Skrimshire, S (2018) Confessing Anthropocene. Environmental Humanities, 10 (1). pp. 310-329. ISSN 2201-1919
Abstract
What is the best way to communicate with far future human (and/or posthuman) societies? This sounds like a question for science fiction, but I ask it in the context of a pressing issue in environmental ethics: the (very) long-term disposal of high-level spent radioactive fuel. To date, the moral justification for burying the waste underground has hinged on the technical possibilities of communicating a message of warning to people living ten thousand years in the future. I argue that the problem with this approach is not only that it insufficiently acknowledges the inevitable failure of the message (though I also consider this); additionally, it serves to mask deeper ethical reflection on the legacy of human life to the deep future. To remedy this, I consider what it would mean to think about deep-future communication as an act of confession. What are the advantages of this category, ethically and politically, over that of warning or instruction? I draw upon the classic theological and philosophical exploration of the confession in that of Saint Augustine and subsequently in Derrida’s mimicking of him, in the light of which I consider the ethics of confession and witness as being haunted by the legacy of one’s actions into deep time. Notwithstanding its critical reception among certain philosophers, a confessing tone may become increasingly pertinent to activists, artists, and faith communities making sense of humanity’s ethical commitments in deep time.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Duke University Press. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. |
Keywords: | Anthropocene; Nuclear Waste; Deep Time; Derrida; Augustine |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > Theology and Religious Studies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 02 Jul 2018 15:11 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jul 2018 13:07 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Duke University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1215/22011919-4385589 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:132720 |