“This book is a delightful provocation and invitation: to imagine a world without humans and to think of what we can do to get there. It is an urgent call for action.”
― Christine Daigle, Professor of Philosophy, Brock University, Canada
Here you go: the “final solution” to climate change. This book is a glimpse of where the climate road to serfdom ends. (And it is not, I repeat not, a Babylon Bee satire.)
The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthrocene” by Patricia MacCormack (Bloomsbury Academic: 2020) is self-described as follows:
We are in the midst of a growing ecological crisis. Developing technologies and cultural interventions are throwing the status of “human” into question.
It is against this context that Patricia MacCormack delivers her expert justification for the “ahuman.” An alternative to “posthuman” thought, the term paves the way for thinking that doesn’t dissolve into nihilism and despair, but actively embraces issues like human extinction, vegan abolition, atheist occultism, death studies, a refusal of identity politics, deep ecology, and the apocalypse as an optimistic beginning.
In order to suggest vitalistic, perhaps even optimistic, ways to negotiate some of the difficulties in thinking and acting in the world, this book explores five key contemporary themes:
· Identity
· Spirituality
· Art
· Death
· The apocalypseCollapsing activism, artistic practice and affirmative ethics, while introducing some radical contemporary ideas and addressing specifically modern phenomena like death cults, intersectional identity politics and capitalist enslavement of human and nonhuman organisms to the point of ‘zombiedom’, The Ahuman Manifesto navigates the ways in which we must compose the human differently, specifically beyond nihilism and post- and trans-humanism and outside human privilege. This is so that we can actively think and live viscerally, with connectivity (actual not virtual), and with passion and grace, toward a new world.
Four positive pre-publication reviews are shared:
“Patricia MacCormack goes relentessly beyond ‘just’ deconstructing anthropocentrism and dismantling multispecies extinction caused by human dominance in the Anthropocene. The manifesto is not only theorizing, but compassionately calling for direct abolitionist action for the other at the expense of the (human) self. Trembling with joyful energy and critically affirmative insights, this manifesto encourages us to engage in ahuman arts & activist practices, inspired by queer feminist (secular) spirituality, and death activism.” ―Nina Lykke, Professor of Gender Studies, Linköping University, Sweden
“This beautiful book is both a passionate, insightful meditation on the world we actually live in, and a radical call to action. Is it even possible for us to stop being human, to let multiple beings flourish without reducing them to means for our own selfish ends? Reading this book, thinking with it and about it, and responding openly to it, is absolutely essential.” ―Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor of English, Wayne State University, USA
“Patricia MacCormack’s splendid refusal to nuance her intent in The Ahuman Manifesto will both intrigue and infuriate. As a vegan abolitionist/extinctionist, she provides an unrelenting and exacting take down of the violent self-interest of the human species, and offers a call to ethical action best described as eating the Anthropocene.” ―Margrit Shildrick, Guest Professor of Gender and Knowledge Production, Stockholm University, Sweden
“This book is a delightful provocation and invitation: to imagine a world without humans and to think of what we can do to get there. It is an urgent call for action. A joyful, lucid, fiercely intelligent call to readers to hope and work for a future not for themselves, but for the thriving of all nonhuman life. Engaging with this book will be a transformative experience. One cannot see the world or oneself in the same way after reading it.” ―Christine Daigle, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Posthumanism Research Institute, Brock University, Canada
A writeup by Alisair Ryder in Cambridge News, “‘The only solution for climate change is letting the human race become extinct,’” describes the book and author as follows:
Patricia MacCormack, a professor of continental philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University, has just released her new book The Ahuman Manifesto, which will officially be launched in Cambridge today (Wednesday, February 5).
The book argues that due to the damage done to other living creatures on Earth, we should start gradually phasing out reproduction. But rather than offering a bleak look at the future of humanity, it has generated discussion due to its joyful and optimistic tone, as it sets out a positive view for the future of Earth – without mankind.
It also touches on several hot-button topics, from religion and veganism to the concept of identity politics, tying these into how the creation of a hierarchal world among humans has left us blind to the destruction we are causing to our habitat and other forms of life.
Speaking to CambridgeshireLive, Professor MacCormack outlined how she came to this point of view, and how these ideas are not as provocative as they may initially sound.
She said: “I arrived at this idea from a couple of directions. I was introduced to philosophy due to my interest in feminism and queer theory, so reproductive rights have long been an interest to me – this led me to learn more about animal rights, which is when I became vegan.
“The basic premise of the book is that we’re in the age of the Anthropocene, humanity has caused mass problems and one of them is creating this hierarchal world where white, male, heterosexual and able-bodied people are succeeding, and people of different races, genders, sexualities and those with disabilities are struggling to get that.
“This is where the idea of dismantling identity politics comes in – they deserve rights not because of what they are, but because they are.
“The book also argues that we need to dismantle religion, and other overriding powers like the church of capitalism or the cult of self, as it makes people act upon enforced rules rather than respond thoughtfully to the situations in front of them.”
The central argument in The Ahuman Manifesto can be boiled down to this: mankind is already enslaved to the point of “zombiedom” by capitalism, and because of the damage this has caused, phasing out reproduction is the only way to repair the damage done to the world.
Additionally, humanity has to see it isn’t the single living dominant force – but first, it needs to dismantle an established hierarchy amongst itself. This argument has not received as much disagreement as you might expect.
Professor MacCormack continued: “Everyone’s okay with the ideas in the book until they’re told they’d have to act on it. There is a lot of agreement that these changes might work for the world, but when it imposes on people, it becomes proactive.
“Many people are surprised it’s so joyful and it has this radical compassion, which cares for the world. It’s not about our death, so much as it’s about celebrating the tools that exist to care for a decelerating Earth.
“People wonder why I don’t think humans are exceptional, dominant beings – but when I ask them why they think that, I never get a good answer back. The way we perceive the world isn’t the only one, we never think about animal life.
“Even Extinction Rebellion only focus on the effect this will have on human life when climate change is something that will affect every living being on the planet.
This worldview of hopelessness, victimization, and human-hate is truly the end of the road to serfdom. It is the final solution with all of humankind, not just one race or creed, in the balance.
“The fool tears down his own house with both hands.” – Proverbs
What the author does not understand is the question of, what good is a planet that does not evolve intelligent life?
A world without intelligent life is a world that is cruel, brutish and short, with everybody trying to eat everybody. It is not a world of Bambi, but the world of carnivores and disease. It would be complete waste of a planet.
In many ways we have ameliorated the cruel, brutish and short aspects of the animals and plants around us. We break the eat-and-be-eaten cycle of nature. We usually greatly improve the lives of those around us.
Ernest Thompson Seton wrote a large series of animal stories (Wild Animals I Have Known and Animal Heroes) back about 1900 that described the lives of individual wild animals in great detail and, realistically they all had to die and not from old age. Just imagine your favorite pet and, rather than growing old together, the first time your pet makes a mistake outside, your pet becomes a bloody, suffering, dying victim, being devoured by a coyote or wolf, chewed to gory pieces possibly while even still alive.
Yeah, that’s what we should wish for the world. Perhaps she could lead by example and go first to her joyous apocalypse.
OMG !?!? Where do they get this crap ??? My guess: while they are on a trip with Marjane and LSD. Regards, just a simple retired engineer.
What tripe. My response to the author and all her followers: “You first.”
These people identify as academics…..but they do not qualify as such…..the epitome of bizarre people that are divorced from reality given positions within the academic world that they do not deserve
Before pontificating about “climate change” one must first be aware of the strong possibility that it may continue to be a natural event. Obviously, up until the mid 1800s that was the case. Now climate change is blamed on increasing CO2 level. The alarmists refuse to acknowledge that there have been earlier global warmings which were at least as warm as now, likely even warmer. For example, alarmists DENY that the Medieval Warming Period was global and at least as warm as it is now.
There are now numerous local MWP studies covering sites around the globe that have, in aggregate, implied that the MWP was global. There also thousands of boreholes scattered around the globe which conclusively also demonstrate that the warming trend was global. Most, if not all, of those peer-reviewed MWP studies are cataloged and available via co2science.org. Almost every study finds that the temperature during the MWP was warmer at that time than at the (more recent) time of that study.
There is no evidence that CO2, a trace gas, has ever had any impact on our global temperature. The only correlation tracking both up and down trends of temperature and CO2 show the opposite of what alarmists need. Recently both CO2 and temperatures have been increasing but that is a cherry-picked short term correlation and, in any event, correlation does not imply causation.
About two decades ago Henrik Svensmark, a Danish physicist and his associates, proposed a theory based on historical data rather than on speculation. Alarmists cannot explain past global warmings which were warmer than it is now, so they deny that fact because it interferes with their theory. If alarmists cannot explain past global warmings their future projections are little more than WAGs. (wild-ass guesses).
Svensmark claims that sun activity dictates our climate. During periods of active sun the stronger magnetic field reduces the penetration of cosmic rays entering the lower atmosphere. Until very recently the sun has been quite active. During quiet periods more cosmic rays penetrate the lower atmosphere which leads to more cloud cover and that means less sun radiation reaches the earth’s surface, so a cooling is expected. We are talking about longer term cycles of active and inactive sun. CERN has long since confirmed Svensmark’s theory that cosmic rays can influence cloud cover.
More recently Dr. Easterbrook has published a book “The Solar Magnetic Cause of Climate Changes and Origin of the Ice Ages”. Easterbrook’s study covers the past 800,000 years. Both of these scientists recognize earlier global warmings (and coolings). Neither bloke bothers with CO2.
Dear Professor Idiot…
…“People wonder why I don’t think humans are exceptional, dominant beings – but when I ask them why they think that, I never get a good answer back….
1. Splitting The Atom.
2. Veterinarians….though in Professor Ratbaggy’s world Vets are akin to Dr Mengele.
By The Way Professor ClownBum…Is AOC your cousin?…
And Professor is an Aussie!!! The Kangaroos which will be engaged in a bloodied gory war with wild canine packs. which will only end when all The Kangas…and Koala…are extinct…are struggling to believe this garbage…
The Shame…The Shame…An actual Aussie!
Maybe now people will begin to listen.
EcoLeftism is misanthropic. They’ve been proving this indirectly for 20+ years.
Now, they’e no longer even attempting to hide it.
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