Extinction Anxiety as Zeitgeist: An Examination of the Cultural Anxiety Surrounding Extinction Threats
Abstract
This thesis examines extinction anxiety as a zeitgeist that manifests through nuclear war anxiety and climate change anxiety. I define extinction anxiety as the cultural mood of anxiousness surrounding extinction threats in the past, present, and future. I use Monika Krause’s sociological conception of zeitgeist to understand these anxieties as a cultural mood. I demonstrate using Jean-Paul Sartre’s conceptualization of materially derived subjectivity, how these moods of anxiousness are internalized through material conditions. I build my concept of extinction anxiety by comparing and contrasting the mood of anxiousness surrounding nuclear war during the Cold War and the current mood of anxiousness surrounding climate change. Due to their similarities, I argue that both historical moods are manifestations of a greater cultural phenomenon: the zeitgeist of extinction anxiety. Further, I examine work on apocalypse by theorists such as Bruno Latour, Gunther Anders, and Srecko Horvat. Using their work, I determine that the mood of apocalypse; the cultural mood surrounding the loss of a future, overlaps with my conceptualization of extinction anxiety. Thus, I bridge my understanding of extinction anxiety in the past (Cold War), present (climate crisis), and future (apocalypse). I conclude that in order to address the effects of extinction anxiety, we must radically transform our orientation to history and the future. Additionally, we must take care to be sensitive to how to educate future generations on the topic of extinction, so that they are equipped to deal with the realities of extinction.