"For another, his insistence that we've come around again to man -- this time in the talk among environmentalists of the Anthropocene, a new geologic age defined by human activity and therefore calling for a grand new round of intellection on the history and meaning of the human, one that's sure to be 'preprogrammed' by the last one -- requires, at the least, a little more flesh. Are we really headed quite so quickly off that mental cliff?"
— Deresiewicz, William (b. 1964)
Date
June , 2015
Metaphor
"For another, his insistence that we've come around again to man -- this time in the talk among environmentalists of the Anthropocene, a new geologic age defined by human activity and therefore calling for a grand new round of intellection on the history and meaning of the human, one that's sure to be 'preprogrammed' by the last one -- requires, at the least, a little more flesh. Are we really headed quite so quickly off that mental cliff?"
Metaphor in Context
I'm not completely satisfied with Greif's analysis. For one thing, he moves pretty fast across the past forty years. I'd have liked a fuller account, though granted that would probably have meant (and might mean still, one hopes) a second book. For another, his insistence that we've come around again to man -- this time in the talk among environmentalists of the Anthropocene, a new geologic age defined by human activity and therefore calling for a grand new round of intellection on the history and meaning of the human, one that's sure to be "preprogrammed" by the last one -- requires, at the least, a little more flesh. Are we really headed quite so quickly off that mental cliff?
(p. 94)
(p. 94)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Deresiewicz, William, "What a Piece of Work: Mark Greif’s Intellectual Excavations," Harper's Magazine (June, 2015). <Link to harpers.org>
Date of Entry
06/11/2015
