It was only at the beginning of the early modern era, at about the time of the conquest of the Banda Islands, that a tiny group of elite European men, many of whom were deeply implicated in colonialism, invented a philosophy in which sentience, thought, reason, and historical agency were ascribed solely to human beings, with the result that vitalist beliefs of all kinds came to be contested, denied and violently suppressed. Over the following centuries, with the Western conquest of most of the world, this kind of human-centeredness became a core component of elite ideologies everywhere in the world, even in formerly colonized countries like India and Indonesia.

Today, as the planet hurtles towards environmental and societal breakdown, brought about by the interlinked vectors of global warming, biodiversity loss, species extinctions and the spread of new pathogens, it is becoming ever more evident that modernity was founded on a profoundly mistaken understanding of the world, and that the elevation of humans above all other species, and indeed the Earth itself, has had disastrous consequences for humanity as well as all other living Beings.

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#AmitavGhosh on #Modernity #Modernism #BandaIslands #EarthJudgement

Amitav Ghosh: In this time of monstrous anomalies, we must recognise that the Earth is judging us

The author’s speech at the ceremony on November 26 at which he was awarded the prestigious Erasmus Prize.

^{Amitav Ghosh (Scroll.in)}