2012 Apocalypse Porn

Even some Mayans are finally getting fed up with the whole 2012 end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it apocalypse porn.

(You know it's porn because there is no real goofiness, humor, or affection.)

A little while ago I received a copy of 2012: Science or Superstition, a video from Disinformation.

It's got it all: Hopis, Islamic astrology, reverse cowgirl, Stonehenge, and lots of self-appointed experts saying "X appeared to have Y."

Lots of vague references to "cultures around the world" sharing the same cosmology, which is, shall we say, unsupported.

Why the Mayas? Why not the ancient Roman calendar? The year 2012 will be 2765 AUC. That sounds significant too. Or wait until 2772?

Anthony Aveni, who is a genuine scholar of archaeoastronomy, is in there, along with a bunch of apocalyptic pornographers—and who can tell them apart without a scorecard?

You won't hear much from any Mayas, however.

"The December 21st, 2012 date is gaining ground in the popular media," says one of the talking heads. Yes, and we will see more of that, no doubt.

And Halloween is coming, so you could pick up 2012: Science or Superstition for your scary movie. Or you could watch The Exorcist.

UPDATE: The day that I wrote this post, the new issue of Archaeology magazine arrived, with an article by Professor Aveni examing the 2012 craze.

You will find the full text at the link but here are two brief quotations:

It is amusing that the Y12 prophets are certain the world will end for all of us based on a date that may or may not have had historical significance to the Maya a few thousand years ago, who were themselves looking to a date a few thousand years before that. The ancient Maya might tell us: "Hey, get your own zero point!"

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We live in a techno-immersed, materially oriented society that seems somewhat bewildered by where rational, empirical science might be taking us. This may be why the mystical, escapist explanations of a galactic endpoint, replete with precise mathematical, historical, and cosmic underpinnings (masquerading as science), have such wide appeal. In an age of anxiety we reach for the wisdom of ancestors--even other peoples' ancestors--that might have been lost in the drifting sands of time. Perhaps the only way we can take back control of our disordered world is to rediscover their lost knowledge and make use of it. And so we romanticize the ancient Maya.

Some of the people pushing the 2012 stuff said much the same things about the "Harmonic Convergence" of 1987.

That summer, a campfire skit at a Pagan festival in New Mexico celebrated the "Harmonica Virgins."

Bring on the 2012 parodies.