Sign in with Facebook
Kevin's Reviews > The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
by
by
Fiction vs. Systemic Crises:
Preamble:
--How can I not love the premise of this short book?
i) It feels like in most reviews, I fret about how fiction seems biased towards the individual’s perspective in settings that are often escapist, whereas in the real world we are hurtling towards systemic crises (Thinking in Systems: A Primer). Meanwhile, nonfiction often uses an academic writing style, so there needs to be better nonfiction communicators.
ii) Now, I’m always concerned of my personal biases (I’ve read much more nonfiction than fiction). But here we have a renowned novelist sharing the same concern!
iii) Even better, I enjoy the author’s fiction (Sea of Poppies trilogy), and he uses his story-telling craft here as well.
Highlights:
1) Popularizing Literary Criticism:
--If there’s one genre I have less patience for than escapist fiction, it’s academic analysis of escapist fiction (i.e. literary criticism). By the standards of critical nonfiction (ex. Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks; ex. materialism), literary criticism seems like ivory tower creative writing, minus the joy of creative writing given the academic style.
--Ghosh, on the other hand, communicates useful structures:
i) How the rise of “modernity� (more later) is reflected in story-telling. Prior to the modern novel, story-telling communicated the improbable, linking together exceptional events in epic narratives, where characters are often in the aggregate.
ii) The modern novel normalizes the probable through individual characters (think Weber’s rationalization of modern life). A self-contained micro-system is manufactured, externalizing the rest: space is specific; time is specific (now, not the long durée) and irreversible (linear progress).
iii) The exceptions prove the rule, where hybrids are categorized in sub-genres which are not considered “serious fiction�, from “the Gothic�/“the romance�/“the melodrama� to today’s “fantasy�/“horror�/“science fiction�.
…Ghosh weaves in story-telling here of how the 1816 “Year Without a Summer� (from volcanic eruption) influenced Lord Byron’s contest which produced Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818), The Vampyre (1819), the poem “Darkness� (1815) as a precursor to climate despair, etc.
…These were considered “mainstream� fiction at the time, but eventually become compartmentalized as “science fiction�. Similarly, “literature� and “science� had many shared practitioners/enthusiasts but became compartmentalized (culture vs. nature).
iv) Of course, what top-down culture views as “serious� may not be reflected by bottom-up culture (ex. popular culture of “science fiction�: Arthur C. Clarke/Bradbury/Dick). However, “science fiction� (and today’s “climate fiction�) still struggle with popularizing today’s systemic crises. For more, see Ghosh’s contributions in:
-The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions (foundational)
-Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change
-discussion and implementation of Ghosh’s challenge: Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures
v) The above changes in story-telling can also be seen in the sciences (ex. geology). Referencing Gould’s Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time, theories of “catastrophismâ€� (Burnet) were pushed aside by “g°ù²¹»å³Ü²¹±ô¾±²õ³¾â€� (Hutton/Lyell) as part of “modernityâ€� rendering other forms of knowledge as “obsoleteâ€�/“primitiveâ€�. It’s only been quite recently where the “agnosticâ€� position has reached prominence.
…See comments below for rest of the review�
Preamble:
--How can I not love the premise of this short book?
i) It feels like in most reviews, I fret about how fiction seems biased towards the individual’s perspective in settings that are often escapist, whereas in the real world we are hurtling towards systemic crises (Thinking in Systems: A Primer). Meanwhile, nonfiction often uses an academic writing style, so there needs to be better nonfiction communicators.
ii) Now, I’m always concerned of my personal biases (I’ve read much more nonfiction than fiction). But here we have a renowned novelist sharing the same concern!
iii) Even better, I enjoy the author’s fiction (Sea of Poppies trilogy), and he uses his story-telling craft here as well.
Highlights:
1) Popularizing Literary Criticism:
--If there’s one genre I have less patience for than escapist fiction, it’s academic analysis of escapist fiction (i.e. literary criticism). By the standards of critical nonfiction (ex. Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks; ex. materialism), literary criticism seems like ivory tower creative writing, minus the joy of creative writing given the academic style.
--Ghosh, on the other hand, communicates useful structures:
i) How the rise of “modernity� (more later) is reflected in story-telling. Prior to the modern novel, story-telling communicated the improbable, linking together exceptional events in epic narratives, where characters are often in the aggregate.
ii) The modern novel normalizes the probable through individual characters (think Weber’s rationalization of modern life). A self-contained micro-system is manufactured, externalizing the rest: space is specific; time is specific (now, not the long durée) and irreversible (linear progress).
iii) The exceptions prove the rule, where hybrids are categorized in sub-genres which are not considered “serious fiction�, from “the Gothic�/“the romance�/“the melodrama� to today’s “fantasy�/“horror�/“science fiction�.
…Ghosh weaves in story-telling here of how the 1816 “Year Without a Summer� (from volcanic eruption) influenced Lord Byron’s contest which produced Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818), The Vampyre (1819), the poem “Darkness� (1815) as a precursor to climate despair, etc.
…These were considered “mainstream� fiction at the time, but eventually become compartmentalized as “science fiction�. Similarly, “literature� and “science� had many shared practitioners/enthusiasts but became compartmentalized (culture vs. nature).
iv) Of course, what top-down culture views as “serious� may not be reflected by bottom-up culture (ex. popular culture of “science fiction�: Arthur C. Clarke/Bradbury/Dick). However, “science fiction� (and today’s “climate fiction�) still struggle with popularizing today’s systemic crises. For more, see Ghosh’s contributions in:
-The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions (foundational)
-Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change
-discussion and implementation of Ghosh’s challenge: Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures
v) The above changes in story-telling can also be seen in the sciences (ex. geology). Referencing Gould’s Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time, theories of “catastrophismâ€� (Burnet) were pushed aside by “g°ù²¹»å³Ü²¹±ô¾±²õ³¾â€� (Hutton/Lyell) as part of “modernityâ€� rendering other forms of knowledge as “obsoleteâ€�/“primitiveâ€�. It’s only been quite recently where the “agnosticâ€� position has reached prominence.
…See comments below for rest of the review�
Sign into Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to see if any of your friends have read
The Great Derangement.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
November 16, 2017
– Shelved
June 8, 2024
–
Started Reading
July 12, 2024
–
Finished Reading
--Even though Ghosh is a story-teller, he appreciates story-telling is not the structural driver of systemic crisis. While it’s essential for Ghosh to synthesize history and politics, this short book is mostly taken up by the above literary criticism, so these final 2 sections seem scattered.
--Ghosh agrees “capitalism� (referencing Klein: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate) is the root driver, but focuses here on the contradictions between capitalism and “empire�/“imperialism�.
--The clearest part in this section is reviewing how Western imperialism relied on sea-power, so major cities in colonizer/colonized are port cities vulnerable to rising sea levels etc. Ghosh also relies on Mitchell's Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil to review the class struggle of energy.
--Next, Ghosh centers Asia given population size; Indian shipping industry and Burmese oil industry were both derailed by British imperialism, which relied on competitive advantages in violence more than mere commerce. The contradiction here is an Asia free from Western imperialism to industrialize might have brought on the “Great Acceleration� of ecological overshoots sooner (Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System).
…Ghosh then briefly considers forces in Asia which may have delayed modernity’s capitalist industrialization. Overall, the big-picture musings in this section are too cursory.
3) Political action:
--Ghosh’s literary criticism reveals the historical context where structural forces are at play, rather than the current situation being “i²Ô²Ô²¹³Ù±ðâ€� in us as individuals. Ghosh considers our rediscovery that we are part of the whole, how “recognitionâ€� involves prior awareness, with the moment of realization being “uncannyâ€�. After all, systems-thinking is spreading in the sciences and social sciences, but can it be revived in culture in timeâ€�
--This final part on political action is also cursory; Ghosh contrasts:
a) Pope Francis� Laudato Si': On the Care of Our Common Home (2015):
--The messaging here is direct/open, critiquing the paradigm of infinite growth and the need for global justice (thus, ecological debt).
--Curiously, Ghosh finds hope in the involvement of religious groups in climate activism, given their social mobilization capacity to transcend nation states, long-term intergenerational values/responsibilities rather than strictly economic, and limits rather than modernity’s endless growth.
b) Paris Agreement (2015):
--The messaging here is meandering/tepid/illusory (assumes growth), with a business technocracy that omits calls for justice and relies on charity.
--Ghosh views the “nation state� as too captured by capitalism and imperialism, where the actions needed to address the climate crisis are too threatening (require redistribution of global/class power).