The Mirror of the Anthropocene

Abstract

The second chapter delves deeper into the origins of what Neyrat describes as the “myth” of the Anthropocene, focusing on the work of one of the scientists who coined the term, Paul Crutzen, and how this so-called “new grand narrative” and unifying myth also has become, following the term coined by Jean-Francois Lyotard, the meta-narrative of our times. If for Lyotard, grand narratives were constructed as unifying myths, narratives that legitimize institutions and social practices, then Neyrat will take up the task of analyzing this new grand narrative or master signifier of the “Anthropocene” by way of how this myth of the Anthropocene confronts two other entities considered as unifying narratives: humanity or humankind as the lone superpowerful subject and the object of the Earth. Neyrat will delve much deeper into this myth and the imaginaries that seem to help furnish some of the logic behind humankind’s awareness of climate change, its potential role in causing it, and how, by way of the imaginary and physical engagement of perceiving the Earth from outside the Earth by way of the Space Age, humans began to view the Earth as not simply something humans inhabit or are part of, but as an artefact.