This Life (2019)
Martin Hägglund (1976)
450 pages
Religious belief and capitalist economics constitute perhaps two of the most engrained systems of our present day world. One need look no farther than the ‘end of history’ discussions that arose after the fall of the Soviet Union to recognize the profound belief in capitalism as representing the pinnacle of human economic development – incremental modifications and improvements to it can be considered, but discussing fundamental transformation away from it seems beyond the pale. Similarly, although conflicts between religious ideologies can be bitter and violent, arguing for a secular rationalist view of life still fails to gain much support. Though manifested in a wide variety of guises and forms, religion and capitalism have together implicated themselves deeply into our economic, social and cultural structures, and so into how we live our lives.
Given that reality, philosopher Martin Hägglund asks much of readers with his book This Life, in which he claims that the fundamental goals of both religious beliefs and capitalist economics have made them damaging ideologies around which to define and organize our lives. Because of what he identifies as their crippling internal inconsistencies, he argues that religion and capitalism result in pernicious constraints on our ability to develop our lives as fully and freely as we should expect to be able to.
To profit from his book, we readers must be receptive to considering alternatives to what we have been culturally conditioned to believe are the best (or, as sometimes characterized with a perhaps disingenuous humility, least bad) ways to organize society. Without such willingness to engage with the ideas Hägglund’s presents, and the supporting evidence and arguments he lays out, it becomes too easy to jump to simplistic misinterpretations of his arguments, and dismiss his conclusions out of hand.
Hägglund builds his arguments around the two terms of the book’s subtitle, Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom. Briefly defining these concepts in the Introduction, he then spends much of the text exploring their meaning and implications, as well as how we fail to realize their benefits due to the strict demands of religious belief and capitalist expectations. He concludes the book by outlining the alternative system he proposes, what he refers to as Democratic Socialism, and demonstrating how, if it could be achieved, we could more fully profit from this life we have.
At the heart of Hägglund’s philosophical outlook lies a very specific insistence: that we each embrace the finite extent of our life. Simple to state, but monumental in its implications, this belief motivates his concerns about religion and ultimately capitalism, and the importance he places on the need to transition to more beneficial social and economic structures. Early in the text he elaborates:
The sense of finitude --- the sense of the ultimate fragility of everything we care about --- is at the heart of what I call secular faith. To have secular faith is to be devoted to a life that will end, to be dedicated to projects that can fail or breakdown. … Secular faith is the form of faith that we all sustain in caring for someone or something that is vulnerable to loss. (5-6)
The significance he places on the concept of secular faith leads directly to his central quarrel with religious forms of faith: that they “hold that the highest form of existence or the most desirable form of life is eternal rather than finite.” (6) Defining religious faith broadly, he includes not only theistic traditions such as Christianity, which focus on an eternal afterlife, and non-theistic traditions such as Buddhism, which focus on reaching a liberated state of being, but also “people who do not have [institutional] religious faith [and yet] still subscribe to the idea that our finitude is a restriction and that we suffer from a lack of eternal life.” (6) He argues that having one’s focus on what comes after our life on Earth represents a pernicious distraction, pulling our attention away from the only thing that truly matters: the relationships and projects that one commits to and pursues while alive.
Nearly the entire first half of the book is dedicated to expanding on the idea of secular faith. For readers who come to the book already convinced that this life is all there is, Hägglund’s arguments can admittedly become a bit repetitive, as he’s basically preaching to the choir. But such readers will nonetheless benefit from engaging in the details of his reasoning, and so developing a fundamental understanding of their implications.
Most trenchant among his criticisms of religious belief in eternity are his analyses of the lives and treatises of deeply religious figures of the past, in particular their theological struggles.
In that vein, Hägglund references the works of St. Augustine, recalling that Christian doctrine commands one to “use … what you love as a means for devotion to the eternity of God.” (79) He notes that such spiritual faith – focused away from this life and toward God and eternal life – also offers up a tempting path for being spared the impact of the suffering inevitably associated with Earthly cares. Thus is a believer encouraged to use their faith to assuage the pain of losing a loved one or watching a cherish project fail – the inevitable suffering that poet David Whyte, for example, refers to in his poem Santiago, writing that one has followed one’s path in life,
no matter that it sometimes took your promise from youIn the religious context, such losses are expected to be borne with equanimity, the suffering ameliorated by a promised eventual eternal life with God, or achieving Nirvana.
no matter that it had to break your heart along the way.
Hägglund points out, however, that even devoted religious followers struggle in actual practice with this fundamental tenet of their faith. He recalls, for example, the words of C.S. Lewis after the death of his wife, noting that although “Lewis was one of the most influential Christian writers of his time, [his book] A Grief Observed strikes a different tone.” (40) In that text, Lewis reveals his struggles to rationalize the intensity of his feelings of love and loss for his beloved wife with his commitment to his religion and its teachings that would have him focus instead on God’s eternal love. Hägglund writes that, “as Lewis makes clear, the hope for eternity is not a consolation,” (40) for suffering in this life.
Thus it is the focus on eternity – on a desire for a timeless or endless life – more than the particular details of religious faiths, that Hägglund finds so destructive. His arguments against a focus on eternity can at first be a bit of a struggle to fully embrace, given most all of us often feel desperately short of time, and so not immune to the allure of having more. But, as writer Javier Marías wrote in his novel The Infatuations:... we always think that whatever pleases or bring us joy, whatever solaces or succours us, whatever drives us through the days, could have lasted a little longer, a year, a few months, a few weeks, a few hours, we always feel it is too soon for things or people to end ... which is why the ending of things does not lie in our hands, because if it did, everything would continue indefinitely, becoming grubby and contaminated, and no living creature would ever die. (110)
In a similar sense, Hägglund argues that aside from the wishing for it distracting us from this life, an eternal life would actually be uninspiring – effectively, boring. If we truly lived forever, with no concerns about needing to sustain ourselves, no concerns about death, or about having sufficient time to accomplish something, we would then, he argues, not be motivated to care deeply about anything: “if you and your beloved did not believe that your lives were finite, … the moments of profound intimacy would not be experienced as precious, but as the given state of things.” (43)
And in fact, we perhaps get a glimpse of this in the young – young lovers or young parents – who, still awash in the youthful illusion that they will never die, often fail to comprehend the transient nature and profound preciousness of what they have – a beloved or a child – until later, when it is too late, when they suddenly realize that time is irretrievably lost. In fact, Hägglund writes:
happiness consists in having and holding … what you love. But since both you and the beloved [lover or child] are temporal, your having and holding will always tremble with the anticipation of mourning. (71)
This idea recalls a penetrating comment from Jennifer Senior, author of the book on parenting All Joy and No Fun, who in an interview on the program Fresh Air described having a child as a feeling:
so powerful it's almost scary, because there's almost like an implied sense of loss about it, it's like you love somebody so much that you are almost automatically afraid of losing them, that this connection is so deep that you can't think of that connection without thinking of that connection being broken.
(A more complete version of her comments, and a link to their source, here.)
Senior’s “[fear] of that connection being broken” expresses what is for Hägglund a core concept, what he refers to as vulnerability. He argues that we must reject the solace of eternal peace offered at the center of religious faiths, and accept the vulnerability inherent in living this life in a meaningful way. Thus, Hägglund writes, “only by acknowledging the importance of something beyond your control – that is: only through vulnerability – can you be moved by what happens.” (82) We can only truly, deeply achieve these feelings for a person or project if we accept the risk of loss and failure that must needs accompany them. In fact,
the finitude of our lives should not be regarded as a lack, a restriction, or a fallen condition. Instead of lamenting the absence of eternity, we should acknowledge the commitment to finite life as the condition for anything to be at stake and for anyone to lead a free life.” (13)
Having spent nearly half the book examining and arguing for the concept of secular faith, Hägglund turns, in the book’s second half, to the idea that such a commitment to this life represents a necessary pre-condition for his second critical concept of the book. For, once we accept the commitment inherent in the idea of secular faith, we can become motivated “to ask ourselves what we ought to do with our time … [and] the ability to ask this question … is the basic condition for what I call spiritual freedom.” (12)
As an introduction to his description of spiritual freedom, he begins by defining the idea of natural freedom, which he associates with animals. He identifies three traits that characterize having natural freedom: 1) capable of self-reproduction, but without the ability to “call into question the purpose of procreation” (185); 2) capable of bearing a negative self-relation, that is, being able to live with suffering, and to strive to overcome it; and 3) having a surplus of time, meaning that “the striving self-maintenance of living being necessarily generates more lifetime then is required to secure the means of survival, so there is at least a minimal amount of ‘free time’” (186).
Species that exhibit natural freedom have free time, but, critically, “they cannot ask themselves how they should spend their time and thereby cannot relate to their time as free. In contrast, Hägglund defines spiritual freedom as having just that additional ability, to be able to ask oneself how to spend ones’ time, in the sense of what projects or people to commit one’s life to.
He goes on to identify two other traits of spiritual freedom. One is “that the purposes of life are treated as normative rather than as natural …. As a spiritual being, I am acting not simply for the sake of preserving my life or the life of my species but for the sake of who I take myself to be.” (187) Thus, to have spiritual freedom is to actively engage in creating an identity for oneself.
Another is the ability to bear a negative self-relation, as he stated for natural freedom, but now in the sense of being able “to strive to live up to the demands of a practical and existential identify, even at the expense of great personal suffering.” (191) Thus, humans can actively consider and pursue an option that causes suffering, in order to manifest a commitment to a person or a goal.
With the definition of spiritual freedom in place, Hägglund explores its secular and religious implications. He notes, for example, that religious morality --- whatever the specific dogma --- relies on some form of overseer, some threat of punishment to enforce it. This approach to moral constraint, as with the religious focus on eternity, takes the agency out of a person’s life. By contrast, the spiritual freedom made available by a commitment to secular faith allows us to take responsibility for our moral positions, by making it a part of how we choose to live our lives. An example of particular relevance to this personal embracing of moral standards is the idea that ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.’
Having described secular faith as a commitment to the finitude of life and so to the fundamental importance of this life we’re living in place of religious promises of eternal life, and spiritual freedom as our ability to choose what we ought do with our finite lives, Hägglund then turns to questions of how we value our time --- this finite time that we have with which to exercise our ability to commit ourselves to our chosen projects and people. And here he shifts his spotlight from religion, to set his sights directly on capitalism, and what he refers to as the internal inconsistencies of its core principles – inconsistencies that rob us, he claims, of the precious and finite time available to us to pursue our lives as we would choose to.
He begins by distinguishing between two types of activities for living beings, the first being those in what he calls the “realm of necessity,” such as what is done to say alive, that is, to produce the means of subsistence. Critically, the activities in the realm of necessity do not take up all available time, and so leave a “surplus of time … [w]hat Marx calls the realm of freedom.” (213, italics mine)
Hägglund points out that the same activity can potentially belong to either category, using the example of a person walking to a well to get the water needed to drink (realm of necessity) or walking for the same length of time, in the direction of the same well, because it’s a pleasurable path (realm of freedom). Critically, for the former one would be happy to have a more efficient solution for (e.g., running water in my house), while for the latter one would not.
With these definitions in place, he explores the concept of freedom, of being free to make one’s life, which leads then to the heart of his thesis in This Life, that capitalism is incompatible with people achieving the freedom to pursue their chosen commitments. Hägglund builds on Karl Marx’s analysis of liberalism, as well as the works of philosophers John Stuart Mill and GWF Hegel, to demonstrate the incompatibility of the liberal ideas of freedom with economic structures of capitalism. In fact, much of his analysis in the second half of the book builds off the writings of Marx, extending Marx’s conclusions in directions he feels Marx himself failed to recognize.
Clearly a reader convinced that Marx’s ideas are synonymous with the brutally destructive and failed communist dictatorships of the past century will be predisposed to lose the plot at this point, and reject the rest of Hägglund’s thesis and conclusions, to their own loss. Though, as commented on further below, his prescriptions will for most of us challenge our most basic assumptions about human behavior and the range of the possible in cultural transformation, his critiques of religion and capitalism seem inescapable. They should be given serious reading, and, if accepted as valid, support at least a willingness to consider his proposed solution.
Key to any analysis of capitalism, writes Hägglund, is Marx’s definition of labor time as the fundamental quantity around which value is assigned in human societies. Given this understanding of value, even if we conventionally consider some product to be more costly than another because, for example, its materials cost more, that cost arises out of the required labor time to produce (e.g., mine, process and deliver) the materials, and so comes back again to labor time. He notes that this concept of value has been true for any economic system in human history “but only with the advent of capitalism is labor time explicitly the measure of value in exchange.” (241) In capitalism, the value of our time when we preform labor is considered to represent the fact that it reduces our free time. And so when we work, we are compensated by a wage in part because “when I work for my subsistence I am operating in a realm of necessity,” with the implicit understanding that I do this wage labor in order to be able to lead “my life in a realm of freedom that opens up beyond my working hours.” (242)
Building upon Marx’s ideas, however, Hägglund argues that the increase in value in a capitalist economy comes from the surplus value made available by the fundamental dynamic that “living beings generate … more labor-power … than it costs to maintain them.” (244) We do not need to use all our time to survive at a subsistence level, and what remains once we have achieved our subsistence needs is free time. This free time – the realm of freedom – is not free time in the common vernacular sense of leisure time, such as to go to the movies or watch TV. Rather, it is the time during which a person can pursue what is important to them in their lives, the meaningful relationships and projects to which they wish to commit themselves.
But for capitalism, in its inherent and relentless drive for profit and growth, the free time people have is a quantity to be exploited. Hägglund gives an extended example of how this occurs, but at a basic level the idea can be understood through the example of a new technology that allows workers to produce the same within less time. The result is that the value of the product tends to go down, because less labor time is required to produce it. To make up for this loss in value, a capitalist, instead of leaving the additional free time to the workers to pursue their interests, is driven to exploit it, by reinvesting it to achieve growth, for example through the mechanism of using the surplus labor time to drive down wages.Thus, Hägglund argues,
the deepest contradiction of capitalism resides in its own measure of value. Capitalism employs the measure of value that is operative in the realm of necessity, and treats it as though it were a measure of freedom [i.e., it makes the value of what workers produces for the purpose of their own subsistence – in the realm of necessity – as the principal value of living beings, as opposed to the true principle value of being free to pursue one’s wished for goals in life.] Capitalism is, therefore bound to increase the realm of necessity and decrease the realm of freedom. Even when capitalism potentially expands the realm of freedom by reducing the socially necessary labor time, we do not actually realize the expansion of the realm of freedom under capitalism, since disposable time is not allowed to serve as the measure of social wealth. The form of activity that is only intelligible as a means (necessary labor time) is treated as though it were an end in itself, and the actual end we desire (free time) is not recognized as having any value at all. (258)As he discusses elsewhere in the book, under capitalism free time becomes, in fact, filled with generally mindless leisure activities that will ensure that workers are sufficiently rejuvenated to be able to return to work to produce value through their labor time. Thus, even the free time we do have tends to be exploited by capitalism as a way to increase our productivity.
Hägglund points out several rather perverse consequences of this measure of value used by capitalism. For one, he notes that unemployment – the existence of people not needed to perform wage labor – is seen as a problem, instead of an opportunity; such unemployment could arise, as described earlier, from the implementation of new technologies. If what is valued were to lie in the realm of freedom, instead of the realm of necessity, then if we are not needed to perform work, we would be free
to educate ourselves and to deliberate on what should count as meaningful activities for us … rather than being prescribed what should count as meaningful activity by what happens to be profitable for a capitalist at the moment. (259)Instead unemployment is a problem that must be solved, in order for the unemployed to have the means to survive.
As another example, Hägglund notes that “as a capitalist society, we are not collectively committed to producing for the sake of consumption. Rather, we are committed to providing for the sake of extracting surplus value [profit] that can be converted into the growth of capital.” (297) Thus, the point of the capitalist system is its own furtherance, not the general well-being.
Writer Colin Tudge captured this same concept concisely, through a specific, and rather dark, example in his fascinating book The Time Before History: 5 Million Years of Human Impact, in which he points out that “the agricultural systems of the [modern] world are not actually designed to feed people.” They have instead become enterprises focused on profit. Note that this does not mean to say that there are not farmers who farm out of the joy it brings them, or for the satisfaction of providing food for people to eat – the existence of such farmers in fact supports Hägglund’s larger argument, that there can be overlap between the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom. The point is that the overall system is built around a focus on profit.
Hägglund demonstrates convincingly that these (and other) disturbing consequences are not correctable through modifications to capitalism, since they are inherent in its fundamental structure and premises, its definition of value. He argues, for example, that redistribution as a means of addressing inequality, while absolutely appropriate as long as capitalism remains in place, cannot fully address the inequality that must necessarily occur in a capitalist system, because the very funds used for redistribution require the inequality – the capitalist growth – that must needs be corrected. Thus, the problem with capitalism is immanent to the system: “wage labor for the sake of profit, which entails that socially necessary labor time becomes the essential measure of value.” (251)
The solution for this, according to Hägglund, is the jettisoning of socially necessary labor time as a measure of value, and having a revaluation of value that defines it based on the realm of freedom, enabling us to take on the “challenging responsibility of being spiritually free, rather than subordinated to capitalism or religion.” (260) Through such a revaluation, the focus shifts from valuing the time of this one life we have based on how it can produce profit, to a new goal of valuing it in terms of how we can commit ourselves to the projects we wish to pursue.
Such a revaluation would resolve the issues caused by the inherent contradictions in capitalism. By way of example, under such a valuation the development of a more advanced technology, one that enables producing something with less living labor, would lead to an increase in what we value – more free time to realize our lives – rather than to more profits through the ability to exploit underemployed workers. Unemployment in general would become something that increases the value we care about --- free time --- as opposed to a problem needed to be overcome. (Again, free time in the sense of being able to pursue the commitments we choose.) And, most importantly, production would become about supporting the values we care about, as opposed to existing principally to return profits through exploitation of living labor.
Having made the case for people embracing this life as the focus of their concern – secular faith – and considering and engaging in projects and relationships to commit their lives to – spiritual freedom, and having demonstrated through detailed critique how the realization of both of these goals is thwarted by religious faith and the principles of capitalism, Hägglund turns in the final portion of the book to his proposed solution. And it is here that the plots truly thickens, as the solution he offers will, for most of us, challenge our most fundamental beliefs about human nature and in particular our interpretation of the cultural and economic history of the last century and a half. For most readers, it will likely require a monumental effort to find the willingness to give his ideas a fair hearing before judging them.
Hägglund refers to the post-capitalist state that he envisions as democratic socialism. He describes his intent with the name as wanting to emphasize that democracy and democratic processes must be at the heart of the new system.
To subordinate the state to society is to transform the state into an actual democracy. … While the commitment to serve the interests of society as a whole will always be challenging and contestable, it is in principle impossible to sustain such a commitment under capitalism. Because of the social form of wage labor, democratic politics and democratic states necessarily serve as organs for representing class interests that are competing for control. We cannot actually deliberate on how best to serve the interests of society as a whole, since we must prioritize the private interests of capitalists. This prioritization is not optional, since under capitalism there can be no production of social wealth without the profits of privately owned enterprises. (268)In the final section of the book, Hägglund details what democratic socialism would look like, describing its key features, as well as its challenges.
He sets out three principles that constitute its foundations. The first, not surprisingly, is “that we measure our wealth – both individual and collective – in terms of socially available free time.” (301) This constitutes the revaluation of the measure of value at the heart of his thesis in the second half of the book. This revaluation would eliminate capitalism’s valuing of living labor over free time, which he again clarifies “is not necessarily leisure time but any time we devote to activities that for us count as ends in themselves,” (302) that is, that are not required for our survival.
The second principle of democratic socialism he defines as “that the means of production are collectively owned and cannot be used for the sake of profit.” (304) This principle effectively grows out of the first, since removing the capitalist focus on profit as the intent, or goal, of production will require a new basis on which to define and develop production.
Finally, his third principle of democratic socialism comes directly from Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” (307) Clearly, for many in the West steeped in the cold war polemics of the last century that even today have maintained their iron grip on what constitutes acceptable topics for discussion and ideas to consider, this famous, if not infamous, statement from Marx will at least raise hackles, and one could imagine it causing many to simply dismiss Hägglund’s thesis outright.
A key concern that can be raised with Hägglund’s proposed revaluation of the measure of value to one based on the realm of freedom for individuals to pursue what they wish to commit their lives to is, ‘who will do the required work of survival’ – what Hägglund calls the socially necessary labor time – if such work is not done as wage labor. His arguments for successfully accomplishing the transformation to increased free time while still ‘getting the necessary work done’ hinge broadly on the expectation that such necessary work will come to be viewed differently, more expansively, as opposed to as the drudgery often associated with it today.
First, he argues that some amount of socially necessary labor will be covered by those who have a personal commitment to that work, that is, who choose to do the work as part of how they wish to pursue their lives. Next, he expects that work that no one particularly wants to do will be shared among individuals in society, as necessary for the common good, with people more willing to step up to such an arrangement if the rest of their time is available for them to purse their chosen commitments. Finally, technological development will make available more free time, as opposed to being a source of further exploitation as it is under capitalism, as socially necessary work would be reduced. (310-311)
In the concluding sections of the book Hägglund provides detailed arguments in support of these proposals, but one can readily imagine skepticism from many readers about whether the transformations he calls for can reasonably be expected to be possible.Hägglund acknowledges such reservations, and makes clear toward the end of his book that he does not have a path, or even a rough procedure for how to carry out the transformation of our current global society from capitalism to the more humane, and sustainable economic and social structure he envisions.
And readers unwilling to at least give Hägglund’s ideas a hearing and to engage with his arguments, and instead blindly write them off as unworkable, will miss out on an opportunity to explore a thoughtful critique of a capitalist system currently facing a destructive and potentially catastrophic rise in inequality globally. Such a reaction could also bode poorly for our possibility as a society to have the space to consider the range of options necessary to move beyond the challenges of the current moment; it seems unlikely that incremental solutions can be sufficient in the long run – certainly not if one accepts the fundamental problems with capitalism that Hägglund persuasively presents.
Certainly, rising levels of inequality, both within countries and world-wide, support his broad indictment of capitalism, and particularly it’s exploitation of workers. One could, in fact, plausibly argue that he underestimates the coming challenges: in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, for example, historian Yuval Noah Harari foresees an even darker future, expecting the coming “biotech” and “infotech” revolutions to lead an ever larger part of humanity becoming not needed to perform work, and so who will discover themselves to have become “irrelevant” and, essentially, expendable. (At right is a link to my review of Harari’s book.)
And yet, even just given the current level of socio-economic disruption and dislocation, the populist reaction has been a rise in nationalism and a retrenchment. Particularly in the United States, those benefiting most from the capitalist system as it exists today seem to have so far won the battle for the hearts and minds of the broad working class, successfully denigrating even bandaid solutions to inequality such as redistribution as un-American, and so making consideration of broader economic transformations beyond the pale. In an attempt to distract from the economic challenges so many face, and so avoid a nuanced discussion about our economic future, the focus has been on encouraging tribalism and social conflict.
In such an environment, with much of the elite class comfortable in the benefits of the current systems, and much of the rest of the populations of particularly the West apparently convinced that they shouldn’t agitate for economic change because they have been disingenuously convinced that ‘they too may one day benefit from it’, the kind of expansive, fundamental economic and cultural restructuring Hägglund calls for does indeed seem far-fetched. Certainly, one can reasonably ask: would people willingly do work for the common good, and could there be sufficient overlap of work people choose freely to pursue and what is socially required? And how, precisely, would a democratically elected set of representatives reasonably direct the means of production? And further, how would such a transformation be implemented globally, concurrently, given the wide variation in the education, wealth and cultural outlook?
All questions without simply answers, Hägglund himself concedes. As he makes clear, however, his goal with the book is to identify, explore and make evident the ways in which religious belief (in the broad sense he defines it), and capitalism together corrosively limit our most valuable possession – the time we have in this life to identify and pursue freely the activities we wish to do, the commitments we wish to make. His thoughtful and well-laid out arguments justify a careful and considered examination.
Other reviews / information:
Aaron Bastnai, in a recent New York Times editorial, The World is a Mess. We Need Fully Automated Luxury Communism, identifies the same social issues Hägglund mentions, though focused more on the sustainability of our current economic system, and also identifies Capitalism as the culprit, suggesting a broadly similar, if less detailed solution to Hägglund. (The editorial is adapted from a book he will soon be publishing, which will presumably have more specifics.) Interestingly, he notes that "the most pressing crisis of all, arguably, is an absence of collective imagination." This arises from the need to "go beyond capitalism," about which he is clear that:
Many will find this suggestion unwholesome. To them, the claim that capitalism will or should end is like saying a triangle doesn’t have three sides or that the law of gravity no longer applies while an apple falls from a tree. But for a better world, where everyone has the means to a good life on a habitable planet, it is an imperative.
There has been a push to rename our current geological age the anthropocene, given the development of human's ability to substantially alter the planet, most pressingly, the climate. But on a recent edition of On The Media, Benjamin Kunkel says that he prefers capitalocene, identifying capitalism specifically; his thought is that the 'issue' for the climate is not humanity in general, but specifically the development of capitalism.
Commenting on the practice of meditation, Hägglund differentiates between its secular and religious implications, noting that “Buddhist meditation practices can certainly be employed to great effect for secular ends.” (208) But, he points out, religious Buddhism’s focus on using such practices to live one’s life in the service of achieving detachment from this world in order to reach salvation represents a negation of this life, by focusing on the eternity of salvation.
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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