The Anthropocene Slam - How do we best define HUMAN responsibility

There are some subtle (and some not so subtle) statements being made and implicit premises being built upon in The Anthropocene Slam presented by Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery regarding the values associated with the Anthropocene. I believe the questions about the representations of the Anthropocene are some of the many ways by which we can examine these statements.

It is stated that our “emerging legacy of our geomorphic and biomorphic powers” leads to “emotional energy to our rapidly changing visions of future possibilities” if we just engage in this issue. The issue being the Anthropocene. Is this claim about the Anthropocene justified? And by which interpretations of the Anthropocene?

As a scientific term and concept, perhaps the most reduced form is the one which concludes that an irreversible impact has been made, an impact which could be characterized as a geological force and therefore should be brought forth by the geological community. The “should” here is linked to the function of scientific use of the term and concept. The pragmatic view of this is perhaps worth mentioning if one wishes to stick to Hume´s law. This however does not seem to be of any interest in the debate of the Anthropocene nor in the project of the Anthropocene slam.

Since the Anthropocene is not only used as a descriptive geological term, I think it is sensible to approach the Anthropocene in its most common occurrence which is both normative and descriptive but with some demands on concept-density and consideration to the scientific descriptive use.

The scientific criteria for an epoch is not represented in the text at the Anthropocene Slam webpage. As such, it states, “The Anthropocene is just one among many moments in time when new scientific objects have altered humanity’s relationship to the past, present, and future. The coming-into-being of scientific objects such as fossils, radioactivity, genetic mutations, toxic pesticides, and ice cores, to name a few, have precipitated different narratives and imaginings of the human past and the human future.” By which interpretation is The Anthropocene one of many “moments” while the scientific definition of an epoch is that of greater length. At the same time “fossils” would at least require some 10.000 years.



The adjective, Anthropogenic is being used to represent human irresponsible recent actions as well serving as a kind of “wake up call”. The naturalistic fallacy which places the Anthropocene in post modern age, while excluding other interpretations of the Anthropocene could better be represented by objects related to a natural progression of mass industrialization. The summary of negative effects caused by human activity are in this exhibition linked to bad behavior of sorts. The aspects of our impact which relates to the size of our population or our “natural” behaviors seem to be included in the course of nature itself. This is quite a free standing interpretation of the term and concept Anthropocene.



In essence, how do we best define the Anthropocene using our communicative methods in order to spread awareness and incite public discourse and proper debate?