immanence

Inspired by the daily litany of depressing news (and by reading Latour’s Down to Earth), I’ve succumbed to the temptation of writing a manifesto. Manifestos are cheap, I know, but we have to start somewhere. (And so many questions arise as you write one: about the proper balance between critique and vision, between generality and nuance, between vanguardism and mass appeal, between big tent-ism and more specific forms of address.) Comments are welcome, as are signatures (see below). Or share your own manifestos. Eventually one of our experiments might lead to something… This version was slightly revised at 4:17 pm EST on October 28, 2018.

To anyone paying attention to science, it’s become increasingly evident that the future of humanity is in question. We are at a precipice that calls for dramatic changes in the ways we live on this Earth.

As a global civilization of 8 to 10 billion people (numbers that are inevitable if there is not a rapid die-off in the next couple of decades), we cannot survive unless we transition to ways of living that are compatible with the life systems and conditions that have provided humans with a fairly stable home over the last several millennia, the time geologists call the Holocene.

Current ways of living, premised on the burning of fossil fuels, the production of plastics and toxins hazardous to most life on earth, and the intensifying competition over control of these limited resources, are neither socially nor ecologically sustainable. If they are not replaced with systems that are ecologically viable and that are conducive to human well-being and the coexistence of differentiated human cultures, then humanity as we know it will perish.

Human governance systems are not nimble enough to make this change through existing mechanisms. The change we need is revolutionary in its scale, its scope, and its methods. The old political categories are therefore inadequate to this new effort.

This program is revolutionary, but it is also fundamentally liberal and conservative. It is conservative in its desire to conserve the conditions of the Holocene, which have allowed human civilizations to spread like experiments in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” From these experiments we learn what we are capable of, and how to cultivate our better capacities and keep our worse ones in check. And it is liberal in its belief that we humans can do what we are called upon to do by our seeming fate as a species that dramatically alters the conditions of its world. And in its belief that all humans share in the dignity that this fate confers.

The program that is called for requires both globalization and localization. It requires creating global arrangements that will enable humanity to coexist with itself and with the world around it. The Paris Climate Accord is the result of one such effort, but it is both far from enough and lacking in long-term vision. And this program requires refocusing much of our lives on the local arrangements by which human communities — towns, cities, states, and regions — can reintegrate within the ecological conditions that sustain them. In this task, we can learn from each other’s efforts, and from the efforts of those — indigenous peoples and long-lived cultures — who have preceded us and who still live amongst many of us in our dwelling places.

Most importantly, this program requires massively redirecting our economic resources — from ways of living that harm humanity and its support systems, to ways of living that would help both of those find new forms of coexistence. This requires joint efforts by political leaders, policy makers, economic actors, and citizens toward new forms of production in harmony with ecological systems. Entrepreneurship is to be celebrated and harnessed, as long as it moves us in the trajectory called for by this transition toward a sustainable world.

These changes will not be led by those who dominate and benefit from the current political and economic system. They will be led by those with the vision, the humanity, and the independence and moral clarity that could move us forward, together. This can only be accomplished in ways that do not provoke aggression in response — which means it must be done democratically, through the mobilization of emotional conviction, of political will, and of institutional capacity.

Digital media provide the best starting place for building a global movement around an informational, political, cultural-aesthetic, and moral program of revolutionary socio-ecological change. The technical details of that program can be found in many places (for instance, here, here, here, here, and here, to point to just a handful). The point is that there is more than just “bad news” in humanity’s relationship with its planetary environment. There is a genuine opportunity to change that relationship. It will take swift action, but once the movement builds, we will be able to impact existing political institutions and to create appropriate new ones.

If you agree that these changes are needed, then join us in this effort. Spread this message, add to it, and share your variations on it. Let a thousand flowers bloom in the garden of revolutionary proposals — flowers sensitive to their local contexts, and to the values and traditions that give those contexts their own dignity, but also to the conditions that move us toward creating a viable “new earth” in which humanity can find a new place of dignity and honor. Moving forward together, we may just make it.

Signed,

Adrian Ivakhiv, Steven Rubenstein Professor for Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont