Roy Scranton is no doubt the catalyst for existential crisis within many minds. He uses the shock factor of imminent death to convey coming to terms with our own demise. Arguing that we have to accept societal death in order to survive, Scranton is pushing for a redefinition of American Culture. The capitalist habitat we have come to love and appreciate for its plush ignorant veil over reality is holding us back from the possibility of life after death in the Anthropocene. If we aren’t willing to come to terms with the loss of our current idea of freedom we will never know a new way of life, and therefore life at all. I agree with his ideas that a philosophical switch is absolutely vital to the progression of the human race.
Connecting this piece to the conversations we have had in class, freedom becomes a key word. If we operate under the notion that freedom for many Americans, and likely others living in like-minded societies, is the right to whatever we want whenever we want it, then we have no chance of combating climate change. This will eventually lead to our worst nightmare, no freedom at all, and by this I mean death. The decision will be made for us. If we will not change our idea of freedom it will be taken from us by the natural cycle.
While I explain this I refer to a situation in which we still have time to change, both in Scranton’s piece and in the video we watched concerning the Syrian civil war, there is evidence that freedom may be further away than we are willing to believe. When the Syrian civil war was explained it was characterized as the first climate caused war, is this accurate? I would argue that the Iraq war was a resource war, as I think Scranton would agree, and therefore is an Anthropocentric war in a similar way. Our American tax dollars went to fighting a war over oil because we are so dependent on it that we no longer have the freedom not to fight tooth and nail over it.
Dear America, you hit the peak, you fell over the edge, this is the end of what you know, adjust or lose everything.