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Title: Apocalypse Right 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/
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
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.