Abstract
After having read each of these manifestos separately, we will examine the differences between their different anthropological aims. This will be the starting point of our reflection on the idea of an anthropological shift, which will then be developed in the course of the different chapters that make up Part II.
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Notes
- 1.
As mentioned, this is not the gateway to the Commons Manifesto, nor to the first Manifesto of the Appalled Economists, but to the second, the New Manifesto of the Appalled Economists.
- 2.
On the other hand, we note a sentence at the end of the first chapter that weighs our analysis slightly, since the authors mention that preserving climate balance and biodiversity ‘will be a way of building social well-being’ (The Manifesto of Appalled Economists, 2015, p. 24). However, this is the only formulation of this type.
- 3.
In the wake of the manifesto, the chapter ‘Accelerating Reason’ by the English philosopher Ray Brassier, working in Lebanon (2016), in the book Accélération! edited by Laurent de Sutter, for example, very explicitly chooses Prometheism in a distancing from his Heideggerian and Arendtian (1958/1983) critiques, as well as from the more recent ones by Ivan Illich (1971a, b, 1973a, b) and Jean-Pierre Dupuy (2007, 2009).
- 4.
However, the accelerationists have very different positions from one another, and some of the contributions in the collective work Accélération! are based on anthropological conceptions that differ radically from each other, especially in terms of humans’ relationship to nature and the environment. The French philosopher and literature professor Yves Citton defines humanity in terms of its relationship with the Earth. He proposes that humanity come back down to Earth, and stay there, firmly rooted! He encourages us to become earthlings – or at least, to rediscover that identity anew – and invites us to distance ourselves from the ideal of progress. On the contrary, Ray Brassier enthusiastically takes up this ideal and emphasises the importance of techno-scientific Prometheism; for him, the ambition to improve and transform the human condition is part of his definition of humanity (Brassier, 2016). The ‘xenofeminist’ collective Laboria Cuboniks, made up of six women, goes further still, suggesting: ‘If nature is unjust, change nature!’ (Cuboniks, 2016, p. 272) (this is the most radical text in this collective work, and develops a novel, challenging, provocative and equivocal treatise on feminism and gender); in their 12 eyes, humanity is defined by Prometheism and its capacity to assume control over nature.
- 5.
In the first part of the Accelerationist Manifesto, the authors mention the importance of taking account of the contemporary environmental situation; Yves Citton’s contribution in the collective book Accélération! (de Sutter, 2016a, b) is devoted entirely to this issue. For this author, the situation is clear: ‘the damage is already done, even if we struggle to see it, measure it and give it the attention it deserves. The catastrophe is not to come: it is already here, already done and still in the process of being done.’ (Citton, 2016, pp. 215–216). Citton points out that ‘there is no Planet B and [that] the fate of our living environment is necessarily our common concern. Thus, what we need to accelerate – and this is already unquestionable – are the transformations that will reverse the current course of our so-called ‘economic development’ which has, for two centuries, involved trashing the very conditions upon which our future well-being – and even our survival – depend’ (2016, p. 207). For Citton, the Manifesto denounces the ‘dire insufficiency’ (2016, p. 209) of all the token gestures made at local level to benefit the environment, and the absolutely vital need to ramp up our actions: ‘Yes, ultimately, it will indeed be the widespread adoption of such small gestures in our daily habits that will set our lifestyles on paths that are both sustainable and emancipating. And yes, this is undoubtedly where each of us can start at the individual level, since changing our modes of consumption, communication, production, sharing, and attention is more immediately achievable than changing the “world order”. But no, a movement cannot be reduced to its first and last steps. It is just as much the in-between that is decisive. And it is this in-between – necessarily collective, inescapably global, and with intense media coverage – that we must imperatively accelerate’ (Citton, 2016, pp. 209–210).
- 6.
Again, apart from Citton, who distances himself from the Promethean attitude.
- 7.
The only allusions to education are made by Negri in his article ‘Accelerating Politics’, where he mentions that the political aim described in the manifesto needs to be re-appropriated through education (2016, p. 55), and by Laurent de Sutter in his presentation of the accelerationist theses, where he mentions that ‘If we really wanted to get rid of capitalism, then we had to start by learning to go faster than it’ (de Sutter, 2016a, b, p. 10), and where we understand that learning is necessary.
- 8.
In the chapter ‘Serons-nous un jour, enfin, indigènes? Permaculture et éducation des profondeurs’ (Will we 1 day be indigenous? Permaculture and Education from the Depths), Christian Arnsperger draws on the thinking of the North American poet Gary Snyder to describe the type of anthropological shift needed in the Anthropocene.
- 9.
‘Eine ökologisch und sozial gerechte Zukunft wird es im Anthropozän nur von einem emphatischen Selbstverständnis ausgehend geben können’ (Weber & Kurt, 2015, p. 15).
- 10.
They identify a series of authors from the twentieth century upon whose work it is possible to draw in order to refine this ‘emphatic self-understanding’. They evoke Amartya Sen’s and Martha Nussbaum’s approach to capabilities; Manfred Max-Neef’s approach to human needs; and Albert Camus: Pensée du midi. They also evoke the thinking of Edgar Morin, Michel Serres or the Commons movement.
- 11.
‘Deshalb besteht die wichtigste Aufgabe im Anthropozän darin, Lebendigkeit neu zu denken und neu zu erzeugen’ (Weber & Kurt, 2015, p. 13).
- 12.
Note that many of the ideas sketched out in the Manifesto for the Anthropocene (2015) would later be developed further in Enlivenment (2016) and then in Sein und Teilen (2017).
- 13.
‘Eine Politik des Lebens orienert sich an der Idee einer Zivilisation, deren Prinzipien, Institutionen und Wirtschaftspraktiken dem Leitsatz folgen, das Lebendigkeit sein. Dieses Ethos ist nicht kurzfristig erreichbar. Es erfordert einen Einsatz vergleichbar dem für die Durchsetzung der Menschenrechte’ (Weber & Kurt, 2015, p. 18).
- 14.
Among the goals the authors propose for a politics of life is an educational one: ‘An education that does not normalise the pursuit of abstract knowledge, amazing technologies, and the study of a dead world, but that reduces evaluation and aims to instil wisdom and the art of living’ (Weber & Kurt, 2015, p. 20). (‘Eine Bildung, die nicht abstraktes Wissen, verzweckende Technik und eine Tote Welt zum abfragbaren Standard macht, sondern Bewertung reduziert und die Weisheit einer Lebens- und Bindungskunst zu ihrem Ziel macht’ (2015, p. 20)).
- 15.
‘Es ist das Ziel eine Politik des Lebens, dass allen Wesen – ausnahmslos allen! – das Recht darauf zustehen soll, lebendig zu sein, und das heißt, ganz sie selbst und zugleich ganz in Verbindung sein zu dürfen.. Eine solche Aufgabe kann nur über ein für viele Generationen weitergetragenes Engagement im tiefer Daseinssolidarität gelöst werden’ (Weber & Kurt, 2015, p. 18).
- 16.
‘Erst in diese Solidarität mit allem, das lebendig ist, wird das Anthropozän zu einer Menschenzeit, die den Namen verdient’ (Weber & Kurt, 2015, p. 20).
- 17.
The term ‘anthropological shift’ is not mentioned as such by the authors of this manifesto.
- 18.
The dynamic of participation in a collective adventure has much in common with the Arendtian conception of action.
- 19.
The cardinal value appears to be autonomy rather than freedom. Moreover, the conception of freedom is a form of creative and relational freedom that is not the same as the individual freedom to maximise profit.
- 20.
This term is not used by Corine Pelluchon; however, she makes explicit the need for a new vision of humanity and a new philosophy of the subject.
- 21.
In this sense, convivialism is the political materialisation of the MAUSS movement, which has been working since the early 1980s to put economics back in its rightful place, notably by working on donation.
- 22.
This intellectual approach is very similar to that of Maurice Bellet, who proposed that desire should be altered.
- 23.
The authors do not explicitly use the term ‘anthropological shift’, but this is the drive of the manifesto: ‘It is a new humanism, radicalised and extended, that needs to be invented, and this involves the development of new types of humanity’ (Les convivialistes, 2013, p. 23).
- 24.
Their argument on this point is not convincing.
- 25.
The appalled economists on the other hand, have a point in common with the convivialists in their fight against ‘the profiteering and speculative excesses of the financial economy which are the main cause of capitalist excess’ (Les convivialistes, 2013, p. 33).
- 26.
Alain Caillé, in an article published in 2011 in the journal Projet entitled ‘Au delá du libéralisme, le convivalisme’ (Beyond Liberalism, Convivialism) talks about the need to develop such collective self-control.
- 27.
The Anthropocene Manifesto also mentions the importance of the commons (which is a central theme in other works by Andreas Weber). On the other hand, the approach outlined in this manifesto is decidedly romantic, in contrast to the technicality of the Commons Manifesto.
- 28.
The figure of the entredonneur in the Commons Manifesto (as distinct from that of the entrepreneur) is semantically close to the MAUSS emphasis on donation.
- 29.
Thus, while the Commons Manifesto offers an interesting critique of contemporary capitalist lifestyles, it is far less radical than the Convivialist Manifesto in its denunciation of problematic anthropological foundations.
- 30.
‘Eine Politik des Lebens sucht Alternativen zum Wachstumsdogma und zur Konsumsucht. Sie setzt nicht auf technische Kontrolle, sondern macht Lebendigkeit erfahrbar. Sie ermöglicht materielle Produktivität durch ökologische Stabilität, und diese durch sinnhaftes Handeln’ (Weber & Kurt, 2015, p. 19).
- 31.
‘Ein Zusammenleben mit andere Wesen nach Maßgabe des südamerikanischen Schöpfungsethos des “Buen Vivir” oder der jüngst von Frank Adloff und anderen präsentierten “Konvivialität”, der Gemeinschaftlichkeit und Daseinssolidarität aller Geschöpfe’ (Weber & Kurt, 2015, p. 20).
- 32.
Ecomodernists point out that treating one part of nature as a resource allows another part of nature to remain untouched, which they say is essential to spiritual and psychological well-being.
- 33.
For example, the type of agriculture favoured by the ecomodernists is industrial agriculture, which they encourage to continue developing. This is a far cry from permaculture or the kind of relationship to nature described in the Manifesto for the Anthropocene.
- 34.
For example, Delphine Batho stresses the fact that today, eight individuals hold as much money as 3.6 billion people who are the first victims of climate change and systemic changes in the functioning of the biosphere (for which the richest are most responsible).
- 35.
A notable difference between this convivialist radicalism and the radicalism of the Third Republic is that it is not primarily the progress of science that can bring about a new social order, but progress in relational style.
- 36.
- 37.
Paradoxically, the Anthropocene reverses the analyses initiated by the famous Polish scientist Nicolas Copernicus in the sixteenth century and the famous English naturalist Charles Darwin in the mid-nineteenth century on the non-centrality of humanity within its cosmic environment and among the living!
- 38.
This is also the same tension that Alexander Federau addressed in a chapter entitled ‘Martiens et Terriens: quelle anthropologie pour l’Anthropocène? (Martians and Earthlings: what anthropology is needed for the Anthropocene?) (2019).
- 39.
The notion of sustainability incorporates human finitude. Recent decades have been marked by a series of transgressions: ‘Modernity has indeed dedicated itself to a constant intolerance to the idea of limits, in many fields, whether it be technology, aesthetics, sport, or even ethics, etc., with, of course, first and foremost, the postulate of infinite economic growth’ (Bourg, 2012, p. 9). Sustainability implies respecting limits and refraining from transgressing them.
- 40.
In the wake of Part I of this book, we may legitimately wonder whether the appellation Homo faber, to define human beings, would not be wiser (sapiens…) than Homo sapiens (whose etymology refers to knowledge that is linked to wisdom and intelligence). (It is fitting, though, to recall the reason for the appellation Homo sapiens following Homo faber: it is as a result of their productions that human beings have been able to begin to elaborate ideas. Action precedes reflexivity and the development of thought). This is what Henri Bergson mentioned in 1907, saying: ‘If we could rid ourselves of all pride, if, to define our species, we kept strictly to what the historic and the prehistoric periods show us to be the constant characteristic of man and of intelligence, we should say not Homo sapiens, but Homo faber (p. 140). A few years later, Vladimir Vernadsky emphasised the anthropological importance of Homo faber in our relationship to matter: ‘Man has introduced a new form of action of living matter with raw material. It is no longer only the elements necessary for the production and formation of living matter that come into play here and change its molecular edifices. They are elements necessary for technology and the creation of civilised forms of life. Man acts here not as Homo sapiens, but as Homo faber’ (Vernadsky, 1924, p. 342). Alain Papaux, for his part, makes explicit in 2015 (p. 539) the disproportion between our capacity to do and to think of the consequences of our actions, following Arendt’s intuition, who mentions that the importance attached to practical knowledge hinders the development of our thinking (Arendt, 1983, p. 9–10).
- 41.
Arendt, in The Human Condition, analyses the modern alienation of the flight from the Earth to explore the universe.
- 42.
Crisis is another key theme in Arendt’s work.
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Wallenhorst, N. (2023). The Idea of an Anthropological Shift. In: A Critical Theory for the Anthropocene. Anthropocene – Humanities and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37738-9_7
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