Post-doom

Last updated

Postdoom, also post-doom, is a concept articulated by Michael Dowd in 2019 in his quest to "find the gift" beyond mere acceptance that ongoing climate change would inevitably lead to civilizational collapse. [1] As Dowd reflected in a 2022 essay, "Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance: where are you in the vaunted stages of grief? And is doom automatically the end point?" He continued, "I began to explore (with others) the possibility of compassionate 'post-doom' forms of awareness." [2] By the time of his death, Dowd had conducted more than fifty conversations with colleagues exploring the topic of post-doom, which are documented online in both video and audio formats. [3]

Contents

Others who subsequently have used the term 'postdoom' as a descriptor of their own trajectory in moving through climate anxiety and a sense that societal collapse is inevitable include Shaun Chamberlin, [4] Paul Ehrlich, [5] and Meg Wheatley. [6] Jem Bendell, who named and established the concept of Deep Adaptation in 2018, has also accepted post-doom as a relevant descriptor. [7] [8] [9] Rupert Read, a leader of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion, contrasted post-doom with the doom perspective in his 2022 book. He wrote, "They are rather post-doom. They contain a willingness to undertake a full-spectrum active response to what leads 'doomers' by contrast to give up and to resort to desperate rants and survivalist 'prepping' only." [10]

Definitions

In her 2023 book, [11] Terry LePage posted three definitions of post-doom. These she derived from the postdoom website, created and managed until his death in October 2023 by Michael Dowd: [12]

1. What opens up when we remember who we are and how we got here, accept the inevitable, honor our grief, and prioritize what is pro-future and soul-nourishing.

2. A fierce and fearless reverence for life and expansive gratitude – even in the midst of abrupt climate mayhem and the runaway collapse of societal harmony, the health of the biosphere, and business as usual.

3. Living meaningfully, compassionately, and courageously, no matter what.

The post-doom approach has been described as entailing "a positive disintegration of self and values, to refocus one’s mind, and entire existence, on things that really matter." [13]

In her 2021 book, Victoria Loorz writes of "Michael Dowd's post-doom spirituality" and describes it as "a spirituality that accepts the fullness of our reality: the tragedy as well as the beauty. This spirituality moves into — and then eventually beyond — grief and repentance toward a deeper, more courageous, compassionate, and spiritual aliveness. Post-doom spirituality is, as Dowd says, 'what opens up when we remember who we are, accept the inevitable, honor our grief, and prioritize what is pro-future and soul-nourishing'." [14]

Benefits

Gratitude is a benefit Dowd highlighted in a 2021 interview. He spoke of his own journey through and beyond collapse acceptance that culminated in "deep and profound gratitude for the gift of being alive and conscious and in love with life." [15]

In his 2023 book, Jem Bendell posts a list of "psychological benefits" articulated by "collapse-acceptance advocate Karen Perry," who is known for her "post-doom outlook." Stressing three of the action-inducing benefits, Bendell describes their manifestation from "community involvement and defense, solidarity with those less privileged or suffering the worst effects, and making amends by doing what one can to lessen suffering and create potential for future life." [16]

Distinguishing "collapse acceptance" as a stage "beyond awareness and grief," Karen Perry posted 15 benefits of collapse acceptance in March 2023. She advised readers that "these benefit examples are seeds, not a recipe. How they manifest is unique to everyone." [17] The titles and taglines of the benefits are:

  1. Freedom - the move away from shoulds to the open doors of coulds
  2. Urgency - “no time like the present” has never meant more
  3. Parameters - playing the game with a different framework and lens
  4. Presence - focus on today with heightened awareness of being here now
  5. Gratitude - impossible to ignore all we’ve been given (and taken)
  6. Calm Grounding - not disrupted by catastrophic information
  7. Community Localism - ability to affect those in close proximity
  8. Super Hero Release - good riddance to pressure and guilt
  9. Universalism - heightened connection to the Oneness of everything
  10. Empathy - towards self and all others
  11. Privilege Perspective - ability to view it and use it in a radical way
  12. Amends - finding forgiveness and completeness in all relationships, including with self
  13. Death Comfort - forces the conversation and preparation
  14. Letting Go - of control, worry, fear, blame, shame, legacy, dreams, expectations
  15. Enjoyment - global hospice time to have fun with the bucket list [17]

Spiritual and religious responses

"Post-doomers" is in the title of a 2022 opinion piece published in the UK-based Church Times. [18] The author writes that "spirituality features quite prominently" among those who identify or ally with the post-doom perspective: "Christians such as Michael Dowd and Fr Richard Rohr are making their contributions." He also points to the writings of author and blogger John Halstead, whose video conversation with Dowd is one of those featured on the postdoom website:

John Halstead has commented [19] that "what these 'post-doomers' have in common is that they have passed through a kind of 'dark night of the soul' with regard to climate change and environmental devastation generally, and they are now exploring the terrain on the other side of despair. It isn't so much about recovering a lost hope, as it is figuring out how to live joyful and socially responsible lives in light of impending collapse." [18]

Related Research Articles

Radical centrism, also called the radical center, the radical centre, and the radical middle, is a concept that arose in Western nations in the late 20th century. The radical in the term refers to a willingness on the part of most radical centrists to call for fundamental reform of institutions. The centrism refers to a belief that genuine solutions require realism and pragmatism, not just idealism and emotion.

According to the model of the five stages of grief, or the Kübler-Ross model, those experiencing sudden grief following an abrupt realization (shock) go through five emotions: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progressive Christianity</span> Postmodern theological approach

Progressive Christianity represents a postmodern theological approach, which developed out of the liberal Christianity of the modern era, itself rooted in the Enlightenment's thinking. Progressive Christianity is a postliberal theological movement within Christianity that, in the words of Reverend Roger Wolsey, "seeks to reform the faith via the insights of post-modernism and a reclaiming of the truth beyond the verifiable historicity and factuality of the passages in the Bible by affirming the truths within the stories that may not have actually happened."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gratitude</span> Feeling or attitude in acknowledgement of a benefit that one has received or will receive

Gratitude, thankfulness, or gratefulness is a feeling of appreciation by a recipient of another's kindness. This kindness can be gifts, help, favors, or another form of generosity to another person.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Dowd</span> American author and advocate of ecotheology and post-doom (born 1958)

Michael Dowd was an American author, Christian minister, lecturer, and advocate of ecotheology and post-doom.

Doomers are people who are extremely pessimistic or fatalistic about global problems such as overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, ecological overshoot, pollution, nuclear weapons, and runaway artificial intelligence. The term, and its associated term doomerism, arose primarily on social media. Some doomers assert that there is a possibility these problems will bring about human extinction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dacher Keltner</span> American psychologist

Dacher Joseph Keltner is a Mexican-born American professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate change in popular culture</span>

References to climate change in popular culture have existed since the late 20th century and increased in the 21st century. Climate change, its impacts, and related human-environment interactions have been featured in nonfiction books and documentaries, but also literature, film, music, television shows and video games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rupert Read</span> British philosopher (born 1966)

Rupert Read is an academic and a Green Party campaigner, a former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, and the current director of the Climate Majority Project. He is the author of several books on Wittgenstein, philosophy, and/or climate change, most recently Why Climate Breakdown Matters, Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos, and Do You Want to Know the Truth? Until 2023, Read was a reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia where he was awarded – as Principal Investigator – Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding for two projects on "natural capital". His other major recent academic focus has been on the precautionary principle, having contributed substantially to work co-authored with Nassim Nicholas Taleb on applying the principle to questions of genetic modification of organisms. In further work, Read has theorised the utility of the precautionary principle in a wide range of areas, including: climate change, the environment, as well as financial and technology sectors.

Solastalgia is a neologism, formed by the combination of the Latin words sōlācium, 'solus' (desolation) with meanings connected to devastation, deprivation of comfort, abandonment and loneliness and the Greek root -algia, that describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by negatively perceived environmental change. A distinction can be made between solastalgia as the lived experience of negatively perceived change in the present and eco-anxiety linked to worry or concern about what may happen in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dual process model of coping</span>

The dual process model of coping is a model for coping with grief developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut. This model seeks to address shortcomings of prior models of coping, and provide a framework that better represents the natural variation in coping experience on a day to day basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Uninhabitable Earth</span> 2017 magazine article by David Wallace-Wells

"The Uninhabitable Earth" is an article by American journalist David Wallace-Wells published in the July 10, 2017 issue of New York magazine. The long-form article depicts a worst-case scenario of what might happen in the near-future due to global warming. The story was the most read article in the history of the magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shaun Chamberlin</span> English author and activist

Shaun Chamberlin is an author and activist, based in London, England. He is the author of The Transition Timeline, co-author of several other books including What We Are Fighting For, chair of the Ecological Land Co-operative, and was one of the earliest Extinction Rebellion arrestees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jem Bendell</span> British professor of sustainability leadership

Jem Bendell is an emeritus professor of sustainability leadership with the University of Cumbria in the UK. He is best known for originating in 2018 the concept of "deep adaptation" for individuals and communities anticipating the consequences of ongoing climate change. In 2019 he founded the Deep Adaptation Forum to support peer-to-peer communications in developing positive responses at the individual and community levels to societal disruptions induced by climate change.

Eco-anxiety is a challenging emotional response to climate change and other environmental issues. Extensive studies have been done on ecological anxiety since 2007, and various definitions remain in use. The condition is not a medical diagnosis and is regarded as a rational response to the reality of climate change; however, severe instances can have a mental health impact if left without alleviation. There is also evidence that eco-anxiety is caused by the way researchers frame their research and their narratives of the evidence about climate change: if they do not consider the possibility of finding any solution to overcome climate change and for individuals to make a difference, they contribute to this feeling of powerlessness.

Moral emotions are a variety of social emotions that are involved in forming and communicating moral judgments and decisions, and in motivating behavioral responses to one's own and others' moral behavior. As defined by Jonathan Haidt, moral emotions "are linked to the interests or welfare either of a society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent". A person may not always have clear words to articulate, yet simultaneously knows it to be true.

Ecological grief, or in particular climate grief, refers to the sense of loss that arises from experiencing or learning about environmental destruction or climate change. For example, scientists witnessing the decline of Australia's Great Barrier Reef report experiences of anxiety, hopelessness, and despair. Groups impacted heavily also include young people feeling betrayal from lack of environmental action by governments and indigenous communities losing their livelihoods.

The term collapsology is a neologism used to designate the transdisciplinary study of the risks of collapse of industrial civilization. It is concerned with the general collapse of societies induced by climate change, as well as "scarcity of resources, vast extinctions, and natural disasters." Although the concept of civilizational or societal collapse had already existed for many years, collapsology focuses its attention on contemporary, industrial, and globalized societies.

Deep Adaptation is a concept, agenda, and international social movement. It presumes that extreme weather events and other effects of climate change will increasingly disrupt food, water, shelter, power, and social and governmental systems. These disruptions would likely or inevitably cause uneven societal collapse in the next few decades. The word “deep” indicates that strong measures are required to adapt to an unraveling of industrial lifestyles, following prior usages such as deep ecology. The agenda includes values of nonviolence, compassion, curiosity and respect, with a framework for constructive action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Climate change and civilizational collapse</span> Discussion of scenarios for a collapse of civilization due to climate change

Climate change and civilizational collapse refers to a hypothetical risk of the impacts of climate change reducing global socioeconomic complexity to the point complex human civilization effectively ends around the world, with humanity reduced to a less developed state. This hypothetical risk is typically associated with the idea of a massive reduction of human population caused by the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, and often, it is also associated with a permanent reduction of the Earth's carrying capacity. Finally, it is sometimes suggested that a civilizational collapse caused by climate change would soon be followed by human extinction.

References

  1. ↑ Dowd, Michael (June 2023). "Collapse and Denial: Inevitable and Unstoppable" (PDF). The New Ecozoic Reader (7): 23–26.
  2. ↑ Dowd, Michael (27 January 2022). "My God, What Have We Done?". Progressing Spirit.
  3. ↑ Trapani, Tara C. "Michael Dowd & Post-Doom (October 2023)". Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. Yale School of the Environment. Retrieved 6 December 2023.
  4. ↑ Chamberlin, Sean (22 August 2019). "A Post-Doom Conversation with Michael Dowd". Dark Optimism. Retrieved 17 September 2023.
  5. ↑ Ehrlich, Paul (9 September 2020). "A Postdoom Conversation with Michael Dowd". Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB).
  6. ↑ Wheatley, Meg. "Current Thinking: Interviews". Margaret J. Wheatley.
  7. ↑ Jones, Lucy (25 April 2023). "Adapt or die: Jem Bendell's radical vision to survive the climate crisis". GQ.
  8. ↑ Donfrancesco, Indra. "Book Review: It Takes a Village". Morning Star. Retrieved 11 September 2023.
  9. ↑ Hames, Richard (22 September 2023). "Is It Time For Post-Doom Politics?". Novara Media.
  10. ↑ Read, Rupert (2022). Why Climate Breakdown Matters. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 12. ISBN   9781350212039.
  11. ↑ LePage, Terry (2023). Eye of the Storm: Facing climate and social chaos with calm and courage. Irvine, CA: Open Door Communication. p. 64. ISBN   978-1-5064-6964-5.
  12. ↑ "Definitions". Postdoom.com. Retrieved 17 September 2023.
  13. ↑ Doig, Tom (9 November 2023). "If the world's systems are already cracking due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining?". The Conversation.
  14. ↑ Loorz, Victoria (2021). Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us Into the Sacred. Minneapolis MN: Broadleaf Books. ISBN   978-1-5064-6964-5.
  15. ↑ Catano, Jim (15 September 2021). "Time's Up: It's the End of the World, and We Know It". Salt Lake City Weekly.
  16. ↑ Bendell, Jem (2023). Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response to Collapse. Bristol: Good Works - Schumacher Institute. pp. 425–427.
  17. 1 2 Perry, Karen (11 March 2023). "15 Benefits of Collapse Acceptance". Substack. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  18. 1 2 Pott, David (1 April 2022). "What we can learn from the 'post-doomers'". Church Times.
  19. ↑ Halstead, John (24 March 2021). "Why I am not a 'Doomer'". Another End of the World Is Possible. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.