The Dark Enlightenment and the Anthropocene: Readings from the Book of Third Nature as Political Theology

Tuning into the cacophony of social media or the blogging world during the COVID-19 pandemic, the polemical popularity of the “accelerationism” movement, whose followers enthusiastically celebrate today’s apocalyptic ecological disasters, like famines, droughts, pandemics, or superstorms, is a disturbing development. This analysis then will critically reconsider several aspects of this small but strangely attractive network of thinkers today in the Anthropocene, who also fashion themselves as the core circle of nouvelle philosophes behind a “Dark Enlightenment” that has surfaced during “The Great Acceleration.” With their links to contemporary alt-right politics, its supporters merit this hard scrutiny because they also maintain close ties to many Silicon Valley—centered venture capitalists, cyber-libertarian thinkers, and corporate entrepreneurs at the core of the contemporary “stay at home” economy during the coronavirus pandemic.