A Managed Planet Results in Homogeneity
"Mainstream environmentalism" instills a new form of managerialism that creates a homogenizing force:
Under the eyes of planetary management, it is as if there are no differences any more. Nations fade away, interests recede into the background, cultures are used only in an ornamental way. There is no "other" camp on this world. The world somehow merges into one. It's true that since the Enlightenment people have called for a unity of humankind, but this was a moral postulate. We would strive to overcome war and violence, and people would strive to unify mankind under the governance of reason. But now, the unity of the planet is occurring as the result of fear. It's the result of a menace, a threat, a final catastrophe. This menace, in our perception, creates a homogenous global space where differences between cultures, between men and women, between nations, between top and bottom, don't matter any more.
I also notice that the citizen doesn't exist anymore. When you look into a Newsweek report, you don't find the citizen there, you find the human species there. So human beings are not called citizens in the most recent environmentalist discourse, they are called species, and the problem they are facing is not what we used to call "quality of life", but the problem of survival. You don't have societies or communities any more, now you have populations. Consequently, I think this language brings along a biological reductionism which again has the function of eliminating many things which make us human. And I see this new discourse as another sign that under the banner of [environmentalism] we are moving into a new phase of making the world more uniform.
The elimination of citizens is also implicitly the elimination of a civic space in which citizens can act. Talking about species, survival, populations does not give room for moral discourse... and that, of course, is technocracy's oldest dream.
*A few minor edits were made to the text for flow and clarity
I also notice that the citizen doesn't exist anymore. When you look into a Newsweek report, you don't find the citizen there, you find the human species there. So human beings are not called citizens in the most recent environmentalist discourse, they are called species, and the problem they are facing is not what we used to call "quality of life", but the problem of survival. You don't have societies or communities any more, now you have populations. Consequently, I think this language brings along a biological reductionism which again has the function of eliminating many things which make us human. And I see this new discourse as another sign that under the banner of [environmentalism] we are moving into a new phase of making the world more uniform.
The elimination of citizens is also implicitly the elimination of a civic space in which citizens can act. Talking about species, survival, populations does not give room for moral discourse... and that, of course, is technocracy's oldest dream.
*A few minor edits were made to the text for flow and clarity