examples can be found, where ostensibly progressive efforts at social transformation
actually reproduced familiar kinds of concentrated power structures in new forms,
often more entrenched (Arendt, 1963; Skocpol, 1979). When power finds itself
credibly able to invoke overriding missions to control (especially under a climate
of fear), the results can be even less positive. The disarming effects of superficial
appearances can make the dangers especially acute where initial motivations appear
progressive.
The world is a complex place and care should be taken with overly simplistic
analogies, but there do seem to be many grounds for more careful scrutiny of
environmental authoritarianism. The greater the genuine respect for ecological
imperatives, the greater this responsibility.
Anthropocene planetary domination
These authoritarian pressures are also reflected in scientific discourse. Here, even
geological history is subject to reinterpretations emphasizing the theme of control.
For instance, the established epoch of the Holocene is a tiny 11,700-year span,
oddly tacked on to the end of the preceding 1.6 million-year Pleistocene epoch.
Marking the point where Earth moved out of the last of a long series of glaciations,
there is little to distinguish the Holocene from previous Pleistocene interglacials,
such as to justify a new scientifically recognized epoch. The sustaining of relative
climate stability over such brief periods is not geologically unique. That all previous
epochs extend to many tens of millions of years compounds the anomaly. It seems
that general scientific considerations are trumped by more parochial anthropocentric excitement, for it is in the Holocene that specifically human activity greatly
intensifies.
The relevance of this to control arises because the subjective human excep -
tionalism that helps shape this scientific acceptance of an anomalously tiny Holocene
epoch is now being compounded by recent moves to add a further even more
eccentrically miniscule ‘Anthropocene’ epoch of just a few hundred years’ duration.
Crucially, this is defined explicitly by reference to notional ‘human control’ – even
‘domination’ (Vitousek et al., 1997; Crutzen and Schwägerl, 2011; Steffen et al.,
2011) – variously of ‘Earth’s ecosystems’ (Vitousek et al., 1997) or wider ‘biological,
chemical and geological processes’ (Crutzen and Schwägerl, 2011). And, as in
environ mental authoritarianism, these conditions of control are ubiquitously
associated with an undifferentiated human ‘we’.
Given that ‘human control’ is already held to be so diagnostic of the
Anthropocene, it is paradoxical that much of this literature also calls urgently ‘for
identification of mechanisms amenable to human control’ (Ehlers and Krafft,
2006). If such mechanisms have not yet even been identified, one wonders how
current ‘control’ is already exercised? And why, if ‘control’ is so negative in retro -
spect, should it be seen so optimistically in prospect (Lövbrand et al., 2009)? In a
similar way to the ‘crisis of capitalism’ in Marxism, or ideas of grace in Christian
Emancipating transformations 57
actually reproduced familiar kinds of concentrated power structures in new forms,
often more entrenched (Arendt, 1963; Skocpol, 1979). When power finds itself
credibly able to invoke overriding missions to control (especially under a climate
of fear), the results can be even less positive. The disarming effects of superficial
appearances can make the dangers especially acute where initial motivations appear
progressive.
The world is a complex place and care should be taken with overly simplistic
analogies, but there do seem to be many grounds for more careful scrutiny of
environmental authoritarianism. The greater the genuine respect for ecological
imperatives, the greater this responsibility.
Anthropocene planetary domination
These authoritarian pressures are also reflected in scientific discourse. Here, even
geological history is subject to reinterpretations emphasizing the theme of control.
For instance, the established epoch of the Holocene is a tiny 11,700-year span,
oddly tacked on to the end of the preceding 1.6 million-year Pleistocene epoch.
Marking the point where Earth moved out of the last of a long series of glaciations,
there is little to distinguish the Holocene from previous Pleistocene interglacials,
such as to justify a new scientifically recognized epoch. The sustaining of relative
climate stability over such brief periods is not geologically unique. That all previous
epochs extend to many tens of millions of years compounds the anomaly. It seems
that general scientific considerations are trumped by more parochial anthropocentric excitement, for it is in the Holocene that specifically human activity greatly
intensifies.
The relevance of this to control arises because the subjective human excep -
tionalism that helps shape this scientific acceptance of an anomalously tiny Holocene
epoch is now being compounded by recent moves to add a further even more
eccentrically miniscule ‘Anthropocene’ epoch of just a few hundred years’ duration.
Crucially, this is defined explicitly by reference to notional ‘human control’ – even
‘domination’ (Vitousek et al., 1997; Crutzen and Schwägerl, 2011; Steffen et al.,
2011) – variously of ‘Earth’s ecosystems’ (Vitousek et al., 1997) or wider ‘biological,
chemical and geological processes’ (Crutzen and Schwägerl, 2011). And, as in
environ mental authoritarianism, these conditions of control are ubiquitously
associated with an undifferentiated human ‘we’.
Given that ‘human control’ is already held to be so diagnostic of the
Anthropocene, it is paradoxical that much of this literature also calls urgently ‘for
identification of mechanisms amenable to human control’ (Ehlers and Krafft,
2006). If such mechanisms have not yet even been identified, one wonders how
current ‘control’ is already exercised? And why, if ‘control’ is so negative in retro -
spect, should it be seen so optimistically in prospect (Lövbrand et al., 2009)? In a
similar way to the ‘crisis of capitalism’ in Marxism, or ideas of grace in Christian
Emancipating transformations 57