Combined and Uneven Apocalypse
We all live with dystopian nightmares, or at least stream them, because we tacitly wonder if continued dynamic stabilization is indeed stable, or if we have already crossed that threshold.
Andrew Root • The Congregation in a Secular Age (Ministry in a Secular Age Book #3): Keeping Sacred Time against the Speed of Modern Life
The catastrophe I want, to use your phrase, is one provoked when the people demand — and the system can’t deliver on — two really important, very pragmatic sets of rights. The rights of Mother Earth, and the right of people to have access to the resources required to create productive, dignified, and ecologically sustainable livelihoods.
Andrew Boyd • I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor
Is this catharsis? Possibly more like indulgence, and creation of a sense of comparative safety. A kind of late-capitalist, advanced-nation schadenfreude about those unfortunate fictional citizens whose lives have been trashed by our own political inaction. If this is right, dystopia is part of our all-encompassing hopelessness.