Why so glum, chum?

One of life's little joys is discovering that an author you like happens to like another author you like. It's not all that surprising, on the friend of my friend is my friend principle, but it's kinda neat nonetheless.
Reading the diary of Charles Stross, I find him discussing Jim Kunstler's latest doom-and-gloomfest, which, by and large, he (Stross) seems to agree with. I particularly like Stross' penultimate paragraph:

For a perfect storm, all it'll take is for the fruitcake-in-chief to decide that two wars isn't enough, and order an attack on Iran before he leaves office. Or for another hurricane to make landfall on the Gulf coast. Or a coup in Saudi Arabia. Or, or. Too many ors.

The responses to this diary entry were many and varied, but I'd like to take issue with one in particular, that calls Kunstler and people of his ilk "apocaphiliacs": people who look forward to the end of the world with great glee.

Not that long ago, I wrote about my inner conflict between hope and despair. It still rages--it'll probably always rage--but I've come to realize that sampling viewpoints from both extremes keeps me centered. I think it's vitally important to recognize and understand that there are fundamental problems with the way our human race is living, and just as important to understand and recognize that solutions exist. Just about every problem that a human being has ever faced, another person has solved. All that's necessary is the collective will to implement multiple paradigm shifts on a large scale.
Oh, that's all, is it? I'll get right on that. What's the deadline? Yesterday? How does never-thirty sound? I'll have the solutions to you by never-thirty.

(Sorry, Commander Cynic intruded there for a second.)

It seems to be a basic human trait that people don't recognize, let alone want to deal with, problems until they're right up in your face and threatening to disembowel. We've known oil is a finite resource for decades, so what do we do? Use up more and more oil. We've been through variations of this credit crisis over and over and over again, but never seem to learn from our mistakes. There's a deep-seated and widespread belief that we can get something for nothing; lately it's metastasized into I'm entitled to something for nothing. You see this everywhere. On a micro scale it's the kid fresh out of school that expects to get a job making $75K a year, plus benefits, but without all that distasteful responsibility. On a macro level, two words: Las Vegas.

Tangentially related is the other thing holding our species back: a shared denial of the notion of consequence. I don't know whence this came, but it almost seems as if we think we're above all that. On the micro level you've got your drunk drivers and your jaywalkers getting killed and thousands of other like examples. On the macro level: banks lending money to poor credit risks by the millions and then being shocked (SHOCKED!) when the mass defaults push them off the cliff of solvency.

I don't think Kunstler--as gloating as his posts seem to be--actually looks forward to the end of civilization as we know it. I think he's a man with a well-developed sense of consequence, surveying the world around him and deciding, on the evidence, that it's gone utterly mad. There's a sense of 'die, lemmings, die!' I get reading his blog, and I can't fault him for it, not without reeking of hypocrisy, because I have that sense myself. In spades.

I've stated several times that I find schadenfreude--happiness at another's pain--to be the most monstrous and inhuman of emotions. And I do. But the shoe switches to the other foot with astonishing speed whenever I judge that pain to be self-caused and avoidable...to the point where I come off sounding monstrous and inhuman myself. A driver crashes while not wearing a seatbelt: he's ejected from the car and lies on the side of the road, alive but horribly injured. I wouldn't deny him medical care, but let's just say his passengers would be my first priority. I recognize how spiritually juvenile this is, but I'm helpless against the implacable tide of you asked for it, now you're gonna get it rising up out of my childhood.

I can't muster any sympathy for Darwin Award winners. I've tried, but it always seems to come out gee, I'm so sorry you died from imbibing three liters of sherry...up your ass...that's just awf--WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!?

I sense a kindred spirit in Jim Kunstler. He's shouting from the rooftops: you asked for it, now you're gonna get it. Eighty six million barrels of oil per day right into the ol' bean-blower, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?!?

Besides, I'd argue Kunstler and people like him serve a valuable purpose. Along with the denial of consequence and urge to dismiss all problems out of hand, we humans have--thank God, or Evolution, or Whatever--a very strong desire to prove other people wrong. That urge may yet save us.
People read the doomsayers for many reasons. Many like to have their own beliefs confirmed...indeed, that seems to be why most people bother reading anything any more. Others like to laugh and scoff at Mr. Sourpuss (hey, Jim! You've been calling for Armageddon for at least seven years now! Cry wolf much?) Still others may actually recognize that Mr. Kunstler's repetitive jeremiads are an attempt to make people recognize and understand some pretty nasty home truths about where we're at and where we seem to be going (right over yonder cliff). If he repeats himself, it's only because we didn't get it the first time. Why so suprised? We never get anything the first time.