Death has long been the focus and scope we as a species have used to frame how we live. Most humans understand death as something inevitable, ultimately no matter what action we take we will all be faced with the same fate. I have always wondered what the true impact of that understanding means. How has the very understanding that we will one day cease to exist shaped our species and why has it led us to this point?
It’s hard to understand how we as humans following our innate desire and instinct to survive created some of the most complex and interwoven systems and societies that this planet has ever known and even harder to understand how our relationship to death impacted our path as a species. Yet, it’s intriguing to think that the very drive to survive that once allowed us to embark on the path of creating these complex civilizations has resulted in us creating civilizations that are ultimately risking the future of our survival as a species. If civilization was our response to death then why is it that we have allowed our civilizations to become so dangerous to our own survival?
Geologists and social scientists have dubbed this era of civilization in which humans have the ability to threaten their own existence as the Anthropocene. The term attempts to express that the earth itself has entered a new geological era under the influence of humans with humans being the driving force of change in the environment. With the introduction of this term has come a new way of studying human society, Systems Thinking. Systems thinking seeks to understand the impact of humans on the earth and how this has ultimately impacted humans and how that has shifted the way naturally occurring phenomena have changed, including death.
Perhaps the most profound statement I came across while trying to grasp how Anthropocene relates to death comes from author Roy Scranton who writes on learning to die in the Anthropocene. He claims that perhaps our civilization is already dead. This is an interesting concept perhaps we as a society has begun to understand our systems and civilizations as an intrinsic part of our existence and as such we insist that they must continue to exist so long as we as do and maybe that is where we as a species went wrong. Perhaps moving forward our species may learn to live with death rather than in opposition to it.
Despite the tree’s the pillars of a forest dying within the forest, the new regrowth is healthy and able to use the nutrients to grow a new forest
(https://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/smithsonian-scientists-examine-impact-high-severity-fires-conifer-forests)