Abstract
This chapter introduces the challenges that are emerging for the society in the near future, medium-, and long-term future. With inputs from philosophy and practical observations, this chapter focuses on the role that technological development is having in defining the relationship between humankind and environment in the contemporaneity. The term Technocene, distortion of the renowned term Anthropocene, is here proposed to represent the existing condition of the humankind, suddenly placed in a new geological age where it seems to have an incredible power, but whose willingness is strongly influenced by technological dominance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
As represented by Sophocles in Antigone: “He wearies, turning the soil year after year/By the plough using the offspring of horses.”
- 2.
In many areas “paleowater” is being tapped to grow crops in desert environments that could otherwise never support agriculture [1].
- 3.
It is assumed to have been the most expensive tsunami in terms of human lives in the entire history of humanity.
- 4.
With a magnitude of 9.3—the third most violent recorded in the last 50 years.
- 5.
Here there were 75 deaths compared to the tens of thousands of victims in the north-east among Indians and Sri Lankans.
- 6.
Crisis, from Latinized form of Greek krisis, “turning point in a disease,” literally “judgment, result of a trial, selection”; from krinein, “to separate, decide, judge”; from PIE root ∗krei- “to sieve, discriminate, distinguish” [5].
- 7.
The same is defined by Jonas in The Imperative of Responsibility [6].
- 8.
Portoghesi [7], Italian architect.
- 9.
Not the “ecology” that stops its attentions at the traditional positions of the environmental comforts or of the healthy home, which gives to some persons the illusion of a clean air, while consuming nonrenewable energy, thereby exacerbating the condition of the outside world.
- 10.
This is the change of meaning, analyzed by Zygmunt Bauman, in Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty [8].
- 11.
Definition of “progress” by Pietro Rossi in the preface to the Italian edition (1964) of J. B. Bury’s book Idea of Progress (1920) [9].
- 12.
Plato’s theory, formulated in Republic, of history as the decay of humanity from an original state of perfection, and the cyclical view of the universe, received and disseminated by Stoicism, represented insurmountable obstacles to the development of the idea of progress. In fact, this idea appears only in some rare cases, for example in the Epicurean school or in Lucretius, but always in a doctrinally unfinished structure. Through the Christian principle of divine providence, the medieval conception of history as a succession of events, ordered by the divine will, is made possible. However, the concept of progress is still latent and blocked by a conception of humanity as a “damned mass.” Then, in Bury’s view, if men were convinced that the Greeks and Romans had reached the maximum of civilization, until their authority was considered indisputable, a theory of degeneration, which excluded any possibility of progress, held the field.
- 13.
Words ascribed to Cartesio (1596–1650).
- 14.
Epicurus (341–270 BC).
- 15.
Aeschylus (Eleusis, 525—Gela, 456 BC).
- 16.
Known as anestera, a powerful bond that governs the laws of nature.
- 17.
Here we are facing an issue with a global view of culture, in which the differences in some aspects can be important. The vision that interests us, however, is on a large scale to understand the trends and cultural motivations in a human approach toward nature. It remains an important difference that I want to mark in the note, or a difference between the Christian God and the Greek ones. The two concepts differ primarily because in Greek polytheism the gods are extremely irrational entities, whereas the Christian God is not a myth: “it is the epitome of rationality; it is a principle of order, not a fool who makes metamorphosis, mingles with animals and plants, quarrels, is perishable,” as claimed by Galimberti [12]. Msgr. Ravasi defines culture as “the anthropological category passing through the consciousness of man towards his work and his thinking.” We will refer to this definition when we use this term (words of Msgr. Ravasi during the meeting “Il creato specchio della bellezza divina,” 1st October 2011, Parma).
- 18.
Words of Msgr. Ravasi during the meeting “Il creato specchio della bellezza divina,” 1st October 2011, Parma.
- 19.
Characterized by a strong transcendental vision, “you, man, you are a puddle, sometimes you can reflect the sun, but the sun is far else.”
- 20.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Allegory of Good and Bad Government (Public Palace of Siena, Italy, 1338–1339). Presented by Le Goff as a meaningful example in Costruzione e distruzione della città murata [18].
- 21.
Le Goff refers also to the Signorie, villages or monasteries.
- 22.
Dionigi had given to Petrarca a copy of the Confessions of Saint Augustine. Petrarca refers to having read a passage of the work of the saint, once he had reached the top of a mountain.
- 23.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805), German poet.
- 24.
James Watt (1736–1819), Scottish engineer and inventor.
- 25.
Consideration of Umberto Galimberti, expressed during the conference “Educare l’anima ai tempi della tecnica”, May 2010, Muro Leccese, La Bussola theatre.
- 26.
Probably due to a greater attention to the landscape that developed in these countries (also due to a painting that no longer addresses religious subjects but is more focused on nature).
- 27.
Sir Keith Vivian Thomas (b. 1933), British historian, whose concept of “human dilemma” is explained in [23].
- 28.
Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), German biologist and philosopher.
- 29.
Reported by Delort as quoted in Edward J. Kormondy, Readings in Ecology, (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1965) [10].
- 30.
From 1840 with the researches of Christian Friedrich Schönbein on the ozone, or in the 1920s with the studies of Sydney Chapman and Gordon Dobson, up to the important probing at the permanent Antarctic base of Vostok in 1999.
- 31.
In 1995, Paul J. Crutzen shared a third of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Mario J. Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone [26].
- 32.
The data are based on the trend of 16,704 populations of 4005 vertebrate species across the globe [29].
- 33.
Douglas Booth (2004), quoted in [32].
- 34.
The data suggested in his testimony by John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, are interesting. In Ecuador, during the “oil boom,” the poverty level rose from 50 to 70%; the under- or unemployment level from 15 to 70%; the public debt from $240 million to $16 billion; the national resources allocated to the poorest segments of the population dropped from 20% to 6% [35].
- 35.
While the symbolism and myth endowed Humankind with a sense of superhuman power and creativity, the scientific and technical advances, gave us a further insight into the need of conforming to nature and accepting the conditions of the environment [13].
- 36.
Can also be seen noted as the same term of technique, “techne,” results from “Hexis Nou,” that is “be master of his own mind,” thus freeing it from the need of having to depend on divine explanations.
- 37.
Pope Francis in this passage quotes the Italian theologian Romano Guardini (1885–1968) in Guardini, R. (1998). The End of the Modern World. Wilmington: ISI books, p. 82.
- 38.
William F. Ruddiman, paleo-climatologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia.
References
Welcome to the Anthropocene. Explore places (2012). http://www.anthropocene.info. Accessed 29 August 2019
The Oxford English Dictionary. www.oed.com. Accessed 7 February 2019
D. Hurst, Boxing day tsunami: a survivor’s story. BBC News (2014). https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-30537152. Accessed 29 August 2019
M. Tozzi, Quello tsunami ci ha ricordato che la natura è ancora sovrana. La Stampa (2014), p. 11
Online Etymology Dictionary, Crisis (2019). https://www.etymonline.com/word/crisis. Accessed 12 August 2019
H. Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility. In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1985)
P. Portoghesi, Imparare dalla natura/learning from nature. Domus 818, 3–16 (1999)
Z. Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2006)
J.B. Bury, The Idea of Progress. An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth (Macmillan, London, 1920)
R. Delort, F. Walter, Histoire de l’environnement Européen, préface de Jacques Le Goff (PUF, Paris, 2001)
M. Augè, Futur (Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2012)
E. Boncinelli, U. Galimberti, E ora? La dimensione umana e le sfide della scienza, con Giovanni Maria Pace (Einaudi, Torino, 2000)
L. Mumford, Art and Technics (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1952)
Francis (2015). Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home. Vatican City: Vatican Press.
G. Ravasi, Breve storia dell’anima (Arnoldo Mondadori Oscar Saggi, Milano, 2009)
J. Le Goff, The configuration of European personality, in History of Humanity − Vol. IV: From the Seventh to the Sixteenth Century, ed. By M.A. Al-Bakhit, L. Bazin, S.M. Cissoko, A.A. Kamel (Routledge, Paris, 2000)
J. Le Goff, Prefazione, in Histoire de l’environnement Européen, Préface de Jacques Le Goff, ed. By R. Delort, F. Walter (PUF, Paris, 2002)
J. Le Goff, Costruzione e distruzione della città murata, in La città e le mura, ed. By C. De Seta, J. Le Goff (Editori Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1989)
J. Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (Ein Versuch, Basel, 1860)
G. Simmel, The philosophy of landscape. Theory. Culture Soc. 24(7−8), 20–−29 (2007)
W. Dilthey, L’analisi dell’uomo e l’intuizione della natura, dal rinascimento al secolo XVIII, vol I (Nuova Italia, Sancasciano Val di Pesa, 1927), p. 15
Y.N. Harari, Da animali a dei, breve storia dell’umanità (Bompiani, Milano, 2014)
H. Jonas, Dem bösen Ende näher, Gespräche über das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Natur (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1993)
L. Ramond, De la végétation sur les montagnes. Annales du Muséum d’histoire naturelle, anno IV. Quoted in Delort and Walter (2001), p. 404
J. Brunhes, La Géographie Humaine: Essai de Classification Positive, Principes et Exemples (Alcan, Paris, 1910)
Nobel Prize, The Nobel prize in chemistry 1995. 1995. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1995/press-release/. Accessed 22 May 2019
P.J. Crutzen, Benvenuti nell’Antropocene! L’uomo ha cambiato il clima, la Terra entra in una nuova era (Mondadori, Milano, 2005)
Earth Overshoot Day, Past earth overshoot days (2019). https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/past-earth-overshoot-days/. Accessed 27 May 2019
WWF, Living Planet Report - 2018: Aiming Higher (WWF, Gland, 2018)
G. Bologna, Dall’economia della crescita all’economia della sostenibilità, in Prosperità senza crescita. Economia per il pianeta reale, ed. By T. Jackson (Edizioni Ambiente, Milano, 2011), pp. 17–46
H.E. Daly, Introduction to T. Jackson. Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan/Routledge, London, 2009)
T. Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth (Earthscan, New York, 2009)
T. Piketty, E. Saez, Income Inequality in the United States, 1913−2002 (University of California, Berkeley, 2004)
T. Piketty, Le capital au XXI siècle (Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2013)
J. Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 2004)
R.G. Wilkinson, T. Pickett, The Spirit Level. Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (Allen Lane, London, 2009)
G. Anders, The Outdatedness of Human Beings, vol 2 (C.H. Beck Publisher, Munich, 1980)
N. Harari, Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind (Harper, New York, 2015)
H. Jonas, Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1974)
Á. Heller, A Philosophy of Morals (Basil Blackwell, Oxford/Boston, 1990)
W.F. Ruddiman, The early anthropogenic hypothesis: challenges and responses. Rev. Geophys. 45(4), 37 (2007)
J.P. Crutzen, E.F. Stoermer, The “anthropocene”. Global Change Newslett. 41, 17 (2000)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Giorgi, E. (2020). Technocene. In: The Co-Housing Phenomenon. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37097-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37097-8_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37096-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37097-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)