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Title: Apocalypse Now
Author: Luke Beirne
Date: April 1 2022
Language: en
Topics: eco-anarchism, mutual aid
Source: Retrieved on May 13 from https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/01/apocalypse-right-now/

Luke Beirne

Apocalypse Now

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Apocalypse is ongoing.

Species are dying at an unprecedented rate. Entire ways of life are

dying: cultures, languages, peoples. For those lost, apocalypse has

already come; for those on the brink, it looms ahead.

Humanity is not to blame. Particular patterns of human activity are.

Specific logics and behaviors drive the eradication of life on earth:

domination, destruction, development.

Anthropocene. The term is used to refer to a new historical epoch

characterized by the fundamental alteration of the earth’s ecological

systems as a direct result of human activity. While the recognition of

fundamentally destructive patterns of behaviour is valuable,

Anthropocenic thinking is dangerous.

Anthropocenic thinking risks solidifying conceptions of humanity as

master, architect, of the world. It can suggest that humans were once

merely adaptive. It can suggest that there is a state of equilibrium in

which levels of domination and destruction are stable. It risks casting

blame uniformly.

Human activity is not uniformly damaging to the earth. Certain peoples

live in non-harmful ways. People are not equally complicit in forms of

domination and destruction – some groups are entirely more subject than

others.

To cast climate destruction as a human issue is misguided. It is

behavioral.

Certain logics and forms of social organization have driven harmful

engagement with the world over the past several centuries. A

particularly potent concentration of these behaviours and patterns is

capitalism, the primary driving force behind ecological degradation.

Over centuries, pan-European logics have established patterns of

behaviour, highly intensified in colonialism and capitalism, which rely

upon extraction and the exploitation of land and life. These patterns

have propelled environmental degradation and species eradication to

levels unprecedented in the history of human existence.

Of course, pan-European systems are not the only drivers of domination

and destruction. They are, however, the most significant structures of

mass domination and destruction and bear most of the blame when it comes

to the structural roots of this tailspin.

In order for meaningful change to emerge, the specific behaviours that

drive the socio-ecological crisis and threaten the existence of natural

systems, human and non-human alike, must be identified. The particular

conditions – conceptual and material – that perpetuate harmful ways of

living need to be changed.

Problematic conditions do not result from a single structuring logic but

from a concentration of perpetually generating and shifting logics.

Complex networks of conceptuality, logics, behaviours, and conditions

allow harmful forms of social arrangement and organization to

perpetuate.

The notion of human exceptionalism is a major driver of ecological

destruction. This exceptionalism is naturalized to many – a matter so

present it goes unseen.

Humanity and nature are not distinct realms. Humanity exists as an

interdependent part of the socio-ecological system. Interdependence

means that systems merge, bridge, and overlap – that nothing is entirely

distinct. The socio-ecological system is not made up of a multitude of

distinct parts which regularly interact on a hierarchical basis. It is

fluid assemblage of ever-changing bodies which exist, at all times, in

relation to one another.

Human behaviour is not separate from non-human behaviour. There is a

clear connection between the destruction and domination of the non-human

world and systems of destruction and dominance that humans impose upon

one another.

Logics and practices guiding social organization are directly related to

the logics and practices by which humans interact with the rest of the

socio-ecological system. Extractive and exploitative relationships

between humans are inextricably related to extractive and exploitative

relationships between human and non-human.

Harmful logics pervade the so-called left.

There is a relentless pursuit of standardization, seeking to erase all

but a specific form of life, transitioning from a diverse range of

social forms to a universalised standard. There is a relentless pursuit

of development, taking a certain linear evolution for granted,

establishing a correlation between the passage of time and a specific

progression of organization. There is a naturalization of these

processes, treating them as inevitable and predetermined.

History does not unfold. There is no pre-existing structure yet to be

fulfilled. Conditions transform perpetually.

The evolution of socio-ecological systems and structures is reliant upon

localised interaction. The nature of this evolution is incredibly

complex. The process is diverse, non-linear, and non-mechanistic.

Attempting to impose a reductionist, linear structure of transformation

is ineffective and dangerous. Attempting to chart transformation in the

same way is prone to failure.

Vast strategies of transformation are required to address the ongoing

socio-ecological crisis and the conditions that perpetuate it. These

strategies must account for the complexity of socio-ecological systems,

and the particular conditions of any given local system.

Ecological systems can be fundamentally altered by seemingly minor and

insignificant adaptations and alterations. Change does not need to be

centrally structured and directed to have significant impact.

An overarching framework of transformation, imposed upon local

conditions, cannot adequately account for the complexity of local

conditions. Instead, transformation must emerge from within localized

regions. This allows it to account for the specific relations present in

any given locality.

As systems are interdependent and interconnected, localized

transformation does not imply isolation.

As Bookchin writes, transformation needs to include “coherent analysis

of the deep-seated hierarchical relationships and systems of domination,

as well as of class relationships and economic exploitation, that

degrade people as well as the environment.” It must also include

widespread reimagining of the conditions of human existence to establish

positive forms of organization in their place.

Hierarchical forms of social organization generate systems of logic

which serve to reproduce the same conditions of existence by only

establishing structures compatible with their own logic.

Bourdieu’s theory of habitus is useful. Habitus refers to a system of

guiding principles which emerge from conditions of existence to

generate/organize thought and practice. These systems perpetuate by

establishing a logic that is internalized or naturalized by the

population so that following it no longer requires active reference or

justification.

Once naturalized, the logic guiding and transforming individual bodies

and minds, and their respective roles in social organization, is treated

as an already-justified matter of consensus. This logic constantly

guides thought and action to reproduce structures compatible with

already existing structures. As a result, stepping beyond the boundaries

of potentiality established by habitus becomes seemingly unimaginable.

Capitalist conditions of existence produce capitalist logics, which

generate and guide further potential action to reproduce these

conditions. Conditions of dominance produce logics of dominance, which

generate and guide further potential action to reproduce these

conditions.

Though habitus emerges as a dominant conditioning system, it is not the

sole or total conditioning system.

Habitus can be undermined by recognizing the potency and credence of

conceptualities regardless of the degree to which they are circulated.

This means embracing decentralized, rhizomorphous methods of knowledge

and being, and recognizing that life is a multi-dimensional, complex

assemblage.

Tackling harmful structures requires engaging with complex networks of

thought and material conditions of existence simultaneously.

Potentiality must be recognized and materialized.

Society exists in direct relationships between people.

Positive society exists in every relationship built upon love and

respect rather than fear and domination. The cultivation of meaningful

relationships is a positive strategy of social transformation.

Positive relationships cannot blossom beneath the weight of domineering

structures. The cultivation of positive society requires the eradication

of harmful social structures.

Reimagination is key.

Reimagination means recognizing that the conditions under which we live

are arbitrary. Conditions are arbitrary not because there is no logic

establishing or legitimizing them but because there is no inherent

necessity for them to take the form that they do.

Reimagination also means recognizing that the way that we conceptualize

the world is arbitrary, and that dominant modes of perception serve to

reproduce structures of domination.

It is necessary to reimagine our relationships and existence. This must

be an active process, where alternatives to harmful structures and

concepts are created. Doing so requires securing autonomy from imposing

structures of domination and power, mentally and physically.

Power structures restrict the ability of individuals to detach from

them. However, even if cooperation is attained by coercion or

compulsion, systems perpetuate because logics are materialized via

collective engagement on the part of the people.

People must secure autonomy by creating alternatives and constantly

resisting the imposition of domineering structures.

This is insurrection. Insurrection is not the struggle for power. It is

the struggle for autonomous life. It is the establishment of autonomy

through the creation of solutions which embody and manifest local

transformation, accounting for immediate conditions of existence. It is

fostering mutuality and love.

Though concepts are socially constructed, conceptuality always

concentrates in the individual mind for mediation and attribution.

Individuals must practice insurrection of the self. Self-insurrection

embodies localization. It is a rejection of domineering institutions and

arbitrary structures of organization. It embraces the multiplicitous and

complex natures of individuals and societies.

Autonomy and insurrection do not mean isolation.

Radical socio-spatial geographies, where emancipatory organization

emerges collectively, merge spatial and temporal being – structure and

process. This tackles specific structures or institutions of power as

well as the conceptualities and logics which perpetuate them. This is

collective autonomy.

Humanity has an interdependent and complex relationship to the rest of

the socio-ecological system.

Undermining dominance-based conceptuality is a necessary step in

meaningfully addressing the socio-ecological crisis at hand.

Breaching the distinction between human and non-human existence is also

necessary to properly account for the ways that human-human logics of

dominance relate to interactions with the non-human world.

Destruction of life is a cohesive process.

Forms of resistance and revolution which focus upon seizure of power and

the imposition of new structures of hegemony risk reproducing or

commandeering logics and conditions of dominance.

Autonomous, decentralized strategies of emergence can account for the

mutuality of structure and process. These strategies address the unique

conditions established by various concentrations of process, structure,

and logic.

The potential implications of minor interactions and physical dynamics

are nearly infinite.

Transformation does not need to be overbearing to be significant.

Engaging in imaginative construction of new conditions of organization

and existence can actively transform conditions and relations to

cultivate mutuality rather than dominance.

Alternatives to logics and behaviours of domination exist and can be

fostered.

The emergence of conditions of existence and patterns of behaviour based

upon interdependence and love rather than domination and destruction is

necessary to alter the relationship that humans have to one another and

the earth.

A single state of equilibrium does not exist. Action will always render

transformation in the world. The nature of this transformation does not

need to be violent.

Current ways of living are apocalyptic. Immediate transformation is

required.

Otherwise, the cataclysmic tailspin continues; we sleepwalk to the end

times.

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.