Imagining our way in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Humankind has damaged, possibly irreparably, the benign climatic conditions which made civilisation possible during the Holocene epoch. Paradoxically the so-called Enlightenment was the handmaid to this destructiveness. Despite its many achievements, Modernity assumed that humankind was destined to assert mastery over nature, a nature which, far from being benign, was construed as alien and hostile. Unless we can imagine a different way of being in this world more science, more technology, more private enterprise, more progress cannot provide the means of repair. We need a new way of imagining how to be human, one that embraces humility, smallness, transience, connectedness, and the natal character of life.