Amid all the hype about Y2K and other millennial madness, a GVSU sociologist who studies such things has remained remarkably calm.
Pretty much every year has been marked by one group or another as the last year for earth or for civilization, notes George Lundskow, a newly arrived assistant professor of sociology who studies fringe movements and millennial beliefs. These are not necessarily religious groups, just people who for one reason or another foresee the end of civilization, with anarchy, wars, cities collapsing into ruin.
While anarchists received much attention in Seattle during protests of the World Trade Organization, Lundskow says most of the doomsday claims have their basis in racist thought.
Often in this country such groups believe that inferior racial groups don't understand the American way of life, such as hard work and moral values, Lundskow says. So they assume that these groups will overburden the society, causing the economy and eventually society to collapse. Usually the people who believe this emerge with some act of violence, such as Timothy McVeigh in bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Lundskow points out that the FBI tries to predict which groups might act up, but there is no formula. And, he adds, since most of these groups know they are being watched, many violent acts are carried out by an individual or small group who tells no one of their plans. But Lundskow also stresses that not all millennial groups are violent.
Millennial groups are those that attach significance to the end of the millennium, not necessarily for some doomsday aspect but because a new millennium marks a time for serious spiritual renewal, says Lundskow. In sociological terms, 'fringe' doesn't mean destructive, just on the edge of mainstream culture. And 'cult' isn't meant to be negative, just a small, self-contained group. Many of these groups adopt a highly idealized version of ancient Vedic philosophy and try to live that lifestyle in our modern society. To do that they often have to cut themselves off from society.
Other mainstream movements are started because people feel cut off or alienated from society against their will, Lundskow says. He points to the Promise Keepers, the subject of his 1999 doctoral dissertation, as an example. He adds that people having feelings of alienation has been an issue for many years.
There's an argument in sociology since the last century with Karl Marx and Max Weber that a modern capitalist society and new technology creates feelings of alienation, he explains. The more we have of that, the more likely people will latch on to some totalitarian doctrine because it presents an answer for everything.
This is why Lundskow remains calm in the face of predictions of doom for the year 2000. His own prediction is that certain people will attach cataclysmic significance to events like earthquakes and political events, particularly in the Middle East.
Because of the socially constructed nature of all of these, the meaning of events for people simply becomes the meaning that they give them, he says. In other words, almost any event can be interpreted as the end of the world.
