Nature’s enchantment, lost but not forgotten: A way forward in the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene debates are rooted in epistemological differences. Geologists seek temporal metrics of spatially-even anthropogenic impact. Thus, they favor geologic data that fit this category. Humanists and social scientists, on the other hand, tend to focus on the negative effects of spatial unevenness. Without linking the Anthropocene’s temporal and spatial components, the intention for it to be useful for wider segments of society will be futile. By recognizing threshold moments in human history, the uneven spatial distributions of anthropogenic damage can be traced to specific events, thus actualizing the predictive value of geology.  We argue that the Anthropocene started in the 17^th century with a shift in worldview that resulted in removing the “spirit” from nature and thus it could be rendered, as Newton put it, “brute,” and it could consequently be viewed as a natural resource readily available for extractive economies.  By removing the spiritual value--or enchantment--from nature, the notion of protecting nature for its own good was lost to extracting profit for the benefit of the economic elites.

Acknowledging such a worldview shift makes more legible two fundamental dynamics between human and natural trajectories: the intensification of global inequity coterminous with the intensification of natural damage; and humanity’s ever more audacious attempts to control the environment. This ethos, wielded as the prime justification for taking over that which belonged to cultures not espousing it, has resulted in anthropogenic damage disproportionately affecting the most economically and historically vulnerable peoples. However, their alternative modes of coping with the damages—an ineluctable responsiveness to, rather than control over, environment—enables them to survive.  Often, the indigenous or traditional knowledge of these cultures sees nature as infused with spirit, i.e. enchanted.  As such, they could lead the way through the Anthropocene, modeling adaptation and mitigation strategies, and obviating the global North’s unsound hope for a technological solution.  By expanding the data beyond the stratigraphic, coordinated interdisciplinary research can measure variegated effects of––and responses to––the Anthropocene, thus better equipping humanity to adapt to and/or mitigate climate change and to eschew unsustainable practices.