By Christopher Harper
Extinction panic. That’s the latest worry that The New York Times says we must be concerned about.
Tyler Austin Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College in Maine, writes an extensive analysis in DaTimes:
“What makes an extinction panic a panic is the conviction that humanity is flawed and beyond redemption, destined to die at its own hand, the tragic hero of a terrestrial pageant for whom only one final act is possible. The irony, of course, is that this cynicism — and the unfettered individualism that is its handmaiden — greases the skids to calamity. After all, why bother fighting for change or survival if you believe that self-destruction is hard-wired into humanity?”
Harper [no relation] blames politicians left and right for what he calls “doom-mongering.” He writes: “One way to understand extinction panics is as elite panics: fears created and curated by social, political, and economic movers and shakers during times of uncertainty and social transition. Extinction panics are, in both the literal and the vernacular senses, reactionary, animated by the elite’s anxiety about maintaining its privilege in the midst of societal change. Today, it’s politicians, executives, and technologists.”
He cites several potential sources for extinction worries: Middle East war, “climate anxiety,” artificial intelligence, and China. “Climate is driving new fields in psychology, experimental therapies, and debates about what a recent New Yorker article called “the morality of having kids in a burning, drowning world.”
Only once you dig into the analysis does Harper finally show his cards. His solution to extinction panic is to give the government more power.
“We have gotten into the dangerous habit of outsourcing big issues — space exploration, clean energy, A.I., and the like — to private businesses and billionaires,” Harper argues. “We need ambitious, well-resourced government initiatives and international cooperation that takes A.I. and other existential risks seriously.”
After COVID, people may be even more prone to worry about extinction and perhaps turn to the government for solutions.
I hope people remember just how badly that solution worked!
Instead of wringing one’s hands, I suggest that people read a few books about faith and hope. Education scholar James Fraser has one that fits the bill.
Fraser’s History of Hope chronicles “American history through the stories of the individuals and movements that dreamed of a better future and then took action to make that dream a reality, arguing that the much-heralded American spirit was not born as a gift of our founding, but was forged through our adversity and triumphs.”
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