Five minutes to read/jot

Five minutes to chat in pairs…

You probably remember Donna Haraway’s slogan, “Don’t Make Babies, Make Kin,” as well as her emphasis on shrinking “spaces of refuge” for “human and other critters.”  What are some ways that both of these themes appears in this novel, some 25 years before Haraway’s essay? How does Butler posit “kinship” as something to be “made” or “constructed” rather than as a function of biological reproduction as “family” or “race”? How do these constructed “kinships” aid in finding refuge in a forbidding landscape? Find a couple of quotes from the text to support your answer.

How does the aftermath of the burning of Robledo question or revise Lauren’s understanding of “family”? In her earlier life in Robledo: Who made the rules? What were the rules? What happened if you don’t follow the rules? How do each of these change once Lauren and the remnant from Roblebo’s community head North?

For years, the Anthropocene was believed to be the primary cause of climate change. Haraway argues otherwise; in the “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin.” she presents the idea that the Anthropocene is not the center cause of climate change but the contribution of organisms and systems. The influence of historical, ecological, economic, and Plantationocene context behind human activities. History is unchangeable, however, issuing climate change with current issues could change future history. Haraway proposes that it is crucial to form a kinship with the environment to make changes.

Current problems that are not directly caused by the Anthropocene have been catastrophic to all the organisms on the earth. Current problems such as wars, nuclear weapons, and food waste contribute to climate change. Haraway stated, “No species, not even our arrogant one pretending to be good individuals in so-called modern Western scripts, acts alone, assemblages of organic species and abiotic make history, the evolutionary kind and the other kinds too.” (Haraway 159). Haraway argues climate change is shaped by other organisms and systems not solely based on the Anthropocene. The conflict and the historical background between countries have resulted in multiple wars. As the wars intensified, nuclear weapons were possibly used are high. If nuclear weapons were used, it could cause catastrophic destruction to our climate. According to ICAN, “smoke and dust from firestorms would block sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface and cause an abrupt drop in global temperatures and rainfall, leading to shorter growing seasons and decreasing overall agricultural production”. (Climate change, famine and nuclear weapons). The lack of sun radiation could result in a reduction in agricultural production that would lead to human extinction from starvation. Even the process of creating nuclear weapons has contaminated the earth with nuclear dumps and testing. Another current issue is food waste. Food waste is also proven to impact climate change. As overconsumption controls the economy, food is often wasted and ends up at the landfill left to decompose leading to the release of methane that is deadly to climate change. If the waste is not completely decomposed it will lead to soil degradation releasing more carbon. Furthermore, the damage to the landmass makes the production of the food unrecoverable. The existing issues should be altered to reduce the effect of climate change.

We are living through the effects of climate change. Natural catastrophes are striving to be harder to predict. Wildfires, floods, droughts, and other natural disasters appear more frequently. Animals are forced out of their habitats making it hard to find refuge on the planet. Humans are also affected by harming the respiratory system from the increased air pollution. It would be devastating if we continue to feel indifferent and don’t take action. Hence, Haraway introduces kinship with the environment. Haraway stated, “we have a mammalian job to do, with our biotic and abiotic sym-poietic collaborators, co-laborers. We need to make kin sym-chthonically, sym-poetically. Who and whatever we are, we need to make-with—become-with, compose-with—the earth bound” (Haraway 161). According to Haraway, making Kin is beyond reproduction, it’s the relation with humans between animals, plants, and living organisms that coexist like lifecycles on earth. Through kinships with the environment, humans would prioritize addressing the cause of climate change and advocate practices to reduce pollution.

Citation:

Climate Disruption and Famine – ICAN, www.icanw.org/climate_disruption_and_famine. Accessed 16 Sept. 2024.

When reading the first few chapters of Octavia Butler’s novel ‘Parable of Sower’, we immediately see a more dystopian future where society has essentially collapsed due to environmental downfalls as well as ongoing violence. Lauren Olimina, the protagonist of the story, lives in a town called Robledo Southern California which is a more ‘remote’ and secluded place compared to other places. Within this more isolated society, you can see that they live their lives in an almost constant fear due to the supposed dangers and chaos that happens outside of those walls.

To put things into perspective a little more, the protagonist Lauren suffers from a condition called ‘hyper-empathy’ which makes her a lot more sensitive to the pain of others which makes things a lot more complicated for her and causes her to feel more islolated in a sense. When it comes to Lauren’s father, we learn that he is a Baptist minister who is leading their community with strict religious rules and belief systems. This causes Lauren to start to question his beliefs and the beliefs he is preaching to the rest of the community as well.

She starts to develop her own sort of ideology in a way called Earthseed, which builds on this idea of “God is Change” which is essentially emphasizing this way of adapting to as well as embracing change rather than just going against it. This new belief system sets her apart from her immediate community fellows, who do not understand or support her ever growing views.

In regards to the town of Robledo though, things seem to be getting a lot worse and conflicts are at an all time high. Lauren sees all the worsening conditions and an increase in violence which makes her hyper-empathy ‘at an all time high’ in a sense. She feels for the people around her and feels stuck not being able to really do anything about it. The situation reaches a very critical point when Robledo is all of sudden attacked, leading to large amounts of loss and ruin. This attack highlights the vulnerability of their sanctuary and the harsh reality of the world outside the enclosed and in a way the last bit of protection they had from the rest of society.

Slightly after the attack, Lauren decides that it is in her best interest to actually leave Robledo. With this journey, her goal is to find safety and to spread her Earthseed ideology.

Overall, we can see that Butler’s argument within the first few chapters of the book revolve around change and fake protection. Change is inevitable, and having barriers put whether it be physical or metaphorical won’t stop things like life from moving forward. Butler portrays this through Lauren and her hyper-empathy which allows her to constantly question the things around her in hopes of ‘better’, which is contrasted from everyone else who seems to much rather want to live in a ‘protective’ bubble filled with false hope.

Personally, I had a hard time trying to understand Haraway’s conclusion of “Making KIn.” I think in this text there are a lot of broad connections being made, but it’s being done on purpose as if to show that these connections aren’t all that broad after all. The most obvious example is that of the Anthropocene, Capitlocene, plantationocene being connect to what she refers to as the “Chthulucene.” She also connects bacteria, and symbiotic life to anthropocenic habits, as well as the disconnect of human, nature, and technology, cheap nature, genocides, system collapse, post-humanism all to the anthropocene. Her quick listing of the many things that are actively changing the earth in order to connect them back to the term “Anthropocene” strengthened her point, and my confusion, of the very not obvious  critique of the vague umbrella term of the anthropocene. I think shes trying to argue against stuffing the issues of climate change under the “human era,” hence the overwhelming dump of different thing that effect the climate, down to the bacteria within our bodies that we need to survive.

”Recursion can be a drag,” all these things are just feeding into the next. What good is a broad umbrella term like the human era, or “anthropocene” going to do about it. Haraway draws all of these connections that I, again, found confusing. But with some further reading, all these “broad” connections serve purpose, being that they’re not so broad but are being treated as such. Hence, her aiming at humanists that just believe the earth and it’s resources are at it’s complete and total disposale. She challenges the anthropocene, as opposed to being “broad” which is how I see it, as being a blip. A blip in that, it’s ridiculous to believe that humans will destory the Earth to the point of return. But humans, as a blip, will only destroy their Earth to the point of THEIR own destruction, and the Earth will just regenerate itself.

The concept of the human being a blip, is not meant to encourage accelerationism, but is rather connected back to what Haraway calls the “Chthulucene.” I understood the Chthulucene as, not a return to not knowing or understanding, but integrating the aspect of not knowing certain things, not looking to have control but instead knowing how to react, behave and plan. Also explaining her self-identification as a “compostist” as oppsed to a post-humanist, utilizing what humans already have and know. Lastly, allowing me to connect back to making kin, not babies. Connecting with what we already have, “We need to make kin sym-chthonically, sym-poetically,” using what we already have in order to create a new symbiotic relationship with nature.

That’s sort of how I undertood this piece by Haraway. Overall, I found it quite strange. Mostly because of the different ecological words that took a while for me to registeras english rather than gibberish, but also because, to be quite frank, the slogan to “Make kins, not babies” is ridiculous to me. Which is why I still feel like i’m missing something. I find it to be a larger version of individualism? Like collectivism, but not on the actual collective that I understand to be the actual perpetrators of climate change. Corporations, big businesses, produce companies, bomb-droppers, building-burners for the purpose of insurance etc. So is it an issue of population? Maybe, but why are so many people unable to have control of when they want to have babies? Also, what about people that have babies born for a few minutes beforoe they die because of post-environmental effects. This reading was very unsatisfying for me, but interesting and still important to read.