Critique—Strengths and Weaknesses of Anthropocene Thinking

This chapter asks about the strengths and weaknesses of the idea of the Anthropocene. While the geological-stratigraphic criticisms were discussed in the first chapter, this chapter deals with criticisms relating to the social, ethical and political relevance of the hypothesis. A clear benefit is that the natural sciences are now actually working together with the humanities and cultural studies on a very concrete topic. A problem with the term Anthropocene is its increasing diffusiveness. Important criticisms suggest that the idea of the Anthropocene overestimates the power of humans and is anthropocentric. More fundamental criticisms see the idea as Eurocentric and criticize its blindness to the diversity of the perpetrators and also the inequality of the victims. Critics object to its depoliticizing tendency or simply consider the Anthropocene to be a distraction from the capitalist causes of the world crisis. Accordingly, a multitude of alternative terms are being discussed. If we look at the scientific landscape, we have now arrived in the “Neologismocene.” My own criticism is that many contributions wrongly reduce the Anthropocene to anthropogenic climate change or misuse the word for the rhetorical enhancement of known concepts or other topics.