“(Non) temerai i terrori della notte”. Capitalismo, cristianesimo e pseudo-ecologismo neo-apocalittico

Abstract

“Thou shalt (not) be afraid for the terror by night”. Capitalism, Christianism and neo-apocalyptic pseudo-ecologism. 

The aim of this essay is to identify and elucidate the existing tension between the (induced) fears instilled in the mainstream media audience by the rising pseudo-ecological rhetoric, and the attempts at restructuring capitalist valorization processes promoted by the "speculative" sectors more "advanced" of the Western world-system. The approach of the arguments proposed here is based on the adoption of a long-term perspective, and on the method of comparative analysis of circumstances and texts referring to crucial moments of our social, cultural, and political history, and phases of profound systemic restructuring - one of which, we posit, is currently underway. Our intent is to highlight the strategic role played by the power dialectic that animates around the elements of the apocalyptic imaginary in such transitions. Within this framework, we will define the concepts of apocalypse and apocalyptic - leveraging primarily the thought developed by Alfonso Maria Di Nola for this purpose; then we will deduce what are the most specific politico-cultural functions proper to phenomena attributable to these concepts; finally, we will identify, within this broader perspective, the more particular role played by the environmental issue, and by the rhetorical operation of subjectivization of natural elements, within the imaginary that has been exercised on the prospects of the end of the world and the fulfillment of the universal judgment, respectively characteristic of the so-called apocryphal apocalypses, and - comparatively - of the rising neo-apocalyptic rhetoric in the present.