Learning to Die in the Anthropocene

Posted on 20 May 2018 by Roy Scranton

Roy Scranton lucidly articulates the depth of the climate crisis with an honesty that is all too rare, then calls for a reimagined humanism that will help us meet our stormy future with as much decency as we can muster While I don t share his conclusions about the potential for social movements to drive ambitious mitigation, this is a wise and important challenge from an elegant writer and original thinker A critical intervention Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything Capitalism vs the ClimateComing home from the war in Iraq, US Army private Roy Scranton thought he d left the world of strife behind Then he watched as new calamities struck America, heralding a threat far dangerous than ISIS or Al Qaeda Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, megadrought the shock and awe of global warming.Our world is changing Rising seas, spiking temperatures, and extreme weather imperil global infrastructure, crops, and water supplies Conflict, famine, plagues, and riots menace from every quarter From war stricken Baghdad to the melting Arctic, human caused climate change poses a danger not only to political and economic stability, but to civilization itself and to what it means to be human Our greatest enemy, it turns out, is ourselves The warmer, wetter, chaotic world we now live in the Anthropocene demands a radical new vision of human life.In this bracing response to climate change, Roy Scranton combines memoir, reportage, philosophy, and Zen wisdom to explore what it means to be human in a rapidly evolving world, taking readers on a journey through street protests, the latest findings of earth scientists, a historic UN summit, millennia of geological history, and the persistent vitality of ancient literature Expanding on his influential New York Times essay the 1 most emailed article the day it appeared, and selected for Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014 , Scranton responds to the existential problem of global warming by arguing that in order to survive, we must come to terms with death.Plato argued that to philosophize is to learn to die If that s true, says Scranton, then we have entered humanity s most philosophical age or this is precisely the problem of the Anthropocene The trouble now is that we must learn to die not as individuals, but as a civilization.A war veteran, journalist, author, and Princeton PhD candidate, Roy Scranton has published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Boston Review, and Theory and Event, and has been interviewed on NPR s Fresh Air, among other media.More praise for Learning to Die in the Anthropocene Perhaps it is because he is a soldier, perhaps it is because he is a literate human being, but the fact is Roy Scranton gets it He knows in his bones that this civilization is over He knows it is high time to start again the human dance of making some other way to live In his distinctive and original way he works though a common cultural inheritance, making it something fresh and new for these all too interesting times This compressed, essential text offers both uncomfortable truths and unexpected joy McKenzie Wark, author of Molecular Red Theory for the Anthropocene New Read Learning to Die in the Anthropocene author Roy Scranton For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr Excellent read, though I should say it spends muchtime on the fact of the dying as opposed to learning how to die Scranton offers a truly withering assault of statistics and scientific opinions that insist our civilization is dying, and I certainly no longer have any illusions about human civilization surviving the next century It s not especially cynical it s matter of fact as a society, we ve killed ourselves Not just corporations, not just governments, but individuals as well This Excellent read, though I should say it spends muchtime on the fact of the dying as opposed to learning how to die Scranton offers a truly withering assault of statistics and scientific opinions that insist our civilization is dying, and I certainly no longer have any illusions about human civilization surviving the next century It s not especially cynical it s matter of fact as a society, we ve killed ourselves Not just corporations, not just governments, but individuals as...Basically, we re fucked So go read a book. the crisis of global climate change, the crisis of capitalism, and the crisis of the humanities in the university today are all aspects of the same crisis, which is the suicidal burnout of our carbon fueled global capitalist civilization the odds of that civilization surviving are negligible the odds of our species surviving are slim the trouble we find ourselves in will li...If being human is to mean anything at all in the Anthropocene, if we are going to refuse to let ourselves sink into the futility of life without memory, then we must not lose our few thousand years of hard won knowledge, accumulated at great cost and against great odds We must not abandon the memory of the dead As we struggle, awash in social vibrations of fear and aggression, to face the catastrophic self destruction of global civilization, the only way to keep alive our long tradition If being human is to mean anything at all in the Anthropocene, if we are going to refuse to let ourselves sink into the futility of life without memory, then we must not lose our few thousand years of hard won knowledge, accumulated at great cost and against great odds We must not abandon the memory of the dead As we struggle, awash in social vibrations of fear and aggression, to face the catastrophic self destruction of global civilization, the only way to keep alive our long tradition of humanistic inquiry is to learn to die This is a book about holding on, and waking up, and preserving human cultural heritage The book is somber, but not bleak It s not abo...The short version, re Global Warming, We re fucked Deal with it says the author, it s already too late Nothing will be done because the way the world works is based on growth The only way out is to embrace death I see this as embracing the death of our way of life Like the Way of the warrior once you realize you are mortal and are at one with it, then you can be at peace This is a very interesting thesis, and well thought out and well presented Worth reading I do have some issues ho The short version, re Global Warming, We re fucked Deal with it says the author, it s already too late Nothing will be done because the way the world works is based on growth The only way out is to embrace death I see this as embracing the death of our way of life Like the Way of the warrior once you realize you are mortal and are at one with it, then you can be at peace This is a very interesting thesis, and well thought out and well presented Worth reading I do have some issues however No doubt we are in deep shit with Global Climate Change But, I ve been here before I remember in the 1970 s the general belief that over population would result in whole sale catastrophy by the year 2000 The pundits were spectacularly wrong, not only didn t it happen but life was better than ever for waypeople Why Not because the problem wasn t real The truth is, the future is unknowable Spectacul...A missed opportunity.I like that publishing companies take risks on unusual book formats This is an essay, and a pretty short one at that it could have been a really long article at some magazine, probably Officially, it s a little over 140 pages, but the book small and the type is large and there is some fat that could have been cut Hats off to City Lights of course for doing the unusual I d like to seeboo...I have a coworker who visits me sometimes when neither of us are feeling especially motivated Lately, we trade gloomy observations about whatever primary election was held the night before, sometimes it sgeneral than that Without fail she picks up whatever book I ve brought to read at lunch, flips through the pages eyeing my stickies covered in scrawl Finally she asked the question Don t you ever get depressed Yes, yes I do I confess But I try to remember what Cormac McCarthy said I have a coworker who visits me sometimes when neither of us are feeling especially motivated Lately, we trade gloomy observations about whatever primary election was held the night before, sometimes it sgeneral than that Without fail she picks up whatever book I ve brought to read at lunch, flips through the pages eyeing my stickies covered in scrawl Finally she asked the question Don t you ever get depressed Yes, yes I do I confess But I try to remember what Cormac McCarthy said Just because you re pessimistic doesn t mean you have to be miserable about it.Roy Scranton s svelte volume, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene Reflections on the End of a Civilization provides yet another facet to the problem of climate change In addition to s...This small and concise book presents the ecological likelihood of our human fate, the blinkered and predatory ways we are dealing with it, the inescapable human reliance of violence in the case of threat, and the lack of any real control in ensuring our continuity Roy Scranton, a former soldier, has written a deeply thoughtful essay It is a call to accepting our mortality while working to continue what has been deepest and most enduring in our culture One may or may not agree with any of the This small and concise book presents the ecological likelihood of our human fate, the blinkered and predatory ways we are dealing with it, the inescapable human reliance of violence in the case of threat, and the lack of any real control in ensuring our continuity Roy Scranton, a former soldier, has written...I found my way forward through an old book Yamamoto Tsunemoto s 18th century Samurai manual, the Hagakure, which advised Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily To survive as a soldier, I had to learn to accept the inevitability of my own death For humani...A grim yet oddly uplifting look at our almost certain extinction in the face of global climate change I wish the book was a little longer, but it like our existence, perhaps had to meet its end too soon.

English
20 May 2018

Roy Scranton