Sounds like a great book. We see that same reaction playing out in the Newtown tragedy.

I think the vicarious experience of trauma through a 24/7 news cycle does one of two things: either it immunizes you from the angst, because you see so much that you just take it in as another piece of information and then click away, or it triggers your worst fears. In that case, you don’t have the “benefit” of communal support and pulling together with others who are sharing the tragedy–you just feel vulnerable and helpless to do anything, other than maybe make a donation to the Red Cross. You get trapped in the anxiety “fight or flight” cycle. So, yes, I think all that disaster news fuels angst and fears of the worst. Sometimes, fortunately, it also spurs people to do good and try to make a change for the better, like pushing for stronger gun control laws.

On a more cynical note, I also think apocalyptic predictions will continue to surface in one form or another because it’s big business. Fear is one of the prime motivators in marketing. Millions were spent by those who tried to get ready for 12-21-12. Apocalyptic movies and TV shows make money. So, the phenomenon isn’t going to go away anytime soon . . . unless the world really does come to an end!

You are right that disaster news is pushed in the media 24/7. I wonder whether anxiety is actually heightened by “experiencing” disasters virtually. Unless one happens to be in a disaster zone, the calamity is not actually in one’s face. Perhaps for that very reason, our imaginations run riot.

I think possibly in earlier times, a person might be in the presence of death–not watching it on tv–more often. Possibly in such circumstances, there was more social support for dealing with calamity, more comforting rituals.

There is an interesting book called “A Paradise Built in Hell.” I’m blanking on the author’s name and yet it’s one of the most moving nonfiction works I’ve ever read. It chronicles what happened in various disasters, from the early 20th century San Francisco earthquake to 9/11. But the author’s focus is not on the death and destruction. Rather, she tells us how the survivors behaved. And you know what? By far the most common reaction was to pull together and help each other. So much so, that survivors later on actually reminisced fondly about the early terrible days and longed for the feeling of community they had then.

You’re right that there have always been threats to existence–and yes, warfare, poverty, epidemics are as old as humans. I think the difference has to do with the volume of information we’re consuming, the speed of communications, that makes us–or makes me feel, in any case–slammed by the amount of human suffering in the world, and so many risks.

It’s no longer just what’s happening around us that heightens anxiety about the future; it’s the compounding of news about disasters around the world, all instantaneous. We can see video of the polar ice caps melting. We can see the New Jersey shore flooded by Sandy. We can see people running from attacks in Syria, or read about the massacre in Newtown as events unfolded in real time, on blogs or Twitter feeds or Facebook. It’s not just a story in the newspaper days later or a presentation brought back by explorers from the far reaches of the Earth. It’s in our face, 24/7.

Heightened anxiety? Yes, I agree. But I am not sure that there are greater threats to existence now than in former times. Great swaths of human society could indeed be wiped out by extreme climate change, or by nuclear weapons (let’s not forget them). Yet these outcomes feel remote to me. I’m not sure it’s mentally healthy to worry about them all the time, so if we do, then why?

If I had lived in earlier times, it would have been quite rational to fear death in childbirth, in warfare (whether as soldiers or hapless civilians), or from diseases (many of which are now controlled). You yourself, Ev, would not have lived long in those days, as you tragically imagine in your initial post.

Seems to me that apocalyptic scenarios are particularly popular these days. They certainly turn up often in films and TV shows. “The Road” was even made into a film. Gruesome. Then there’s the TV series “Terra Nova” which imagines a world so deteriorated environmentally and corrupted politically a hundred years from now that many folks are eager to embrace time travel back to an earth still populated by dinosaurs.

Why the fascination? Some sort of collective guilt for our social failures that makes us unconsciously long for punishment?? Happy-ending movies nowadays involve only a few people’s personal lives. Seems that we cannot imagine a larger community getting something right.

Perhaps this is one reason I was so enthralled by the film “Lincoln.” It depicts an era in which, amid much blood and struggle, we as an American community did get something right–although it seems a sacrificial lamb (the assassinated President) was a psychic precondition.