Red Dawn Syndrome: Collapse and Those Who Crave It - Guest Essay

Preface by Kaiser Bauch: This is essay by one of my friends who I got to know through my Youtube channel. He asked me about the option of potentially publishing a guest essay on my channel, since he has an idea in mind that is connected to some of the issues I often write about. And I thought “well, if it is good, then why the hell not!” So, here it is. And of course, I have a Red Dawn Syndrome myself. After the population collapse shatters every wellfare funded system, I will be looked after by my kids while all those childless carreer cat ladies

will suffer! Right? Right?

Red Dawn Syndrome: Collapse and Those Who Crave It

By Anonymous, for KaiserBauch

Anyone active on the modern right has encountered what I call the “narrative of collapse.” I use the term “right” broadly here, referring to those who oppose liberalism in general and its virulent stepchild, wokeism, in particular.

This narrative is the cathartic belief that any day now, society will fall apart–and whatever comes next will be an improvement. Such beliefs are not exclusive to the right, though they do seem to be more popular to it at the present moment in time.

Kaiser Bauch, who has graciously offered his Substack for this essay, described this phenomenon perfectly:

“There is a weird collective sense that the future must be catastrophic and some sort of collapse is coming… It’s a vague sense of anxiety at the level of the whole society. I would go so far as to suggest that a lot of people subconsciously deeply wish for something catastrophic to happen, since it would–at least in their imagination–end the unbearable lightness of being that seems to be crushing our souls.”

Reading this compelled me to explore the psychological origins of the collapse narrative. This essay will argue that this mindset is not only unrealistic but also stems from a form of culturally Christian spiritual anxiety. It is a powerful cope, one which allows any advocate of any political persuasion, left or right, to imagine the better world that may arise from the ashes of the current malaise. What advocates of these narratives of disaster and doom ignore is that if any such a disruptive collapse ever occurred, most of those fantasizing about possibility would be the first to complain about the horrific reality.

The Monomyth of Collapse