prophet” (as he would certainly have it) of Renaissance Europe. He indisputably achieved a kind of messianic status due to his ability to charismatically broadcast his kind of mythical understanding of Florence and its destiny. What can his rise to power and wide appeal perhaps tell us about the nature and usefulness of demagoguery?

M: Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) was indeed a fascinating figure! He rose to power at a time when Italy and Florence were in crisis. This was the period of the Italian Wars, a series of territorial conflicts which engulfed much of what is now Italy and involved several of the great powers of Europe. The political situation in Florence was also precarious. Savonarola preached as sixty years of Medici rule were coming to an end.

The friar’s genius lay in the way that he used apocalyptic rhetoric to make sense of these crises for his audience. According to Savonarola, the political instability and vulnerability of Florence was a scourge from God. “Behold the sword of the Lord falling on the earth quickly and swiftly,” Savonarola warned. But, as bad as it was, this scourge was also the beginning of a process of world peace and renewal. Florence, Savonarola prophesied, would become the “New Jerusalem”, the heaven on earth described in the Book of Revelation.

Narrated in this way, Florence’s political crisis and the Italian Wars were not random or meaningless. They made sense as part of a bigger story. These tribulations were merely the precursors to an imminent divine transformation. This was a powerful and appealing message.

C: What about the link between political storytelling and pathos? Based on your research would you say the most demonstrably persuasive politicians have been those who have succeeded in using emotional narratives to engender a mythic consciousness in which members of the body politic see themselves as inheritors of a timeless social, cultural, or religious legacy?

M: Humans are story-telling beings. Apocalyptic stories can be especially useful to politicians in times of crisis. Just think of how apocalypticism has been used throughout American political history. Abraham Lincoln cast the battle against slavery in Biblical apocalyptic terms. God, Lincoln said, could no longer put up with slavery: “and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be poured out.”

Theodore Roosevelt used apocalyptic imagery to rally his supporters before the Republican National Convention in 1916. In their battle against special privilege and big business, they would “stand at Armageddon and…battle for the Lord”.

More recently, as I’ve mentioned, George W. Bush framed the War on Terror in apocalyptic terms. But the willingness to use apocalyptic narratives is bipartisan. Former Vice President Al Gore often frames climate change with the language of doomsday. He has repeatedly said that contemporary climate catastrophes —floods, droughts, and storms of biblical proportions—are “like a nature hike through the book of Revelation”.

As humans, we have a need to understand the complicated things that shape our lives—wars, natural disasters, economic collapse, the possibility of nuclear annihilation. The causes of these things are complex. Apocalyptic stories can make them easier to grasp. And if these stories incorporate an element of redemption, they can be very comforting. They tell us: “These terrible things that are happening to you are not random or meaningless. They’re the necessary prelude to a new and better world in which goodness will be rewarded and evil vanquished.” That is a seductive narrative. We ought always to greet it with caution.

C: Apocalypticism is definitely not a commonly studied subject in secondary school (or even in college for that matter). Since much of contemporary political discourse features elements of apocalyptic thought, do you think students would benefit from more programmes devoted to subjects like comparative religion and media literacy?

M: Part of the purpose of education is to produce informed citizens. So, I certainly would not object to a greater focus on comparative religion and media literacy. Above all, however, students need to learn the skills of critical thinking. When presented with a particular narrative or “fact”, they should think: “Is that right?” “If not, why not?” “If so, how do I know?”

This is especially important when doomsday narratives are used to monger fear. Consider the narrative on violent crime in the United States during the 1990s. The evening news was often full of reports of murders and warnings by pundits about the rise of dangerous young “super-predators”. Social scientists estimate that between 1990 and 1998, American network news stories on murder increased by 600 percent. Yet, rates of violent crime dropped dramatically during the 1990s. Americans were being told a doom and gloom story about violent crime that was inconsistent with the facts. However, it was a story that was quite useful for those who supported tougher laws on violent crime.

Educating students for citizenship means giving them the tools to recognise when events are being shaped into a convenient narrative, to ask who that narrative serves and who it disadvantages, to search for facts, and to consider a range of alternative explanations for those facts.

But what should we do right now when confronted with politically-charged apocalyptic rhetoric? We should ask three sets of questions. First, what is the person using apocalyptic rhetoric trying to get me to do? To confront really difficult common challenges? Or to support policies I don’t have any other reason to support? Second, how is this person asking me to see my fellow citizens? As potential allies, even in the face of our real disagreements? Or as evil and beyond redemption? Third, how does this apocalyptic language leave me feeling? Ready to confront difficult challenges? Or paralysed with fear?



C: You’ve written quite a bit on the current state of affairs in the U.S. What, in your estimation, do you think we can expect in the next few years apropos of apocalyptic gesturing in the political sphere?

M: Donald Trump used apocalyptic rhetoric very effectively in the 2016 presidential campaign. He cast America’s problems—economic collapse, infrastructure disintegration, “radical Islamic terrorism”—in apocalyptic terms. He prophesied that “if we don’t get tough, and if we don’t get smart, and fast we’re not going to have a country anymore”. If Americans listened to him, he could save the country from this terrifying fate. Our “problems can all be fixed,” he said, “but…only by me.” He promised to lead the country away from doomsday and to “make America great again”.

For her part, Hillary Clinton told the New York Times right before the election: “I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.”

Apocalyptic rhetoric is a mainstay of American political discourse. I think we can expect it to stick around at least over the next few years as the country confronts the possibility of nuclear conflagration, worsening effects of climate change, and deepening political polarisation. Apocalyptic rhetoric is not going anywhere.

Want more stories? Check out our spin-off project, Godfrey’s Almanack.

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