Comment choisir ce qui aura été? Réflexions sur l’optimisme prométhéen contemporain
Many have invoked the nihilism that is endemic of the age we call the anthropocene. Bernard Stiegler has articulated this sentiment by highlighting how anthropocene films are typically nihi listic, for example, Von Trier’s Melancholia. But if the age is characterized by a cultural pessi mism about...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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ACT
2015-12-01
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| Series: | La Deleuziana |
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| Online Access: | http://www.ladeleuziana.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Wilson.pdf |
| _version_ | 1818174073218269184 |
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| author | Alexander Wilson |
| author_facet | Alexander Wilson |
| author_sort | Alexander Wilson |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Many have invoked the nihilism that is endemic of the age we call the anthropocene. Bernard Stiegler has articulated this sentiment by highlighting how anthropocene films are typically nihi listic, for example, Von Trier’s Melancholia. But if the age is characterized by a cultural pessi mism about the future of human kind, or again about its posthuman supersession, there is also a complementary symptom that corresponds to a strange optimism before the impasses of our age. This optimism, we find it represented in another anthropocene film: Nolan’s Interstellar. This too is a film where the protagonists are faced with a world lacking a future, a world dying under the stresses caused by the human’s exploitation of nature. Here, instead of the mantra ‘Enjoy it while it lasts’, an opposing moral is repeated: ‘Don’t go gentle into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ In the film, Thomas’ poem is a tribute to prometheanism; the death of the earth will not mean the end of human life, it declares, the human will surpass all the limits of its ecosystem, the constraints of space time itself, and become pure hyperdimensional intelligence. The film echoes the superstitious optimism in the promise of technology we now find at the heart of contemporary movements such as accelerationism. This paper assesses the validity of this intrumentalization of optimism, drawing from Leibniz’s concept of compossibility and the cosmological anthropic principle (observer bias). |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T19:38:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7199eee9e50743fa93ac5756721f5a14 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2421-3098 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T19:38:36Z |
| publishDate | 2015-12-01 |
| publisher | ACT |
| record_format | Article |
| series | La Deleuziana |
| spelling | doaj.art-7199eee9e50743fa93ac5756721f5a142022-12-22T00:53:04ZengACTLa Deleuziana2421-30982015-12-012166177Comment choisir ce qui aura été? Réflexions sur l’optimisme prométhéen contemporainAlexander Wilson0Aarhus UniversityMany have invoked the nihilism that is endemic of the age we call the anthropocene. Bernard Stiegler has articulated this sentiment by highlighting how anthropocene films are typically nihi listic, for example, Von Trier’s Melancholia. But if the age is characterized by a cultural pessi mism about the future of human kind, or again about its posthuman supersession, there is also a complementary symptom that corresponds to a strange optimism before the impasses of our age. This optimism, we find it represented in another anthropocene film: Nolan’s Interstellar. This too is a film where the protagonists are faced with a world lacking a future, a world dying under the stresses caused by the human’s exploitation of nature. Here, instead of the mantra ‘Enjoy it while it lasts’, an opposing moral is repeated: ‘Don’t go gentle into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ In the film, Thomas’ poem is a tribute to prometheanism; the death of the earth will not mean the end of human life, it declares, the human will surpass all the limits of its ecosystem, the constraints of space time itself, and become pure hyperdimensional intelligence. The film echoes the superstitious optimism in the promise of technology we now find at the heart of contemporary movements such as accelerationism. This paper assesses the validity of this intrumentalization of optimism, drawing from Leibniz’s concept of compossibility and the cosmological anthropic principle (observer bias).http://www.ladeleuziana.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Wilson.pdfDeleuzeStieglercinemaposthumananthropocenenaturecompossibilitytechnology |
| spellingShingle | Alexander Wilson Comment choisir ce qui aura été? Réflexions sur l’optimisme prométhéen contemporain La Deleuziana Deleuze Stiegler cinema posthuman anthropocene nature compossibility technology |
| title | Comment choisir ce qui aura été? Réflexions sur l’optimisme prométhéen contemporain |
| title_full | Comment choisir ce qui aura été? Réflexions sur l’optimisme prométhéen contemporain |
| title_fullStr | Comment choisir ce qui aura été? Réflexions sur l’optimisme prométhéen contemporain |
| title_full_unstemmed | Comment choisir ce qui aura été? Réflexions sur l’optimisme prométhéen contemporain |
| title_short | Comment choisir ce qui aura été? Réflexions sur l’optimisme prométhéen contemporain |
| title_sort | comment choisir ce qui aura ete reflexions sur l optimisme prometheen contemporain |
| topic | Deleuze Stiegler cinema posthuman anthropocene nature compossibility technology |
| url | http://www.ladeleuziana.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Wilson.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT alexanderwilson commentchoisircequiauraetereflexionssurloptimismeprometheencontemporain |