A Cambridge academic has proposed a radical new way to solve climate change – letting humanity become extinct.
Patricia MacCormack, a professor of continental philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University, has just released her new book The Ahuman Manifesto, which will officially be launched in Cambridge today (Wednesday, February 5).
The book argues that due to the damage done to other living creatures on Earth, we should start gradually phasing out reproduction. But rather than offering a bleak look at the future of humanity, it has generated discussion due to its joyful and optimistic tone, as it sets out a positive view for the future of Earth – without mankind.
It also touches on several hot-button topics, from religion and veganism to the concept of identity politics, tying these into how the creation of a hierarchal world among humans has left us blind to the destruction we are causing to our habitat and other forms of life.
Speaking to CambridgeshireLive, Professor MacCormack outlined how she came to this point of view, and how these ideas are not as provocative as they may initially sound.
She said: “I arrived at this idea from a couple of directions. I was introduced to philosophy due to my interest in feminism and queer theory, so reproductive rights have long been an interest to me – this led me to learn more about animal rights, which is when I became vegan.
“The basic premise of the book is that we’re in the age of the Anthropocene, humanity has caused mass problems and one of them is creating this hierarchal world where white, male, heterosexual and able-bodied people are succeeding, and people of different races, genders, sexualities and those with disabilities are struggling to get that.
“This is where the idea of dismantling identity politics comes in – they deserve rights not because of what they are, but because they are.
“The book also argues that we need to dismantle religion, and other overriding powers like the church of capitalism or the cult of self, as it makes people act upon enforced rules rather than respond thoughtfully to the situations in front of them.”
The central argument in The Ahuman Manifesto can be boiled down to this: mankind is already enslaved to the point of “zombiedom” by capitalism, and because of the damage this has caused, phasing out reproduction is the only way to repair the damage done to the world.
Additionally, humanity has to see it isn’t the single living dominant force – but first, it needs to dismantle an established hierarchy amongst itself. This argument has not received as much disagreement as you might expect.
Professor MacCormack continued: “Everyone’s okay with the ideas in the book until they’re told they’d have to act on it. There is a lot of agreement that these changes might work for the world, but when it imposes on people, it becomes proactive.
About The Ahuman Manifesto
We are in the midst of a growing ecological crisis. Developing technologies and cultural interventions are throwing the status of “human” into question.
It is against this context that Patricia McCormack delivers her expert justification for the “ahuman”. An alternative to “posthuman” thought, the term paves the way for thinking that doesn’t dissolve into nihilism and despair, but actively embraces issues like human extinction, vegan abolition, atheist occultism, death studies, a refusal of identity politics, deep ecology, and the apocalypse as an optimistic beginning.
In order to suggest vitalistic, perhaps even optimistic, ways to negotiate some of the difficulties in thinking and acting in the world, this book explores five key contemporary themes:
- Identity
- Spirituality
- Art
- Death
- The apocalypse
Collapsing activism, artistic practice and affirmative ethics, while introducing some radical contemporary ideas and addressing specifically modern phenomena like death cults, intersectional identity politics and capitalist enslavement of human and nonhuman organisms to the point of ‘zombiedom’, The Ahuman Manifesto navigates the ways in which we must compose the human differently, specifically beyond nihilism and post- and trans-humanism and outside human privilege. This is so that we can actively think and live viscerally, with connectivity (actual not virtual), and with passion and grace, toward a new world.
Unbelievable…
What do we do to counter these misinformed agents of misfortune?
This is completely demonic. What do we do to counter these misinformed agents? #1) Believe there is a God who is higher than we are. #2) That we have completely ruined everything. #3) That we cannot go back to the perceived ‘good ole days’. As a baby of the 60’s I don’t remember the ‘good ole days’. #4) There is complete truth out there, but you have to be willing to seek it, and believe it. #5) Believe the gospel, because that is the only way to save your soul. “MOREOVER, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I… Read more »
Don’t mean to be disrespectful but religion and politics is what got us here in the first place. Here is a definition of insanity: Trying to solve a problem using the same system of control that created the problem is insane. Especially if the problem is a desired outcome of that control system. Exodus 15:3 “The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name.” In other words, your God is not only a man but a warmonger as well.
Interesting you would quote that verse. It’s in the Song of Moses. “The Lord is a man of War”. Yes, He Jesus is a man of War, and judgement is coming! This problem did not come by Biblical religion it came from sinful man. There is no such thing as climate change. Instead of fearing “man” and what is in the news, I suggest the fear of the Lord is in order, because it is the beginning of wisdom. My God Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and raised from the dead. To reject this LOVE is frightening… Read more »
It seems to me that this is a logical conclusion if one accepts that man-made CO2 is the most significant contributor to climate change. I don’t buy it, but so many people take it as a given that it is not surprising that people are voluntarily taking themselves out of the gene pool. But maybe this comes back to the hubris of some people to assume that we are somehow separate and elevated above nature and the environment. We are not. We are part of nature and we would do better in general if we accepted and appreciated that fact.
How funny, she is reflecting precisely Gods law. Without knowing it and probably she is an atheist and will deny any relationship with God…………..LOL. “We are all one in Christ Jesus” Colossians 3:11, “Christ is all, and is in all”, Ephesians 6.9. “We are now “heirs together”. “All men are created equal”, The American revolution. By the way, there is no clima change, CO2 problem, scarce resources or other green bs, any goat with a simple calculator, simple math, simple physics and simple knowledge of the universe can figure that out. All hot air from International money lenders. But the… Read more »
More like these ideas are taught to our children everywhere! They push their craziness on all. My niece told me she was going to reduce her footprint by cutting out meat. She did not know any better. I told her they are lying to you! I made her think about it, and she later, after we talked about what was in the Bible she ate the meat that was prepared. People Eating Tasty Animals! I was raised Seventh Day Adventist by no choice of my own and when I was 16 I completely abandoned the cult. Religion is on the… Read more »
Another alien among us?
The bride of Frankenstein dictating global policy for anti-human population control? Is this what a fem-trans-humanoid is supposed to look like? I find it all very confusing, hilarious, but confusing…
I’m not clear if this idea means wiping out humans deliberately or just to allow humans to make themselves extinct. If the former, what means would be employed? Would it be pandemics, like Coronavirus or depopulation by toxins, such as in vaccines and other products. In this case, the likes of Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum are already doing it. If we are just going to allow humans to wipe themselves out, the danger is that all life would be wiped out as well as humans. The book seems to have a mixture of information and ideas, some… Read more »
Isn’t it ironic that the lefty-liberals who take this claptrap on board are the ones whose population will decline?! The conservative population on the other hand, will flourish! Sounds good to me.
Isn’t it also ironic that she appears to be a Satanist?!
This is laughable though I am not surprised as I used to be part of the formal education system.
Well, it is already happening. We knew it long ago especially when the first study on the effect of cell phone radiation on the fertility of both men and women came out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro7SZ1uEBTs&feature=em-uploademail
Patricia MacCormack should show the way, how about suicide?
Ironically, I hope she doesn’t breed.
I find her thought process rather lacking, considering it isn’t actually our fault greedy, power-hungry arseholes ravaged this world.
who was so selfish as to socially engineer us like this? Put them down like the dogs they are and move on.
Such a short-sighted psycho.