cloudgenerator 's review for:

Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization by Roy Scranton

4.0

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Great short read about the dire reality of the Anthropocene and its consequences for thinking humanity within it. Although the title may promise a concrete and hands-on guideline to dealing with this reality, Scranton offers a concise and at times beautifully written reiteration of not only the facts, but also the political and philosophical implications of this new epoch in the Earth's geology. I would argue that it is precisely this ostensibly simple repetition of facts that forces one to deal with the bleak scenario of extinction that humanity is facing. Like Scranton says himself: “we’re fucked”. This is no news to me, and for people who seek consolidation about this fact this book is not an obvious pick. Yet I could strangely find a kind of comfort in the concept of strife, the constant turn and return of violence, as it forces us to accept our fate and, like Sloterdijk's concept of interruption suggests, practice sitting with the discomfort we experience instead of letting it paralyse us with fear. And to me, this very practice of trying to sit with this human experience, including all its ups and downs, the wide spectrum of emotions one experiences throughout a lifetime, and the prospect of death is what it means to be alive. If humanity ends tomorrow, then let whatever atoms survive know that to be alive was a beautiful thing.