The Age of Capitalism, Consumer Culture, and the Collapse of Nature in the Anthropocene

About this book

The Age of Capitalism, Consumer Culture, and the Collapse of Nature in the Anthropocene argues that the stability of post-industrial, postmodern society is threatened by the convergence of three distinct, yet interrelated, crises: environmental degradation, capitalist economic development, and the primacy of consumption and self-absorption as the basis for economic development at the expense of community and social relationships. Thornburg contrasts advanced modern society with indigenous cultures in terms of nature and conceptions of the communal self. The complex nature of a capitalist-oriented society has influenced how individuals conceptualise themselves. The outcome, the author contends, is a competitive society in which individuals are alienated, living in uncertain times. One consequence of these crises (all of which derive from the Enlightenment and the concomitant appearance and evolution of capitalism) has been the destruction of a worldview balancing and connecting well-being with prosperity of the natural world. Money and materialism cannot buy happiness, as the capitalist narrative asserts. Thornburg claims that the happiness sought by individuals seeking meaning through consumption can only be realised by reintegrating nature with the human spirit.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: A World in Change

Chapter 1. Standing on the Faultline of a World in Crisis: Climate Change, Consumer Capitalism and Post-Modern Culture
Chapter 2. Nature as Projection and Construction: The Meaning of Nature in the Mindscape of Culture
Chapter 3. The Great Transformation of Anima Mundi as Environment: The Political-Economic Divide Between Culture and Nature
Chapter 4. The dismantling of the world in the Search for Paradise: Environmental Degradation in the Age of Science, Technology and Human Desire
Chapter 5. The Anthropocene's Handmaiden: Capitalism's Impact on Remaking the World
Chapter 6. Eating Through the Environment: A Question of Consumer Culture
Chapter 7. I Am What I Own – Or so I think: Possessions and the Presentation of Me
Chapter 8. Searching for the Future Meaning of Humanity in the Age of Uncertainty

Bibliography
About the Author

Customer Reviews

Biography

Jack Thornburg is professor emeritus and received his PhD in development studies and anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.