Dark Ecology, the most controversial environmentalism without fear of the dark
The philosopher Timothy Morton It does not stop gaining followers with its ideas to combat the climate crisis . He assures that environmentalism will not win until forget about man as the starting and ending point of this planet : “there is a tendency to think that the climate crisis is an inevitable disaster, but we live in an era of mass extinction caused by the global warming . In a sense, the end of the world , as we knew it, has already happened”.
only some senseless and a extravagant president denies the urgencies of global warming. Forest fires, violent hurricanes, migratory crises, unknown viruses and wars for hunger, or worse, for oil.
It's funny, but the global climate crisis is leading to a individual psychological crisis , since there are many citizens who feel overwhelmed by the future of natural disasters that haunt us And it is that catastrophes have failed to effectively involve a global movement beyond the chat in a bar, the annual donation during Christmas or the liberating post on Facebook.
Cover of the book 'Dark Ecology' by Timothy Morton
In this traumatic moment, the philosopher Timothy Morton has developed the so-called Dark Ecology ( dark ecology ), a breath of fresh air that continues to gain followers before the accumulated weariness of the traditional environmental movement.
In a recent three-part podcast for the BBC , entitled The End of the World Has Already Happened ( The end of the world has already happened ), this Londoner who loves art in all its forms unravels his complex universe with hypnotic voices and sounds. A theory that he masterfully completes in his bedside book, Dark Ecology, for a logic of future coexistence .
IMMUNE TO WEATHER OVERDOSE
"Most of environmental campaigns start with a apocalyptic landscape . If this climate crisis is a trauma, is there a way to reframe its foundations? And the most important, what will happen to our feelings if we do? ”, he says with a confident voice in the podcast.
Timothy Morton
In relation to this approach, the director of a very prominent NGO against animal abuse in Spain left a sentence for posterity in an informal meeting with journalists. “ We don't campaign with fish because fish don't scream ”. The disappearance of thousands of marine species they had nothing to do with the cry of a pig. Underlying his theory is a base as real as it is terrifying: the pig's cry hurt more because it resembled the human cry.
The anthropocentrism It is the great stain that makes us fall into a spin the effectiveness of current environmentalism. At least that's how it looks from the Dark Ecology , which requires a paradigm shift so that let's bet on an ecology without nature.
For Timothy Morton nature is a concept “invented by man that separates the human world from the non-human world ”. A serious mistake because we must understand that we are not the starting point or the end point to save anything. And much less the planet.
"The Dark Ecology, which demands a paradigm shift so that we bet on an ecology without nature"
“They make you feel as if everything you do during the day is the work of the devil. We are going to try not to do it”, continues this professor of English literature in the University of Houston Philosophy.
He finds it hard to imagine the astonished face of his students when he unleashes the most radical precepts of his position: “There is a tendency to think that the climate crisis it's an unavoidable disaster , but we live in an era of mass extinction caused by global warming . In a certain sense, the end of the world, as we knew it, has already happened”, he sentences.
LET'S LEAVE GRETA THUNBERG ALONE
For this philosopher, the key to starting to change is learning to answer a question: “ How to deal with the drama and inner fears of admitting that global warming is destroying the world? ”.
The truth is that when we see a disastrous news on television about climate change, the first instinctive reaction is to dread . Something terrible is happening. Minutes later, human beings are capable of rationalize what has been seen to de-dramatize something that is really not that serious . "If it were as bad as they say, people would be running away and it's not happening... it's those kinds of defense mechanisms that we use to continue in our day to day," he says.
In other words: " I forget the terrible things that happen in the world and then I try to forget that I forgot them . So first I delete and then I erase the draft . Some people in psychoanalysis call this the return of the repressed.
There are many young students who in recent months they have rebelled against this way of acting thanks to the activist Greta Thunberg . Timothy Morton exposes his worst fears in this regard: “Greta is seen as a perfect angelic being. She's not her fault, she's our fault and the media's. As soon as Greta does anything remotely compromising, we'll stop listening to her. ”, He reflects.
“ It's like wanting someone to live the emotions for us . Like a hero in a Greek tragedy. It is a way of seeing the darkness that is outside of us . It is something we can escape from. East evil and unpleasant cycle It's an interesting phenomenon to explore, because in trying to escape, what we do is make it even more toxic."
In short, we must try by all means to face the darkness that lives in us and the darkness that resides in our world.
"As soon as Greta does anything remotely compromising, we'll stop listening to her."
STOP BEING AFRAID OF THE DARK
Precisely with a phrase about the darkness of the French philosopher Helen Cixous begins her acclaimed book. “ The dark is dangerous. You can't see anything in the dark, it's worrying. Don't move, maybe you'll fall. Most of us don't go into a forest . It's because we've internalized that horror of the dark."
For Dark Ecology, the key is learn to manage that darkest part of our interior . “The current growing concern for ecology is experienced as dark and evil depression that consumes us . Dark ecology aims to turn that anguish into something sweet, because darkness does not always have to be something dangerous. We have internalized a horror of darkness that in ecology is equivalent to a horror of the unknown. ”.
Then, what is the ultimate goal of Dark Ecology? In her book she directly answers this question: “It is learning to stop worrying about the global warming Y start loving ecology ”. In that sense, ecological awareness is a weird thing in the form of a loop. He draws it like a snake biting its own tail: “since there is no limit to reach the ecological (biosphere, Solar System, etc.) we can say that all things have the form of a loop”.
The end of the world, as we knew it, is already happening
Here again an example is needed so as not to get lost along the way. “Every time I start my car, it does not mean that I am directly damaging the ecosystem, much less I am responsible for causing the sixth mass extinction in the history of life on this planet. ”.
But if we look at it from another level, something strange happens: “ when i extend these actions and I include billions of cars with the engine running the damage to the planet is precisely what is happening . And as a member of this species I am responsable . This is the darkness of ecological awareness , when you become aware of being the detective as well as the criminal”.
When one becomes aware of their existence within something much larger than their own human-made space, when places contain crowds from elsewhere yes, when we stop thinking about save nature if nature as such does not exist , is when we will be able to embrace the Dark Ecology. “Get familiar with our feelings about what we live, gradually, step by step, it's an ecological victory . A finding that in a certain sense the end of the world has already happened . About what the end of the world is the end of the idea that humans are the only people who have a world on this planet ".
"The end of the world is the end of the idea that humans are the only people who have a world on this planet"