Alarming news – from climate disaster to populist politics – can be paralysing. Doom-laden journalism may use the language of science, but it echoes apocalypse-crazed religious prophets. It tyrannises with despair. The Romantic poet William Blake lived through an age of upheaval remarkably like our own. His revolutionary politics of hope and openness offer a more energizing way to respond to chaos and disaster, suggests Timothy Morton.

Timothy Morton's new book, Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology, finds comfort and inspiration in William Blake, the radical Romantic writer.

You can sound like an ancient prophet of the end of the world – take your pick: from the Norse Ragnarok to the Kaliyuga to the Christian apocalypse, there are too many to choose from. But it’s truly sinister when you sound like that in the language of secular science. You see, you are doing the same thing: you are closing down the future. You are making your reader submit to tyrannical despair.

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It was like reading an ancient religious prophecy of doom and apocalypse, only it was made out of scientific and sociological facts.

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I couldn’t read the article any more. I texted my wife Treena: “Is it okay if I just stop?” I needed permission: I’m an environmental news junkie – I write about ecology all the time, and was forcing myself to push through the article. It was like reading an ancient religious prophecy of doom and apocalypse, only it was made out of scientific and sociological facts. The authors, a scientist and a sci-fi writer, seemed Hell bent on making me feel horrified and paralyzed, stupid and evil. They succeeded.

“Yes,” said Treena. “Just put it down.” I closed the page, teetering on the edge of a panic attack. That was yesterday. I’m sure you’ve been in similar situations. Something else will no doubt try to crawl inside my soul today. If it isn’t climate disaster, how about the rise of fascism worldwide? How about the possibility that the next President of the USA might be… the previous President of the USA?

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So, I decided, today I would start my essay on why the Romantic poet and painter William Blake has been seeing me through this frankly horrible time. It’s just not going to help my kids if I collapse in the fetal position. And it’s not going to help anyone if I write from that place. Every day I have to get up, dust myself off, and continue what Blake called “mental fight” in the poem the British sing as the hymn “Jerusalem.”

They sing it at the annual Promenade Concerts in London’s Albert Hall. Many see “Jerusalem” as a patriotic hymn, but it’s really about creating a better future, patriotic or not:

I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem,

In Englands green & pleasant land.