"There are, strictly speaking, no blank pages on which the text of history can be written, only those already overwritten with a network of still illegible signifiers, marked by the hands of previous generations."

A bleak, philosophical take on climate change, politics, and the state of the world. It could be summed up with the True Detective line: Time is a Flat Circle.

Ben Ware prepares for our bleak future. He examines Late Capitalism's impact on politics. Climate Change is bringing extinction but also demonstrating that we have all seen this before. The future is in the past, and it is also the secret to prepare for the future.

Favorite Passages;

This catastrophic convergence, far from placing the possibility of a global humanity on the immediate horizon, has instead intensified a series of sad passions and alienating symp- toms: surplus rage, hyper-anxiety, cynical resignation, the addiction to numbing forms of enjoyment, identitarian narcissism, collective paranoia, melancholic withdrawal, historical forgetting, the desperate attempt to preserve the ‘human’ as it already exists under capitalism. What we are talking about here then is a new kind of traumatized psy- chic reality, a new wounded subjectivity, one that won’t be overcome by a dialectics of mortal fear (being scared ‘so much that we start fighting for our lives’64), but which will instead require a political shift away from the time of end- less suffering

This beginning again, which the death drive announces, has always already begun. There are, strictly speaking, no blank pages on which the text of history can be written, only those already overwritten with a network of still illegible signifiers, marked by the hands of previous generations. A revolutionary politics of the death drive will thus take as its goal the liberation of these texts into history, their coming to legibility: an actualization of a past that has not yet fully existed, a past that still remains ahead of us in time. In this respect, the death drive reconfig- ures political temporality as such. No longer a straight line heading towards some pre-determined ‘future’, but now, rather, a series of repetitions, or better still revolutions, with each one interrupting the oppressive course of history and producing the new. Such is the foundation of a true politics of immortality today: a beginning again from scratch with one’s face turned resolutely towards the unfinished past.

Ben Ware begins his book by setting out the context and purpose plainly. On Extinction is a ‘philosophical and psychoanalytical critique of our damaged times.’ The Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at King’s College. London then proceeds to take his readers on a dizzying journey, in the company of some outstanding thinkers. Before the book begins to take steam even, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Judith Butler, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel jump out from the pages to alternatively startle and regale the reader!

Ben Ware defines extinction or the end by employing the highly imaginative notion of ‘apocalyptic jouissance.’ According to this notion, an end not only infuses the emotions of anxiety and dread, but also informs a paradoxical sense of enjoyment and wild excitement that transcends trivial pleasure. Ben Ware also attempts to explain the concept of extinction in terms of capitalism. Impending and past catastrophes such as pandemics, threat of nuclear calamities, climate change etc. not just lead to pessimism and resignation but also birth inexplicably opposing emotions such as enjoyment, identitarian narcissism, and a time of endless suffering which French philosopher Louis Althusser simply calls ‘barbarism.’

The author also cleverly introduces dark and introspective movies and television shows for advocating a dismantling of the capitalist system. One striking example being Darren Aronofsky’s 2019 film Mother! A poet, simply named ‘Him’ (a role essayed by Javier Bardem) and his wife, also unnamed and the ‘mother’ in the movie (Jennifer Lawrence) lead a serene existence in a home which the couple assiduously restore after it was destroyed in a fire. The tranquility and peace of the couple does not last long, courtesy a stream of uninvited guests. Beginning with the arrival of a doctor and his wife, the house is soon teeming with an unruly band of barbarians who fornicate, trash and dirty the place at random. Finally, the violation of the place extends to the desecration of mother herself when her body is repugnantly violated. As Ware informs his readers, an ecological interpretation of ‘mother’ here might mean Mother Nature or Gaia (goddess of earth). While Gaia in all her benevolence creates a veritable paradise for her children, the latter view such creation as a resource ripe for wanton plunder.

Ironically, the violators of mother are integral constituents of nature. This perverse feature is emblematic of what the French philosopher Jacques Lacan describes as ‘nature’s rottenness’ (‘pouritture’), from within which seeps culture as ‘antiphusis’ (anti-nature). A riveting section on Walter Benjamin’s frighteningly prophetic text Experience and Poverty – penned in the early 1930s – that mulls discomfiting ways in which new technologies will result in a novel kind of “poverty of human experience characterized by excess rather than lack: a suffocating abundance of new ideas and styles that produce a feeling of generalized exhaustion; a sense that, from culture to people, everything has now been ‘devoured”, provokes a surprisingly contrarian reaction from Ware. In a reassuring vein, he opines that Benjamin’s warning’s may not necessarily be a terrible thing. His Cassandra like proclamations ought to inspire humanity to try and “begin again.”

Ben Ware tries to convey to his readers that only in the wake of an existential crisis such as the threat of extinction, does mankind become not just visible, but also relevant. He draws inspiration from the works of Gunther Anders, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Maurice Blanchot and Theodor Adorno to bolster this claim. The Swiss American composer Ernest Bloch once famously remarked, ‘The true genesis is not at the beginning, but at the end, and it starts to begin only when society and existence become radical.’ Ware by concluding in a vein like Bloch asserts that the biological end of all things may as well mean beginning again at the end (of prehistory): “abolishing a mode of political and economic life which seeks to tether us all – the yet to be born – to a sick but undying present.”

Philosophy is not my strong suit. Most of my knowledge of thinkers like Kant and Freud comes from the sitcom The Good Place. As such, there were many times when I was reading Ben Ware’s On Extinction that I was acutely aware of the material going over my head. Luckily, his authorial style is still pleasing to read, feeling comparable to a well-written New Yorker article, and his arguments are well-explained.

A member of the psychology department at King’s College in London, here he uses the writings of great philosophers to examine our society’s growing sense of impending doom, as the signs of climate change continue to appear in growing numbers with each passing year. He opts not to comment on the current mass extinction or global warming directly, instead offering up a “philosophical and psychoanalytic critique of our damaged times,” to mostly fascinating effect, even for someone who is unfamiliar with the writings being examined.

With such heavy subject matter, one would be forgiven for thinking that the book will be filled with doom and gloom. To the contrary, while there is certainly some of that in these pages, the overall message seems to be one of hope for a new beginning to arise from this apparent end. He argues that we as a species must learn to look at our situation differently and works through our likely feelings on the matter by comparing them to a mix of major works of philosophy and pop culture like the movie Melancholia.

He is able to find flaws with many ways of thinking but is especially critical of capitalism. A particularly thought-provoking section on Walter Benjamin’s eerily prescient 1933 text “Experience and Poverty” discusses the ways that new technologies will lead to a novel kind of “poverty of human experience” befalling mankind, that “is characterized by excess rather than lack: a suffocating abundance of new ideas and styles that produce a feeling of generalized exhaustion; a sense that, from culture to people, everything has now been ‘devoured.'” He posits however, that this shouldn’t be seen as necessarily a bad thing, instead it should inspire us to try and “begin again” (emphasis his).

It’s all too easy to look at the world around us and slip into despair, but Ware’s book serves as a bit of a balm for such feelings. We as a species are facing an inflection point of our own devising, and it is critical that we make the right decisions with how we face it. In this brief but well-thought and articulated book, Ware makes a strong case for us to “begin again, and begin again with laughter.”

I wasn't necessarily equipped for the level of philosophical rigor Ware brings to the table, but I can appreciate that his points are thought-provoking and extremely well assembled,

A well researched, provocative confrontation and visceral reminder that our existence is limited.

This book is a slow burn that, by the end instills a sense of urgency to recalibrate and actively engage in the present.

Extremely thought provoking and introduced a lot of new concepts for me to take in. While not an easy read I'd say it's quite accessible. I'm grateful that in spite of the heavy subject matter each chapter is unique in a way that was able to grip me (before getting *too* depressed) anew all over again. Good stuff.

Thank you to the Author & Publisher for allowing me to read this book early in return for my honest thoughts and review.