I’m not a fan of doomsday cults. It always seems so arrogant to think that of all the people who have been born, and will be born, you will happen to have secured a seat at doomsday. It seems unlikely. Remember, the guy running the cult in your hometown isn’t going to usher in the end of the world. It’s probably a sex or money scam (or both). The aliens haven’t been waiting for you to be born until they decide to come, visit, and wipe us out. They probably have their own issues to deal with. The US and Russian Presidents aren’t uniquely terrible people who will annihilate the world with nuclear weapons. Actually, that last one is a bit more plausible. Still, a good general rule is that if you are waiting for the end of the world you are going to disappointed.
Waiting For The End Of The World
Ahmed Afzaal’s book Teaching at Twilight is, as might be expected from the title, a pretty gloomy read. The author is convinced that the Collapse of human civilization is coming. Indeed, it has already started. If you believe him, it is hard to argue with his conclusion that the inevitable end of humanity should probably feature in a lesson plan. (Maybe I should teach a session stating doom is here on the final day of the semester when I get to the big picture stuff. Although that is usually just before US Thanksgiving for me which might be a problem as some students travel home early and miss that class. After all, if I wanted to follow Afzaal’s advice, I would hate any of them to miss the session and retain a glimmer of hope after my class).
The author of Teaching at Twilight thinks we are living in a temporary boom in carrying capacity of the earth. In his view, Malthus may only have seemed wrong. Don’t worry, if we wait around long enough the really bad stuff will still happen. It is the classic of any doomsday cult when the disaster doesn’t happen. ‘Our evil prophet really meant the end was next year, and people misinterpreted him’.
It Gets A Bit Scary, Fast
Because of the advanced state of ecological breakdowns, civilization in its present form has already started its final descent; in fact, the situation is so dire that the possibility of human extinction in the near future cannot be completely ruled out.
Afzaal, 2023, page 16
While Afzaal’s general gloominess might be seen as his personal problem, his line of thinking can get worrying quickly. He starts talking about overpopulation (which really never ever goes well). He seems to think that producing enough food for everyone is a bad thing.
…if the availability of food continues to increase, so will the size of our population, exacerbating the overshoot.
Afzaal, 2023, page 240
The overshoot he worries about is the Malthusian ‘positive’ checks of famines, disease, and war. That is bad, but is the disastrous overshoot inevitable? I need a much deeper thinker than Afzaal to convince me that is the case. Not least because in much of the world fertility is now going down completely independently of food supply. People aren’t having kids often for no other reason than they don’t want them. (Occasionally, as a parent, I sympathize with this trend). Malthus didn’t see that big change in contraceptive habits happening. (The Reverend Thomas Malthus had a religious streak that some of his modern supporters seem to have missed).
Does Describing Something Create It?
Afzaal seems to suggest that overpopulation became serious in the eighteen century (page 240). The obvious question being why? Surely, we have had plagues, famines, and wars over scarce resources for millennia before the 18th Century. He is scholar of religion so will know that the bible seems to have its fair share of that sort of thing. I guess he thinks that a problem becomes serious when an academic-ish author (in this case Malthus) writes about it.
By his logic maybe if no one writes about climate change, we’ll all be fine. (Actually, that seems like a pretty accurate description of current US Federal Policy).
Technology = Bad
There is definitely a strain of thinking in the world, especially amongst the uberwealthy in the US, that everything technology is fantastic. That is clearly incorrect. That said, the opposite view held by Afzaal is no better. He just says random things that are, at best, very debatable to support his views.
…a given population with advanced technology will cause more environmental damage than the same population with simpler technology.
Afzaaal, 2023, page 248
Think about what Afzaal is saying. Coal-fired power stations are a simpler technology than solar panels. Given solar is better for the environment what he says doesn’t necessarily need to be the case. (Solar panels also don’t kill anything like as many people directly as coal does — think air pollution, mining accidents, chronic respiratory disease etc… see chart).
Technology Is Sinful
Compare gas guzzling 1950s cars with a modern electric vehicle (EV). Clearly Afzaal’s statement, that tech must be bad, simply isn’t true from a theoretical perspective. Advanced tech can be less environmentally damaging.
Is it worse in practice though? That is a trickier question to answer. To make this more nuanced claim — i.e., that in reality we never could get the theoretical benefits of more environmentally friendly tech — rigorous data analysis (and a somewhat miraculous knowledge of the future) is needed to support the argument. We don’t get it from Afzaal.
…absolute decoupling means that the economy keeps growing but ecological harm stops; that, unfortunately is not achievable in the real world. [With citation to a dated political report, not a peer reviewed piece]
Afzaal, 2023, page 47
We Have Better Tech Right Here, Right Now
Afzaal thinks that we are doomed because he believes that we have no practically feasible sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels (page 232). But we do already. He just hasn’t bothered to look. Here is a plan –let’s do the better stuff now rather than surrender to gloom.
Is Sustainability Just Conservativism? Hope Not
Afzaal is basically an extreme conservative. In the small ‘c’ sense of someone not wanting things to change.
Historically, our religious, moral, and wisdom traditions have acted like brakes on material and technological progress…
Afzaal, 2023, page 146
I like progress, so brakes on it sound like a bad thing to me (because they are). I’m not a fan of respecting traditions where a few old men in the group got to tell everyone else what to do. Plus — and I’m going to be controversial here — I think vaccines preventing disease and death are a good thing.
Things Can Only Get Better
To the author good things are only bad things that you aren’t looking at in the right way.
It is true that a growing segment of the world’s population is now able to do more and have more, faster than ever before, but that is also true that this has worsened our alienation.
Afzaal, 2023, page 149
Call me weird, but the fact that the world is able to give more people access to food, medicine, shelter, and education seems like a good thing to me. I’m sorry about his personal alienation with society but what sort of person prizes their own feelings of ennui over other people’s ability to eat?
With Luck Everything Will Turn Out Terribly
Afzaal can be an optimist though.
…the optimist in me wants to believe that civilization in its present form will fall apart well before we reach [an even worse point].
Afzaal, 2023, page 256
He has advice:
What all this means is that mourning has to become part of our daily routine…
Afzaal, 2023, page 295
How ridiculously self-indulgent. If you care about the world, try and do something to make it better. Don’t just blubber into your mirror.
For a more optimistic view of progress see How To Make The World Better, Are We Making Any Progress On Sustainability?, Progress Exists And Is A Good Thing, and Nostalgia. And on nasty ideas about population see Time To Get Past Malthus, Being Fair To People You Don’t Agree With, Population As A Disaster, and What If I’m Wrong?
Read: Ahmed Afzaal (2025) Teaching at Twilight: The Meaning of Education in the Age of Collapse, Cascade Books
