Seen through the lens of the Anthropocene, the nonhuman world is inert, but what’s funny is that, upon closer examination, the innately exploitative humans don’t have agency in this view, either. They just do what they do—mess up a “state of nature”—and they all do it. The Anthro- of Anthropocene lumps humanity together, as if one specific portion of humanity were not responsible for a culture of extraction, visiting environmental horrors upon the rest of the world. This blunt-edged framing has informed the unstoppable “video playhead” of my nightmares—a history with no actors, only
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