From Eco-anxiety to Resilience

Ushered in by the COP21 (Paris, 2015), the great media comeback of political ecology has translated into the field of global culture as a major shift: the appearance of the Anthropocene -the "epoch of humans" -in public debates. And a particular era it is, the age of human activity destroying the environment. The very concept of Anthropocene, however, is still being discussed. 1 Be that as it may, in the space of just a few years, the threatening notion has become a major player in the field of global reflection. The Anthropocene 2 is not only a state of catastrophe in which the survival of our species is suddenly called into question; it is also -and probably even more so -an aggregative term. Global warming? Blame it on the Anthropocene. Populations migrating from the South towards the North? The Anthropocene, too. The Covid-19 pandemic, which specialists call a zoonosis? Still the Anthropocene. Tight markets, divisions among peoples, the rise of national egoism and the closing of borders? All of these are part of the Anthropocene's rebound effect. Is the Anthropocene a cursed era? Certainly, even if it is renamed to enrich its meaning: the term "Capitalocene" points to capitalism, which is to blame for all the evils we are experiencing, "Thanatocene", or "Phagocene" respectively castigate our criminal irresponsibility and our excessive consumption... Summoning the Anthropocene monster, however, has the great advantage of providing a framework for our representation of today's world that is simultaneously mental, political, and cultural. Fiercely phenomenal and out-and-out ontological, the Anthropocene defines the nature of our Zeitgeist, the "spirit of the times", as a master of meaning. Here we are, humans on the verge of collapse, trapped in environmental hell. We have been warned and are implicitly required to think, to learn and to react

Anxiety · Psychiatry · French Urban and Social Studies · Materials Science · Psychology