Doomsday

President Truman established the Federal Civilian Defense Administration in 1951to prepare U.S. citizens for the possibility of an atomic attack. The program was based on a similar project developed during WWII. The very weapon that had ended the war became the greatest fear of the American public once the technology fell into the hands of its communist enemies.

This documentary explores the Civilian Defense Program through the eyes of those who experienced it. The beginning of the Cold War was fought in American classrooms. The 1958 National Defense Education Act provided funds for the expansion of science and math programs that would help the United States win the space race as well as the arms race. Richard Lebenson noted in his interview this educational push while he was in school and indicated that the launch of Sputnik was the catalyst. Continue Reading »

In “The Road,” McCarthy portrays a protagonist who is resentful towards the wrathful God who created his post-apocalyptic world he has been condemned to with his son.

The nameless man and his son are wondering around a desolate, torched land trying to reach the coast. He addresses his creator: “Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God (11).” His angry plead to understand what has happen shows he has a complicated relationship with God. He seems to believe that there is a heaven that he will be going to but he’ll be extremely angry when he gets there. He’s talking to God, therefore he thinks there is a possibility that he exists. Perhaps it is a God who is a watchmaker like in Watchmen.

His relationship with God has been transformed by the atomic disaster but so has his relationship with people. We know very little about the protagonist but there is a hint that he was a doctor. Though he has taken the Hippocratic Oath he still passes by the lightning stroke man that is dying. He has rejected his role as a doctor where he is now no one but a father to his son.

The man has a sense of reverence for his son as he feels he is charged to protect him since he is the only good left in the world. He refers to his sleeping son as a “golden chalice, good to house a god (75).” While parents tend to have strong loving feelings towards their children, this relationship is more intense as they are literally each other’s world. There is another interesting scene of transferred divinity is the when the pair finds a house stocked with food. They pray and thank the people, not God, for the food that probably saved their lives.

They are living in a Godless world epitomized when the boy catches a snowflake in his hand and “watched it expired there as the last host of Christendom (16).”

“Our city was outside of history now, beyond surveillance (144).” The post-apocalyptic NYC is after the period of recorded events and what is happening will only exist in people’s memory. The memory of the surviving New Yorkers becomes the true landscape of the post-blast New York City.

It’s interested that the widespread use of Albertine suggests that people are trying to escape their presence in their memories. They are willing to risk experiencing unpleasant memories to get what they were after, whether it’s Kevin trying to recapture moments with a childhood crush or Cortez enduring a traumatic experience to find Addict Number One.

The value of memory is explicit in this narrative. Lee says,“Nobody wants to have anything to do with a forgetter (186).” Those with perfect recall are the most respected. Cortez wants to disguise the origins of the drug and those who know or trying to discover it are seen as valuable and targeted: Addict Number 1, Kevin Lee, and the Brooklyn College professors. People are disappeared by being murdered in memories, but the characters are not time traveling but traveling in their own mind and the collective unconscious of the city.

Chuck Klosterman says, “Life is rarely about what happens but it’s about what you thought happened? Which has more validity in the story? The real events or the memory of events? It seems with the disappearing of people that the memories are more real than the actual presence. The novella reflects on the imperfection of memory that society relies so heavily upon.

I’ve seen the Matrix a few times but I understood it was a very intellectual movie but Rosen’s analysis of the many apocalyptic readings made me want to see it again.

The Wachowski Brothers said that they tried to incorporate as many ideas as possible into the films. The dualities etched by Rosen: Neo as both messiah and antichrist, the tethered humans as both sinner and saved, the machines as both “nurturing protectors and tyrannical parasites” highlight the importance of prospective in the apocalyptic narrative.

The case can be made for both a human apocalypse and a machinist apocalypse since both species are working towards creating a New Jerusalem free from the other but as Rosen argues in the world they live in they can’t survive without one another. This calls into question the need for evil to define good and the need for good to define evil. Can there be a Christ without an Anti-Christ? Is this why Satan gets released after a 1000 years to tempt humanity again?

Today, technology and humanity are co-existing. Humans use technology to make life easier but they also have come to depend on it for survival. If any of us were asked to live off the grid and wash our own clothes and do cook our food without assistance for more than a weekend camping trip we would have great difficulties. We also depend on technology to keep us alive in medical emergencies. We create these machines for both convenience and survival, but for many IT workers, it gives their life purpose.  While many people complain about living in a cubicle with only a desktop as company, they, no doubt, choose to live such an existence. We voluntarily live under technnoppression. We create the need to constantly check our e-mails or Facebook accounts. We create the conditions by which we can allow ourselves to be dominated by technology by placing a value on the benefits of the sprawling world of ones and zeros.

Quinby states, “Access to information banks is redefining truth and complicating whether truth can be established amidst an overwhelming flow of data. (135)” The spread of information can allow everyone to look at the numbers and define their own individual truth. This reveals the other sides of the coin that technology can be both liberate as well as imprison humanity. Rosen’s acknowledgement of the multiplicity of truths in the Matrix comments that with many truths comes the obliteration of Truth with a capital T.

The second half of the “Glorious Appearing” was far less exciting then the first half. Once Jesus returns, the action comes to a halt, as the faithful characters no longer can die. This is where the reader of faith and the reader of pleasure would probably diverge in terms of interest. The book just turns into interpretations of the Judgments and the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom from the Bible.

There are a series of collective, yet personal, experiences once Jesus returns. Though Jesus literally answers the prayers of the characters, they still use the Bible as a source of information.

During what I’m guessing is a regular Bible study session, Chaim says, “Books by men seem superfluous now …Whenever we pray I feel as if Messiah is here with me, answering my questions even before I ask. Let us begin with a time of worship and prayer (342).” The Bible has become unnecessary with the presence of Jesus. Though, the characters can just ask Jesus about their questions, they still turn to Chiam to explain the judgment process. Why don’t the characters just pray and ask Jesus if he’s giving direct answers?

One main question that arises several times is why Satan will be released in 1000 years while his followers were cast into the lake of fire for eternity. The explanation offered, through the interpretation of text, as oppose to a direct answer from Jesus, is that the people born during the Millennium must have a choice to follow Christ or turn their back on the Messiah. Why is Jesus offering future generations to be tempted by Satan? If they are born during the Millennial Kingdom, should they not know Jesus personally and understand him to be their lord and savior? If Jesus is so saddened to punish humans who stray from him, why does he make them vulnerable to the Antichrist?

In Kusher’s “Angels in America,” the characters experience a more personal apocalypse than in Watchmen. Each character’s world is shattered on a very private level that is only recognized by others whose world as fallen apart as well.

All of the characters in some way are on the outskirts of society based on some aspect of their identity, mainly based on sexuality, race, gender, and/or religion. These characters come together and experience the apocalypse as a collective but it is not known to anyone outside of their group.

The three characters who are experiencing the most tragic of personal apocalypse have hallucinations that help them deal with their situation. Prior is visited by the angel after he loses both his health and his lover. Roy Cohn is fighting a disease as well but he is also fighting his own disbarment, which is arguably a more important battle for him since he places his reputation above all else. Harper is trapped in a marriage with a closeted homosexual and experiences drug-induced hallucinations because of it.

These characters’ hallucinations have different purposes and varied results. The angel that visits Prior comes with its own agenda to change the habits of humans in order to woo back God to heaven. Prior is confused by his hallucination but later rejects his prophecy for the chance at life. Roy’s vision of Ethel Rosenberg is spurred by his unethical behavior during her trial, which resulted in her undeserved execution. The ghost of Ethel gives Roy a chance at redemption but he rejects it completely and dies a miserable death alone. Harper has been hallucinating for some time in an effort to escape her loveless marriage but it is her vision that reveals that her husband is gay that allows her to later accept it and move on to San Francisco to start a new life.

The three characters are no doubt at the lowest points of their lives when they have these hallucinations that either present them an opportunity for renewal. The question stands: Does a person’s life have to be destroyed before they can experience a revelation?

While Americans watched the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bomb, they realized that the “weapon to end all wars” could just as easily end the world as they knew it. The United States became a campaign of misinformation to soothe the anxieties of its people.

I will research the U.S. government’s official safety procedure for a nuclear attack at the height of the Cold War, focusing mainly on bomb shelters. I will visit several bomb shelters around New York City to get images of the spaces, as well as create a map marking the distance between shelters in a particular neighborhood.

I want to do a documentary exploring the various ways Americans prepared themselves in the event of an atomic bomb attack. I will interview three Americans who lived during the height of the cold war era. One will be someone who was in elementary school, someone who was in high school, and someone who was an adult. These interviews will provide insight into the mindset of American society at the time. Did they think hiding under a desk would save their life? Did they think that a basement would provide adequate protection from a nuclear blast?

Finally, I will research the U.S. government’s current safety procedure for a nuclear attack. I will follow this up with several interviews about what Americans today would do if they knew America were soon to be hit with an atomic bomb.

This project will be a multimedia project, integrating photographs, video interviews, and stock footage of public service announcements.

Moore re-imagines the image of the messiah in his work Watchmen. There are three characters that play the role of savior in the novel: Rorschah, Adrian Viedt, and Dr. Manhattan.
Rorschach is a strict moralist. In his view, there is only right and wrong, good and evil. Rosen says Rorschach is meant to represent the apocalyptic God of retribution. He punishes evil, mercilessly, and follows his own moral code. At the conclusion of the novel, he attempts to stop Viedt’s destruction of the world and refuses to compromise even when he faces his own death. To Rorschach, the means do not justify the end, even when that end could be the possibility of a New Jerusalem.

Adrian Viedt subscribes himself the role of messiah as he tries to destroy the world to create a new start. Viedt, the smartest man in the world, decides to take on the burden of having the blood of half of Manhattan on his hands. He recognizes that the war of good and evil is a continuing battle that there must be a traumatic wake up call for the world. Rosen describes him as embodiment of the apocalyptic Christ, ushering in an age of peace through destruction.

Dr. Manhattan is unwillingly labeled the savior by the American people and government. He is meant to bring an age of peace that is not based on the realization the human beings should be kind to one another but based on fear of ultimate destruction. He is seen as the weapon to end all wars just like the atomic bomb he has replaced in the eyes of the U.S. government. Rosen argues that of all the saviors he is the most godlike character. His perception of time and space is boundless as he experiences life simultaneously.

Interestingly, Moore doesn’t make a case for any righteousness of any of the saviors. None of the characters achieve their ultimate goal. Rorschach dies defending strict morality, Viedt’s utopia is only temporary, and Dr. Manhattan doesn’t escape humanity as he decides to create his own life forms. Moore leaves his characters flaws as the humans who created them.

Strozier interviews several fundamentalists to get their take on the end of the world. Since many of the people he interviews grew up during the Cold War era, they equate the end of the world with the possibility of a nuclear holocaust.

Each generation thinks that it is the predestined time of the second coming of Christ. One interviewee. Wilma, describes why she thinks it will be his generation that will see the end of the world: “The Bible doesn’t say it is going to be a nuclear war but it’s going to burn…. Could be a bomb because the Bible says the earth shall burn in fire. Could be a bomb.” She isn’t sure that the end of the world will be humanity’s own doing but she feverishly tries to connect the dots.

 The people Strozier talks to have an ambivalent relationship with the possibility of an atom bomb ending the world. From some, it’s an eternal source of anxiety but for others being on the brink of destruction is invokes them with a permanent urgency resulting in a religious enthusiasm. One man says, “There’s something so powerful about it that it just evokes fear and awe.” These feelings of fear and awe could possibly remind him of the fear and awe he feels for God.

 The fundamentalists also have conflicting opinions about whether the nuclear war will be the final end of the planet. They wonder if God will stop humans from completely destroying the world or will he let humanity be the cause for its own end. It is written in God’s plan for human beings to be the ultimate victim of their lust for power and domination? For humans beings to destroy the second Garden of Eden?