Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species

by Ursula K. Heise

the idea that humans used to live in a more harmonious relationship with nature just a generation or two ago is not mere nostalgia, but also a powerful anchoring point for both political authority and resistance. For environmentalists, this story template offered an important critique of more dominant narratives about social, economic, and technological progress, and as such it was able to attract a variety of political forces that were opposed to certain aspects of modernization. From Thoreau’s ambivalence toward the construction of the railroad to the countercultures of the 1960s and current protests in the global south against the role of northern societies in generating global warming, to pick just three examples, advocacy on behalf of a natural world at risk has been linked to—and has arguably derived a good deal of its power from—broader opposition to the shape modern society has been taking.