Discussion
The cenic route:
We’ve ballsed up the Holocene and turned it into the Anthropocene said Eugene Stoermer in the 1980s (in more civil terms). The ‘Anthropocene’ was then revived and popularised by Paul Crutzen in the 2000s.
But others have pointed out that the ballsing up is down to particular ideas, not all people. In this vein, Jason W Moore coined the term, #capitalocene, to firmly point the finger…
…David Runciman has a critique of the Anthropocene in his podcast, Past Present Future, and sets yet another cene: the Leviacene.
It draws on his obsession with Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes as a foundational work for the era of modern states.
It’s an interesting listen, walking carefully through why the Anthropocene and other adjacent diagnoses are unhelpful before setting out why he thinks the Leviacene maybe a more useful framework https://overcast.fm/+BAwtQa9GU4
@urlyman interesting. Concerns I have are 1. Assumption that control is scale variant. 2. That humans & leviathans are rational.
He admits to having no control but posits that states and corps do have control. But he neglects to interrogate what shapes the states and corps, as if they operate in a vacuum, and according to entirely internal logics.
I would venture that forces of capital apply pressures that steer humans and human societal structures in ways that are scale invariant.
…I doubt we will ever be coherent enough at planetary scale to manifest an entirely new paradigm in the time we have to do so. The current one has been many hundreds of years in the making.
What seems more likely is that the pragmatism and humility voiced by people like David Holmgren show us the path https://overcast.fm/+2tlUT6780
…The Great Simplification podcast by Nate Hagens (see link in previous toot) focuses on the technocratic aspects of what we might do instead of the dead end power play that’s currently consuming us.
For a gentler, more arts focused walk with the same themes, I’ve recently discovered The Great Humbling https://overcast.fm/+ZeWvl3424
It’s a shame that none of these podcasters are on here yet :(
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…In 2015, Rachel Armstrong coined the term, Ecocene, to focus on what we must create rather than where we are and have been. This has been developed into a book by Dr Joanna Boehnert (@ecolabs) https://ecocene.wordpress.com/
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