Search

There is a widespread narrative today that, due to climate change, we are living in the end of times. What does this apocalyptic narrative tell us about our relation to death? A peculiarity with the climate discourse is that “we”, i.e., mankind, are given a position that is both external and internal to the problems described. On the one hand, there is an all-encompassing apocalyptic mood, on the other hand, death appears as a scandal, something we had abolished. In order to capture this peculiarity, the article adopts the narratological concept of the “focalizer”. After comparing the way climate change is addressed by the philosophers Martin Hägglund and Roy Scranton, respectively, the article turns to Hermann Broch’s novel The Death of Virgil (1945). Here, another perspective on dying and the end of civilization may be found. In that way, Broch’s novel provides a much needed perspective on today’s apocalyptic narratives. With Broch, one may argue that the end of the world takes place all the time.

The article contains a discussion of fascism and anti-fascism, with a focus on the role of the individual subject. The author turns first to Theodor W. Adorno and then to Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari in order to question a common understanding of the constitution of fascism. While Adorno sees the individual subject as the locus of a possible anti-fascist resistance, he also regards modern individualism as one of the crucial factors behind the surge of fascism. Deleuze & Guattari opens another perspective on fascism through their distinction between micro- and macropolitics, and a discussion of ”segmentarity”. Hence the article argues that the boundary between fascism and humanism/liberalism/democracy is not as clear as it is normally understood today, when ”fascism” tends to become the abject of modern civilization. This argument is finally developed through a discussion of two very different contemporary examples of activism. Fascism, the article concludes, is in one sense a latent possibility within modern society, rather than its opposite.