Resignation, Lust for Doom, Longing for Chaos
Three Reactions to the Prevailing Conditions
The Situation
There are times when things do not work. Not in the sense that individual problems arise — problems always exist. But in the deeper sense that the system itself loses its legitimacy. That institutions fail. That those responsible fail. That promises prove to be lies and solutions prove to make things worse.
We live in such a time. The feeling that something is fundamentally wrong is widespread — left and right, high and low, among the educated and the uneducated. The diagnoses differ, but the unease is universal.
How do people react to such times? There are many possibilities — engagement, protest, flight, adaptation. But three reactions deserve special attention because they are widespread and because they are rarely openly discussed: resignation, lust for doom, and the longing for chaos.
The First Reaction: Resignation
Resignation is the quiet reaction. It makes no noise, it does not protest, it does not fight. It withdraws.
The resigned person has stopped believing that they can change anything. They have tried — perhaps for years, perhaps for decades. They have voted, petitioned, argued, demonstrated. It was no use. The powerful remained powerful, the problems remained unsolved, the promises remained unfulfilled.
At some point comes the moment when the effort no longer justifies the possible return. Why fight when the fight is hopeless? Why get upset when getting upset accomplishes nothing? The resigned person draws the conclusion: They stop hoping. They stop trying. They take care of their own life and leave the world as it is.
Resignation is not indifference. The resigned person is not indifferent — they suffer. They suffer from what they see, and they suffer from their own powerlessness. But they have learned to endure the suffering rather than fight against it.
Resignation has its logic. It conserves energy. It protects against disappointment. It allows a peaceful life amidst the storm. Many people who function outwardly — working, consuming, paying their taxes — are inwardly resigned. They have given up without saying it aloud.
The problem with resignation: It is self-fulfilling. Those who believe that nothing can be changed, change nothing. And because they change nothing, nothing changes. Resignation confirms itself — and it spreads. A society of the resigned is a society without a future.
The Second Reaction: Lust for Doom
The lust for doom is darker. It is the perverse pleasure in things going downhill.
The doom-watcher sees the decay — and enjoys it. Not openly, not triumphantly, but with a quiet satisfaction. Finally, they think, finally they get what they deserve. Finally it shows that I was right. Finally what was long rotten collapses.
This sounds pathological, but it is human. Doom validates the critic. Those who warned for years that the system doesn't work experience the collapse as vindication. I told you so, they think. You didn't want to listen. Now you see for yourselves.
There is also an aesthetic dimension. Doom has grandeur. It is dramatic, sublime, significant. The slow muddling on is boring. The crash is spectacular. Those who long for doom also long for the end of boredom.
The lust for doom is related to schadenfreude, but deeper. Schadenfreude is directed at the misfortune of others. The lust for doom includes one's own misfortune — it accepts one's own damage in order to see the failure of others.
This attitude is found across all political camps. The leftist who rejoices when capitalism falters. The rightist who rejoices when multicultural society fails. The ecologist who rejoices when nature strikes back. Everyone has their own version of doom they are waiting for — and secretly longing for.
The problem with this attitude: It poisons. Those who enjoy doom lose the ability to build. They become spectators of their own lives, observers of the catastrophe. They analyze the decay, but they do nothing against it — because a part of them wants the decay.
The Third Reaction: Longing for Chaos
The longing for chaos is the most radical reaction. It is the wish that everything collapses — not for the sake of doom, but for the sake of a new beginning.
The chaos-longing person has given up all hope of gradual improvement. The system, they think, is not reformable. It is too encrusted, too corrupt, too self-referential. Every attempt at repair only stabilizes what is broken. Every reform is a bandage on a wound that needs amputation.
So it must collapse. Only from the rubble can something new emerge. Only when the old structures are destroyed can new ones grow. Chaos is not the goal — it is the passage. The necessary death before rebirth.
This attitude has a long history. The revolutionary left dreamed of the collapse of capitalism. The religious right dreams of the apocalypse. The accelerationist movement wants to sharpen the contradictions of the system until it breaks from them. All share the belief that something better grows from destruction.
The longing for chaos is the desperate hope of those who have no other hope. It is the belief in the cleansing fire, in the salutary catastrophe, in the creative new beginning after the end.
The problem with this attitude: It underestimates chaos. Chaos is not neutral. It does not affect everyone equally. In chaos, the weak suffer, the poor, the unprepared. The strong survive — and often they are exactly those who were already strong before. From the rubble rarely grows something better. Usually only something new grows — and new is not automatically better.
The history of revolutions is a history of disappointed hopes. The collapse comes, but the new beginning fails to materialize — or it leads to new tyranny. Those who long for chaos should ask themselves whether they are prepared to live in it.
The Kinship of the Three
The three reactions are different but related. They share a common origin: powerlessness.
The resigned person feels powerless and gives up. The doom-watcher feels powerless and compensates through schadenfreude. The chaos-longing person feels powerless and hopes for the deus ex machina, the catastrophe as liberation.
All three have stopped believing that they themselves can change anything. The difference lies only in how they deal with this insight.
And all three are understandable. Those who have tried for decades to change something and have failed again and again — how should they not resign? Those who have warned for years and were ignored — how should they not feel a certain satisfaction when the warnings come true? Those who see no other way out — how should they not dream of a radical new beginning?
It is easy to condemn these reactions. It is harder to understand them. Hardest of all is to overcome them.
The Alternative
Is there an alternative to these three reactions? An attitude that is neither resigned nor destructive?
Camus formulated it: Sisyphus. The man who rolls the stone up the mountain, knowing that the stone will roll down again. The man who acts, knowing that his action may change nothing. The man who recognizes the absurdity of his situation — and continues anyway.
This is not a heroic attitude. It is a sober one. Sisyphus is not a hero, he is a worker. He does what must be done, without illusion about the result. He does not hope for the great breakthrough, he does not fear the final doom. He rolls the stone.
Camus concludes with the sentence: "We must imagine Sisyphus happy." This sounds absurd — but it is the absurdity of life itself. Happiness is possible, not despite meaninglessness, but within it.
The Sisyphus attitude is neither resignation nor activism. It is something in between — or above. It accepts the limits of what is possible without giving up action. It sees the possible doom without enjoying it. It does not wish for collapse, but it does not fear it either.
This is difficult. It requires a special kind of strength — not the strength of the fighter who hopes for victory, but the strength of one who fights even though they do not hope for victory.
A Word About Our Time
We live in a time that provokes these reactions. Crises pile up. Institutions fail. The future is uncertain. It is understandable that people resign, that they enjoy doom, that they long for chaos.
But it is not inevitable. The situation is difficult, but it is not hopeless — at least not so hopeless that giving up would be the only option. There are still margins, still possibilities, still starting points for change. They have become smaller, but they are still there.
The question is whether we use them — or whether we lose ourselves in resignation, schadenfreude, and apocalyptic fantasies.
Resignation is understandable, but it is capitulation. The lust for doom is human, but it is poison. The longing for chaos is desperate hope, but it is illusion.
The alternative is more sober, more modest, less dramatic: Do what must be done. Roll the stone. Not because it promises success, but because it is the only meaningful thing. Not in hope of the great breakthrough, but in the certainty that even small steps are steps.
Sisyphus as a role model — not because his fate would be enviable, but because his attitude is the only one that preserves dignity in an absurd world.