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Prometheus and Gaia examines the ideological positions of Futurism and Eco-Pessimism. While these are rarely spoken about in mainstream discourse, they do have strong resonances in today’s popular politics and culture. In light of existential threats posed by climate change, disruptive technologies and economic crises, many have grown weary of the “small fixes” offered by mainstream policy-makers. Radical change thus appears necessary, as Futurism and Eco-Pessimism emerge as two fundamental challenges to the status quo. The Futurist claims that the current dynamism of technology is incompatible with human limitations, while the Eco-Pessimist sees the climate crisis as symptomatic of a broader human domination over nature. What these seemingly opposite currents have in common is a shared rejection of the human frame as grounding politics; each seeks to subordinate the human in favor of a wholly alien other, either in the form of an anarchic nature or a dynamic technology. To transcend this strange coincidence of opposites, Prometheus and Gaia makes the positive case for a humanism that is rationalist without being anthropocentric.
“This is a visionary work that illuminates a new way of thinking through our relationship with nature, technology and with each other. Fluss and Frim propose an ethics and politics that is both humane and rational, skewering the intellectual fads that dominate academic and popular debates. Tumultuous as it is original, this book defends an enlightened view of progress amid our current ecological crisis. It is as brilliant as it is timely.”—Michael J. Thompson, William Paterson University, US
Harrison Fluss is a philosophy and political science lecturer in New York City and a corresponding editor for Historical Materialism. His writing has appeared in Jacobin Magazine and the New Republic.
Landon Frim is an assistant professor of philosophy at Florida Gulf Coast University, USA. His research focuses on the Enlightenment rationalism of Baruch Spinoza and its implications for contemporary politics.
Introduction: Fear and Loathing in the Twenty- First Century; 1. Prometheus and Gaia; 2. Accelerationism; 3. Eco-Pessimism; 4. Coincidence of Opposites; Epilogue: Beyond the Void; Index.