End of the World
Civilization and its Fate
1st Edition
Published on 4. June 2024
258 pages
978-1-5381-8901-6 (ISBN)
Description
Famine. Extreme climate change. Threats of global war and nuclear annihilation. Obscene wealth disparities. Is civilization destined for self-annihilation? In this timely book, philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills explores the emergencies that could ignite an apocalypse. As we idly stand by in the face of ecological, economic, and societal collapse, we must seriously question whether humanity is under the sway of a collective unconscious death wish. Examining ominous existential risks and drawing on the psychological motivations, unconscious conflicts, and cultural complexes that drive human behavior and social relations, he offers fresh new perspectives on the looming fate of humanity based on a collective bystander disorder.
End of the World is a warning about the dangerous precipice we find ourselves careening toward and a call to action to take control of our own fate.
End of the World is a warning about the dangerous precipice we find ourselves careening toward and a call to action to take control of our own fate.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Illustrations
1 BW Illustration
ISBN-13
978-1-5381-8901-6 (9781538189016)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
06/2024
Rowman & Littlefield
€38.90
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Person
Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, ABPP, is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist. He is Honorary Professor, Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, UK, on faculty in the Postgraduate Programs in Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy, Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University, USA, and on faculty and a Supervising Analyst at the New School for Existential Psychoanalysis, USA. Recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship including 5 Gradiva Awards, he is the author and/or editor of over 30 books in psychoanalysis, philosophy, psychology, and cultural studies including most recently Psyche, Culture, World. In 2015 he was given the Otto Weininger Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Canadian Psychological Association. He is based in Ontario, Canada.
Content
Preface
Prolegomenon: On the Brink of Extinction
1: Here on Earth
A Promise of Hope
Global Bystanders in the Face of Ecological Crisis
The Revenge of Gaia
Too Big to Fix
2: Ten Billion
What Can We Learn from Rats?
Overpopulation and the Food Supply
Withering Water
The Worse Is Yet to Come: Pandemics, Economic Paralysis, and Societal Collapse
3: The Evil That Men Do
The Need to Kill
The Ontology of Prejudice
On the Universality of Evil
The Ethics of Killing
Institutionalized Evil
4: The Doomsday Clock is Ticking
Dropping the Bomb
The Doomsday Argument
Existential Risks
Should We Take the Doomsday Argument Seriously?
Our Final Century?
5: Apocalypse Now
On Sin
Apocalypse, Millennialism, and Eschaton
The (un)Holy Land
Apocalyptic Discourse in Post-Millennial Culture
Futuristic Fantasies
Disparities
The New After
6: Global Catastrophic Risks
Defining Risk
Big-Picture Hazards
Economic Disintegration
Techno Nihilism
Superintelligences
7: A World without Recognition
The Need to Be Acknowledged
Dysrecognition as Social Pathology
Unconscious Politics and the Other
A Failure of Empathy
Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma
8: Living in the End Times
From the Plague to a Plastic Island
The Doomsday Vault
It Took a Child
Predicting the Future
Democracy Incorporated
From Catastrophe to Renewal
Environmental Conflict and Peacebuilding
The Last Resistance
References
Index
About the Author
Prolegomenon: On the Brink of Extinction
1: Here on Earth
A Promise of Hope
Global Bystanders in the Face of Ecological Crisis
The Revenge of Gaia
Too Big to Fix
2: Ten Billion
What Can We Learn from Rats?
Overpopulation and the Food Supply
Withering Water
The Worse Is Yet to Come: Pandemics, Economic Paralysis, and Societal Collapse
3: The Evil That Men Do
The Need to Kill
The Ontology of Prejudice
On the Universality of Evil
The Ethics of Killing
Institutionalized Evil
4: The Doomsday Clock is Ticking
Dropping the Bomb
The Doomsday Argument
Existential Risks
Should We Take the Doomsday Argument Seriously?
Our Final Century?
5: Apocalypse Now
On Sin
Apocalypse, Millennialism, and Eschaton
The (un)Holy Land
Apocalyptic Discourse in Post-Millennial Culture
Futuristic Fantasies
Disparities
The New After
6: Global Catastrophic Risks
Defining Risk
Big-Picture Hazards
Economic Disintegration
Techno Nihilism
Superintelligences
7: A World without Recognition
The Need to Be Acknowledged
Dysrecognition as Social Pathology
Unconscious Politics and the Other
A Failure of Empathy
Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma
8: Living in the End Times
From the Plague to a Plastic Island
The Doomsday Vault
It Took a Child
Predicting the Future
Democracy Incorporated
From Catastrophe to Renewal
Environmental Conflict and Peacebuilding
The Last Resistance
References
Index
About the Author
