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Ecological Pessimism and the Pronouns of the Future in Nicolas Born's “Radikale Ernte” (1975)
Author(s) -
Buchholz Paul
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the german quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.11
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1756-1183
pISSN - 0016-8831
DOI - 10.1111/gequ.12114
Subject(s) - dystopia , narrative , pessimism , politics , aesthetics , anthropocene , mainstreaming , german , sociology , environmental ethics , history , literature , art , philosophy , political science , law , epistemology , archaeology , special education , pedagogy
Contemporary discourses on the Anthropocene within the humanities are often underpinned by the search for new models of ecological collectivity. This article understands these discourses within the extended history of the mainstreaming of ecological thought, as exemplified by the 1975 story “Radikale Ernte” by the West German writer Nicolas Born, which illustrates the political and communicative problems of establishing a collectivity dedicated to resisting the destruction of nature. With its surreal dystopian narrative of a countercultural family that tries and fails to resist the apparatus of industrial consumer society, “Radikale Ernte” ironizes a range of countercultural possibilities imagined by the New Left. At the same time, the story prefigures a form of community of radical outsiders, which encompasses both the family's prodigal child and the narrative addressee.