Toward an Ecology of Disentanglement

Abstract

Abstract The relationship between nature and culture is a major theme in the philosophical discourse on the Anthropocene. The best-known movements within Anthropocene thinking are ecomodernism and posthumanism. Both movements distance themselves from the idea that nature and culture are strictly separate domains. In the Anthropocene, this separation no longer appears tenable; nature and culture have become inextricably entangled. The world consists exclusively of hybrids, compositions of both human and nonhuman entities. Ecomodernists and posthumanists are of one mind in their criticism of the traditional nature movement, which believes that it can return to a past when nature and culture were still distinct entities and there was such a thing as “pristine” nature. I will argue that denying the possibility of any decoupling between humans and nonhumans will result in the latter being severely curtailed in their freedom to autonomously shape their own lives, and I will therefore argue for what I like to call an “ecology of disentanglement.”