A colonial lack of imagination: Climate futures between catastrophism and cruel eco-optimism

Abstract

Public debates about climate futures increasingly oscillate between the extremes of catastrophism and cruel eco-optimism. While different social imaginaries of climate change are part of sociological debates, to date this specific dynamic has not been extensively explored. By examining recent examples of climate change coverage and analyzing new ideological trends such as "apocalyptic optimism," I situate this imaginative impasse in the sociological debate about social imaginaries of climate change. While catastrophism itself is nothing new, the specific feedback loop between catastrophism and cruel eco-optimism distinguishes today's social imaginary from that of the 1950s and 1970s. Drawing on recent decolonial and indigenous concepts such as "settler apocalypticism" and "carbon imaginary" that offer a critique of the fixation on future catastrophes, my argument is that the oscillation between despair and denial has a colonial undertone and can thus be interpreted as a colonial lack of imagination. Overall, my aim is twofold: First, I want to direct attention towards the colonial dimension of the imaginative impasse. The impression that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism is itself an effect of colonial ways of envisioning time and history. Second, I want to propose an interdisciplinary angle to think about the problem space of climate futures and corresponding political feelings by bringing into conversation sociological assessments of the present, studies on climate feelings, decolonial and indigenous studies, eco-socialist interventions and some authors of early critical theory. Against this background, I reference the work of Günther Anders (2003) and ask what a training of the imagination would signify in today's context.

Keywords

• Social imaginary
• Anthropocene
• climate change
• colonialism
• futures
• catrastrophism