reading log: environmental apocalypse

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 ## 2026-04-24
 
+### @{kowalewski-environmental-apocalypse}
+
+A collection of essays, four were particularly interesting. There was a strong
+thread of avoiding utopianism on the one hand, and catastrophism on the other.
+I think John's Apocalypse can fit nicely in the middle ground.
+
+Catastrophe/Anthropocene discourse, whatever seeks to say 'we have all done this
+and we must change our ways now or else,' reinforces existing institutions
+instead of seeking to reform them and obscures the unequal politics behind
+climate change (think 'Oligarchocene', 'Capitalocene'). Better ways acknowledge
+the unequal blame and impacts, target the system for reform. I think John's
+Apocalypse does this really well.
+
+Crisis optimism or progress utopianism is no good either. No one is coming to
+save the day, and in fact, the disaster is already well underway, we cannot
+avert it, and no redemption is possible. I think John's Apocalypse deals well
+with these issues.
+
+Focusing on catastrophe also distracts from the catastrophic features of
+business as usual. Reimagine the imperialist/capitalist system as in a constant
+state of 'slow catastrophe'. Avoids both catastrophic and utopian thinking. John
+does this, too.
+
+Fernandez criticised (neo-)catastrophism, the idea that Earth's history is
+punctuated by instantaneous disasters, and we may be approaching another one if
+we don't change course. We can only avoid it or atone for it afterwards. This
+discourse obscures the harm that is already happening and will continue to
+happen, and thus obscures the need for adaptation. It also reinforces existing
+institutions rather than seeking to reform them.
+
+Kowalewski said that a lot of eco-eschatology posits a single, linear time, This
+discourse obscures ends of worlds which colonised people have already
+experienced, and obscures the imperialism and inequal causes and impacts of
+climate change. Cyclic time has issues, too. Instead we should think of time as
+spiralling.
+
+Catlin said we struggle to imagine climate catastrophe as real, literature which
+does so gets labelled 'science fiction'. (In fact, sci-fi uses the future as a
+literary convention to reveal distortions of the present.) Two present solutions
+don't solve this problem. On the one hand is crisis optimism: the crisis is
+terrible, but also an opportunity for something good to happen; the problem is
+it doesn't fit the facts: climate change is too bad, not redemptive. Traditional
+apocalypse, which he associates with 'Anthropocene' discourse (prefer
+'Oligarchocene' or 'Capitalocene') burdens people with universalised guilt, but
+is fatalistic, paralyses people, and obscures the politics of climate change. In
+the middle is 'slow catastrophe', the idea that the catastrophe is not the
+events which punctuate it as particularly unusual, but the normal background.
+The system, capitalism, is the problem. The key problems Catlin raises are
+these: 'Anthropocene' discourse obscuring the political realities, fatalism,
+unrealistic redemptive utopianism. (I think good apocalypticism can avoid all
+these things!)
+
+Skrimshire: afterlife thinking grounds our value of the present in its future
+fulfilment. But apocalyptic thinking severs this link: the present is about to
+be destroyed, and we don't know when or how! Apocalypse demolishes our world,
+our time, and utopia comes down from an external time/place. The rhetorical
+function of this is to heighten our moral imperatives for living in the present,
+and this is evident in Revelation, Paul, Daniel, Gospels. We're no longer tied
+down by distracting temporary things, we're cutting right back to what really
+matters.
+
 ### @{apocalyptic-patterns}
 
 Early Christians balanced a lot of apocalyptic tensions, including now vs not