Knowledge and Ideology in the Anthropocene

Summary

Wolfgang Wopperer of Movement Ecology denies that our brains simply can’t grasp complexity. A society’s knowledge lives largely in its ‘cultural technē’, Sally Haslanger’s term for the shared meanings and habits it runs on, and ideology has captured it: “We’re not too stupid to keep our civilisation out of crisis, we’re too self-interested and blinded by ideology”.

Rationale

His diagnosis, ideology not incapacity, sharpens our call to be “clear-eyed about the role of power”. Wolfgang was a studio collaborator; our ‘cultural technē’ entry draws on this essay.