Hopium and the Long Defeat

A reflection on how reverence for ecology and biophilia (love of other life) are present in children’s literature, but lost from most modern adult literature and “techno-industrialist” systems that center “human exceptionalism”. Swanigan explores the roots of this; the harm it causes people as they are forced to be violent towards what they were encouraged to love as children whilst being asked to place hope in ‘magical’ technology; and considers how two writers in particular – John Collier and J.R.R. Tolkien – were writing about the possible trajectory that this human exceptionalism puts us on and how we might respond to it. We’re asked to recognise “the extreme and egregious underrepresentation” of the views of those who have been shouting about this in scientific communities and beyond, and to seek to understand the history that supports it. This is a challenging listen, and you may find some of the conclusions to be overly definitive. But the perspective Swanigan shares, drawing from her award-winning essay, demands attention.