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Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization by Roy Scranton
kn1ghtatarms's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
5.0
toasternoodle's review against another edition
4.0
Brief, yet far from parochial. A more critical meditation than many of the fact-folders and excitatory anthems out there: capital-B Beautiful, even. Roy Scranton had approximately five shits left to give after his Army discharge and he rehomed each one of them into a chapter of this book.
My favourite shit is contained in Ch. 4 (The Compulsion of Strife), which closes by observing the philosopher's place in interrupting social feedback loops of fear-driven anxiety and despair. Spoiler that isn't a spoiler: Let that fear die in you — sit with it, transform it, let it go — and you interrupt your role as yet another conductor of atmospheric stress. The interrupter practices dying.
Other gems by Scranton featured in above chapter:
- Names the (racist, classist, capitalist) shackles of rebuking ~aggressive spectacles~ like organizing, violent protest etc
- Bluntly refuses to elevate contemporary passivity; skewers it, actually: "The more we pass on or react to [every protest, chant, retweet, and Facebook post], the more we strengthen our habits of channeling, and the less we practice autonomous reflection or independent critical thought.... [These habits] remain locked in machinery which offers no political leverage." Louder for the people up front who can't hear over themselves namedropping climate action in their Earth Day grams.
Then again I'm clearly partial toward anyone who loves death and critiquing death (see: Ch. 5, A New Enlightenment) as much as I do, definitely @ me.
My favourite shit is contained in Ch. 4 (The Compulsion of Strife), which closes by observing the philosopher's place in interrupting social feedback loops of fear-driven anxiety and despair. Spoiler that isn't a spoiler: Let that fear die in you — sit with it, transform it, let it go — and you interrupt your role as yet another conductor of atmospheric stress. The interrupter practices dying.
Other gems by Scranton featured in above chapter:
- Names the (racist, classist, capitalist) shackles of rebuking ~aggressive spectacles~ like organizing, violent protest etc
- Bluntly refuses to elevate contemporary passivity; skewers it, actually: "The more we pass on or react to [every protest, chant, retweet, and Facebook post], the more we strengthen our habits of channeling, and the less we practice autonomous reflection or independent critical thought.... [These habits] remain locked in machinery which offers no political leverage." Louder for the people up front who can't hear over themselves namedropping climate action in their Earth Day grams.
Then again I'm clearly partial toward anyone who loves death and critiquing death (see: Ch. 5, A New Enlightenment) as much as I do, definitely @ me.
not_mike's review against another edition
5.0
Paperback.
"Wars begin and end. Empires rise and fall. Buildings collapse, books burn, servers break down, cities sink into the sea. Humanity can survive the demise of fossil-fuel civilization and it can survive whatever despotism or barbarism will arise in its ruins. We may even be able to survive in a green home world. Perhaps our descendants will build new cities on the shore of the Artic Sea, when the rest of the earth is scorching deserts and steaming jungles. if being human is to mean anything at all in the Anthropocene, if we are going to refuse to let ourselves sink into the futility of life without memory, then we must not lose our few thousand years of hard-won knowledge, accumulated at great cost and against great odds. We must not abandon the memory of the dead." (Pg. 109)
"Wars begin and end. Empires rise and fall. Buildings collapse, books burn, servers break down, cities sink into the sea. Humanity can survive the demise of fossil-fuel civilization and it can survive whatever despotism or barbarism will arise in its ruins. We may even be able to survive in a green home world. Perhaps our descendants will build new cities on the shore of the Artic Sea, when the rest of the earth is scorching deserts and steaming jungles. if being human is to mean anything at all in the Anthropocene, if we are going to refuse to let ourselves sink into the futility of life without memory, then we must not lose our few thousand years of hard-won knowledge, accumulated at great cost and against great odds. We must not abandon the memory of the dead." (Pg. 109)
utopologist's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent read, though I should say it spends much more time on the fact of the dying as opposed to learning how to die. Scranton offers a truly withering assault of statistics and scientific opinions that insist our civilization is dying, and I certainly no longer have any illusions about human civilization surviving the next century. It's not especially cynical; it's matter-of-fact: as a society, we've killed ourselves. Not just corporations, not just governments, but individuals as well. This is mostly true of citizens of the Global North, but the result is the same. Human civilization is untenable. We've ravaged our environment and the world is going to become hot, wet, and crowded. By the last half of the book, I had come to realize that our only hope of applying any brakes to the destruction is not happening. It's just not.
It's too late. Nobody is going to do anything about climate change. It's not going to happen.
Now we as a species have to live with the aftermath, and I absolutely appreciate this book for forcing me to confront the meaning of my own life in light of these facts. This book did not teach me much about how to die, or live, but it did give me a jumping-off point for answering those questions, which is perhaps all I can ask of a book on this subject.
It's too late. Nobody is going to do anything about climate change. It's not going to happen.
Now we as a species have to live with the aftermath, and I absolutely appreciate this book for forcing me to confront the meaning of my own life in light of these facts. This book did not teach me much about how to die, or live, but it did give me a jumping-off point for answering those questions, which is perhaps all I can ask of a book on this subject.
gvenezia's review against another edition
3.0
Scranton explains the main idea (climate change will end civilization as we know it) with rigor, poise, and engaging prose, but fails to treat his own responses and solutions with the same rigor.
Scranton uses mounting climate science evidence alongside evolutionary and economic reasoning to show how the climate change crisis is intractable for a civilization dependent on carbon-based global capitalism. When turning to how we might "learn to die" in this predicament, he almost completely forgoes academic research, evolutionary biology, and economic factors. For example, he insists on investment in the humanities, humanistic philosophy, and recording of our civilizations achievements and wisdom, but doesn't address how such investments also face the same intractability of carbon-based global capitalism: collective action problems, evolutionary constraints, and short-sighted incentives. Even more blatantly problematic: Learning how to die as a civilization requires widespread understanding of death's symptoms, which Scranton too quickly assumes as being "understood by everyone." If stewarding the environment is an intractable problem of a civilization dependent on carb0n-based capitalism, then so is stewarding the human record.
Although the writing style initially drew me in, about halfway through it starts to feel overdeveloped. At points, the prose feels more calculated to inspire than to support a larger point. This "weighty" fluff is most apparent in the coda, where Scranton again ranges back over the history of the universe and of humans, repeating many of the earlier points and using tired descriptions to convey the wonder of the universe and the significance of our place in it.
Scranton uses mounting climate science evidence alongside evolutionary and economic reasoning to show how the climate change crisis is intractable for a civilization dependent on carbon-based global capitalism. When turning to how we might "learn to die" in this predicament, he almost completely forgoes academic research, evolutionary biology, and economic factors. For example, he insists on investment in the humanities, humanistic philosophy, and recording of our civilizations achievements and wisdom, but doesn't address how such investments also face the same intractability of carbon-based global capitalism: collective action problems, evolutionary constraints, and short-sighted incentives. Even more blatantly problematic: Learning how to die as a civilization requires widespread understanding of death's symptoms, which Scranton too quickly assumes as being "understood by everyone." If stewarding the environment is an intractable problem of a civilization dependent on carb0n-based capitalism, then so is stewarding the human record.
Although the writing style initially drew me in, about halfway through it starts to feel overdeveloped. At points, the prose feels more calculated to inspire than to support a larger point. This "weighty" fluff is most apparent in the coda, where Scranton again ranges back over the history of the universe and of humans, repeating many of the earlier points and using tired descriptions to convey the wonder of the universe and the significance of our place in it.
brisingr's review against another edition
3.0
I liked the last chapter of this book, and as a whole it delivers on what it promised: reflections. So things are a bit surface level, biased, generalized and while it can act as a good starting point for anyone wanting to get into the impact of climate collapse, I wanted more from it.
eugenedabz's review against another edition
2.0
Huge chunks of this book are filled with huge sections of new agey nonsense about vibrations and light. Offers no actual roadmap. Doesn’t even really go in to too much detail on why things are bad. Would not recommend.
tardigradest's review against another edition
1.0
interesting, but it seemed to equate the fall of capitalism with the fall of civilization. failed to draw on any political imagination. seemed to be sold based on author's vet status.