(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Gregers Andersen:
The culture of boundlessness. A show of speed, exhaustion and hopelessness in the age of the climate crisis.
Information Publishing, 2016
Scientific reports and climate summits bring, as never before, a knowledge of the consequences of global warming. The Paris Summit delivered a goal to keep the global temperature rise at around 1,5 degrees relative to the pre-industrial level. But as Andersen stresses: "If the reduction figures most of the world's countries submitted to the UN shortly before the summit stand for believers, this year the world 2100 will be between 2,7 and 3,7 degrees warmer." If we continue so far, it is very likely that it the world we know will disappear and a much more unpleasant view of the light of day. It all depends on the pace at which we manage to move out of the fossil fuel era.
The consequences of a warmer globe go far beyond melted ice: We face a climate change culture where, for example, endangered species are extremely important to us. When the number of bees is threatened, it is not a trifle: one-third of the food we eat comes from insect-pollinated plants, and of that honey bees account for 80 percent. It is a knowledge that calls for the necessity of a worldwide energy revolution.
Extended responsibility. The green transition sends the political man on the dock. It's not just about with individual sustainable consumption but about our approach to values og the good life. It is culture expressed through our forms of understanding, our interpretations and our habits that, according to Andersen, will be decisive for whether we succeed in establishing the foundation for a future sustainable society. The naming of our era as "anthropocene" (man as the driving force in the evolution of the Earth) has only made it clear to anyone that we cannot distinguish between nature and culture. A new definition of culture must transcend national territories and describe culture as «systems of understanding and behaviorthat works across nation states, regions and continents ». A key cause of climate change is precisely the global consumer communities. Through the electronic media, the same understandings, habits, norms, patterns of consumption and forms of identity are created across borders, which is why we must today understand culture as aggressively inclusive. A cultural understanding horizon can show how the economic logic that increased consumption ensures welfare undermines itself as it only holds up in the short term within certain geophysical frameworks. Under the current climate change, this old utility-oriented narrative is dying.
Our new age – the anthropocene – calls for an "enormous expansion of responsibility that makes it ethically irresponsible to interpret responsibility as something only to those who will benefit economic growth immediately".
Growth requirements and iphone. In particular, three dynamics produce cultural expressions that make serious climate policy difficult:
1. The speed requirement in working life and well-being; 2. The boundlessness in the form of a galloping culture of enjoyment; 3. The lack of critical awareness of journalism. These three dynamics support a uncritical acceptance of the competitive state's growth ideology in all aspects of human life. We may well realize that "continued economic growth belongs to a world that no longer exists," but that does not change our behavior. Research on the limits of growth and alternative eco-economics has for decades shown that the civilizational progress of modern industrial societies is a thing of the past, that current growth does not automatically lead to civilizational progress, but actually risks backlash.
Andersen shows that an invisible systemic collaboration between economic growth, electronic self-determination and speed has paralyzed us. From working life to coaching to private well-being, all behavior is about growth, increased production and increased consumption. The result is that we are no longer able to think beyond our own horizons and take the climate crisis and political general value issues seriously. Along with speed, the electronic revolution in work and life habits reinforces a unilateral economic growth idea. The online requirement to be on the premiere, the energetic human being and the work as the very meaning of our lives clinging to the individual. The Danish TV series Borgen shows people who are constantly connected – busy lives are perceived as important lives. "If growth is thought to be contingent on speed, any reflexive hesitation is also an abusive chance to produce growth." Quick decisions override our poor conscience over our job hunt and consumption, which will simply stall things, block a winning mentality.
«Never be afraid to spot the scare scenarios of climate scientists. They have already been overtaken several times by the world of reality. "
The myth of boundless life. "[...] culture is flowing through boundless hedonism", everything is at our disposal. However, limitless opportunities only make sense in a world where we can separate economics and ecology. The way out of the misery is, for Andersen, not just a question of renunciation of goods, but a self-criticism as to whether the values we actually live by make sense to us on anything other than a superficial level. "Does not a meaning disappear from our lives the moment we are unable to pass on a good life to our descendants, but as a species puts our favorable conditions of life above control?" We all want to realize as much as possible while time is – and technology is constantly opening up new opportunities that big data providing the manufacturer with new tools to shape the consumer's desire. The idea of growth not only supports an economically calculative way of thinking, but also the myth of boundless fertilization of the world. But it is the attention to our own boundaries that sharpen the insight into the fragility of life and our care for everything living. Not mastery, but curious receptivity is what enriches our common life.
Critical journalism? The failure of journalism is one of the reasons why the climate crisis is not taken seriously. When a news host, following a message about typhoon Haiyan's destruction in the Philippines, tells us that the world's leaders are gathered "to save the climate," a distance is created and a blur that the same causes of many Filipinos' deaths are directly linked to the everyday lives of Danes. Afraid to place the Scandinavian life in an inappropriate light, journalism refrains from being just professional and perspective. Often, the climate crisis is portrayed as a matter of faith, and the individual can easily shrug off moral responsibility. Journalism is done on a manipulated and not a legitimate basis; it does not pave the way for a serious debate about which society we want. Andersen proposes five journalistic dogmas:
'1. Create independent climate actions to put climate and environment at the top of the agenda; 2. Consider climate and the environment in all relevant areas of matter; 3. Put yourself in the harness to promote the conversation about how the transition to a sustainable society should take place; 4. Keep climate refrains away from slots and sending surface; 5. Never be afraid to spot the scare scenarios of climate scientists. They have already been overtaken several times by the world of reality. ”This is a call to all newspaper editors!
Self-changing activism. What is growth worth if it causes more and more people to go down with stress, anxiety or depression? When does it mean that we do not have time to be with those we love or care for strangers? asks the author. Should I be able to buy pineapple year-round? Do I have to take a job in Sonderborg and stay in Copenhagen because I can fly cheaply back and forth?
It is true that we cannot change the world without changing ourselves. But how to do away with the realization of time? Andersen asks about some of the exercise and discipline we see in dieting, improvement mania and so on can be transferred to actions that change habits that slow down climate change. Practice, discovery and curiosity must go hand in hand. "Isn't just the basis of all desire for life that a meaning still exceeds the duration of individual enjoyment: a meaning which disappears in part if everything is done now and here to dissolve and annihilate completely further?
In this way, a prerequisite for a life of exercise seems to be an expanded understanding of meaning, so that this meaning is not only anchored to individual life, connected with something longer-lasting, namely, with the general existence of mankind. originates from commercial consumerism. So, to practice lower consumption, share things, live in less space, work less, prioritize discovery and curiosity, use themselves differently, in short, find meaning and enjoyment in a self-changing activism.
Gregersen sees the feeling of powerlessness as a sharpening of our attention to the value of life; a method of turning powerlessness into life force / action power. The book's call for social activism is sympathetic, but I miss a stronger link between sustainability, cultural-individual awareness and a general political revitalization. If a self-changing activism is to be anything more than an individual anti-coach for the coffee-latte people, it must have structural consequences: a showdown with production hysteria, lower consumption, fewer working hours, new social institutions, eco-anarchism.
