Reenvisioning Freedom: Human Agency in Times of Ecological Disaster

I address the question of human agency from perspective critical social theory. Critical theories seek to change reality for better in an ethical-political sense based on a critique what is wrong with existing one. Furthermore, they offer changing that attentive historical, social, and geopolitical contexts. start premise salient context today anthropogenic ecological disaster global scale. assume, furthermore, radical changes are needed order arrest our current disastrous trajectory and, best case, redirect it. However, as things stand, agents seem unable bring about required. As first step toward remedying this, postulate need fundamental transformation ethical perceptions, both individual collective levels: If humans globally grasp how dominant modes thinking acting ecologically disastrous, there has be shift their ideas ethically good life.1 Although requisite perceptions will not, its own, suffice change, see it precondition. This leads me propose reimagined, rearticulated conception freedom attuned, self-directing, self-transforming political agency. For number years have been concerned reimagine rearticulate concept mode self-determining democratic context. In these reflections, my focus self-directing distinctive form freedom, general dependent relations within society. Recently, however, come realize this inadequate. It insufficiently attuned multiple complex relational contexts, nonhuman well human, which exercise The thesis driving endeavor contemporary calls reconceptualization understood by modern Western embodied everyday thought, behavior, practices. utopian vision agency, terms articulate it, would motivate reorientation thinking, practices globally. On level, show importance at certain times history reimagining means lead life, new vocabularies accompany such reimaginings (Lear, 2008). My specific aim create field possibilities amidst dire circumstances where may impossible even imagine might be. use term “utopian” advisedly, stress do not alternative account normative prescriptive sense; rather issue invitation particular became capitalist modernity. proposal abstractly idealistic: basis actual historical impulses aspirations, cultures religious cultural elsewhere.2 recent times, “The Anthropocene” gained widespread currency popular academic discourse describe aspect environmental disaster. now widely used name epoch evolution characterized human-induced biosphere convey unprecedented rapidity unparalleled capacity destroy ecosystems survival depends. Despite disputes among geologists concerning degree present period can identified successor Holocene, overwhelming scientific agreement rapid climate loss biodiversity constitute grave threats future species; indeed, activity, amplified development industrialization unchecked pursuit affluence, unleashed uncontrollable natural forces leave vulnerable devastating power nature earliest ancestors. There reasons think predominant conceptions particularly cultures, facilitated devastation. Here connect Earth System Science, seen part larger interconnected biosphere: scientists, recognizing significant factor biodiversity, invite scholars researchers humanities sciences help them challenges (Thomas et al, 2020). Following line technological advances, revolutionary breakthroughs geoengineering CO2 removal, insufficient halt perilous better. Technological advances accompanied level. Since was coined (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000), “Anthropocene” characterize situation attracted criticism sciences, theorists (Bonneuil, 2015; Haraway, Hornborg, 2019; Malm, 2018a; Moore, 2016; Stengers, 2015). Their criticisms directed primarily implicit assumptions sociopolitical characteristic some prominent interpretations concept. main objections Anthropocene naturalizes, depoliticizes, conceals. naturalizes rendering outcome sort species are. depoliticizes flattening political, economic relations, grouping together all under one umbrella, implying no group blame. further due message little done avert conceals factors important understanding crisis inequalities, asymmetries, colonialism, mass media, thereby distracting role hindering reflection iniquities intimately connected. Critically engaged who take stance framing concepts, attempt reveal capture central components neglects or obscures. Influential proposals include Capitalocene, Plantationcene, Urbanocene. view rival concepts but narratives driven shared concerns. seriously dangers critics draw attention, while nonetheless insisting devastation capitalism, urban expansion must addressed. COVID-19 pandemic grim reminder hubristic attitude expressed ideal freedom. enormous achievements led production vaccines remarkably short time, shook confidence ingenuity master finally put end virulent disease. increasing frequency violence flash floods, wildfires, heat waves contributed growing perception vulnerabilities forces. humility ambivalent. positive side, offers prospect self others, other-than-human. negative frequently coupled feelings powerlessness blustering defiance (libertarianism), (eco-terrorism), resignation. Such responses untouched patterns thought behavior reason jettison entirely For, lacking possible, too likely vacillate between regressive delusional belief supremacy. why consider retain idea despite troubling hold if reimagined right way, indispensable socially transformative kind. projection, self-determining, agency.3 Moreover, never-ending process, only necessary achieve society once-off element any Nonetheless, following Max Horkheimer Theodor W. Adorno Dialectic Enlightenment, starting position modernity, expresses mastery control (Horkheimer Adorno, 2002).4 book, published 1940s, authors make clear modernity reduces other-than-human inanimate matter mastered manipulated will. Whether negatively (as external interference) positively self-determination self-legislation), celebrates sovereignty, specifically possession chooses determines pleases, subject moral legal constraints. Intimately connected limitless potential assumed plenitude inexhaustible resources enabling ever-expanding range choices, self-gratifying consumption, uninhibited self-expression. reason, develop decisively breaks sovereignty valorization subjective choice decision closely tied. earlier work, previously mentioned, sought elaborate develops relationships internally critically reflective concern good. integral component distinguished most other versions freedom.5 At same alert risk suppressing plurality perspectives attendant danger authoritarianism, writings insisted meaning open-ended question: worked out contextually agonistic processes, competing life opened vibrant critique. endeavor, continue conceptualize related before, open principle adopt theorist way. Specifically, motivated live attuned. proposed picture attunement nonhierarchical entities epistemological sense. incompatible knowledges deemed superior entities, held sole source validity , viewed commanding more respect than beings accorded privileged status environments. Developing argument sketched epistemologically anthropocentric pernicious (Cooke, 2020a). Ecological theoretical approaches relatively benign stance. attentiveness characteristics qualities each entity, imagining good, knowledges; moreover, determined exclusively concerns interests, partial independence them. produced through activity. Even though knowledge available filter action, attribute ontological action.6 Put differently, partially human-transcending, inevitably lens. Without we could learn encounters entities: They vehicles meanings.7 An perspective, orientation (partially) human-transcending required feature rearticulation A key self-direction. elaborating idea, Karl Marx's alienation his 1844 Economic Philosophic Manuscripts (Marx, 1997). One forms Marx describes early species-being. By he freely purposive, creative, self-reflective More concretely, understands set goals pursue without being bound biological necessity—as according laws beauty; also activity into object consciousness. does satisfactorily manuscripts. Charles Taylor's strong evaluator explicate (Taylor, 1989). Taylor holds self-interpreting creatures. world never simply given, constantly articulated, reconstituted, negotiated, transformed processes interpretation. always interpretation (and vice versa). process self-interpretation evaluations. given evaluations evaluative roadmaps individuals. Stable identities methodical action inconceivable roadmaps, depict substantial embody good: important, really matters Strong evaluation receptive element, calling openness experiences transcendent sources makes itself full-bodied way subjects, requiring turn flexibility, open-mindedness, sensitivity imaginativeness. because requires ascertain themselves kind person like paths should become person; responsibility judgments. addition, crucial moment reflection: evaluation, self-direction discrimination aims worth pursuing. quality actions, judgments, life-trajectories. although presupposes leaves whether Nor necessarily involve self-transformation. Thus, interpreting move beyond evaluation. Why self-transformation? component, construed potentially Due internalized reproduce prevailing patterns. Within Frankfurt School Theory, difficulty thematized ideology. Early tradition ideology structurally induced, deeply entrenched, false consciousness prevents agents, individually collectively, perceiving grasping (Adorno 1972; Horkheimer, 1973; 2002; Marcuse, 1991; Cooke, 2006b).8 helps explain societies many people pay lip service disaster, rely heavily appropriation treated unlimited (Brand Wissen, 2021). Social tied self-transformation reason: likelihood actualize logic manipulation antithetical Consequently, actualizing envisaged self-transformations, habitual levels exploration aesthetics. features Theory connection art. adopting Kantian aesthetics “appreciation beauty,” common tradition, fruitful retrieve ancient Greek aesthesis responsiveness stimulation senses (“sensibility”), taking mean affectively perceptual change. widens scope domain art institutionalized invites nonauthoritarian potentials multiplicity experiences. What drivers ethical–aesthetic self-transformations advocate? easy answer this. seems factors. Certainly, kinds institutions play: example, economics, religion, law, sport, family parliaments, schools, Noninstitutionalized actions civil disobedience activism likewise contributing play (I back concluding remarks). Important, too, life-changing resulting, experimental practices, different deep existential crises, epiphanic spiritual conversions. acknowledge equally point conceptualization excludes authoritarian Simply prescribing attitudes, principles endeavoring engage violation thus understood.9 consequence, advocated transformations place manner permits accept embrace own. argued writings, 2020b). Let briefly mean. institutions? Classical sociological accounts define constructed, supraindividual (Berger Luckmann 1967). Examples families, bodies, trade unions, sports clubs, courts justice, internet, World Bank, printed United Nations, institutes. follow Luc Boltanski using “institution” refer serve semantic function shaping stabilizing meanings (Boltanski, 2011). functions, policing administration, primary shape stabilize meanings. words, “To falls task saying confirming matters” 2011); give enduring reality, “they removed corruption time” (p. 75). Boltanski's helpful emphasis functions institutions, pays attention character stabilize. contrast, emphasize configuration, constituting webs (cf. Jaeggi, 2009). account, incorporations of—often diverse sometimes conflicting—ethical values. such, (more less stable) identities. incorporated values multilayered multidimensional sedimentation. sedimentation product interactions institution, institution's environments, pass unnoticed members (broadly understood). values, tacitly, provide guidance: directions, impacting beings, concrete guidance conduct life. orienting guiding defines authority institutions. Its manifestations laws, ordinances, policies, prescriptions, recommendations, doctrines. These authoritative situations, whenever affirm guides living Authority power, differing, particular, domination. contrast domination, depends acknowledgment obligation, tacit explicit, those over whom exercised. 19th-century German historian Mommsen captures when force “more advice command, safely ignore” (Mommsen, cited Arendt, 1961).10 obligation self-imposed. Hannah Arendt draws making explicit noted (e.g., she puts it: “Authority implies obedience men freedom” (Arendt, 1961). minimum, involves voluntary recognition affirmation bearer authority. authoritative, yet nonauthoritarian, response encounter members; various aspects inflected identity: operation, organization means, turn, themselves, members, permanent construction contestation: recognize inherent instability institutional acknowledge, motivated: (usually unarticulated) identity incorporation often plural conflicting, harmonious. able project construction—as coauthors constitutes (unstable) institution question, own short, perpetual mutual construction. authority, described utopian; once again, idealistic. resonates initiatives movements reconfigure along lines. Think, English, American, French revolutions 17th 19th centuries, government law; Pestalozzi late 18th von Humboldt century, sought, respectively, childhood education university; successive feminism century onward, bourgeois marriage nuclear family; Lutheranism, Calvinism, Pietism, Liberation Theology, Christian Church. deny inertia transformation. stabilization. Coupled susceptible entrenched hierarchies whose judgments decisions appear unshakable. tends freedom-enhancing, demanding unquestioning acceptance submission ways these. Although, criticize perversion, alter fact are, best, sites struggle impulses, other, balance weighted former side. true constitutionally equipped others stimulate promote freedom.11 But repeat, tend prone freedom-enhancing conclude words aesthetic-ethical theorizing. theorizing force, resides disclosure. Qua disclosure, think, behave, inhabit differently. (rather command), inherently nonauthoritarian. Adorno's respect. To sure, disclosive rarely explicitly writings; instead, manifested them, instance uses wide rhetorical strategies drive home philosophical theses. striking Enlightenment Honneth, evident later employs linguistic resources, condensing shifting meanings, suggestive metaphors narrative presentations disclose “pathologies” hitherto unperceived obscured. Adornian model transformative, comparison oratory. example here Martin Luther King's public speeches letters campaign protesting against societal USA 1950s 1960s. display highly developed talent “civil translation,” practice codes possible majority identify grievances protestors 2019). sociologist Jeffrey Alexander translation foremost mediating (Alexander, 2006). closer examination shows that, force: enable perceive suffering had recognized reaffirm potential. Indeed, disclosure core geared motivated, Radical relating ourselves nonhuman, developing pictures corresponding vocabularies. transformations, meeting Anthropocene. Open access funding provided IReL. Maeve Cooke Full Professor Philosophy University College Dublin, Ireland member Royal Irish Academy. Her research addresses arising She two monographs theory: Language Reason: Study Habermas.s Pragmatics (MIT Press, 1994) Re-Presenting Good Society 2006) author articles areas philosophy. editorial board several scholarly journals visiting appointments leading universities Europe.