Description
The planet is sick. Human beings are guilty of damaging it. Wehave to pay. Today, that is the orthodoxy throughout the Westernworld. Distrust of progress and science, calls for individual andcollective self-sacrifice to save the planet andcultivation of fear: behind the carbon commissars, a dangerous andcounterproductive ecological catastrophism is gaining ground. Modern society s susceptibility to this kind of thinkingderives from what Bruckner calls the seductive attraction ofdisaster, as exemplified by the popular appeal of disastermovies. But ecological catastrophism is harmful in that it drawsattention away from other, more solvable problems and injustices inthe world in order to focus on something that is portrayed as anApocalypse. Rather than preaching catastrophe and pessimism, we need to developa democratic and generous ecology that addresses specific problemsin a practical way.
Review:
As stylistically gratifying as he is intellectually lucid,Bruckner presents a clear alternative to the accepted thought onone of this era's hottest topics. Publishers Weekly A sizzling new polemic against apocalypticenvironmentalism. San Francisco Chronicle The best tonic for stale science communications I ve read ina while. Cool Green Science Pascal Bruckner is a brilliant writer astute, learned,broad-ranging, mordant, sometimes mischievous, and sometimesprophetic. He is one of the handful of writers around the world whodefine the intellectual history of our time. Paul Berman, author of The Flight of theIntellectuals With his usual verve and eloquence, in The Fanaticism of theApocalypse Pascal Bruckner offers a bracing and provocativecritique of an ever-more-pervasive and fanatical Green politics andideology. For Bruckner, the ecological catastrophism the latterpromotes constitutes less a salutary call to action than a returnto the politics of guilt encouraged by exhausted ideologies,religions, and religious institutions, the Catholic Church inparticular. This book will please some and consternate others, butits intelligence and originality make it an important book for ourtimes. Richard Golsan, Texas A&M University For anyone who has had enough of being harangued forsingle-handedly destroying the planet for future generations,Pascal Bruckner s new book will come as a welcome breath offresh and unpolluted air. Normandie