Abstract
One of the most enduring characteristics of human civilization is the way ruling elites espouse beliefs radically at odds with their own behaviors. The ancient Greeks recited the cautionary tales of Prometheus and Icarus while using fire, dreaming of flight, and pursing technological frontiers. Early agriculturalists told the story of the fall from Eden as a cautionary tale against agriculture. European Christians espoused poverty and peacemaking while accumulating wealth and waging war. And today the world’s most technology-rich consumers voice anxiety that continuing technological progress and consumption will be our downfall.
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Notes
Bruno Latour, “Will non-humans be saved?,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2009): 459–475, esp. 463.
Bruno Latour, “It’s the development, stupid! Or, how to modernize modernization,” in Love Your Monsters. Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene, edited by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger (Oakland, CA: Breakthrough Institute, 2011), 17–25.
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© 2013 Pasquale Gagliardi, Anne Marie Reijnen, and Philipp Valentini
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Shellenberger, M., Nordhaus, T. (2013). Modernization as Liberation Theology. In: Gagliardi, P., Reijnen, A.M., Valentini, P. (eds) Protecting Nature, Saving Creation. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342669_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342669_15
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47240-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-34266-9
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