Journal for Christian reflections in the context of social sciences and humanities

Caritas et veritas 2024, 14(1):88-103 | DOI: 10.32725/cetv.2024.009

Future Primatives

Michael Forest
Canisius University, Department of Philosophy, 2001 Main Street, Buffalo NY 14208 USA

This article presents two typical but inadequate responses to the philosophical problem of constructing an environmental identity and ethic for our climate-impacted future. It finds difficulties with a primitivist mentality that renounces technology in favour of a nostalgic view of the human past, then critiques the opposite position that puts full faith in capitalistic technology in order to avoid shedding our consumer culture and economic commitment to unlimited growth. Finally, an alternative is presented as the ‘future primitive’ which points to an identity which befits the difficult years ahead as well as the hope for a sustainable future. The essay considers common texts from the anarcho-primitivist writings of John Zerzan as well as the techno-futurist tradition of various kinds of eco-modernist environmentalism. In short, a sustainable future will not be populated by the identity fostered in advanced capitalistic economies, but also briefly offers a model in the prescient figure of the American environmentalist Henry David Thoreau.

Keywords: climate change, primitivism, environmental ethics, techno-futurism, eco-modernism, Henry David Thoreau, false dilemma fallacy, future primitives

Received: April 16, 2024; Revised: May 31, 2024; Accepted: June 3, 2024; Prepublished online: November 15, 2024; Published: October 17, 2024  Show citation

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Forest, M. (2024). Future Primatives. Caritas et veritas, 14(1), 88-103. doi: 10.32725/cetv.2024.009

Článek je pouze v anglickém jazyce

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