“The first defeat of the Anthropocene is not climate change, but our inability to rethink a happy life” | EUROtoday

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Rpensions and debt. The French political debate of the final thirty years is sort of fully based mostly on these two themes. To the purpose of nausea. Where does this not possible overcoming come from? From 1945! From the (formidable) second which noticed the start of the socio-economic configuration of the tip of the twentieth centurye century: retirement, “Secu”, social safety, group of the State, in a society of social development, of the knowledge that our youngsters will reside higher, of progress and low rates of interest.

Above all, it was the time of confidence in inevitable progress… on the expense of all planetary limits. Retirement by pay-as-you-go and debt are main items of this puzzle centered on progress: two bets for the longer term, briefly, within the certainty of enchancment.

Glory to the National Council of Resistance [CNR]it’s apparent! However, our lives are in 2025, we’re trying in direction of 2050, and our techniques, our public debate, our classes of motion have remained in 1945, devoted completely to the administration of a heritage magnetized by a time which is now not.

Politics fantasizes concerning the return of financial progress for lack of different classes. It desires to protect or dismantle social achievements, systematically referring to the CNR plan as an ordinary measure. She sinks into the reflexes of this era, dreaming of Marshall plans for this or that. We reside in an interminable 1945, locked exterior in a century that has ended. So every part appears already seen and heard, already pale earlier than even beginning once more. Everything, even the longer term projected inside this closed framework, already appears out of date to us.

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What we should perceive is that in a couple of years, the Anthropocene has made the complete post-war corpus archaic. In the Anthropocene, the bulk perception is that we’re heading in direction of darkish instances. The future has turn into a dystopia (Donald Trump has returned, so has the battle, and +4°C on the finish of the century…). From promise, the longer term has turn into a type of air pollution which is already flowing into the current and upsetting our nice tales.

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https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/12/12/la-premiere-defaite-de-l-anthropocene-n-est-pas-le-changement-climatique-mais-notre-incapacite-a-repenser-une-vie-heureuse_6657048_3232.html