Ten theses on the crisis of modernity

Abstract

A brief summary is presented on the meaning of the crisis of industrial or modern civilization, from an historical perspective that covers the entire landscape of the human past and of life. It is argued that the central dilemma is between tradition and modernity, and that to overcome the crisis is required overcome the domain of rationalism, the dependence on fossil energy, the abandonment to which the individual has been convicted and the corporate phase of capitalism. The construction of social power is identified as the axial stone of a truly emancipatory political ecology. We conclude that the coming decades will be crucial as we will live the ultimate conflict between the insane ape and the thinking ape, between particular and perverse interests and cosmic consciousness. On that depends the survival of the human species or its disappearance.