Listen to the seminar
(radio programme)
Programme
Introduction to the cycle
THE ANTHROPOCENE AS PROJECT HORIZON
Bernard Declève, Metrolab Brussels
FROM RENEWAL TO URBAN TRANSITION: THE CHALLENGE OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Panos Mantziaras, FBA
Keynote speech
COMPETITION OF STORIES
Dominique Bourg, philosopher, professor – Institute of Geography and Sustainability, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, Unil
Western history is one of variations of the great Christian narrative. After having imposed the idea of a linear course of history, hope in a golden age ahead of us and no longer behind, the Christian idea of salvation has never ceased to experience multiple metamorphoses. But these different stories of salvation – those of kings, monks and saints, of the Calvinist merchant, of progress and the Enlightenment, a time competed with by the Marxist saga of the proletariat saving humanity – have all ended by being beached on the shores of climate change, of the wipeout of the living species and, possibly, in the near future, of resource depletion. What new story can be imagined in the face of these grim observations? Transhumanism and the GAFA are turning their backs – without offering any solutions – and furthermore working to resuscitate the myth of linear, top-down and relentless progress; but they fail to disentangle paradise from hell: the desire for immortality is inseparable from the fear of being downgraded, even enslaved, by machines. The only alternative narrative capable of making sense, of securing the habitability of the Earth as that of our cities, of sparing us from a both moral and physical abyss, is the ecological narrative, but it struggles to make itself heard. To be more precise, it’s the negative part – objectively catastrophist – that sometimes manages to make its way to the conscienceness, unfortunately not the creative impetus that would give rise to a possible reconstruction of our societies.
A positive narrative of a possible ecological future sketched out: what its foundations would be and, above all, its perspectives.
See the keynote speech