The Dark Side of the Enlightenment
10 days ago
- #Modern History
- #Violence Studies
- #Environmental Destruction
- Clifton Crais argues that the modern era should be called the 'Mortecene' (Age of Death and Killing) rather than the Anthropocene, emphasizing mass killing, economic exploitation, and environmental destruction.
- Crais critiques the liberal Enlightenment for legitimizing violence and environmental degradation but overlooks similar atrocities under anti-capitalist regimes like the Soviet Union and Maoist China.
- The book selectively focuses on capitalist extractive violence, ignoring significant 20th-century mass killings such as the Holocaust, Holodomor, and Great Leap Forward.
- Crais acknowledges the Industrial Revolution improved lives but highlights its violent foundations, including slavery and environmental destruction.
- The exclusion of Soviet and Maoist atrocities reflects a political bias, reinforcing a narrative of Western guilt while ignoring systemic violence in other regimes.
- Whaling is discussed as a capitalist-driven environmental crime, but Crais omits Soviet whaling atrocities, which were equally destructive and senseless.
- The book's narrow focus on Western violence provides comforting narratives of guilt but fails to address modernity's broader, universal capacity for systematic killing.