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Gagos, Fabrice (2022) Towards A Liberating Eschatology. Imagining The End Of The World To Survive The “Horrors Of The Anthropocene”. MRes thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

First examining how capitalist realism and capitalist sorcery are suppressing the ability to think new futures through the manufacturing of what Pignarre and Stengers call infernal alternatives and how the fear of such alternatives limit the influence of tools such as the IPCC reports and the media in acknowledging the need for capitalism to be challenged in regards of climate change, this essay is an attempt to help ‘breaking the spell’, the common thought that ‘it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism’.

The narrative of the Anthropocene and the cult-like belief in progress both rooted in the myth of human exceptionalism, are shown to play a determining role in denying the role of capitalism in climate change. In this context, acknowledging Earth as a living organism ─ Gaia ─ is perceived as quasi heretic and therefore, is systematically rejected.

Here I argue that Isabelle Stengers’ concept of ‘the intrusion of Gaia’ presenting Gaia (Earth) as a form of transcendence to be reckon with, should be taken seriously and be seen as posing the most real infernal alternative of all: if we fail to find a way to live in a more symbiotic way with our environment, humanity will not survive the horrors of the Anthropocene.

Finally, I suggest that to avoid the end of The World, ‘we’, the moderns, need to accept, and imagine, the end of our world based on the old myth of human exceptionalism which has led us to alienate a large part of humanity. Only in doing so, will we be able to create a new people with the ‘belief in the world’ needed to acknowledge the ‘intrusion of Gaia’ and able to generate events that elude capitalist sorcery’s control to survive the horrors of the Anthropocene.

Item Type:	Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (MRes)
Supervisors:	Goffey, Andrew Potts, Tracey
Keywords:	Anthropocene, Capitalist Realism, Capitalist Sorcery, Terrans, Gaia, End of the World, Human Exceptionalism, Future, Infernal alternatives, Imagination, Climate Change.
Subjects:	H Social sciences > HB Economic theory Q Science > QC Physics > QC811 Geomagnetism. Meteorology. Climatology
Faculties/Schools:	UK Campuses > Faculty of Arts > School of Humanities
Item ID:	69312
Depositing User:	Gagos, Fabrice
Date Deposited:	31 Jul 2022 04:42
Last Modified:	17 Jan 2024 12:42
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/69312

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