Jensen's piece below calls to mind a good deal of biblical teaching. In the first place, it gives some details on how at the end of the age, men's hearts will fail them for fear (Luke 21:25-26). In this, Jesus was drawing on Psalm 46.
It's important to recognize that although Jesus says he is coming like a thief in the night, the signs of his coming are obvious and cause men to lose heart precisely because you don't have to have any special spiritual discernment to see how it is and draw the lessons that we can't go on this way. Not to see requires a solid commitment to full-time self-deception - finding "peace" in the refuge of lies.
Indeed, without God there really is no hope, but that doesn't mean that there is no hope, and it doesn't mean that God can only be found in tidy little Christoid religious systems. And that's not new: Jesus explained to the woman at the well in Samaria that you didn't have to go to Jerusalem to find God with the help of the scribes and Pharisees, because he could be found by anyone in spirit and truth.
None of this has to reach the question of when Jesus is returning. We don't know that, but the end of any civilization looks and feels close enough to the end of the age that we can learn the right lessons from the experience, just as though the Lord is in fact returning - lessons which always apply. Whenever the Lord may return, let's prepare by getting it right in rehearsal.
That, reader, is now.
Finally, the kind of anguish Jensen speaks of here is the proper attitude of any biblical Christian - as it is written, "Blessed are those who mourn." What was right in the life of Lot, in which it's hard to find anything right, is that his "soul was vexed every day" at the iniquity he had to live with in Sodom, even though he sat in Sodom's gate. Rejoicing in unceasing pain, as Job put it, is the tight and narrow path that few find.
Why does Jensen, who is not even clear that the God of the Bible exists, have it a lot more clear and biblical than the average Christoid populating our churches? Well, I think that's obvious. He's pursuing the truth, rejoicing in unceasing pain, while Christoid religion is all about taking the broad and easy way by hiding from these unpleasant truths - that is, rejecting the cross. And rejecting the cross, especially when such rejection is wrapped in religious devotion, is service to Satan, as Jesus made clear to Peter (Matthew 16:21-23).
Enough of my warm up. On to Professor Jensen.
We live amidst multiple crises -- economic and political, cultural and ecological -- that pose a significant threat to human life as we understand it.
There is no way to be awake to the depth of these crises without an emotional reaction. There is no way to be aware of the pain caused by these systemic failures without some experience of dread, depression, distress.
To be fully alive today is to live with anguish, not for one's own condition in the world but for the condition of the world, for a world that is in collapse.
Though I have felt this for some time I hesitated to talk about it in public, out of fear of being accused of being too negative or dismissed as apocalyptic. But more of us are breaking through that fear, and more than ever it's essential that we face this aspect of our political lives. To talk openly about this anguish should strengthen, not undermine, our commitment to political engagement -- any sensible political program to which we can commit for the long haul has to start with an honest assessment of reality.
Here is how I would summarize our reality: Because of the destructive consequences of human intervention, it is not clear how much longer the planetary ecosystem can sustain human life on this scale. There is no way to make specific predictions, but it's clear that our current path leads to disaster. Examine the data on any crucial issue -- energy, water, soil erosion, climate disruption, chemical contamination, biodiversity -- and the news is bad. Platitudes about "necessity is the mother of invention" express a hollow technological fundamentalism; simply asserting that we want to solve the problems that we have created does not guarantee we can. The fact that we have not taken the first and most obvious step -- moving to a collective life that requires far less energy -- doesn't bode well for the future.
Though anguish over this reality is not limited to the affluence of the industrial world -- where many of us have the time to ponder all this because our material needs are met -- it may be true that those of us living in relative comfort today speak more of this emotional struggle. That doesn't mean that our emotions are illegitimate or that the struggle is self-indulgent; this discussion is not the abandonment of politics but an essential part of fashioning a political project.
I would like help in this process. I've started talking to people close to me about how this feels, but I want to expand my understanding. By using the internet and email, I am limiting the scope of the inquiry to those online, but it's a place to start.
My request is simple: If you think it would help you clarify your understanding of your struggle, send me an account of your reaction to these crises and collapse, in whatever level of detail you like. I am most interested in our emotional states, but any exercise of this type includes an intellectual component; there is no clear line between the analytical and the emotional, between thinking and feeling. An understanding of our emotions is connected to our analysis of the health of the ecosystem, the systems responsible for that condition, and the openings for change.
Because I may draw on this material in public discussions and for writing projects, please let me know how you are willing to have your words used. Your writing could be: (1) "on background," not to be quoted in any forum; (2) "not for attribution," permission to be quoted but not identified; or (3) "on the record," permission to be quoted and identified. If you don't specify, I will assume (2).
My plan is to report back to anyone interested. If you would like to be included on that distribution list, let me know. Please send responses in the body of an email message, not as an attachment, to robertwilliamjensen@gmail.com.
Whether or not you write to me, I hope everyone will begin speaking more openly about this aspect of our struggle. If there is to be a decent future, we have to retain our capacity for empathy. Most of us can empathize with those closest to us, and we try to empathize with all people. The next step is to open up to the living world, which requires an ability to feel both the joy and the grief that surrounds us.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen is also co-producer of the documentary film "Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing," which chronicles the life and philosophy of the longtime radical activist. Information about the film, distributed by the Media Education Foundation, and an extended interview Jensen conducted with Osheroff are online at http://thirdcoastactivist.org/osheroff.html.
