Californian earthquake
Human history would make a great disaster movie. A vast slaughterhouse, all those corpses – students would love it. Any optimistic bits, human achievements in the arts and sciences, would have to be edited out. Otherwise, the grim tone of horror upon horror would be compromised by rays of sunshine.
There are two kinds of catastrophe we have suffered: natural and man-made. Scotland scores poorly in each category, near the very bottom, I’d say, in the world league. Where are Scotland’s floods? (The water of Leith? Rain and Highland landslips? Coastal overspills?) Nothing to compare with India, China, Bangladesh or New Orleans. Hurricanes? Tornados? Cyclones? Null points. Plague? Famine? I’m pretty sure Scotland did not wholly escape these natural disasters, like the Black Death of 1348-49, but its small population meant that in European terms, its body-count would have been relatively small.
Earthquakes? If there are any here, it’s like a sneeze. As an ex-Californian, I know about seismic shocks. I’ve even experienced one, years ago, but not as far back as the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. I’m not that old. No, the one I felt was, on the Richter scale of things, small beer. What was scary was that I was lying flat out on my back reading a book, at the side of my parents’ brick-and-board bookcase, high and unattached to the wall, when the ground beneath me began to shake violently like a prehistoric creature awakening. Books and bricks crashed to the floor. I suffered a few bruises, that’s all.
My daughter left Portobello for LA a day or two after watching the film ‘Earthquake’ about a fictional LA quake. Sure enough, soon after she got to LA she experienced an earthquake. The Scotsman got wind of her experience from my wife who worked there, and wanting a Scottish angle to the LA tremble, they ran her story. Californians, especially those in the San Francisco Bay area, know about the San Andreas fault, and await ‘the Big One’. That would be an apocalypse, California-style.
What of manmade catastrophes, say, the demise of states? We know the Romans boasted Roma aeterna. Eternal Rome had a good run until it finally reached the finish line, and finished. Now it enjoys a historical legacy and touristic profit. Vanished are the medieval Holy Roman empire, the Napoleonic empire, the Austro-Hungarian state, the Ottomans, the British empire, the Soviet empire, Yugoslavia, etc. States usually have a lifespan longer than their inhabitants, but, like them, they are mortal. If not yet in the terminal ward, they have a life-threatening illness.
So is the end of everything nigh? Many have thought, and still earnestly believe, they are living in the Last Days. Among Jews, apocalyptic thoughts and messianic imaginings were current in the days of Jesus. Early Christians certainly believed that Christ’s return was imminent, and that human history was heading towards its grand dramatic climax. During the middle ages there were periodic collective fears and expectations that everything was drawing to a close, but the so-called ‘panics of the year 1000’ was a 19th century scholarly myth. Of course there was a current of apprehension in the late 10th and early 11th century, and apocalyptic warnings together with calls for repentence persisted into modern times. And still persist.
It does seem strange, however, that even though every end-of-the-world date zips by and the world keeps turning, apocalyptic belief lives on. Nothing falsifies it. Prophets keep saying they miscalculated. So they come up with a new date, not far in the future. And they shout: ‘When that day comes, suddenly the screen will go blank, and all viewers will disappear, above or below’. Nowadays there are scores of true believers. Why? Here are a few possible reasons.
First, an innate human love of drama. The spiritual genesis of life on earth was dramatic. Therefore, its close must also come with a bang and not a whimper. The end of ‘Waiting for Godot’ is unsatisfying. Godot never comes. Second, the problem of theodicy. If the good people, whose life on earth was miserable, were not rewarded, while the evil-doers were not given the punishment they well deserved, it would challenge the idea of divine justice. The apocalypse would be the first step in sorting it out. Third, human narcissism. ‘We are the last generation on earth. We are uniquely privileged, nay chosen!’
Here I keep thinking of a historian in the cinema. The movie begins with Paleolithic man and keeps rolling on and on. When it zooms right up to today, there is a tap on the historian’s shoulder. An usher murmurs: ‘Sorry, you must leave now, your time is up’. The historian protests: ‘But it’s not over yet! It’s great. I know the story up to now. I’m dying to watch the concluson!’ So are we all. But we must leave the theatre.
Gary Dickson is formerly a reader in history and is an honorary fellow at the school of history, classics and archaeology, University of Edinburgh
