TSElosophers meeting on 3 February 2025

Participants: Albrecht Becker, Annika Hasselblad, Samu Kantola, Erkki Lassila, Kari Lukka, Ari Nieminen, Mia Salo, Milla Unkila

Reading: Domination, Power, Supremacy: Confronting Anthropolitics with Ecological Realism

Toni Ruuska, Pasi Heikkurinen and Kristoffer Wilén, Sustainability 2020, 12, 2617; doi:10.3390/su12072617

Summary

Anthropocene is caused by anthropolitics – systems of power built on the notion of human supremacy that enable the domination of non-humans and a mass of humans by a smaller group of humans. The article traces the foundations and premises of anthropolitics grounded on a specific version of humanism, discusses the merits and deficits of post-humanist approaches as solutions to future social organizing, and introduces ecological realism as an alternative theoretical frame that could underpin the formulation of genuinely sustainable societies.

Our discussion

This was one of the articles that divided the Tselosophers into two camps. Many of us applauded the clear and understandable articulation of the complex past trajectories that have brought us to the brink (and over?) of the current environmental calamities and admired the courage of the scholars to not only weave together the many strands of the problems but also to take a step further and suggest future possibilities. Others, in turn, stated that the depiction of the problems was nothing new – after all, we have at least 50 years known that human actions are destroying the globe – and that at least some of the seven suggested solutions for future societies were questionable to the extent of some reading even as naïve, especially as the authors made no mention of how to reach the desired end states.

This point triggered discussion: indeed, there has been ample discussion of the root causes of the current problems. However, it is not the novel knowledge on any of the single themes outlined in the article that creates value but the drawing of the bigger picture, here labelled as anthropolitics, that is fresh. After all, the current scholarly mechanisms do not support integrative approaches, making it very difficult to understand the amalgamated mess of human choices responsible for the problems. The fans of the article also noted that while the issues have been pointed out, too few attempts have been made to paint possible images of the principles that could underpin future societies and the lack of any visions of the potential directions makes it impossible to move towards them – we would sorely need goals to try to figure out how to get there.

Of the seven suggested solutions, especially decentralization and detechnologization were contested. Considering the global scope of the problems, it was pondered whether a local turn would be a beneficial direction to address them. In terms of technology, some of us accepted that to stop the overshoot, we would need, first of all, to move away from our energy dependence, which would naturally lead to less available technology, whereas some others were more hopeful as regards technology being at least a part of some solutions.

A theme that spawned most discussion was the perception of human agency, especially as it relates to the question of whether we need to see humans as qualitatively different from other species to hold them responsible for their negative impacts or whether it is possible to detach responsibility from the concept of agency. The concern with the latter position is this: As we all accept that humans have no more value than other living beings, should we think that humans are similar to other animals to the extent where our agency – as understood to include responsibility – is not a unique feature, but our effects on the planet are merely a question of scope and scale? If so, that could leave a way out of the responsibility of us humans: We can always shrug and say that as we don’t blame other animals for exhibiting species-typical behavior, neither should we humans be blamed for our respective features. However, some of us do not want to leave that loophole and instead argue that while non-humans do have an equal value to humans, there is a qualitative difference in humans – that is, our ability to conscious intentionality – which has resulted, among other things, in our destructive actions. These TSElosophers believe that agency is a combination of responsibility and intentionality, not something that can be reduced to merely causing effects, which is something each human and non-human, living and non-living entity, in any case, is involved with.

There were several other themes mentioned but not dug deeply into, too. For example, we noted that while the authors discuss the conceptualization of human agency underpinning anthropolitics (e.g., will to power), they did not elaborate on a conceptualization of human agency that could underpin ecological realism and responsibility for the planet. Additionally, we pondered the distinction between the notion of hybridism when discussing post-humanism and parts vs. the whole when discussing ecological realism, wondering what precisely was the point of the authors for differentiating them. This contemplation led to a vivid discussion on the notion of agency in ANT (arguably one version of hybridism) and to what extent the principle of symmetry inherent in ANT helps deal with the question of responsibility for the effects actors produce.

Overall, this article proved a fruitful starting point for a rich discussion, and had the time not limited the discussion, it could have taken us to many additional directions now left unexplored.