in contemporary consciousness. Haraway suggests causes for
environmental catastrophe as ‘tentacular’ – far-reaching, not singular,
like Lovecraft’s Cthulu; ultimately undefinable. While this may reflect
contemporary attitudes of confusion and uncertainty, she writes that
this is no excuse for humans not to act. In a paragraph littered with
directives, Haraway demands humanity to ‘revolt![…] Think we must;
we must think’ (p.47), drawing on her earlier criticism of ‘Eichmann the
Thoughtless’ for his ‘active participation in genocide’ (p.36). If humankind
does not consider the effects of environmental catastrophe beyond their
immediate lifetime, we will be active participants in apocalypse. However,
a question that Haraway herself poses yet never actually answers is:
‘How to matter and not just want to matter?’ (p.47), which is perhaps
the most urgent question shaping contemporary attitudes toward the
Anthropocene. In the same fashion as her 1984 “A Cyborg Manifesto”,
Haraway has used the Anthropocene to write galvanised prose which
is, ultimately, only theory. After the powerful injunction, (‘Revolt!’ – is this
entirely serious?) Haraway moves on to a consideration of capitalism’s
role in the Anthropocene, which is easy for the everyman to slip into also.
The ability for real change is in the hands of the few ‘important players’
(p.47), compared to the ‘movements, not just individuals’ that Haraway
described as ‘critical’ just a paragraph before. Her calls for revolt become
words without actions, recalling Miéville’s stuplimity on the coastline. Her
essay reflects that even with good intentions, without action we are still
watchers in the theatre of the Anthropocene.
Although, via her initial criticism of the word ‘Anthropocene’ itself
Haraway provokes a more practical optimism which reflects cultural
attitudes outside of the West. Like many other commentators, Haraway
draws on the term’s universalism and its suggestion that, in McFarlane’s
words, ‘all humans are equally implicated and equally affected’ (2016).
It is these two factors – culpability and vulnerability – which are heavily
Westernised in contemporary environmental discourse. Miéville’s short
story, wherein his characters joke that the oil rig protectors might ‘Feed
[them] to wolves. Har har’ has the privilege of Euro-centrism, the financial
and political privilege to do nothing and even to conserve the very things
that have destroyed the environment. Regarding causality, Haraway
calls up ‘the networks of sugar, plantations, indigenous genocides, and
slavery’ (2016, p.48), provoking useful reflection and discussion on the
vulnerability of such cultures. Yet, she never follows it with the ‘revolt
[…] action […] movements’ that were encouraged previously. Instead,
30