On the Apocalyptic Vision of the World > IDEAS & IDEALS

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Although derided and dismissed by many as a kooky nonsense, the belief that the world will come to an end on a certain day according to the divine will and scheme is also held seriously and sincerely by many, and from time to time it makes a big news tragic as well as comic at home and abroad. There had already been countless prophecies made of the impending disaster mostly by the millennial cult leaders, but very disappointedly for them the spectacular event did not occur on the promised day, and the end of the world has been postponed for the time being, until another prophet comes forward with better calculation.

     However, it is not that kooky at all to talk and think seriously about the end of the world, whether you belong to a particular religious cult or not. On the contrary it is a sign that tells and shows that you are well-educated, intellectually acute, morally concerned with social decadence and evil, and committed to the cause of world peace. Take a good look around you, and you will find signs, symptoms, and evidences that presage the doomsday of the world. The proliferation of the nuclear bombs, the spread of the Aids disease, and the gradual disappearance of the Ozone layer are the only three examples, but good enough to cast a very pessimistic shadow over the future of the world and destiny of mankind. The apocalyptic view itself, therefore, is grounded on the care and concern of the people who really mind how the world goes and will go.

     But the problem with these people who believe it fervently lies in their attitude of welcoming the disaster, instead of worrying about it. For them this unthinkable tragedy is not a catastrophe to be avoided or stopped; it is an ample reward for their unwavering faith, sweet revenge on those who scorned and ignored their belief, and righteous punishment for the world that has become a house of sins, evils and wrong-doings. It is not the end of the world; it is, for them, a clearing work for the world to come next, in which they will be reborn with special grace and live in everlasting peace and joy. Instead of being horrified and dismayed by the natural or man-made catastrophe or disaster that claims thousands of human lives at one stroke, they seem to welcome it as a divine way through which they will land in paradise eventually. They are dangerous in that they are suicidal.

     Everyone of us has his own way of this apocalyptic experience in his life. To the eyes of those moral puritans all the great modern cities of the world, including Seoul, with their crimes as well as the pleasures, are nothing but the exact replicas of Sodom and Gomorrah that ought to be destroyed by the fire of angry God for their moral wickedness and sexual depravity. They do not see at the same time the beauty and comfort of the great cities with their architectural constructions and engineering feats. When I failed to win my love, I wished, without remorse, that the world would come to an end instantly by whatever means so that it would end my agony. This great vision that presumes to see the end of the world is, in fact, a very narrow one that is confined within the prejudice, fear, anger, or despair of unhappy man.

     The history of mankind shows, from its start to the present day, a series of apocalyptic disasters natural as well as man-made. Man is, wherever and whenever he is, always on the brink of his doom. Not only Sodom and Gomorrah in the Genesis, but also innumerably many towns, cities, lands, and people perished, were destroyed, burned and wiped out overnight by floods, epidemic diseases, wars, draughts, earthquakes, and volcanoes. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 was equivalent to that of Mount Vesvius that buried the Roman city of Pompeii in 79. The ruin and desolation of Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya in Russia by the internal war, the draught and famine in Somalia, the war and the threat of war in Bosnia, Ruwanda, and in Korea, the flood in Europe months ago that threatened to bury several cities,-- all these recent examples tell plainly that Apocalypse is now and here with us.

     If the scorching heat-wave that oppressed us so much last summer had just lasted until now, with no rain, we would simply have arrived at the end of the world by now: no electricity, no light, even no drinking water. Survivors and those who died in the earthquake in Kobe, Japan, months ago, must have seen with their own eyes what John the Baptist saw in the Revelation. The real apocalypses in human history have always been local disasters, and unlike the visionary one there is no glimmer of heaven in them.

     As we do not know how the world started, so do we not know how will it end. But we know we die individually, and for the man who dies the day of his death is the end of the world. The common and fundamental mistake the apocalyptic teachings and teachers make lies in their total indifference or apathy to the pain and sorrow of the individual death. For them who only see the big and great things, individual sorrow or pain is too small and insignificant to pay attention. They are not very much concerned with the short span of the individual life on this earth.

     Apocalypse is a vision like what see in a dream. And like a sweet and wild dream it has been with man all the time, and will ever be with us hereafter, even if we know we will be deceived by it in the end. Like Utopia, it is a powerful, attractive, and probable vision, idea, and dream, and as long as it remains as such, it is harmless. Therefore, the place in which the apocalyptic vision should be kept and allowed to live and play freely is in the work of art, a world of human imagination, not in the real world.
          (April 25, 1995)