Environmental Crisis + Anthropocentrism

This chapter explores terms that are central to this study: religion, spirituality, nature religion, green religion, and dark green religion. Although this sort of linguistic labor may seem most pertinent to those with backgrounds in anthropology and religious studies, it should be even more valuable to those with little background in the academic study of religion. The rationale for this starting point is simple: terminology matters. It shapes methods and focuses attention in illuminating ways. Terminology also carries assumptions that may occlude phenomena that might well be relevant to any given inquiry. It is important in this investigation, therefore, to reflect critically on the terms employed.

This paper applied an ecocritical perspective on street art to expand on the notion that street art can have an impact on how we relate to urban public space. In doing so, it argued that street art is particularly well positioned to affect the way we think and act with regard to the environment.

This is the Draft Table of Contents for my forthcoming book (Lexington--hopefully December 2016): Eco-Nihilism: The Philosophical Geopolitics of the Climate Change Apocalypse.

I post it here to give my readers--for whom I'm tremendously grateful--a preview of the book's themes and argument.

This chapter presents an ecocritical reading of street artworks by Spanish artist Isaac Cordal.

The chapter is part of a larger project that focuses on environmental street art. The project will culminate with the publication of a monograph later in 2018.

The authors of this edition propose a novel and inspiring research approach to the subject of plants, which – being a form of life that is different, yet akin to us – is a constant source of nourishment and metaphors, decoration and obsessions. The articles included in this thematic block on plants enter into lively ongoing debates on genetics, feminism, ecology and plant ontology. They are excellent examples of the fact that in Polish philosophical and cultural reflection there was an understanding very early on of the challenges that posthumanism poses to our anthropocentric intellectual habits. Foreign readers will recognize in these Polish reflections a bold willingness to ask ethical and aesthetic questions of great relevance to the modern world that go far beyond the safe, though most likely imagined, limits of what it is to be human.

This article accounts for an environmental standpoint to be part of the post-human approach by accessing the post-human as a post-humanism, a post-anthropocentrism and a post-dual-ism. The main goal of this paper is to call for a post-anthropocentric turn by emphasizing the fact that the Anthropocene and the actual ecological collapse are only the symptoms; it is time to address the causes, which have been detected in the anthropocentric worldview based on an autonomous conception of the human as a self-defying agent. An urgent answer to this scenario lays in philosophy, and specifically, in a theoretical and pragmatical post-anthropo-centric shift in the current perception of the human. This article reflects on the ideal, but also uneasy, practices of letting go of anthropocentric privileges. Such changes can only result by fully acknowledging the human species in relation to the environment. The Anthropocene shall thus be addressed, together with sustainable forms of producing (less), recycling and co-existing with other species, with a socio-political and cultural shift: a passage from human-ism to post-humanism, here underlined in its specific meaning of post-anthropocentrism. The methodology of this article develops as an assemblage of theoretical thinking, creative writing and artistic image analysis.

Finalist, 2022 Ecocriticism Book Prize awarded by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.

How do literature and other cultural forms shape how we imagine the planet, for better or worse? This book argues that assumptions about what nature is are at stake in conflicts over how it is inhabited or used. Working between postcolonial theory, environmental humanities, and world literature studies, I show how both environmental discourse and world literature tend to confuse parts and wholes. Drawing on insights from political ecology, geography, anthropology, history, and law, the book considers what it means to read for the planet: to read from near to there, across experiential divides, and at more than one scale. A supple understanding of cultural imagination and narrative logics, I argue, can foster more robust accounts of global inequality and energize movements for justice and livable futures.

The Disposition of Nature has been shortlisted for the 2020 Book Prize awarded by the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP).
https://twitter.com/ASAP_artsNOW/status/1315763489571561474/photo/1

The technology of need: technology of sustainability?
Hyper competitiveness accelerates the pace of innovation and generates an impressive increase in the number of products that are introduced in the market daily (Harvey and Griffith 2007). Nevertheless, most of these products are not designed to satisfy basic needs and their distribution among the population is uneven, increasing social exclusion.
The technological systems (Hughes 1987) in which innovations take place have,
in many cases, evident features of unsustainability. This is because there is an increased use of raw materials and energy to manufacture consumer goods (tangible or intangible)especially those oriented to satisfy the consumption aspirations of a little fraction of humankind.
This is supported by an important rise in the capabilities of knowledge production,
posing a paradox: on the one side, more efficient technologies are developed allowing
the increase of industry and services efficiency which can result in a reduction of the
environmental impact. On the other side, it increases the possibility of nature appropriation and transformation, mainly by the intensive exploitation of resources, both traditional (e.g. iron, bauxite, copper, coal, petroleum, limestone, etc.) and new ones (e.g.rare earth, coltan, Lithium salts), and the growing generation of new waste polluting.
Therefore, outputs are often unsustainable. This leads to questioning the current sociotechnical structure and the need of exploring alternatives that, inevitably, must inducea rethinking of the notions of technology, production, and consumption.

Anthropocentrism, which includes assumptions like 'man has the right to dominion over the earth', 'humans are superior to animals', reality is divided into a de-spiriting animate/inanimate binary, etc., can clearly be attributed to the supremacist ontology of A.D. Worldview(s). As ) took care to note, power is not just exerted by what is said but by what is therefore not said, by what is necessarily rendered as untrue by a given regime of truth. What truth exists beyond the chains of Anthropocentrism?

For nearly 150 years, the view of wild animals as ‘renewable natural resources’ and ‘property’ to be managed, controlled and used has dominated wildlife management and conservation in the US. The North American Wildlife Conservation Model is the driver of this strong anthropocentric and utilitarian stance, which has not only led to an annual killing spree where millions of wild animals lose their lives to hunters and trappers nationwide but has also resulted in a staggering spiral of plant and animal extinctions globally. This article examines the worldview of the North American Wildlife Conservation Model and its dangers, and it points out the need for compassion for all Earthlings and for the embrace of Earth rights. The author also provides steps everyone interested in changing the paradigm of lethal management of wild animals can take to help accelerate the transition.

St. Ephrem the Syrian, Severian of Gabala and St. John of Damascus testify to the exegetical tradition according to which animals were not allowed to stay in the primordial Paradise. To explain this unusual statement, the article analyses views on animals in the early Christian literature between the 1th –8th century in their various contexts. This analysis shows that almost all educated Christian authors of this time, when writing on animals, adopted the Stoic philosophical position sharply distinguishing between rational human beings and irrational beasts which had been created for humans. This rather extreme anthropocentric conception is mitigated in the monastic literature, in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, in some books of the Bible as well as in a number of other texts read by early Christians.

Nos sociétés ont validé le credo cartésien selon lequel l’homme doit se comporter comme le maître et possesseur de la nature. Nos conceptions dualistes et anthropocentriques sont au cœur de la crise écologique actuelle. Le droit de l’environnement lui-même s’est intégré dans ce corpus philosophique. Loin d’avoir poussé à l’émergence de nouveaux modèles, ce dernier a maintenu une foi inébranlable dans la propriété privée comme gardienne de l’environnement et dans le marché comme régulateur environnemental. Les droits de la nature ont pour but de provoquer une révolution juridique et culturelle par la reconnaissance de la nature en tant que sujet de droit. La valeur intrinsèque du monde naturel est ainsi proclamée. La nature devient un sujet de droit à part entière. Cette avancée n’a pas pour objectif de se réaliser au détriment du bien-être humain mais de le replacer à l’intérieur de limites écologiques. En ce sens, les droits de l’homme et les droits de la nature sont complémentaires et interdépendants.

Em diversas áreas do conhecimento se constata hoje uma exaustão de um modelo epistemológico pautado sobre uma cisão interno-externo no que tange ao dualismo Natureza/Cultura, ou physis e nomos. É possível empreender a tarefa de observação dos fenômenos hoje em andamento em escala planetária a partir desta divisão? Ou a confusão entre o geopolítico com o geofísico exige uma profunda reorganização das disciplinas acadêmicas? O presente texto foi construído como uma primeira tentativa de se assentar bases científicas para uma teoria literária e filológica anti-excepcionalista, isto é, que se recusa a enxergar Homo como um advento isolado e idiossincrático do pulso ctônico. Para tanto, deveremos insistir no caráter inacabado das relações ditas naturais, reverter um processo histórico que insiste em ver na Natureza um regime de ser autocongruente e perfeitamente conciso. A ideia de um cosmos diastásico, proposto por Fabián Ludueña, irá de encontro às teorias zoológicas que inspiraram Aby Warburg em suas teorias mnêmicas, guiado pela profunda intuição que aqui grifaremos: da Natureza enquanto significante e não significado.

The aim of this paper is to sketch the ethical background of the idea of sustainable development. The author explains the anthropocentric character of the discussed principle and clarifies moral rules necessary for its realization (e.g. intergenerational, intragenerational and interspecies justice, common good, responsibility). A significant premise for providing the present argumentation is the fact of noticeable changes taking place in prioritizing the goals of sustainable development over the last decades that led to the formulation of its contemporary meaning. That fact, in correlation with gradually slowing tempo of reaching the accepted goals of environmental, social and economic development, prove that the anthropocentric hierarchy of values is not sufficient to heal the human-nature relationships. It is essential to adopt a different perspective of nature which would allow to appreciate its intrinsic value and provide it with proper care for its own sake.

Review of CREATION AND THE CROSS: THE MERCY OF GOD FOR A PLANET IN PERIL, in which Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson invites human beings to understand themselves  as members of the whole "community of creation," whose suffering is their (our) suffering, and the cross an icon of God's love for every thing.

This is the PDF-PowerPoint I used for the Webinar "On different interpretations of Theology And their consequences for nature and society", which was part of the series of webinars "From Discomfort to Hope in Pandemic Situations" organised by Alternative Perspectives and Global Concerns (ap-gc.net) by Dr. Mahmoud Masaeli. The Webinar took place on Friday, 16 October 2020.
In my contribution, I deal with two interpretations which can be given of the relationships between God, mankind, and the further creatures. The first interpretation, which focuses on the position of man as image of God, considers the whole mankind as the centre of the creation. This interpretation confers to the mankind a position of absolute privilege over all the other creatures: the whole nature is submitted to the mankind. The aim of God's creation is anthropocentric: all creatures and the whole nature are means at disposal for the mankind. The second interpretation, which insists on the commonality between all creatures, recognises a common dignity to all creatures. God is seen as present in the whole Creation. These different interpretations of the positions of the creatures bring therefore about different considerations of nature and of the relationships between mankind and nature.

This brief power point presentation was supposed to be presented at the Society for Applied Anthropology in Albuquerque in March 2020. Unfortunately the conference was canceled. Nevertheless, I want to publish this good news here for others to follow, immediately, because food insecurity is spreading as fast as the Covid-19 disease. We should focus on spreading seeds, plants, trees, and gardening knowledge instead, because there is nothing like kindness that cuts through despair, especially when seed companies are going bankrupt because of the extraordinary inability to meet demand during an international crisis unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes.

Two aspects of history have made Brazilians who we are today. First, for three quarters of our history since the Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral landed at Porto Seguro in Bahia in 1500, Brazilian society comprised slaves and slave-owners, or the beneficiaries of slavery. Brazil was by far the biggest importer of slaves in the old colonial system and it was the last country in the Western world to abolish slavery, in 1888. Second, ever since the arrival of the Portuguese, but over the last 50 years in particular, the fundamental social and economic structures of Brazilian society have been determined by the predatory destruction of its environment, moving from the eastern coastal region toward the interior. By the 1960s the process reached the major biomes of central and north-eastern Brazil, the Pantanal wetlands, the Cerrado savanna and the Amazon region.

The felicities of nature are bountiful but the basket of man is rather constricted, owing to the profiteering mindset of mankind. Essentially humans are inclined towards loving but when we tend to humanize nature there theeruption of desires starts crowning. In the history of human evolution there are numerous cases of humanly exploitation of nature and it's tacit undermining of natural resources. Literature had always been true to the projection of life be it in conundrum of civilized cities or the pristine life in jungle. So as with The Jungle Book (2016) directed by John Favreau based on the classic work of children's literature i.e. Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894). This paper aims to deal with the projective analysis of the movie from ecocritical vision further elucidated with emerging biocritical approach of human in terms of their relationship with nature.

From time immemorial the affinity between man and nature was inextricable. Man and nature protected and nurtured each other to safeguard and nourish mankind. The ecological and the cultural dominance the Whites had over the third world countries are referred to as 'Ecocolonization' of the natural world. The Man From Chinnamasta explores the issues of ecological malpractice and questions mankind on the issues related to rituals and devotion at the detriment of ecology. It also reveals the Whiteman's dominance over nature and the resources. The study focuses on the concept of the 'Other', the cruel strategies the whites employed to 'other' man power, poor peasants, ecology and the natural resources alike. The protagonist, the Jatadhari, holds a pragmatic opinion on the subject of sacrifice and offering. From an ecological perspective, the novel lends occasion to explore the bond that nature and this hermit shared. The clarion call to save ecology gives birth to a new canon which discards the centuries-old practice of butchering animals. His perspective towards offering acts as a catalyst that welcomes new modifications. The Jatadhari is bestowed with the sense of living in harmony with our ecosystem. The environmental crisis happening around us is a result of man's detachment from the natural world. The present study employs an Ecocritical approach that strives hard to bind the scholars and critics, to show the significance of nature to the human world. It is an investigation of the relationship between each other.

George R.R. Martin’s saga A Song of Ice and Fire immerses its readers into an exciting fantasy world taking place on the continents named Westeros and Essos, which are about to face a huge environmental catastrophe – winter and the ice army of the dead that comes with it  – which threatens to cause the extinction of both human and more-than-human worlds. This paper analysis the saga as a narrative of ecological crisis and focuses on the proposed solutions to the coming environmental threat. In order to explore these, this research deals with the role the anthropocentric and biocentric worldviews play in the saga and in the battle against the dead, eventually demonstrating that anthropocentrism, and its consequent climate change skepticism and denial, is severely criticized in the saga and leads to powerlessness. Meanwhile, a more biocentric attitude towards nature is not only rewarding for the characters who follow it, but is also presented as the only solution for the coming disaster, pointing at the need of abandoning anthropocentric philosophy and creating an extended familial natural system with more-than-human nature.

We herein explore the connections between the current condition of ecology concerning to sustainable development and the statement of Rutherford regarding the importance of physics to understand sustainability and biological conservation. The recent emergence of organic biophysics of ecosystems (OBEC) may constitute a feasible alternative to fill the gap between conventional ecological thinking and physics, especially thermodynamics. However, our comprehension of sustainability and biological conservation is influenced by the interactions between information and entropy, because we tend to exclude parts of the biosphere as well as their relationships among them. We explore the use of a holistic analysis of sustainability and biological conservation using physics, and also establish a parallelism between Maxwell's demons and human beings. Lastly, the ecological meaning of the hypothetical feasibility of Maxwell's demon at the anthroposphere scale is analyzed starting from the...

My paper aims to sketch the Paradox of Omni-responsibility, namely the ethical paradox that emerges from the so-called Anthropocene considered as our current epochal framework. The main outcome of this paradox is the overcoming of Hans Jonas’s principle/imperative responsibility as an ethical standard for ecological (and more generally, philosophical) thought over recent decades. if the imperative responsibility has been the cornerstone of an “ethics for the technological age”, it probably cannot play the same role in the anthropocenic/technocenic age. My argument proceeds as follows. The first stage deals with a critical dissection of the Anthropocene as “discourse” (§ 1); the second stage introduces the Pet-tification of Nature (i.e. the characterization of the planetary organism as a pet), the Aidosean Prometheanism (i.e. a new form of anthropocentrism) and the Paradox of Omni-responsibility as basic outcomes of the anthropocenic framework (§ 2); in the third and final stage, I will draw my conclusions concerning the redefinition of Anthropo-cene as Techno-cene and the proposal of a renewed ethical dialogue between responsibility and releasement, that is between Jonas and Heidegger (§ 3).

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Meu artigo pretende esboçar o Paradoxo da Oniresponsabilidade, mais precisamente o paradoxo ético que emerge do assim chamado Antropoceno como nosso quadro epocal corrente. O principal resultado desse paradoxo é a superação do princípio/imperativo responsabilidade de Hans Jonas como um padrão ético para o pensamento ecológico (e mais geralmente, filosófico) nas décadas recentes. Se o imperativo responsabilidade foi a pedra de toque de “uma ética para a época tecnológica”, provavelmente não consegue exercer o mesmo papel na época antropocênica/tecnocênica. Meu argumento procede como segue: o primeiro estágio trata de uma dissecação crítica do Antropoceno como “discurso” (§ 1); o segundo estágio introduz a Petificação da Natureza (i. é, a caracterização do organismo planetário como um pet), o Prometeísmo Aidosiano (i. é, uma nova forma de antropocentrismo) e o Paradoxo da Oniresponsabilidade como resultados básicos do quadro antropocênico  (§ 2);  no terceiro e último estágio, derivarei minhas conclusões relativas à redefinação do Antropo-ceno como Tecno-ceno e a proposta de um renovado diálogo ético entre responsabilidade e liberação, isto é, entre Jonas e Heidegger (§ 3).

Antropocentryzm wydaje się być podstawowym pojęciem dotyczącym relacji człowiek-przyroda. Postawa antropocentryczna w dużej mierze ma być główną przyczyną kryzysu ekologicznego. Można wyróżnić co najmniej kilka etapów procesu, które doprowadziły do tego kryzysu: etap magiczno-mityczny, starożytność, średniowiecze i nowożytność. Celem artykułu jest ukazanie procesu rozwoju myśli antropocentrycznej we współczesnej kulturze europejskiej, w której dochodzi do kulminacji postawy antropocentrycznej.
Wśród przyczyn współczesnego światopoglądu można wymienić np. nowożytną koncepcję nauki (opracowaną głównie przez M. Kopernika, G. Galilei, G. Bruno, F. Bacona, I. Newtona, R. Descartesa), rozwój technologii, a także zmiany społeczne, polityczne i kulturowe. Geocentryczny i teocentryczny światopogląd zostały odrzucone.
Sekularyzacja społeczeństw europejskich zmieniła stosunek człowieka nie tylko do Boga, ale także do jego stworzenia - przyrody. Ludzie zaczęli traktować ją jako wyzwanie i materiał. Boga-Stwórcę zastąpił człowiek-konstruktor. Pojawił się nowy rodzaj antropocentryzmu, który próbował znaleźć odpowiedź na podstawowe pytania w samym człowieku. Doprowadziło to do zanegowania ścisłej zależności ludzkości od przyrody i skłonności do podporządkowania jej człowiekowi. Poznanie przyrody zaczęło służyć wyłącznie jako środek dla celów ludzkości. Dla człowieka obowiązkiem stało się zdominowanie przyrody, którą odtąd postrzegano jako zespół praw matematycznych, pozbawiony wartości mechanizm determinowany prawami fizyki.
Na współczesne spojrzenie na przyrodę i człowieka wpłynęły również poglądy filozoficzne, które z jednej strony wykluczały człowieka z natury (I. Kant), a z drugiej podejmowały próby „powrotu” człowieka do natury (J.J. Rousseau, F.W.J. Schelling).


Anthropocentrism seems to be a fundamental notion concerning the man-nature relation. The anthropocentric attitude is largely meant to be the main cause of the ecological crisis. One can distinguish at least several stages of the process, which led to this crisis, namely: stage of Magic and Myth, Ancient Times, Middle Ages and Modern Times. The aim of this article is to show the process of development of an anthropocentric thought in the Modern European culture, when the culmination of this process is observed.
Among the causes of the modern worldview one can mention e.g. the modern conception of science (worked out mainly by N. Copernicus, G. Galilei, G. Bruno, F. Bacon, I. Newton, R. Descartes), the technology development, as well as social, political and cultural changes. Both, geocentric and theocentric worldview were rejected.
The secularization of European societies shifted man’s attitude not only towards God, but also his creation – nature. People began to treat nature as a challenge and material. God-Creator was replaced by man-designer. A new type of anthropocentrism appeared, which tried to find the answer to the fundamental questions in the human being himself. This resulted in the negation of a strict dependence of mankind on nature and in tendency to subordination nature to man. The cognition of nature served then as a mean for the sake of mankind only. Man was obliged even to dominate nature which was viewed as a complex of mathematical laws, a value-free mechanism determined by laws of nature.
Contemporary view on nature and man was influenced also by philosophical views which on the one hand excluded man from nature (I. Kant) and on the other made attempts to restore man to nature (J. J. Rousseau, F. W. J. Schelling).

One of the main objectives of this article is to clarify how – taking into account that mapping (un)common worlds into one (un)common space is not an axiologically neutral process – one can avoid the pitfalls of thinking by adopting “either or” thinking modes, i.e. one can avoid choosing either radical anthropocentrism or radical eco-centrism as a starting point when mapping space in the era of the Anthropocene. In this context, I raise a hypothesis that such a methodological shift is possible if one succeeds, by developing some moral capacities, in applying the principle of ethical gradualism into an interspecies context.

Nos societes ont valide le credo cartesien selon lequel l’homme doit se comporter comme le maitre et possesseur de la nature. Nos conceptions dualistes et anthropocentriques sont au cœur de la crise ecologique actuelle. Le droit de l’environnement lui-meme s’est integre dans ce corpus philosophique. Loin d’avoir pousse a l’emergence de nouveaux modeles, ce dernier a maintenu une foi inebranlable dans la propriete privee comme gardienne de l’environnement et dans le marche comme regulateur environnemental. Les droits de la nature ont pour but de provoquer une revolution juridique et culturelle par la reconnaissance de la nature en tant que sujet de droit. La valeur intrinseque du monde naturel est ainsi proclamee. La nature devient un sujet de droit a part entiere. Cette avancee n’a pas pour objectif de se realiser au detriment du bien-etre humain mais de le replacer a l’interieur de limites ecologiques. En ce sens, les droits de l’homme et les droits de la nature sont complementaire...

Over the last few decades, we have witnessed a significant change in human mentality and attitudes towards the natural environment and its protection. This change is accompanied by different axiological principles within which we can distinguish: 1) the anthropocentric concept which places man in the centre and grants him a privileged place amongst other species; 2) the anti-anthropocentric concept which stresses the equality of all species and demands a reversal in humanistic orientation consolidated by the European Enlightenment; 3) the moderate anthropocentric concept which underlines human’s caring and a responsible role towards the ecosystem. As disturbances of ecological balance are the result of human actions and the sign of the cultural crisis, the necessity to protect the natural environment should be realised. John Paul II was a supporter of the above. He referred to the integrated ecology, which combines the protection of the natural environment with the concern of the quality of human spirituality. Integrated ecology poses two demands: 1) all actions towards environmental protection should be understood as means of confirming the respect of human personal dignity; 2) those actions which harm the natural environment and threaten man should be given up.

This study focuses on the foundations of Slovak critical environmentalism laid by work of Juraj Kučírek, who is also the author of the first ever monograph focused on the philosophical reflection of the causes and possible consequences of the global environmental crisis in Slovakia. Kučírek pointed out the need to combine reflection on subsequent solution of the global environmental crisis with the problems of social inequality and oppression. This unconventional approach in the context of the Slovak public and academic discourse of the 1990s he termed as environmental anthropocentrism. Thus, he had a critical approach to biocentric concepts, which gained a dominant position in the Slovak environmental discourse. His work was followed by Ivan Dubnička, who extended Kučírek´s position to include cultural, political, and religious aspects of the causes of environmental devastation. His research was focused on the relationships of sociobiological and sociocultural determinants that shape human behaviour as a result of biological and cultural evolution. Based on evolutionism and anthropocentrism, he developed the concept of environmental pragmatism. Concepts of both are characterized by the critique of biocentric egalitarianism principle and the emphasis on democratic and human rights aspects of environmental devastation, as well as social and political causes of these phenomena.

Lilongwe University of Agriculture & Natural Resources
Lilongwe, Malawi, July 2019
Living on the verge of the 6th planetary extinction demands rethinking the position of humans vis-à-vis other-than-humans, as well as building inter-species relations. Ultimately this amounts to reanimate life against its appropriation and commodification, and hence to unbecome westerners.

HADL, Gabriele, 2017, "Growing up with Animals (on screens),” in Tema Milstein et al. (eds), Environmental Communication Pedagogy and Practice, London: Routledge, p.263-268.
Detailed description of an EcoMedia workshop. Can be used as icebreaker for media courses, youth camps, corporate workshops, etc. Adapted for an Anglophone context from the author's book EcoMedia Literacy (in Japanese).