Not Helpful

Ok, starting to become very unhelpful: people who like to predict the end of the world. A few weeks ago at the Unitarian Universalist church in Prescott, the topic of interest was the situation in Columbia with the civil war and human rights violations. The story that was told by a man who travels to Columbia often to protest the human rights violations was very troubling and sickening. What's worse is that the United States hosts "schools" used to train military activists responsible for these human rights violations. But that's a topic for another discussion. At the end of this man's speech at the church, a question and answer session ensued. The first comment was by a seemingly frustrated woman in the front row: "this just proves what we have known all along. Our country is not a democracy anymore; whatever the people have to say doesn't make a bit of difference. I believe and have always believed, along with my friends, that the world is going to end on... [insert your favorite predictive date here] and there's just nothing we can do anymore. There's just nothing we can do."

Second instance: during the previews for "Quantum of Solace," the new James Bond movie, audiences were shown an image of a Tibetan monk in the Himalayas frantically sounding a huge gong as a massive tidal wave swept over the Himalayas. The ad line goes something like: "what will the governments of our world do when the end comes? [Pause] Nothing." Which is followed up by the date of the movie release and encouragement to google "end of the world [insert favorite date here]."

First off, an ocean over the Himalayas? Really? We are talking about the highest point on Earth. Global warming will indeed increase the levels of our oceans, catastrophically reducing inhabitable land along our nations' coastlines. This type of logic, plus the womans' from the UU church are based on fear, catastrophizing and unsupported attitudes of helplessness. And what is the use of this type of thinking? That we shouldn't mobilize our humanitarian aid power to protect the people in Columbia because there's no use? That we shouldn't do everything in our power to protect the Earth and the delicate atmosphere because a huge tidal wave is going to sweep over on us and destroy everything anyway? What is the use of such fatalistic thinking besides a morbid interest in an unpredictable future? Such thinking only promotes helpless attitudes that what we say and do has no effect on the behavior of others or our environment.