{"id":979,"date":"2015-11-25T21:56:21","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T02:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/?p=979"},"modified":"2015-11-25T21:58:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T02:58:31","slug":"the-anthropocentrism-of-the-anthropocene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/2015\/11\/25\/the-anthropocentrism-of-the-anthropocene\/","title":{"rendered":"The Anthropocentrism of the Anthropocene"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though I am an environmental science major, the subject of environmental philosophy is not one that I am terribly familiar with me.\u00a0 Professor Keith Peterson\u2019s talk \u201cThe Anthropocentrism of the Anthropocene\u201d covered a lot of ground, and at times went fast enough to be somewhat difficult to follow.\u00a0 At the end of the hour, however, he summed up the talk with the conclusion \u201cIf we take [ecofeminist philosopher] Plumwood\u2019s model of anthropocentrism as central to environmentalism, we have to conclude that Anthropocenists are no more environmentalists than Francis Bacon or Rene Descartes.\u201d\u00a0 Val Plumwood\u2019s model had been brought up earlier in the talk.\u00a0 It codifies the tendency of some to equate masculinity with the mind, rationalism, and technology, and femininity with the body, intuition, and nature.\u00a0 This is a similar idea to one I remember reading about in Freud.\u00a0 He also saw a tendency to categorize many adjectival dichotomies such as strong\/weak in terms of gender.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to this dichotomous interpretation leading to the misogynistic tendencies of some to objectify women, and to assume that men are more suited to positions of authority, Plumwood also sees its shadow in our tendency to value technology over nature.\u00a0 For instance, humans\u2019 ever-expanding population has encroached on much of the natural world.\u00a0 Some ecologists see the world as being in the period of the sixth major extinction (driven this time by humans), and even those who are not willing to declare the effect quite that disastrous are willing to say that the extinction rate is higher because of humans than it would otherwise be.\u00a0 Currently, 8,700 species go extinct per year, more than 7,000 times the background rate.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

One other aspect of Peterson\u2019s talk which I would like to touch on is the question of animal rights.\u00a0 Part of anti-anthropocentrism is considering what is best for domestic animals, which is decidedly not being crammed into tiny pens, overfed, and then slaughtered.\u00a0 Personally, I am a vegetarian because I do not want to cause animals\u2019 deaths when I can easily get plant-based foods or ones that incorporate milk or eggs.\u00a0 Some people do not find even that sufficient, and eat a vegan diet.\u00a0 Others eat meat, but sparingly and from animals they know were treated well.<\/p>\n

Peterson argues that the suggestion that we name this current period of geologic history the Anthropocene is part of our problem, because it encourages the continuation of the anthropomorphism that led to our current predicament.\u00a0 Frankly, I do not think that we will ever entirely lose an anthropomorphic viewpoint \u2013 we are humans; it is impossible to entirely avoid looking at the environment from the point of view of how it interacts with us.\u00a0 But I agree that humans ought to sometimes see ourselves as something other than the center of the universe, and work on seriously attempting to salvage the environment.\u00a0 The outcome of the upcoming Paris climate talks will hopefully prove favorable to this goal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Freud, Sigmund. An Outline of Psychoanalysis, <\/em>page 89. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1949. Print.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, as reported in an ES271 (Ecology) lecture by Professor Bill McDowell on 10\/14\/15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though I am an environmental science major, the subject of environmental philosophy is not one that I am terribly familiar with me.\u00a0 Professor Keith Peterson\u2019s talk \u201cThe Anthropocentrism of the Anthropocene\u201d covered a lot of ground, and at times… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6162,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[250737],"tags":[252569,258932,258911,258921,258933],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/humanslashnature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}