“The Crime of Innocence”: Baldwin, Bataille, and the Political Theology of Far-Right Climate Politics

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent work on the global far right has highlighted its coordination with fossil capital, what Clara Daggett calls “fossil fascism.” The far right has embraced climate denial as part of its fantasy of a conspiracy against the white race, while fossil capital has embraced the far right as its most enthusiastic defender in the face of calls for decarbonization. This paper analyzes the political theology of fossil fascism, arguing climate denial is of a piece with the far right’s broader denial of historical and contemporary violence. The paper draws on James Baldwin and Georges Bataille to understand climate denial as the will to innocence in face of the scientific fact that combustion of fossil fuels in past acts of racial domination has ongoing climatic effects in the present. The will to innocence intensifies the very violence it disavows, and resisting fossil fascism may require retrieving the theological concept of guilt.