In the last decades, conceptions of the future have gradually moved from visions of societal betterment toward prospects of societal collapse and human extinction. What happens to utopian thought under such conditions? What happens to utopia when the future transforms into a wasteland of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic imaginaries? Contrary to expectations, utopian thinking does not vanish. Based on the contention that if humans are the malaise of the world then human non-existence is what comes out as “betterment,” contemporary utopian thought has begun to appropriate dystopian imaginaries and contemplate even the prospect of human extinction in utopian terms. Imaginaries of utopian futures without humans are truly challenging, oddly self-contradictory, and, in many respects, deeply perplexing. This chapter zooms in on the most prominent utopian imaginaries of endtimes—collapsology, ahumanism, and the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement—and offers a profound analysis of the politics of extinction utopianism.

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Utopias of Extinction

  • Zoltán Boldizsár Simon

摘要

In the last decades, conceptions of the future have gradually moved from visions of societal betterment toward prospects of societal collapse and human extinction. What happens to utopian thought under such conditions? What happens to utopia when the future transforms into a wasteland of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic imaginaries? Contrary to expectations, utopian thinking does not vanish. Based on the contention that if humans are the malaise of the world then human non-existence is what comes out as “betterment,” contemporary utopian thought has begun to appropriate dystopian imaginaries and contemplate even the prospect of human extinction in utopian terms. Imaginaries of utopian futures without humans are truly challenging, oddly self-contradictory, and, in many respects, deeply perplexing. This chapter zooms in on the most prominent utopian imaginaries of endtimes—collapsology, ahumanism, and the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement—and offers a profound analysis of the politics of extinction utopianism.