When examining the beliefs of Donna Harroway, the concept of “learning to die” that LeMenager speaks about crosses with Ghosh’s argument for a turn towards collectivism as a society. Harroway’s critique of scholars naming a time period the anthropocene, given that the period we are in should not and does not only include the human species, is a diverging point from what LeMenager would describe as the everyday anthropocene. Harroway finds fault in LeMenager’s talk of “the everyday Anthropocene”. LeMenager goes on to imply “the present tense, lived time of the Anthropocene, and I recommend paying attention to what it means to live, day by day, through climate shift and the economic and sociological injuries that underwrite it,” (LeMenager, 6).  The general idea of the anthropocene fallacy that Harroway argues against appears in the same paragraph as LeMenager writes; “Epochs are time monuments, attaching us- by ‘us’ here I mean those elite humans who identify ourselves with world authorship,” (LeMenager, 6). Harroway would disagree with this broad statement placing humans above, if not in charge or control of, the climate crisis.

In contrast to LeMenager’s idea of “The Anthropocene” and the centering of humans as the primary actors in the Anthropocene, Harroway deepens the idea of what it means for all species as we watch our planet decline, as well as the factors that have had a large role in creating this “Anthropocene”. Harroway argues that “ I along with others think the Anthropocene is more a boundary event than an epoch,” (Harroway, 2). She goes on to coin a new term for the geological period our Earth has entered into, one with meaning for both the human species occupying Earth, but one also including the number of other species present and seeking unavailable refuge. She attempts to name the “dynamic ongoing sym-chthonic forces and powers of which people are a part, within which ongoingness is at stake,” (Harroway, 2). She calls the epoch “the Chthulucene—past, present, and to come,” (Harroway, 2). She goes on to argue for humans to “make kin” in order to think with a more collective mindset on preserving what is, for what could be next. She means this in the context of humans, yet also the other countless species facing challenges due to climate change.

In Ghosh’s “The Great Derangement”, the end of the article has a similar idea of progress to Harroway’s ideas. Both authors argue and insist that to combat this geological boundary and make this time period shorten, or better yet, resolve, is to abandon Western-individualism and move towards a sort of collectivism. When reading Ghosh, it is convincing that humans should participate in this collective awareness and fight to save or preserve what is going to be lost from climate change. It is Harroway that takes it a step further and encourages humans to not only make kin with each other but with respective species and forces that are also present and suffering on Earth.

Connecting Donna Haraway’s “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin” to Rob Nixon’s Concept of “Slow Violence”

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Rethinking humanity is a tough task, but if anybody can do it’s the great Donna Haraway. Haraway’s thought and logic is that of assemblages. If it is our connection with technology or the earth, she wants us to open new avenues of reframing our own subjectivity. Our way of understanding and shaping this world is one in which everything else is dead and we are the things that imbue things with life. Marx precisely means this when he speaks of our  “species being”, that innate human beings are our creative creatures. We appropriate nature to transform it into something useful or ‘alive’ in some sense. Yet the world is not dead, as Haraway points out. All of nature’s interfaces exist within us and us within it. As she says:

“Vast investments and hugely creative and destructive technology can drive back the reckoning, but cheap nature really is over.”

We are simply using nature or us at it’s whims, but ultimately we have a symbiotic relationship with it. When she talks about ‘cheap nature’ she is critiquing this idea nature is an unlimited source of power that is ripe for the taking. The dichotomy between active participants (temporal dependent subjects)  and an atemporal world is an almost self fulfilling prophecy. The more we frame the world as an object to be appropriated ,maimed, and disfigured, the more we are likely to reduce ourselves to simple objectification. Take the imagery of dead planets in sci-fi for instance, like in the first Alien film when they first land on LV-223. The remnants of what seemed like a vast active community seems like ruins, and the explicit mission of the corporation that sent a team to investigate it is to see what they can extract from it. Yet the planet is very much not dead, in fact the structures of the planet, the architecture of the buildings are almost skeletal. This curiosity, and suspicion that what is ‘dead’, what is ripe for the taking for human exploitation, ultimately leads to the relaxation that the very planet they are standing on contains multitudes of creatures ready to gestate in any poor soul who stumbles upon them.

What a film like Alien shows us is similar to what Haraway coins the Chthulucene. Of it she says:

“.. but rather after the diverse earth-wide tentacular powers and …forces and collected things..with its problematic Greek-ish tendrils, entangles myriad temporalities and spatialities and myriad intra-active entities-in- assemblages—including the more-than-human, other-than-human, inhuman, and human-as- humus.”

Human beings are not ‘important’ and we certainly aren’t unified as a unit of stuff. We belong to everything, not in some Neo-Platonic sense, but that the boundary of our existence is constantly sprawling through time and space. The Chthulucene ask us to escape these boundaries of bodies and to start thinking not as subjects or even objects, but to think with everything. The future is not theirs [our descendants] and by pronatalist logic simply ours, but the future belongs to everything always.

Donna Haraway’s “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin” critically reflects the different ways we understand the current geological and sociopolitical crises of our time. Haraway evaluates how we conceptualize how humans, non-humans, and the planet interact and offers different frameworks that challenge human-centric and explosive systems. We might rethink our relationships with the Earth and other species. These ideas connect with Rob Nixon’s concept of “slow violence,’ which refers to a type of invisible violence that environmental degradation and social exploitation enacts over time. Both thinkers emphasize the systematic harms that occur through environmental destruction and exploitation.

Haraway uses the terms “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin” to explore various perspectives on how humans, non-humans, and the planet interact. Haraway’s concept of “Capitalocene” highlights capitalism as the driving force behind environmental degradation and exploiting natural resources and ecosystems for profit. This directly connects with Nixon’s concept of “slow violence.” In the Capitalocene, capitalism’s relentless focus on profit drives environmental degradation, from deforestation and fossil fuel extraction to ocean pollution. These processes of ecological exploitation do not cause immediate catastrophe but result in long-term environmental destruction that disproportionately affects marginalized communities and ecosystems—exactly the type of “slow violence” Nixon describes. For example, the pollution caused by oil extraction or the slow poisoning of communities living near industrial waste sites demonstrates how capitalist practices result in long-term environmental harm. While the violence is not explosive or spectacular, it accumulates over time, degrading ecosystems and human health. Haraway’s critique of the Capitalocene emphasizes that the logic of capitalism is responsible for this kind of exploitation, making the connection between capitalism and environmental harm a key form of “slow violence.” The suffering of marginalized groups mirrors Nixon’s point that “slow violence” is rarely recognized until the damage is far-reaching and nearly irreversible.

Haraway shines a light on a list of ongoing injustices, from the ongoing exploitation of land and people through slavery and colonialism to ecological destruction. Haraway states, “It’s more than climate change, its also extraordinary burdens of toxic chemistry, mining depletion of lakes and rivers under and above ground, ecosystem simplification, vast genocides of people and other critters, in systematically inked patterns that threat major system collapse and after major system collapse after major system collapse. Recursion can be a drag. (1)” Haraway calls humans out for getting stuck in these repetitive cycles where our actions lead to the same problems reappearing and having the same outcome all the time shows we make the issues are deemed to be ok and not in crisis mode, just like Nixon did in “Slow Violence” The media and politicians always using the term, “yes, but not now, not yet” deeming that because environmental action isn’t as critical yet means that it shouldn’t be urgent in society eyes  This is another one of the reasons why Haraway consistently criticizes human behavior for the causes of climate change and environmental degradation.

Rob Nixon’s concept of “slow violence” and Donna Haraway’s ideas in “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin” both address long-term environmental degradation and social exploitation, but they differ in focus, framing, and solutions. Haraway’s ideas connect deeply with Nixon’s. Both understand the urgency of the current situation, and yes it is difficult to represent effectively both approach the situation differently, but effectively.

The novel “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler is based on the idea that climate change and social inequality within societies will create an unstable environment for humans and the earth to survive in. This novel is set in a post – apocalyptic future where racism, classism and environmental issues exist and how all of these problems will eventually affect the American future. Octavia Butler makes the acceptance of change a huge factor in this novel because change is the holy grail of the better days to come. As LeVar Burton stated in the foreword of the novel, “she painstakingly built a body of work that is decidedly humanistic while remaining unashamedly, unapologetically Afrocentric” (Burton, Pg.viii). Butler is able to showcase real world problems involving the interest of human welfare, our values, and still being able to emphasis black struggle which makes a lot of situations in the novel relatable to the present day struggles. Through the main character Lauren Olamina, Butler argues that change is the inevitable and without it, nothing will start to prosper into the society that people so desperately want.

Based in California in the town of Robledo, Lauren and her family live in a gated community where they practice a baptist belief. This community is closed off from the rest of the world essentially because no one leaves and no one comes in unless both parties have a death wish. Within this community and outside of it there is a lot of challenges because society is corrupt. There is inflation in food, water shortage due to prices increasing, violence, extreme climate changes causing natural disasters and many people without a home. Prior to the year of 2020 none of these things were so prevalent like how they are now. Within chapters 1 through 7 Lauren’s family and neighbors are constantly looking for ways to defend themselves from the outside and trying to create a space that is doable to continue to have a life in. Lauren has some ideas and new beliefs of her own which she realizes as she starts to mature. The role that God plays in her family’s life is the typical belief that most people have which is that he is the creator. He is the all mighty and powerful being that will allow them to get out of the disaster they are in and put them on certain paths in their life for the greater good. They see him as the being that knows and loves you and the being that holds their faith in his hands. Since the age of 12 Lauren has started to realize some things for herself prompting her to write down verses about God that she deems to be true. In chapter 3 she says, “I believe in something that I think my dying, denying, backward looking people need” (Butler, pg. 25). Lauren believes in what she sees right in front of her and actively doing something now that could change things rather than just continuing to accept things for what it is. Later in chapter 7 she figures out what to call her new religion which is known as “Earthseed”. She explains that Earthseed is a “God is change” belief system where people essentially need to “seed themselves” far away from the place that is trying to swallow them whole (Butler, pg.77,78). She establishes this belief because she starts to obtain the knowledge that if there is not better choices made in terms of creating change and actively learning and working towards it they will always be where they are at now.

It is no secret that with the way society is right now and the vast changes happening in the climate, there will be no future for anyone to live through. Butler creates Lauren to be the person that starts to see reality for what it is. She makes her the character that refuses to accept the economic crisis that continues to rise and instead be the being that breaks the past beliefs which is doing nothing but keeping them from truly living a life that is at the end of their finger tips.