Normally in the West we only steal land and people from the third world, but apparently, when our collective imagination dries up, we also steal its myths:

Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.

"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."

Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."

In a sense, they're probably right. The West went dead hard progressive after the Second World War, and coincidentally decided that society was going to improve, forever, thanks to liberal democracy. You only need so much research to recognize this to be a load of crap. If Pixtun & Co are right, Westerners have come to the same realization and now attempt to make up for their progressive attitude by adopting apocalypse myths.

Maybe we should regard ideas of global race wars, water worlds, burning planets and world government tyranny as important fantasies, but useless prophecies? Looking at history, this seems to make sense; the Vikings probably didn't actually believe their world one day would be consumed by fire and monsters, but it reminded them of the cyclic nature of societies. After all, the people we stole these Mayan myths from seem to care more about lack of rain than a calendar running out. In fact, if any doom is coming our way, it's collective failure thanks to a few doomsday nutcases stealing all the attention away from real problems, here and now.

So while admittedly it's entertaining to read about religious apocalypses, and convenient to project them unto reality when things don't go your way, you're probably better off worrying about an empty fridge or a late work assignment, than you are obsessing about a world that isn't going to end.