Times that try men’s souls

‘These are the times that try men’s souls’… (Thomas Paine, 1776)

There is probably no period in human history when a sense of change, a challenge to all that seemed permanent, was not experienced – and largely as unwelcome disruption. Change may have been in the form of political upheaval – a move from despotic rule to democracy, for instance; or social instability – the relational shift in women’s and men’s roles with regards domestic responsibilities; or economic influence – the rise of global trade and international markets. Each, however, is also evidence of human creativity – our ability to live in new and different times.

Underlying this is the way we think about the world in which we live. French philosopher Michel Foucault drew attention to what he called ‘epistemes’ – periods of human history where a particular way of thinking, or a particular ‘discourse’ held sway in the political and popular imagination, such that human behaviours became defined in the terms of a particular discipline. In Madness and Civilisation, Foucault described the way those deemed to be mad were dealt with – a chronology of care and abuse that shifted from excommunication, to imprisonment to the creation of asylums, with responsibility for determining who is ‘mad’ (and who is not) shifting from towns or villages, to the police or legal profession and then to the psychiatric professions.

The social changes that we have seen, even in our lifetimes, may seem monumental, but they are minor changes when compared to geological time – and yet…

Scientists who are happy describing epochs lasting millions of years; the Pleistocene, the Neocene, the early and late Cretaceous, and so on, are now entertaining a new ‘period’ of earth time: the ‘Anthropocene’. The shifts from one period of geological time to another are indicated in part by large scale extinctions and there is, arguably, increasing evidence that we are entering a new phase of large scale extinctions precipitated by the actions of human beings. The identification of the Anthropocene suggests that climate change, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, even some sequences of volcanic activity are the product of human behaviours.

What is of particular interest is our ability to respond to this major change in our environment. For social scientists, the dawning of an ‘Anthropocene’ suggests a number of questions: what will we do to manage increasingly dramatic extreme weather events? What adjustments will we make to adapt to rising sea levels? How will we share what are likely to be dwindling resources, for instance, oil, or water? Who will take responsibility?

Foucault’s main preoccupations were the areas of sociology and psychology, but there is apt application of his concepts beyond these disciplinary confines. For some theorists, what should dawn alongside the anthropocene is an epistemic shift – towards an integrated discipline that understands both the technical issues arising with environmental change, and the philosophical approaches that might help us cope. Is this ecologism? – are we soon to enter a technological episteme, where technologists, in particular those in the fields of environmental design and management, become the arbiters of ‘truth’, of right, of justice?

These are the times that try men’s souls.