The Personal and the Planetary: Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene Time
Dipesh Chakrabarty describes the problem of climate change as in part one of temporal incommensurability. For most of human history, we have enjoyed the primacy of anthropocentric “world-historical” time. But as climate change becomes an increasingly dominant preoccupation in our daily lives, we exp...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-10-01
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| Series: | Religions |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/10/1313 |
| _version_ | 1797572400168042496 |
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| author | Lina Verchery |
| author_facet | Lina Verchery |
| author_sort | Lina Verchery |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Dipesh Chakrabarty describes the problem of climate change as in part one of temporal incommensurability. For most of human history, we have enjoyed the primacy of anthropocentric “world-historical” time. But as climate change becomes an increasingly dominant preoccupation in our daily lives, we experience a rupture in everyday world-historical time and the incursion of a new timescale: the inconceivably vast and impersonal scale of “planetary-geologic” time. The incommensurability between the personal scale of human time and the vast planetary scale of climate change has produced an affective crisis, confronting us with the very limits of our imaginative capacity. In this essay, I argue that although the specifics of climate change may be new, human imaginative engagement with deep time is not. Animated by the conviction that Buddhist literature and thought contain robust theoretical and conceptual ideas that can enrich philosophical and ethical thinking, I bring select Buddhist concepts to bear on the problem of temporal incommensurability. Rather than suggest any general “Buddhist” way of thinking about time, I argue that Buddhist sources can offer new conceptual points of entry into the problem of temporal incommensurability itself, specifically addressing how we might differently conceptualize the relationship between the personal and the planetary in order to address the affective crisis identified by Chakrabarty. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T20:55:43Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7acb50d238eb4ef4b85b1f9ba2392255 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2077-1444 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T20:55:43Z |
| publishDate | 2023-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Religions |
| spelling | doaj.art-7acb50d238eb4ef4b85b1f9ba23922552023-11-19T17:57:36ZengMDPI AGReligions2077-14442023-10-011410131310.3390/rel14101313The Personal and the Planetary: Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene TimeLina Verchery0Religious Studies Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6012, New ZealandDipesh Chakrabarty describes the problem of climate change as in part one of temporal incommensurability. For most of human history, we have enjoyed the primacy of anthropocentric “world-historical” time. But as climate change becomes an increasingly dominant preoccupation in our daily lives, we experience a rupture in everyday world-historical time and the incursion of a new timescale: the inconceivably vast and impersonal scale of “planetary-geologic” time. The incommensurability between the personal scale of human time and the vast planetary scale of climate change has produced an affective crisis, confronting us with the very limits of our imaginative capacity. In this essay, I argue that although the specifics of climate change may be new, human imaginative engagement with deep time is not. Animated by the conviction that Buddhist literature and thought contain robust theoretical and conceptual ideas that can enrich philosophical and ethical thinking, I bring select Buddhist concepts to bear on the problem of temporal incommensurability. Rather than suggest any general “Buddhist” way of thinking about time, I argue that Buddhist sources can offer new conceptual points of entry into the problem of temporal incommensurability itself, specifically addressing how we might differently conceptualize the relationship between the personal and the planetary in order to address the affective crisis identified by Chakrabarty.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/10/1313Buddhismclimate changetemporalityAnthropoceneLotus SūtraBodhicaryāvatāra |
| spellingShingle | Lina Verchery The Personal and the Planetary: Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene Time Religions Buddhism climate change temporality Anthropocene Lotus Sūtra Bodhicaryāvatāra |
| title | The Personal and the Planetary: Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene Time |
| title_full | The Personal and the Planetary: Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene Time |
| title_fullStr | The Personal and the Planetary: Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene Time |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Personal and the Planetary: Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene Time |
| title_short | The Personal and the Planetary: Buddhism, Climate Change, and Anthropocene Time |
| title_sort | personal and the planetary buddhism climate change and anthropocene time |
| topic | Buddhism climate change temporality Anthropocene Lotus Sūtra Bodhicaryāvatāra |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/10/1313 |
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