Why You Should Take the 2012 Apocalypse Seriously
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World stands as one of the most creative scripts produced in 2012. Steve Carell and Keira Knightley play an odd couple united on a quest to reconnect with their respective pasts before a meteor destroys all life on Earth. Dramatically deviating from the clichés of the disaster genre, Seeking a Friend presents a doomed humanity that takes the apocalypse fairly well. While including requisite scenes of panic and riot, the film’s characters strive toward some sense of relationship in their final days.
We too seem to be taking the apocalypse pretty well. Our world hurls toward its scheduled end on December 21st according to predictions based on the ancient Mayan calendar. It’s something folks like Art Bell, George Noory, and their overnight talk radio guests have been warning us about for years. It serves as the subject of several books, a keyword of countless websites, the inspiration for a variety of B movies, and the premise behind Roland Emmerich’s consummate disaster film titled simply 2012. After years of hype, the date approaches. Yet there is a conspicuous lack of panic.
The smart money bets on the continued survival of both humanity and our planet. As my friend and PJ Media colleague Sunny Lohmann recently quipped on Twin Cities News Talk, the only thing sure to come beyond the winter solstice is more daylight. Predictions of Armageddon have an impressive failure rate.
Be that as it may, we should not completely dismiss the potential for a kind of apocalypse. No, I don’t mean the fiscal cliff, Obama’s second term, or an imminent economic meltdown. I’m talking about an apocalypse of the kind which has come many times before, a moment in history when a culture unravels under a development so overwhelming that established institutions pass into ruin. Think of the Aztecs and their encounter with Spanish conquistadors. They scurried about, minding their own business, when the white man arrived to unmake their world.
At a moment like that, two things happen. Newly introduced technology bowls over indigenous methods, and a new way of thinking transmits through that technical superiority. That kind of apocalypse, one which reforms our world and thus destroys our way of life, looms not only possible, but anticipated.
Knowledge is indeed power.
As we close out 2012, the stage lays set for a global revolution driven in part by the New Age occult. Continuity exists between the ancient mystery religions of civilizations like the Mayans and the esoteric societies of today. Could it be that, as Aztec priests once wowed worshipers with hidden knowledge of astronomical phenomena like an eclipse of the sun, modern wizards of the rhetorical arts are poised to win converts to a New Thought? Many practitioners of New Age occultism believe the winter solstice of 2012 will herald an apocalyptic shift in global consciousness which will fundamentally transform human society. Far from catastrophe, the New Age regards this change as a leap forward in human development, what they term “conscious evolution.”
As we consider such notions, concede that when it comes to analyzing cultural and political trends it matters not whether strange beliefs prove true. It matters what people’s beliefs will drive them to do. With that in mind as we reference spirituality, nevermind whether you believe. The beliefs of others inform their behavior, and behavior has an objective effect in any case.
Understanding what some among the New Age expect and how their beliefs could reverberate with the culture requires an overview of eschatology. That is the branch of theology dealing with the end of history. One of the fascinating aspects of the various eschatological beliefs held by different communities throughout the world is a similarity in expectation. The world exists with flaws. Something or someone approaches to fix it. The faithful anticipate a happily ever after while dissenters may expect exile into outer darkness.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad belongs to a sect of Islam which believes infidels stain the world, a Mahdi shall come as savior, and the global domination of Islam spells salvation. Christianity teaches that the world exists in a state of sin, that Jesus came to Earth as the incarnation of God to atone for mankind on the cross, and that heaven awaits those who repent of their sin and place their faith in the risen Christ. Some New Age thinkers predict the coming of their own Christ figure, Maitreya the World Teacher, who will “inspire humanity to see itself as one family, and create a civilization based on sharing, economic and social justice, and global cooperation.” (That last bit sounds awfully familiar, does it not?)
Despite their broad thematic similarities, these three eschatological views conflict. The Mahdi cannot be Jesus according to either Islam or Christianity, and neither the Mahdi nor Jesus fit the description of Maitreya. However, those among the New Age who anticipate Maitreya view the figure as the messiah which those major religions are looking for.
As absurd as the coming of Maitreya the World Teacher might sound, his anticipated curriculum sobers any ridicule. Consider a 2010 documentary film by João Amorim called 2012: Time for Change, which “follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest for a new paradigm that integrates the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures with the scientific method.” The film’s synopsis identifies its revolutionary goal:
As conscious agents of evolution, we can redesign post-industrial society on ecological principles to make a world that works for all. Rather than breakdown and barbarism, 2012 heralds the birth of a regenerative planetary culture where collaboration replaces competition, where exploration of psyche and spirit becomes the new cutting edge, replacing the sterile materialism that has pushed our world to the brink.
Here spiritual language describes an inherently political goal, which is why it may remind readers of rhetoric common to the political Left. What are social engineers if not “conscious agents of evolution”? What is the object of the green movement if not a “post-industrial society”? You can be sure “a regenerative planetary culture where collaboration replaces competition” for the supposed benefit of “all” will not include capitalism and its requisite political freedom. The film pines for a global communitarian state, a green slavery rationalized through the false gospel of an ecological theocracy. The worst part is, our globalized culture sits primed for it.
While his image has tarnished a bit since his first term began, President Barack Obama stands as a prototype for the expected Maitreya. As he toured the nation in 2009 to promote his vaunted healthcare law, the president filled venues like the Target Center in Minneapolis with congregations of expectant disciples. There he preached not unlike Pinchbeck, calling for fundamental transformation and that particular form of “collaboration” which occurs at the point of a gun. The messianic overtones of the Obama brand endure, recently affirmed by actor Jamie Foxx’s enraptured exhalation of “our lord and savior Barack Obama.”
Popular culture has greased the revolutionary wheels as well. Star Trek, a science fiction fantasy portraying a collaborative future for humanity where peace is taken for granted, serves as a prominent and enduring example. Trek portrays New Age communitarian nirvana, a society without money where members simply cooperate toward the common good. Of course, no Trek writer has dared to attempt an explanation of just how such a society might work or how our present might transmute into that future. The frontier adventures of Trek occur in a space more like our own with “disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.” Trek’s utopia remains back home on Earth, which is probably why so few scenes take place there.
A glimpse of the utopian future envisioned by the Venus Project.
In our century, the viral internet film Zeitgeist (the latest version of which is titled Zeitgeist: Moving Forward – there’s that thematic linkage with the Left again) swings an axe at established religious, political, and economic institutions and aspires toward a Trek-like future “of such abundance [through technology] that everything would be available without a price tag, and without submission to employment.” Those are the words of Jacque Fresco, founder of the Venus Project, a utopian think tank that blames all the world’s problems on private property and the use of money.
Were he an anomaly, an eccentric like Fresco could be ignored. However, his rhetoric resonates with the mainstream in leftist political thought. Channeling the spirit of avowed communist agitators with direct links to the Obama administration like Van Jones, Anita Dunn, Richard Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven, Fresco advocates undermining the system as a prerequisite to a new order.
“The [current] system has to fail, and the people have to lose confidence in their elected leaders,” Fresco says in Zeitgeist. The film’s narrator puts it another way. “We have to alter our behavior to force the power structure to the will of the people…”
“When we understand that it is technology, devised by human ingenuity, which frees humanity and increases our quality of life, we then realize that the most important focus we can have is on the intelligent management of the earth’s resources…” Nevermind who might do the managing. Just realize that if you happen to be a Christian, a classical liberal, or a tea partier, it won’t be you. Fresco declares, “If you give everybody a right to their own opinion, it becomes damaging.” Some animals would have to be more equal than others.
Here take note. It matters not whether the anticipated Maitreya will actually come, or whether New Age spirituality has any basis in reality, or whether Jacque Fresco is a fringe nutter. These beliefs may inform the behavior of the political Left and coalesce into a broad global movement away from individual rights which proves even more profound than the current trend. The mythology of 2012 and its anticipated shift in consciousness provides an ideal pivot point for repackaging discredited ideas in an esoteric and therefore attractive new package. By appealing to people’s spiritual hunger for transcendent meaning, the notion of conscious evolution could be used to rationalize both radical departures from established norms and the sanctioned persecution of those opposed to a brave new world.
While sudden global catastrophe is no more likely on December 21st than any other day, take the proposition of a cultural apocalypse very seriously. Moral authority remains a powerful thing, and a people who believe that your claim to individual rights hinders their conscious evolution will tread you under with glee.
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Related at PJ Lifestyle:
“As conscious agents of evolution, we can redesign post-industrial society on ecological principles to make a world that works for all. Rather than breakdown and barbarism, 2012 heralds the birth of a regenerative planetary culture where collaboration replaces competition, where exploration of psyche and spirit becomes the new cutting edge, replacing the sterile materialism that has pushed our world to the brink.”
Riiigggghhhhhtttt! LOL!
Haven’t we already gone through this phase at least once before – like during the dunderhead days of the 1960s and ’70s? I think so. And look what we gotten – not a regenerative planetary culture but a regressive patriarchal society run by absentee fathers.
Like the old country saying, it’s the ‘same tune, different words.’
Same sh!t, different day.
I think you’ve hit upon another difference between liberals and conservatives. A good number of liberals really do believe that they’re “conscious agents of evolution.” Reality gets a good laugh out of that.
I thought that was Karl Rove’s line for 2004. You recall: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
There are a lot differetn realities around today?
Well, like the article said, this time there will be “sanctioned persecution of those opposed to a brave new world,” because the only reason we don’t have nirvana is because of us neanderthals who stand in their way!
Just look at how willing everybody is to disarm and BE disarmed because of the actions of one evil individual.
Meanwhile, nobody seems to have figured out that there actually can be only one way to eliminate public school violence.
…good point. And the cartoon is right on. I thought homeschooling my son would be difficult, but it was really life-changing, for both of us. All the protaganists said he would be socially crippled by it, but he is extremely well-integrated with a large group of friends. He passed all of his New York State Regents Exams with flying colors, and has received a Criminal Justice Degree.
If one of these guys could take conscious control of their autonomic nervous system, AND RUN IT BETTER, then maybe they are smart enough to “redesign post-industrial society”.
I can hold my breath for a whole minute. Definitely executive material.
Personally, short of the Second Coming, I’d work on surviving whatever happened. Even an asteroid strike won’t totally wreck the planet.
That depends on the size of the asteroid.
Christianity teaches that the world exists in a state of sin, that Jesus came to Earth as the incarnation of God to atone for mankind on the cross, and that heaven awaits those who repent of their sin and place their faith in the risen Christ More to the point, He will return in Judgement and those who do not follow Him will be “cast into the outermost darkness.”
I’ve always wondered about Star Trek and the cultural changes necessary to achieve their Utopia. For an ideal civilization, they sure seem to have a large number of corrupt officials in high places. I also notice how all of the settlers that the Enterprise helps seem to be low-tech religious fanatics.
Star Trek is fascism.
As Babylon 5′s Psi Corps might say: “Star Fleet is Mother, Star Fleet is Father”.
Star Trek, eh? Another liberal, progressive intellectual no doubt.
What I noticed is that this society seems to throw all its money at Star Fleet – i.e. the military. Outside of Star Fleet, miners, traders and cargo freighters (truckers) lead a hard, mean existance.
I’ve always wondered why lefties have never been able to rub those two sticks together to catch the spark that their utopia (one world order) is a world under martial law and controlled by the military?
Star trek tech was underlined by the replicator, a device that took in garbage and banana peels and churned out clothing or perfect steak dinners for the crew. If you have a replicator which creates atoms and molecules from nuclei and electrons then you can make money, diamonds, gold, food, grenades, pretty much anything you can think of. If money has little meaning, this changes your outlook. We are probably only 50-150 years away from this. See science news aggregator Next Big Future for articles related to progress in this field.
The “history” of the Star Trek universe has been rewritten a couple of times. In the original series, the developed world united around the warp drive, to develop the engines and expand into space. The Third World didn’t like that preferring to have the money handed to it instead. There was a war and from it Utopia. Humans were also the second local species to develop warp drive and met the Vulcans (the first to get warp) in their own space.
However, the Next Generation Movies state that everything had collapsed and the world was in a state of anarchy and war when warp drive was developed by a bunch of starving rednecks lead by one brilliant scientist. The Vulcans found out we had warp drive (and otherwise they would have skipped over Earth because of its degraded condition) and became our saviors. Indeed in the Enterprise TV series which followed, Vulcans were humanity’s minders where in the original series we met on equal terms, with their logic checked human curiosity and ambition.
Star Trek may not have been fascist but it isn’t a likely outcome. The shows and movies that did come to Earth showed things looked about like they are today, though they usually did not show crime but since police forces still existed, so did crime. The replicators would have to have been terribly expensive and consume lots of energy so they couldn’t have been commonplace so people still made things. However, there was a reference to doing away with money, which is one of the more idiotic concepts ever uttered in the series. Sure on a starship with replicators you might be able to swing that, dependent on power supplies, but not on a planet.
Last point, The Federation did put a lot of money into their ships but it was always amusing that with the few thousand ships they likely possessed, usually none of them were near the danger points except the Enterprise, and those which were were commanded by incompetents who got taken out in short order.
“Could it be that, as Aztec priests once wowed worshipers with hidden knowledge of astronomical phenomena like an eclipse of the sun, modern wizards of the rhetorical arts are poised to win converts to a New Thought? Many practitioners of New Age occultism believe the winter solstice of 2012 will herald an apocalyptic shift in global consciousness which will fundamentally transform human society.”
That is Obamamania in a nutshell, with Obama as the high priest of liberalism. Obama vowed to “transform America,” and he surely has. We are now poorer and more economically dependent on other nations than ever before. We are basically a giant welfare mom living off handouts from government agencies and the last election proved the point that a majority of Americans are more comfortable getting a government check than earning one on their own. By any logical measure based on performance and economic results, Obama should have lost in a landslide. Our economy is shot and unemployment has no indication of really getting better anytime soon (with the unemployment “rate” only going down because more and more people are dropping out of the work force). And yet Obama was re-elected on yet more “Hope and Change,” let alone demonizing roughly 50% of the population that didn’t agree with him. End of times is here folks, and we elected back into office.
So the sea change has already taken place in this country. Who needs the Mayans to warn us of impending disaster when the end of country has already taken place? We ceased to be the United States of America on November 6, 2012. On that day, we became the United States of Europe, being no different than France or Italy or Spain or any of the other failed European social-welfare states. The end of the world as we knew it came and went already. The majority of Americans in this country were just too dumb to realize it.
Well said. Concur. Strongly.
I co-concur and co-applaud, but I don’t want to descend into fatalism. We may be dismayed by our own suicide-by-ballot here, but the menace of the Arab-sprung devils is even worse, far worse. If we feel doomed here, how about the minorities of Libya, Egypt, Syria, and likely other nations falling under even heavier calamities?
Handicapped, yes. Paralyzed, No! We can still create cost-effective methods of education, and other creative ways to cope.
I had never read that particular Amorim synopsis and I do not keep up with New Age religion (or didn’t until recently as I am about to explain), but that quote is precisely what the global education Transformation known in the US as the Common Core and the Lumina Diploma Qualifications Project are all about. And altering human consciousness to gain new values is the expressed goal.
And using and mandating the techniques of spirituality in the classroom without admitting it is precisely the game plan. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/are-the-new-3-rs-and-the-student-centered-inquiry-driven-classroom-a-means-to-eastern-spirituality/
Education as Transformation is even the name of the Project to gain such a psychic alteration from the Inside Out. I did not know about the Winter Solstice but I have been tracking the Interfaith Movement and wondering what was really left of JudeoChristianity in the mixture. It certainly aids the assault on Individualism and Capitalism to make everyday life more about a Buddhist meaning-making approach. And it is decidedly misrepresenting the nature of Islam in probably dangerous ways.
The postindustrial planned economy is certainly being sought. Especially via the UN and the OECD. Number 1 on the list of changes though is always taking down the logical, abstract human mind that can imagine various alternative scenarios and plan for itself with its own set of facts. Paul Ehrlich calls it Newmindedness and his acolyte, John Holdren, is certainly in a position to do something about changing it.
So be careful about rejecting influential ideas as silly. And increasingly dwindling number can recognize what makes this a silly or tragic vision. Beliefs guide behaviors and wrong ones can still cause great damage.
Here is why I feel a collapse could be catastrophic, and it has nothing to to with religion, even though I am a religious person. I am a relatively young 53, yet I have seen massive fundamental changes take place in my lifetime. When I was young, I used to see things like trainloads of cattle on their way into slaughterhouses in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, garbage was collected separately and sent to local hog farms. If you left the immediate Philadelphia area, you encountered huge numbers of farms sending their produce into the city. Across the Delaware River, New Jersey grew all the tomatoes Campbell Soup needed.
Fast forward to today. The trainloads of cattle are gone, and most meat comes from a few slaughterhouses near Chicago. Nearly all of the local hog farms are gone, and Campbell Soup prefers imported (from outside the area) tomatoes.
So now if we have a catastrophe of any kind, a breakdown in social order, economic collapse, terrorists attack; in short anything that disrupts our highly fragile, “just in time”, and highly centralized economic system, a lot of people are going to starve. But before they starve to death, they are going to fight to stay alive, and that is not going to be pretty. One needs to look no further than Hurricane Sandy to see who fast things fall apart when the system goes down.
Read “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen for an excellent fictional account of this scenario. It is disturbing.
Well sure but look at it this way, we will now have a vastly increased national park system that will be eco friendly and we will at last be able to take our children and lesser beings into the land to better understand how nature and humans must and need to interact in order to create a world order that more closely approxiamtes the ideal that should be Human Natures end all be all. Furthermore I believe that for every drop of rain that falls a flower blooms and I believe that if everyone lit just one little candle the world would be that much brighter and I believe that if Stalin, Hitler and Mao hadn’t lived there would be something on the order of 60 million people who would not have died a needless death. But hey it helped with over population and we know what that can do to the natural setting so maybe this all works for the best.
All hail the Collective Utopian Dream.
Yes, soon we will have utopia. And that utopia will need a leader, so enter the next Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Hoxha.
A timely and prescient piece Walter Hudson. The aims of the New Agers have been quite open since the 1960′s and many, if not most, of the far left are involved or influenced by New Age teachings. Most of my friends accuse Obama of being a Muslim. I keep telling them that he is in essence a New Ager. Most people are not aware that a serious stream of belief in New Age thinking is that they are evolving to a higher plane of existence and the elimination of Old Agers, read Christians and Jews, is a necessary step to achieving that higher plane. Sound familiar anyone?
Yes, it does Mike though these New Agers couch the explanation not in elimination but demands of privatization, followed by marginalization and ridicule. Science is now our god to most and undoubtedly from the results, not a very good one.
The problem for these fools is the belief their higher plane of thinking is something new, bold and fresh. Unfortunately, there is nothing new under the sun and modern man may be personally weaker than any moment in history and most certainly more dependent.
One small example of our weakness manifested. Yesterday in my hometown, population approximately half a million, a 48″ water main broke rendering a large part of the city without water. The water off only for a few hours, but the advent of no shower, no toilet, and the possibility of limited potable water and no schedule when it might be restored, the event sent the authorities into panic, people buying bottled water off the shelves, my wife grumbling, my youngest daughter into a tizzy because she “couldn’t shower.” Now I can assure you that we had much company in our concerns as we are no tougher or weaker than the rest of the neighbors.
I peed in a corner of my privacy fence in the cold to save the toilet for a house full of women and felt like I had really contributed to my family’s welfare. If my grandparents were still alive, I doubt they would have been much impressed by my sacrifice.
Like Robert F who is my age, I have witnessed things I never thought I would live to see the day. The changes have been gradual and sometimes subtle, but the effect has been alarming. There’s a world out there I do not recognize anymore. Last week’s school shooting was another reminder of what our new age thinking has wrought and other than the age of the victims, the event left me more numb and angry than aghast. I’m afraid I’ve grown quite jaded in Obama’s America anymore.
I’m sorry PJMedia gang, but America is more vulnerable than it can possibly realize and with the weakest leadership in my lifetime, a pack of egregious lies posing as financial guidance, rampant dishonesty and failure in both our education and our business, and at least two generations incapable of caring for themselves without modern convenience, I’m afraid dark days are ahead.
If you don’t think America is vulnerable to immediate ruin which could flash before your eyes, your eyes are closed.
Left Wing moonbats live in a World that is under constant threat if its not ICE AGES its GLOBAL WARMING or OZONE LAYER depletion. Each Left Wing SCAM comes complete with dire warnings of impending disaster unless something is done NOW. This usually means handing lots of MONEY and POWER to said Left Wing moonbats. When of course the SCAM is exposed for just what it is as was the Ozone, Ice Age and now the Global Warming SCAMS its hey! ho! off to the next one with no shame and no apology. The Sheeple being lemmings never hold Left Wing moonbats responsible for their failed SCAMS and the Lame stream EneMedia of course just love all the ‘copy’ that they get propagating the BS. Politicians of course love the POWER and CONTROL they can get by letting the sheeple follow the Left Wing SCAMMERS.
Relative to the human situation only a century or so ago, current conditions are already utopian. The level of violence in contemporary America is negligible compared what obtained in Colonial times, and life spans are much longer. Before Social Security and Medicare, peasants looked on the elderly as useless parasites who weren’t doing anybody a favor by continuing to live. Without unions, governments, churches, non-profits, and other mechanisms for co-operative action, human life would have remained mean, brutish, and short. Without environmental laws and remedial measures, the land and water would be degraded and poisoned, just as without the limits placed on it by law and morality, capitalism would have produced slavery and oppression rather than general prosperity.
When you long for the Conservative paradise, you long for Haiti or Somalia.
It’s pretty funny for a bunch of right-wing cultists to bitch about harmless New Agers.
Our resident New Ager of morality has his history a little skewed with a predilection for conjecture under the delusions of his brilliance – the blog a testament to the abject stupidity and unpopular opinion of its leftist owner. That my friends truly is an adventure into nothingness where apparently nobody but me and the owner have traveled before.
A hundred years ago, my great grandparents and first generation Americans lay near death, surrounded by family and hardly thought of as parasitical, still holding a considerable respect amongst family members to this day. There was no Medicare and Social Security.
The Wild West in Hollywood Harrison’s world is played as violent, lawless wasteland where murder and gunfights were common. However, the heydey of the Old West (1870-1885) and its five major towns: Dodge City, Ellsworth, Caldwell, Abilene, and Wichita had a combined total of 45 murders over 15 years – a rate of 1 per 100,000 residents.
In 2011, the Leftist City of Brotherly Love’s murder rate was 20.7 per 100,000. Chicago, that utopian of Leftism peacefully strolled in second at 15.7, but has already well surpassed that fine mark this year. The murder rate for all cities now that we’ve adopted utopia? 5.6 per 100,000.
And the conclusion of utopian big government + union in our new enlightened age?
Detroit.
Seems to me that there is a good share of far right wing “moonbats” also running around. I refer to those who think the planet is only 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs worked the world with early humans.
#12 Pragmatist: “Left wing moonbats live in a world……….or ozone layer depletion…..” Guess that makes President Ronald Reagan a “moonbat” since he signed the Montreal Protocols treaty in 1987 to limit the amount of CFCs going into the atmosphere & damaging the ozone layer.
“The world may not end, but our way of life is certainly under threat.”
Thats been the mantra of every generation! The basis of such claims are generally have their roots in Christianity and exploited by science, politics and other social issues of the moment.
Great essay!
Interesting coincidence: Jared Loughner, the man who shot Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was a big fan of the Zeitgeist movie. The organization behind the movie has been described as a futuristic techno-Marxist cult. Yes, they will “tread you under with glee.”
Notice that picture of the ugly, futuristic buildings? That is what Utopians aim for. Very often they design buildings and plan cities to their ideals, but don’t think about how people will really live in them. Take the case of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. It was one of the first planned cities designed as an expression of the elite’s vision of the future. It was laid out like a stylized airplane and filled with unattractive buildings and wide spaces. While it is still used, it is considered a failure of design. Wide open space between buildings in that kind of heat? Little to no residential space?
Other such cities have fared about as well, except perhaps when the people had no choice but to live in them. Kind of like the Soviet planned cities and apartment blocks. Rather dismal places.
It rather links back to the emptiness and folly of Utopian dreams.
Just curious…….who considers Brasilia a failure of design?
SteveB/Colorado/
ANS: Practically everyone. It was all grand vistas and office towers with no housing for the “little people” who would provide the administrative governmental support and no provision for such basic life support systems like schools, stores of any kind, gas stations, postal offices, etc.,–in other words a TOTALLY impractical environment in which to live on a daily basis..
I should add that the Seagrams bldg in NYC is of a like affair. It won numerous design awards but was inhospitable to its inhabitants as originally built with floor to ceiling windows with no drapes, blinds, etc., which provided no privacy or sense of security. Office staffers were driven to hanging bedsheets, etc. to provide a sense of privacy. Of course it made the sleek seamless exterior visage a cluttered mess when viewed from the outside spoiling the uniform tone of the bldg and was seen as an insult to “good design” by the architect. It also provided no sitting space, art-work, green landscaping, etc., (benches, etc.) in the public open spaces surrounding the bldg, further dehumanizing the structure..
There is a planned city within a city in the area of the older defunct airport area in Austin TX wherein the residents are packed like sardines with shared areas and a dreamed-of vision of neighbourliness etc. From what I have seen this is rejected by most. The city planners seem to think the problem is related to higher prices and the crash in real estate values. There’s another one of these outside of Lawrence KS. I have to try to see what is going on with that. The planners of these think they’re on to a new idea despite the fact that these developments look like 50s’/60′s era military base family housing which nobody liked.
I’m not sure that this is necessarily utopian so much as ossification of ideas in the planned community regime.
And as to the futuristic buildings… barf. You would think that a futuristic anything would be a design where form follows function; e.g. use of metal roofs with high IR reflectivity paint coatings (these exist) angled precisely to reflect most summer heat, openings placement designed to ventilate using as much natural prevailing breeze as possible (lots of victorian era design did this), and so on. This would result in buildings looking nothing like the contrived artsy crap that you see in such “future” pictures. You have to wonder how these get designed — “hey, let’s get really stoned and use the worst elements of art deco to create something that looks like a retrovirus on the landscape.”
You can tell when the art designers override what’s practical. Comics and other fantasy oriented are rife with pictures of babes wearing utterly pointless armour…
Notice that the intellectual greenie watermellon “swells” in Austin actually live in specious arts & crafts homes on large treed lots on tree-lined streets in neighborhoods far off the city center–the very kinds of neighborhoods they trash as wasteful of space and resources constituting “suburban sprawl” when people not like themselves evince a desire to live there..
**randomengineer**
Theres another one in Albuquerque you can look into. It was planned in the early to mid 90s up on the mesa just south of the city running on south a few miles to the Isleta rez.
Years ago it was deeded to UNM from an estated and managed by the state land bureau. A land commissioner and a former Lt Gov got rich by conspiring with a large conglomerate to have the land track sold to them for development of a utopian city within a city. An amphitheater, some streets, some youth sports fields and miles of pretty green grass. More recently a couple of movie venue buildings. It was suposed to be a planned self contained, self sustained economic and services community for approximately 30K utopians.
Good replies. I’ll have to look up some of the places mentioned here. I suppose we could also include the infamous “ghost cities” the Chinese built as model cities but no one wanted to live in them.