ANGST – fear of what’s out there.

Robert C. Neville, in Reconstruction of Thinking, (1981 p. 20), describes the “terror of existence” as “the vague apprehension of nature’s blind forces only barely humanized by fragile forms of experiential causality.” And he then says that religious imagery addresses that terror.

 I call this so-called terror existential angst, and have never felt it onerous. I therefore feel little angst, and need less consolation since I don’t see life as a vale of tears.  I accept death, its most focused form, as a biological necessity.  Perhaps this is just good luck. Or it may be a naturalist’s appreciation that the life process, in nature, is mostly an example of successful cooperation.  Our human mental constructs  (interpretations) problematize  too much, perhaps because we have become too individualistic.

Science has made nature’s forces much less blind to us. We now know which areas of the planet are most prone to thunderstorms, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, eruptions, fire, and even drought  These are not mere incidents, or Acts of God; there is a pattern to their occurrence. There may of course be no escaping all of these hazards during a lifetime, but the extensive damage and suffering we now complain  of could be greatly reduced by proper management of human uses of the land.

A chief cause of continuing damage to humans and their properties is thus ignorance, neglect, or actual disregard of known environmental realities, especially in the last century, since we should by now know better. The effects are of course worse among less educated people. But this is due mostly to the social failure to provide a sound general education, and to the political failure to regulate the use of hazardous zones, largely due to corruption of the political process by greedy exploiters of the land resource and the low state of public education.

Avoidance of hazardous zones would require self-limitation of the human population, so that there would be safe zones for everyone. People do not live on the slopes of Vesuvius, or in flood zones, by preference. But there is no excuse. Nor will religious consolations really help. We have an obligation to know the world we live in, and to live within its limits.  Aristotle saw this more than two thousand years ago.