/ No way back

I am, once again, reading Peter Zapffe’s essay, The Last Messiah.

It’s hard to imagine that the first English translation was published as long ago as 1933 (it’s as relevant to an early 20th-century audience as it is to Generations Z and Alpha).

In part V of his Essay, Zapffe says:

If we continue these considerations to the bitter end, then the conclusion is not in doubt. As long as humankind recklessly proceeds in the fateful delusion of being biologically fated for triumph, nothing essential will change. As its numbers mount and the spiritual atmosphere thickens, the techniques of protection must assume an increasingly brutal character.

And humans will persist in dreaming of salvation and affirmation and a new Messiah. Yet when many saviours have been nailed to trees and stoned on the city squares, then the last Messiah shall come.

Then will appear the man who, as the first of all, has dared strip his soul naked and submit it alive to the outmost thought of the lineage, the very idea of doom. A man who has fathomed life and its cosmic ground, and whose pain is the Earth’s collective pain. With what furious screams shall not mobs of all nations cry out for his thousandfold death, when like a cloth his voice encloses the globe, and the strange message has resounded for the first and last time:

“– The life of the worlds is a roaring river, but Earth’s is a pond and a backwater.

– The sign of doom is written on your brows – how long will ye kick against the pin-pricks?

– But there is one conquest and one crown, one redemption and one solution.

– Know yourselves – be infertile and let the earth be silent after ye.”

And when he has spoken, they will pour themselves over him, led by the pacifier makers and the midwives, and bury him in their fingernails.

He is the last Messiah. As son from father, he stems from the archer by the waterhole.

Now, do I think The Last Messiah is here or about to descend upon us? I don’t think so. That’s not to say there aren’t quiet voices in our midst who are trying to raise our consciousness viz. our obsession with growth, wealth creation (hoarding), and ecocide, but I fear there is a poverty of acceptance of our self-induced demise.

I recognise that Zapffe’s message has been corralled by the anti-natalist community, which is so often derided as being nihilistic but there is no amount of solution-mongering, geoengineering or AI-generated ideation that is going to halt the decline of all sentient life by dint of our materialistic proclivities. And even if you don’t go so far as to advocate for the total extinction of humanity, why can’t we still have a grown-up discourse about what this planet can accommodate, be that 1 billion people or less? Here again, this is antithetical to the messaging of the political classes who continue to advocate for a higher birth rate. (Is this simply another incarnation of the Selfish Gene?)

I should add a segue: one other issue that doesn’t get talked about or not nearly enough is the ecocidal nature of the corporation. I’ve written before about Professor David Whyte’s book Ecocide: Kill The Corporation Before It Kills Us (cf. the law of ecocide advocated for by the late Polly Higgins) but no one appears to notice that, absent the corporation, which, ipso facto, is a chimera qua the necessity for human actors, we’d wouldn’t have the behemoth structures that so easily assemble their profit-inducing armory against the earth’s resources with nary a consideration of what that means for the generations to come.

I recognise there is a sterility and/or obsolescence to what I’m harking on about. In fact, you could say that despite the plethora of schemes, objectives and target-setting, nothing has changed or not so you’d notice. I’m not going to quote the numbers but let’s just say I’d be very surprised if anyone over a certain age couldn’t attest to the disappearance of insects, birds, forests and a whole gaggle of things that make up the natural world.

This begs the question: what’s become of the human race given our animistic roots? Are we so entranched in a materialist universe that nothing touches us? That’s not to say that we don’t like to show off our lovely pictures of inter alia sunsets, the ocean and some creepy crawly that’s got our attention. Frankly, I think it chortleworthy to bask in the glory of another Instagram-worthy image whilst at the same time living as if this is “normal” — whatever the hell that means.

I’m conscious of my duplicity. It’s not like I’ve given up all my material possessions (hell, I’m typing this on one of four computers that I either own of I’ve been given to do my legal job(s)) but I could give it all up in a heartbeat if only there was a way of bringing my wife and family with me; but I fear that that’s never going to happen not least because I’ve helped to sow the seeds for a continuation of my modus vivendi, which is premised on the idea, as much as I detest the expression, that everyone will be working for a living (life) until the very end. Hell, by the time I get to retire this and successive governments will have pushed the boat out so far that I’ll be adapting to a dystopian world where there is no retirement age: you work until you drop. Period.

It’s at this point that I get the sense that my farrago of ruminations is beginning to sound either apocryphal or positively science fiction. Perhaps that’s the space I ought to occupy; in this regard, I think of the writings of J.G. Ballard — particularly his short stories. I’m also hooked, or is that addicted, to the film The Book of Eli and whether in fact that’s where we’re all headed. It’s hard to know but I’m in the mood to develop my version of Collapsology. Below is what Grok tells me; but when you press Grok for an answer to how long we’ve got, it hedges its bets. I wonder why?

Collapsology is the interdisciplinary study of the potential collapse of industrial civilization and the broader socio-ecological systems that support it. It examines the risks, dynamics, and consequences of systemic breakdowns driven by factors like climate change, resource depletion, economic instability, social inequalities, and environmental degradation. The term was popularized by Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens in their 2015 book How Everything Can Collapse (Comment tout peut s’effondrer), blending insights from ecology, sociology, economics, and systems theory.

Collapsology doesn't predict inevitable doom but analyzes tipping points, feedback loops, and vulnerabilities in complex systems. It emphasizes resilience, adaptation, and sometimes transformation to mitigate or navigate potential collapses. Critics argue it can lean toward alarmism, while supporters see it as a call to confront uncomfortable realities and foster sustainable practices. It’s not a formal academic discipline but a framework for understanding existential risks and societal fragility.

My version of Collapsology would be much more culturally inclined but I’m bound to but up against my misanthropy — guilty as charged. What do I mean? Well, it’s a bit like going upstream to consider the (wicked) problem instead of prognosticating about our wanton greed et al. In short, when did we or how did we lose any connection with the natural world? Was it brought about solely because of the Industrial Revolution or can its roots be traced to a much earlier period? In this regard, I think of the writings of Daniel Quinn and his three books: Ishmael (1992), The Story of B (1996) and My Ishmael (1997). Perhaps I need to go back and reread these unless that is someone can point me in the direction of when everything went to shit.

In the end, as I’ve said ad nauseum, I don’t expect anyone to take me seriously and certainly I’m an outlier and an outsider in the legal community (don’t ask me what that is) in raising my head above the extinction-minded (us that is) parapet and daring to question BAU. And I’m OK with that. I’m not looking to build a tribe or start a movement but to get down on paper my perspective on the world that we’ve made in our image and to question why we think qua humans we’re the apex of all sentient life.

If you find what I say a complete turnoff, I won’t be offended in the slightest if you unsubscribe or give my mutterings a wide berth. Neither will stop me talking up Zapffe’s message, anymore than anyone dissuading me from my continued and quite ferocious reading of poetry and all those writers of the 20th century that continue to inspire me (I’m currently reading Memoirs of a Bastard Angel by Harold Norse who was an openly gay American poet who lived a colourful and long life, dying in 2009 at 92 years old).

Until the next time, then.

Blessings,

Julian

Photo by lonely blue on Unsplash