By Kiti McGlashan
As meaning-seeking beings, we live in alternating cycles of embracing or fearing the natural world. Literature offers a good framework for observing this ancient and ongoing ‘battle’ for the human spirit between the manifestation of our reverence and stewardship of nature and our fear of something that could so easily kill us. As industrialisation moved us further away from nature, and humans started living almost completely dis-attached from the natural world, we saw a resurgence of the need to find belonging in the greater order. The last two hundred years have presented a shift in our attitudes towards our surroundings and an influx of philosophies and literature that try to reconnect humans with nature.
Environmentalism has clearly entered the focus of modern worries, but it often presents shortsighted forms that ignore the bigger picture. By focusing on the more immediate and visible concerns, environmental campaigns often prioritise narrow objectives while overlooking the negative structural downside of some of the green politics (e.g. “green colonialism). The climate crisis and the development of the Anthropocene as a theoretical background for our concerns are lacking in a holistic outlook of reality and often showcase similar dangers as our previous attitudes towards the natural world. While there is a rising concern about the land, it is through an anthropocentric point of view. As long as we keep seeing ourselves as separate to the non-human lifeworld, we will live incomplete existences, and our solutions will be forever lacking. What is needed is “a futurism of connectedness, engagement, and relationality, a futurism of ‘life-becomings’” (Ooi, n.d.). And this reflection on the need for interconnectedness has recently been championed by new subgenres of science fiction.
Storytelling has always been a mirror to the soul of humanity. It focuses the collective emotions and concerns in a metaphorical and philosophical format that offers more than simple escapism. Up until now, science fiction in particular has offered the best platform where the concerns of our present and future are laid out in the format of cautionary tales of how our environmental damage leads to post-apocalyptic scenarios. There are countless examples of stories focused on ecological collapse such as The First and Last Men by Olaf Stapledon that explores humanity’s eventual extinction, the dystopian future of Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky where humanity is almost extinct and earth ravaged by radiation, The Road by Cormac McCarthy that is set in a post-apocalyptic setting following a cataclysmic event, the grimdark world of the Warhammer 40K universe where after the AI wars mankind is plummeted into a dark universe of chaos and death. These are just some examples out of a very vast body of literature which express the climate anxiety our society feels.
It is distressing to see that today we have a medically recognised definition for our dis-connection from nature. Solastagia “is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment” (Albrecht, et al, 2007). The powerlessness to prevent environmental change and the crisis of being cut out from nature is leading to a whole generation of young people thinking they won’t survive to old age. People are refusing to have children because they think they wouldn’t survive the impending environmental catastrophe (Carrington, 2020). This is reflected in most of the existing science fiction literature which provides a very gloomy outlook for humanity’s future, diminishing hope and increasing ‘dis-ease’. While the devastation inflicted on Earth is almost catastrophic, it isn’t irreparable as long as we take steps in the right direction.
However, there is a shift in the current science fiction scene and the philosophical aspects surrounding it that reflect a discontent with the present pessimism by advocating for hope and optimism. Many genres have emerged that claim to break the connection of science fiction’s prevalent dystopian pessimism by advocating for a sustainable future where man and nature are connected. Solarpunk, Hopepunk, and other subgenres offer an outlook of how humanity can achieve a utopic existence connected to nature. Ursula Le Guin’s Always Coming Home, the Star Trek universe, the worlds of Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, all present a better future: one in which environmental crisis isn’t inevitable.
The main criticism of these genres is the fact that they generally still tend to be human-centric, and in a way they are another expression of post-apocalyptic literature. The change that rekindles our interconnectedness to nature cannot be achieved by placing man at the centre of reality, be it fictive or real. Even if European culture is acknowledging its spiritual and environmental challenges, the damage done by over two millennia of our thinking being moulded by Socratic, Platonic, and Christian philosophy has shaped our mindset in a way that is hard to come back from.
The most positive and holistic framework present today is seen in a recent philosophy that echoes the spirit of old nature belief systems like Animism or the modern philosophical outlooks that merges biology with a nature-oriented philosophy like the Biophilia Hypothesis (Keller, S. R., & Wilson, E. O.,1993). By offering an exploration in a way of thinking that is holistic and drives our intrinsic curiosity as a species towards a new frontier of interconnectedness, Zoefuturism, an outlook proposed by writer and researcher Yen Ooi which “explores the reality of human nature as human ‘becomings’ (instead of ‘beings’) where constant change rooted in all nature is acknowledged as fundamental to living”. Inspired by East Asian philosophy, “Zoefuturism doesn’t belong within one culture or philosophy.” In a way, it is the link between European Animism and ancient Chinese philosophy, as well as Japanese Shintoism. Zoefuturism presents a great framework for observing the similarities between different cultures. We all get lost in the elaboration of our faiths and philosophies but if you take away the embellishments underneath there is a shared connectivity between all of humanity.
At the core of the philosophy of the Chinese Book of Changes, also known as I Ching or Yijing, is constant change. Life is defined by its impermanence, and this concept is of key importance in Eastern spiritual traditions. By addressing human finitude, our difficulty of making sense of our surroundings without a set of symbols, the Book of Changes “aims to alleviate our self-inflicted anxiety and agony” (n.a., 2020) by reminding us of our limited ability to know our surroundings and offering a system of symbols to navigate the unknowable nature of our world.” Zoefuturism echoes the philosophy of harmony of the Book of Changes, which advocates the need for self-realisation and accepting one’s position within the flow of change of birth, life, and death. In these philosophies humans become part of nature rather than apart from it. Only by aligning ourselves with the natural order can we find peace.
This way of thinking is also the core of Shintoism which recognises “the destructive aspect of nature, deeming it necessary to keep the balance and control over its growth on earth.” The origin myths of societies all over the globe reflect the dual aspect of awe and fear that nature inspires. Disasters are accepted as part of reality. Volcanoes make the soil more fertile by imbuing it with minerals and metals. Aokigahara, the legendary forest at the base of Mt. Fuji, is a “lush and mysterious landscape [that] emerged following the last major eruption of the volcano in the 9th century” (Staughton 2023). Floods replenish the groundwater, enrich the soil, and create new habitats. Nothing in nature is black and white. Only by adopting a better understanding of the interconnectedness of reality—which the West has mostly forgotten but that is still alive in East Asian thinking — can we hope to achieve a living version of utopia.
As Ooi argues, “we are made through all the interactions we have with our world, conscious and unconscious, purposefully and not, intangible and tangible. These interactions constantly shape us and our world through changes and ‘life-becomings.” If we acknowledge our place in the natural world, our disenchantment will end.
Even the most idyllic science fiction needs to rethink how it envisions our future. We need to break away from the centrality of humans in our thinking. Without finding balance between us and nature, without breaking from the human-centric mindset, even the most optimistic visions of imagined futures risk falling in the same pitfall of imbalance which has distanced and isolated us from nature.
Our dreams should be the trailblazer to a future where we break our isolation from the natural world.
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This is an intriguing essay. Keep it up!