Climate Justice: Walter Benjamin and the Anthropocene

Abstract

This essay proposes that Walter Benjamin’s writings on Schuld invite a rethinking of the Anthropocene. This in turn lends legibility to Benjamin’s century-old political writings, which show how a mythic concept of Schuld continues to inform modern institutions and practices. The essay begins by taking up Dipesh Chakrabarty’s exemplary analysis of the Anthropocene to indicate how contemporary debates around climate change and climate justice remain captivated by a mythic way of thinking, which may itself be at the root of these troubles. The contested question of capitalism and the Anthropocene might also be clarified when, following Benjamin, emphasis is placed not on (fossil) capital but on Schuld. Climate justice would, to pursue Benjamin’s approach further, suspend the nexus of Schuld. As suggested at the end of the essay, this may prove not to be the achievement of a deliberate or even human action, according to the prevailing understanding of politics, but rather take the form of a climate strike.