Radboud Philosophical Facutly Journal

Auteur: bestuursplijtstof@gmail.com

  • Virtual Presence and Descartes’ Last Stand

    Are we fully ‘present’ in a virtual world when we are playing in VR? Or does a VR headset finally turn us into the detached spectators Descartes always said we were? According to Hubert Dreyfus, the epistemological concerns that were largely abandoned by philosophers in the twentieth century, have become very relevant again in the twenty-first century. The reason for this, is the possibilities of telepresence and virtual presence: the ability to be present in a place where you are not actually, i.e. bodily, present. This type of presence can take the form of, for example: joining a Zoom meeting, controlling a drone in some distant location, or inhabiting a virtual world by means of VR. In this paper, I want to examine the problem Dreyfus notes with virtual presence and see whether it is indeed a real problem when it comes to virtual reality. I will argue that it is not, with the help of Heidegger’s analysis of tools, state-of-mind and care in Being and Time. Similar to how using a hammer plugs us into a significant network of references, so does playing in VR plug us into a network of virtual significance.

    In On the Internet, Dreyfus starts his investigation of telepresence with the following question: “What would be gained and what, if anything, would be lost if we were to take leave of our situated bodies in exchange for telepresence in cyberspace” (Dreyfus 2009, 51). He relates telepresence to Augustine’s emphasis of inner life and Descartes’ “modern distinction between the contents of the mind and the rest of reality” (2009, 52). For Descartes, sensations caused by the ‘outer world’ are first passed to the brain and from there on to the mind. And citing people with phantom limbs as evidence, I can even question the direct experience of my own body. Descartes, as read by Dreyfus, understands our relation to the world and even our own bodies as an indirect relation. Only the contents of our minds are directly given, the rest is given indirectly, representational.

    According to Dreyfus, when using telepresence, our relation to the world is reduced to the narrow, indirect connection Descartes presumed us to have naturally. In order to fully understand Dreyfus’ criticism, we have to distinguish telepresence – being indirectly present in another physical place – from virtual presence – being present in a place that is itself not at all physical, but virtual. In his 2001 article “Telepistemology: Descartes’ Last Stand”, Dreyfus explains his criticism of telepresence by using the example of Telegarden, a digital project where people can log in to a robot in order to tend to a garden in a museum in Austria. Normally when you walk through a garden, you have no reason to doubt its reality. You are bodily present there, which means you can see, smell and feel the garden all around you. In the case of Telegarden, however, you are of course not physically there, so who says that there even is a physical garden that you are walking through with a physical robot?

    Dreyfus expands on this criticism in the second edition of On the Internet. His criticism hinges on the idea that bodily presence brings with it the possibility of optimal grip regarding a specific situation. Our feeling of reality depends on this feeling of optimal grip, which in turn depends on bodily presence. As Dreyfus puts it: “Its [(the body’s)] ability to get a grip on things provides our sense of the reality of what we are doing and are ready to do[.]” (Dreyfus 2009, 72). The answer to the question of what is lost in telepresence, is thus answered by Dreyfus in the following way: “What is lost, then, in telepresence is the possibility of my controlling my body’s movement so as to get a better grip on the world” (Dreyfus 2009, 60).

    However, Dreyfus also expands the scope of his argument here from telepresence to virtual presence. In a new chapter on the game Second Life, he explicitly discusses the notion of being present in a virtual world and submits it to a similar line of criticism. Does virtual embodiment provide a good substitute for actual embodiment? Dreyfus thinks it does not. Again, embodiment plays a crucial role here. Indirect communication of moods through our avatar means that it is impossible to acquire the required grip on social situations. The conclusion: A lack of bodily presence in a virtual world prevents the possibility of ever getting optimal grip on a virtual situation, which would in turn prevent an experience of virtual reality as reality.

    Dreyfus’ claims concerning the presence of virtual presence and the reality of virtual reality stem from a specific reading of phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on the latter in order to argue that a less dismissive view of virtual presence is possible based on a reading of his philosophy.

    Zuhandenheit and Vorhandenheit

    Dreyfus’ understanding of optimal grip has a basis in a specific reading of Being and Time. In Being and Time, Heidegger famously makes a distinction between Vorhandenheit and Zuhandenheit. This distinction relates to two different ways of relating to the world around us, that is, theoretical and practical, respectively. In Being and Time, Heidegger prioritizes the practical attitude:

    The kind of dealing which is closest to us is as we have shown, not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use; and this has its own kind of ‘knowledge’. (Heidegger 1962, 24)

    This practical attitude is different from the theoretical view, which sees everything it encounters as what Heidegger calls Vorhanden. This attitude will regard any being it encounters as an object, a thing, with certain properties, like heaviness, shaped in a certain way, etc. that we can discover by looking at it. This attitude of merely looking at things is the attitude of the theoretical view: “Theoretical behavior is just looking, without circumspection” (1962, 99). This is, as said, not the way we primarily relate to our environment. And it is close to the way Descartes would describe our natural relation to the world, and if we follow Dreyfus, the way we relate to the world through telepresence.

    In the practical relation that we first and foremost have with the world, we don’t regard the beings we encounter as mere things, but we encounter what Heidegger calls Zeug, or tools. Tools never exist in isolation; any tool refers to a multitude of other beings. The pen refers to paper, to ink, to the grocery list I am writing with it etc. These references are not like features of an object, they are part of the being of the pen, it is what makes us understand the pen as a pen. This totality of referencing equipment, to which the pen belongs, is therefore always already discovered before the individual pen. The tool can always only be understood from the whole to which it belongs. This referring to other beings is not some accidental feature of tools, it is a fundamental characteristic of the being of tools, which Heidegger calls Zuhandenheit. My proper understanding of a tool depends on me knowing my way around in this referencing totality. I do not grasp the being of a pen by looking at it and studying its properties, but by picking it up and writing with it.

    Significance

    So, in his analysis in Being and Time, Heidegger indeed seems to favor what Dreyfus would call embodied optimal grip, over theoretical onlooking. Yet, following Matthew Ratcliffe’s reading of Heidegger, I would argue it is a mistake to think that Heidegger takes this way of coping to be the essence of the way human beings relate to their world. Similar to how Descartes, at least in Dreyfus’ reading, misinterprets the human relation to the world as an all too narrow theoretical relation, I argue Dreyfus’ understanding of it as acquiring and embodied optimal grip is equally narrow. To cite Heidegger himself, looking back at his analysis of Being and Time three years later:

    It never occurred to me, however, to try and claim or prove with this interpretation that the essence of man consists in the fact that he knows how to handle knives and forks or use the tram. (Heidegger 1995, 177)

    So how should we understand the distinctively human way of relating to the world that Heidegger wants to lay bare? Ratcliffe gives the following characterization:

    [W]e find ourselves in a world where things matter to us in a range of different ways and, in the context of that world, we pursue certain concrete possibilities. It is only in virtue of pursuing these possibilities against the backdrop of an already significant world that we are able to make sense of the readiness-to-hand of equipment. (Ratcliffe 2012, 147)

    The basis for Ratcliffe’s characterization can be found in the first page of division 1 of Being and Time: “That Being which is an issue for this entity in its very being, is in each case mine” (Heidegger 1962, 67). This means, crucially, that my existence is not something that is predefined, set in stone, but something that I have to take a stand on, that is an issue for me. I exist as fundamentally open to different possibilities. My relation to the world accordingly to be understood as being delivered over to a context which is significant for me because it shows itself as a world of possibilities. Only from the prior discovery of this world as a significant whole, can beings then show themselves as either ready-to-hand or present-at-hand:

    Dasein, in its familiarity with significance, is the ontical condition for the possibility of discovering entities which are encountered in a world with involvement (readiness-to-hand) as their kind of being[.] (Heidegger 1962, 120)

    The being-in aspect of being-in-the-world should thus be understood as signifying a disclosive relation, in such a way that things are able to matter to us in one way or another. Heidegger uses the term Befindlichkeit or state-of-mind to describe this type of relation:

    Existentially, a state-of-mind implies a disclosive submission to the world, out of which we can encounter something that matters to us. Indeed from the ontological point of view we must as a general principle leave the primary discovery of the world to ‘bare mood’. Pure beholding, even if it were to penetrate to the innermost core of the Being of something present-at-hand, could never discover anything like that which is threatening. (1962, 177)

    Hence, being-in-the-world means being in a certain state-of-mind, being attuned to the world in a certain way. The whole fact that things can matter to us, is grounded in this state-of-mind. That this is connected once again to our own being always being an issue for ourselves becomes clear in Heidegger’s analysis of a specific state of mind, namely fearing. He analyzes the phenomenon from three points of view: that in the face of which we fear, fearing and that about which we fear. That in the face of which, the fearsome is always a being within the world that is detrimental and drawing close. Fearing itself is a state-of-mind which discloses the world in a certain way. That about which we fear is always Dasein, either our own or somebody else’s. About this last, important point, Heidegger writes: “Only an entity for which in its being this very being is an issue, can be afraid. Fearing discloses this entity as endangered and abandoned to itself.” (1962, 180).

    All of this is summed up and comes together in Heidegger’s crucial notion of care, the term he uses to denote the Being of Dasein. The notion of care specifies that our relation to the world around us should always be understood in combination with the fact that our own being is always at issue for us. Heidegger explains this, when he says:

    ‘Its own being is the issue for Dasein’: This first presupposes that in this Dasein there is something like a being out for something. Dasein is out for its own being; it is out for its own being in order ‘to be’ this being. (Heidegger 1985, 294)

    What this being out for itself means, is that Dasein has to anticipate itself and its needs in its relation to the world. In that sense, care means always Dasein is always ahead of itself in a world in which it is intimately involved. Therefore, Heidegger formulates the formal structure of care as: “Dasein’s being-ahead-of-itself in its always already being involved in something” (1985, 294). This structure is of course a temporal one. Out for its own being, Dasein is always already involved in the world with a past and certain existing structures, and has to anticipate its needs in the future. This structure is the necessary condition for both our theoretical and practical relations to the world around us. Hence, Heidegger writes: “‘Theory’ and ‘practice’ are possibilities of Being for an entity whose Being must be defined as ‘care’” (Heidegger 1962, 238).

    Resident Evil VII Biohazard

    Now, with all of this in our back pocket, I want to circle back to Dreyfus’ question and slightly rephrase it as: what, if anything, would be lost if we were to take leave of our situated bodies in exchange for telepresence in virtual reality? The way in which we answer this question from a Heideggerian perspective can no longer depend on the possibility or impossibility of smooth bodily coping, for as we have just seen, embodied optimal grip itself is only a possibility of being for an entity whose being is defined as care. Rather, the answer to this question depends on whether or not virtual reality plugs us into a significant whole, in which things matter to us in one way or another.

    A hint to an answer can be provided by a clip from a Dutch video game journalist playing Resident evil VII Biohazard in VR (Power Unlimited 2017). In the clip we see the journalist repeatedly terrified by his encounters with the horrors in the game. At one point, he even throws his hands up in resignation and curls up into a semi-fetal position due to being overwhelmed by fear. Now what this shows is that the virtual world of Resident Evil VII is significant to the journalist playing this game. The relation he has to this virtual world cannot be understood as the narrow, indirect relation Descartes presumed us to have naturally, for such a relation could never have discovered anything threatening in the first place. The world presents the player with a variety of possibilities to pursue – to open the drawer or not open the drawer, to run away or to engage. Attuned to the world and these possibilities in a certain way, specifically the way of fear in the foregoing example, means that the things in the world matter to the player in a specific way. Taken this way, rather than depending solely on bodily presence, optimal grip rather is a question of how well you are attuned to a situation and the possibilities it offers.

    To be clear: I have not been arguing that there is no difference at all between our relation to virtual reality and – for lack of a better word – regular reality. What I have been arguing is that the fact that we are not bodily present in virtual reality does not mean that our relation to the virtual world we are inhabiting while playing with a virtual reality headset, is not therefore necessarily reduced to the narrow, indirect, representational relation Descartes presumed us to have. Importantly, the point that I have been trying to make, is that both in our relation to virtual reality and our regular reality, we are plugged into networks of significance. Qua significance, there is no essential difference between being plugged into a network of equipment in wielding a hammer and building a shed, and being plugged into a network of virtual zombies in playing Resident Evil VII VR.

    Whether Dreyfus’ crucial point that in playing Second Life, our virtual avatars are unable to directly communicate our moods to other players denotes an essential difference, is by his own admission an empirical question. Leaving aside the question of whether or not “an avatar’s gestures can be made similar enough to ours to cause a direct response in the person controlling the avatar,” imagine playing Resident Evil VII VR in co-op and hearing the response from the clip I just played, audio only. Would there be any question concerning the mood the other player is experiencing? Is there any indirectness to this?

    In conclusion, what I hope to have shown today is that Dreyfus’ claim that something fundamental is lacking from our telepresence in virtual reality as compared to our regular, basic relation to the world around us, is based on an all too narrow understanding of this basic relation. Rather than the embodied optimal grip inspired by Heidegger’s analysis of ready-to-hand equipment, the more primordial relation is one of being thrown into a significant whole which presents me with possibilities. Therefore, I have argued that in using a virtual reality headset, we do have a direct connection to the content it offers us. So luckily, Descartes can go back to his slumber; it is not the time (yet) for his last stand.

    Bibliography

    Dreyfus, Hubert L. 2009. On the Internet: Second Edition. Londen and New York: Routledge.

    Dreyfus, Hubert L. 2001. “Telepistemology: Descartes’ Last Stand.” In The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet, edited by Ken Goldberg, 48-63. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

    Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. London: SCM Press Ltd.

    Heidegger, Martin. 1985. History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena. Translated by Theodor Kisiel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Heidegger, Martin. 1995. The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. World, finitude, solitude. Translated by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Power Unlimited. 2017. “Tjeerd schrikt zich te pletter in Resident Evil 7 Biohazard VR.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM8TqFUpilI&t=285s&ab_channel=PowerUnlimited.

    Ratcliffe, Matthew. 2012. “There Can Be No Cognitive Science of Dasein.” In Heidegger and Cognitive science. Edited by Julian Kiverstein and Michael Wheeler, 157-175. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • The Expiration Date of Human Rights: Rights of the Living and the Dead

    Introduction

    Mexico has been dealing with a forensic crisis for years. The crisis, which allegedly began in 2006 at the beginning of the war against drug trafficking, continues to worsen every year. More than 111,000 persons were registered missing in October 2023 in the interior ministry’s database, not including the many persons who went missing and were later found dead. (Eschenbacher 2023) These numbers continue to rise daily. The United Nations has expressed its concerns about the lack of effort put into the investigation of the disappearances and the identification of deceased persons. Despite the efforts of both the United Nations and the Red Cross to organise programs, thousands of decedents remain unidentified, continuing the heartbreak of many loved ones.

    This crisis raises profound questions about the right to identity and personhood for the deceased. Did these missing persons and unidentified decedents lose their right to be identified the moment they were no longer presumed to be alive? Do human rights have an expiration date?

    This paper seeks to address these questions by first elucidating what human rights entail and why the concept of human dignity is fundamental to these rights. It then explores the notion of legal death, especially the Presumption of Death, and the definition of posthumous rights. Finally, it examines whether human rights expire, arguing that while human rights do indeed have an expiration date, it is not necessarily set at the time of death. This discussion will incorporate the three factors – impossibility, value, and time – related to posthumous rights to provide a comprehensive answer.

    To illustrate these points, the paper delves into the forensic crisis in Mexico as a case study. The disappearance of over 111,000 individuals has left countless families in a state of uncertainty. While volunteer groups and loved ones try their best to fight for the rights of these missing and/or presumed deceased persons, they are unable to fully combat the harm caused by the violence that persists in their country, nor by their government, which has stayed passive in easing it.

    Through this case study, this paper argues that the lack of government action and the persistence of violence significantly shortens the period during which the posthumous rights of the missing and deceased are respected. The systematic silencing and threats faced by those searching for their loved ones further exacerbate the deterioration of these rights, demonstrating an urgent need for more robust legal frameworks and governmental action.

    Human Rights and Dignity

    In order to be able to argue whether human rights only apply to the living or also to the dead, the notion of human rights needs to be clear. The framework of rights is substantial and complex. Wesley Hohfeld famously managed to show that this framework can be organised, and he distinguished rights into four different types and incidents (Hohfeld and Cook 1923, 37). These are: the rights to claim, liberty, power, and immunity. From his framework, we can draw the following definition of human rights: ‘‘First, rights are moral constraints on the actions of agents; they constrain the behaviour of individuals who can understand and act for moral reasons. Second, rights are grounded in the fact that individual right-holders […] have their own aims and interests that are distinct from the aims and interests of others, and distinct from what would be best from some collective point of view’’ (Quong 2012, 623-624).

    The foundation for these human rights is human dignity (Kleinig and Evans 2013, 559). The definition of dignity has been a debate within philosophy for a long time. However, the most used definition of dignity is ‘‘the essential and inviolable core of our humanity’’ (Lanigan 2008, 12), in other words, dignity as the quality of humanity. To better understand the idea of human dignity, it can be distinguished into four ‘‘strands’’ (Beitz 2013, 271). The first refers to dignity as a rank or status (2013, 271). The second refers to dignity as a value or a kind of value (2013, 272). According to Kant, the only thing that possesses this value is the moral law. Therefore, from the second strand follows that human beings have dignity through their capability to follow the moral law (Kant 2012). The third strand is the role of dignity in characterising and commending conduct (Beitz 2013, 272). From which follows that dignity can be understood as a generic human virtue and from which the fourth, and last, strand is suggested. This strand refers to dignity as the worthiness of respectful treatment that fits one’s dignified character (2013, 273).

    From this definition follows that human dignity is not a mere value. The articulation of dignity in numerous international documents shows that dignity possesses a certain foundational significance (Kleinig and Evans 2013, 599). It can be said that the fourth strand, the deservingness of respect, is the most fundamental part of dignity in relation to human rights. The deservingness of respectful treatment is a foundation for both Human Rights as a concept as well as the idea of the right to human rights. The notion of respect as the foundation for human rights refers to the idea that every individual has a deservingness of respect, which grounds human rights. In other words, the idea that every individual is deserving of respect justifies as well as protects someone’s right to human rights. Thus, we can conclude that, as beings with dignity, we possess and should be granted basic human rights (Kleinig and Evans 2013, 559-560).

    Death in Legal Terms

    In the debate about the rights of decedents, the idea that dead bodies still carry some sort of (sentimental) value is of utmost importance. If human bodies are believed to carry some sort of significance, some sort of value, it might be expected and arguably logical for them to have rights.

    Legally speaking, one cannot be believed to be dead without the presence of a dead body to confirm this. (Wicks 2017) The only exception to this is a Presumption of Death. According to the Presumption of Death Act set in 2013 by the English government, one can be presumed dead if they have not been known to be alive for a period of at least seven years (‘Presumption of Death Act 2013’, n.d.). The period of time before one can be declared dead differs per country, in Europe most countries hold that in cases of general disappearances – disappearances unrelated to any life-threatening situation – one, too, must be missing for at least seven years before they can be presumed deceased (Council of Europe 2009). In China, however, this period is four years (China National People’s Congress 2017), and Russia holds that one must be missing for five years before one can be declared dead (Consultant Plus, 2024). In light of the current crisis, Mexico reduced their former legislation and allows the issuance of a Presumption of Death after a mere year (Marquez 2012). Where formerly loved ones had to wait a minimum of two years to request a Declaration of Absence and an additional five years to apply for a Presumption of Death, as of 2012 they only need to wait a year. As a consequence, the number of missing persons in the Mexican Republic has seen rapid growth. Based on the juridical systems surrounding death, one can conclude that whether it is the lack or presence of it, a corpse is of significant value when it comes to determining someone as officially and legally deceased.

    Posthumous Rights

    Important to the discussion of the rights of the dead is that a decedent can either have posthumous rights or can be nothing more than a mere beneficiary. Being a beneficiary of rights entails that the decedent profits from the rights of a living person and is, therefore, merely a third-party beneficiary. A good illustration is that of wrongful deaths for which loved ones claim a certain institution or company to be – one way or another – responsible. These companies are often sued in the interest of the decedent; however, should this lawsuit result in the company having to pay a fine or large sum of money as a form of reparation, the next of kin of the decedent are the recipients. Posthumous rights, on the contrary, imply that the decedent is a rights holder. Posthumous rights are the rights of the dead, or more specifically, the rights that come into being after a person has passed away.

    According to Kirsten Smolensky (2008), there are three factors when it comes to deciding whether posthumous rights are granted. The first factor refers to the inability of the decedent to perform their contract and is known as ‘impossibility’. The impossibility factor can give the decedent the right to, for example, not fulfil a contract as they cannot perform it. However, the impossibility factor does not only give decedents rights, it also takes constitutional rights from them. These rights include the right to vote, marry, or run for office. As it is impossible for a decedent to exercise these rights, they are taken away from them (Smolensky 2008, 775).

    The second factor is the importance of the right itself. The court decides which rights are valued as important, and therefore more closely guarded, and which rights are seen as less important. The second factor holds that this principle is true whether one is living or dead. (Smolensky 2008, 782) Consequently, the law protects some fundamental rights after death as it would if the person were alive. However, the protection of such rights, for example, free speech or reproductive autonomy, seems illogical. Starting with free speech, one could argue that the factor of impossibility would dismiss this right as the decedent does not have the possibility to actively perform it. Some courts, however, have suggested that depending on the importance of the case, the right to free speech should be pursued even after the death of the plaintiff. In her article, Smolensky refers to the McIntyre case in which the court pursued Mrs. McIntyre’s claim – which stated that the (American) First Amendment should have protected her right to free speech – after her death. This case, according to Smolensky shows that Mrs. McIntyre’s right to free speech survived her death in order to protect her right to sue. The idea that the right to free speech goes beyond the death of a person follows from a view called Interest Theory, which holds that the dead have interests that survive death (2008, 766). Therefore, the right to free speech of the dead would entail that these ideas and interests have the right to be pursued after the decedent’s death.

    As for the right to reproductive autonomy in posthumous cases, it becomes clear that one does not lose their autonomy when one dies. Reproductive autonomy, most of the time, is related to cases in which decedents’ sperm or egg cells are desired to be used for posthumous conception. In these cases, the court assumes that the decedent, before their death, had the autonomy to make pre-mortem decisions about what happens to their bodies after death (786). The court then continues this assumption of autonomy and follows the intent of the decedent when making a decision during these cases.

    The third and last factor concerns time. This factor holds that the rights of the death are time-limited: the longer someone has been dead the less likely a court is to extend a certain right to them (Smolensky 2008, 789). The decedent’s interest cannot increase in time, as they are no longer consciously aware of their preferences. In addition, decedents need ties to other living people so that their preferences can be recorded. However, over the years these ties fade and so does the decedent’s influence. In other words, as the decedent’s influence fades, so do their legal rights. Following this, it can be argued that human rights have an expiration date. However, this date is not set at the time of death, but rather years after.

    From these factors, it can be concluded that both autonomy, as well as dignity, are the driving force behind the creation of human rights, including posthumous rights. This is evidenced by the fact that the court and the law go to great lengths to support the wishes of the dead and ensure these wishes are respected. In doing so, they protect the dignity of the deceased.

    Raising and Answering New Questions

    Two questions arise from the given definition of posthumous rights and the factors relating to them. First: Were the factor of time taken to be true for both the dead as well as the living, would living people with little to no influence not also have little to no human rights? And secondly: If the expiration date of human rights is not at the time of death, then when is it set?

    To answer the first question, it needs to be clarified that ‘influence’, as used in the factor of time, does not mean the power or ability to affect something or someone. Rather, influence relates to someone’s consciousness and ability to express their preferences, opinions, and ideas to those with whom they are in contact. Furthermore, these factors were meant to decide whether posthumous rights can be granted, and thus were not intended to be applied to human rights for the living. However, an additional rule could be introduced to prevent any confusion when it comes to enforcing these factors. This rule would state that for posthumous rights to be granted, all three factors must be true. Consequently, we can say that one has lost their rights over time if and only if they were already incapable of performing other rights and if the court has decided that the rights in question were not of much importance (anymore). This rule makes it, at the very least, very difficult to apply the third factor to rights concerning living persons.

    Answering the second question is a bit more difficult. Smolensky’s three factors make clear that while the dead do have rights, these rights do not last forever. So, when do they expire? A possible answer we can take from the third factor is that rights fade as the decedent’s connection to life fades. This would mean that decedents lose their rights when they no longer have ties with living persons, for example, after those with ties to the decedent have also died. This possibility would, however, mean that some decedents have posthumous rights for a longer time than other decedents.

    Case Study

    This latter question can be tied back to the crisis in Mexico. Whether missing persons and those presumed dead inherit the rights of the dead and lose the rights of the living is, reasonably, a debatable question. There is no guarantee of them being deceased, but neither is there any evidence proving the opposite. They exist only in a grey area, an undetermined place. This paper argues that those presumed dead and missing persons, like those in the case of Mexico, should be granted the rights of decedents, based on the fact that even if they are alive, they have no way to express their wishes and preferences other than through the voice of others. Their disappearance has muted them.

    Following the theories discussed previously, multiple points can be made concerning the crisis revolving around the enforced disappearances in the Mexican Republic. First, as this paper has shown, for a decedent to remain in their position as a rights holder, they must have someone voicing their preferences. Simply put, decedents must be remembered. The crisis in Mexico has revealed that these people who continue the voice of the dead are not merely family members, but also strangers. There are over 180 search groups spread all over Mexico that voluntarily look for missing persons, identify the human remains they find all over the country, and, most of all, shed light on the violence Mexicans suffer from and the ability authorities lack to combat it (Eschenbacher and Elipe 2022). One of these groups is Las Rasteadoras del Fuerte, a group of women who have managed to find 423 bodies of which 218 were identified and returned to their families (Eschenbacher and Elipe 2022). These women, who were strangers to over four hundred of the bodies that they found, ensured that these decedents remained their right to be identified and fulfilled the right to a respectful burial of 218 people. With no ties connecting them, these women and their families increased the factor of time that Smolensky describes in her theory.

    However, this deed is not done without its dangers. Volunteers and family members who continue to actively search for missing persons, whether it is remains or a sign of life, not only face the same violence the person they are looking for suffered they also face systematic silencing from their government. Amnesty International reveals that relatives searching for disappeared persons face serious risks, including facing the same fate as their loved ones and going missing themselves (Amnesty International 2023). Enforced disappearances, especially of those looking for others, have become a synonym for death. As Amnesty International reports, these people include Teresa Magueyal, who was murdered while looking for her missing son Griselda Armas, and her husband who was also killed looking for their disappeared son, and many others whose names deserve to be known. This threat is not limited to volunteers and relatives it seems, as the Interdisciplinary Groups of Independent Experts who reported a case of 43 missing students all forcibly disappeared (Amnesty International 2023). The Mexican government continues its efforts to silence the cries of loved ones who stopped asking for help due to a lack of faith, and has worsened their heartbreak by claiming that the number of enforced disappearances published by the United Nations is exaggerated (Eschenbacher and Eschenbacher 2023). Families are denied access to forensic reports and are threatened and attacked by staff of Attorney Offices (Amnesty International 2023). Seemingly, the government and authorities put more effort into shoving this crisis under the rug than resolving the issue at hand.

    All of this leads us to conclude that there are two things posing a threat to the rights of the presumed decedents who have suffered under the Mexican crisis. First, is the violence many (young) Mexicans experience and face in the drug industry and within the republic itself. Second, are the government and law enforcement’s incentives and efforts to conceal rather than resolve the problem of enforced disappearances, thereby refusing loved ones and volunteers the resources and actions needed to find the missing persons. Ultimately, the factor of time is systematically and rapidly decreased as a consequence of the government’s attitude.

    When tying the notion of the rights of decedents to the forensic crisis currently haunting many Mexicans, we can conclude that despite the best efforts of families, friends, and even strangers, missing persons and those presumed dead are often deprived of their rights much sooner than is rightful. Due to the government’s passive attitude towards finding missing persons and the remains of those already believed to be dead, these people are ripped from the rights that, as proven by Smolensky, they had even in death. These people are stripped of their right to an identity and a burial, if not many more, by the same government that allowed this violence to come upon them in the first place.

    Conclusion

    To conclude, the forensic crisis in Mexico, exacerbated by the ongoing war against drug trafficking, has raised profound questions about the human rights of missing persons and unidentified decedents. This paper has explored the theoretical framework surrounding human rights and dignity, the legal implications of death, and the concept of posthumous rights to address whether human rights expire upon death.

    Human rights, grounded in the concept of human dignity, are moral constraints on the actions of agents and are essential to the respect and protection of individual autonomy and worth. Even in death, individuals possess posthumous rights that stem from their inherent dignity. Kirsten Smolensky’s three-factor analysis – impossibility, value, and time – provides a comprehensive framework for understanding these rights. While the impossibility factor removes certain rights due to the decedent’s inability to exercise them, the value and time factors ensure that important rights, such as free speech and reproductive autonomy, may extend beyond death, though they diminish over time.

    The crisis in Mexico starkly illustrates the practical challenges in upholding these posthumous rights. The rapid issuance of Presumption of Death declarations, coupled with systemic violence and government inaction, has led to a significant number of missing persons being prematurely stripped of their rights. Volunteers and families continue to voice the preferences and dignities of these decedents, often at great personal risk, highlighting the critical role of societal memory in sustaining posthumous rights.

    The discussion of posthumous rights in this paper emphasises the need for a broader societal and legal discourse on the rights of decedents. It is essential to recognise that human rights do not expire at death but fade over time as ties to the living weaken. This understanding necessitates a reassessment of governmental and societal responsibilities in addressing the rights of missing persons and unidentified decedents.

    To emphasise, the plight of Mexico’s missing persons underscores the urgent need for robust legal frameworks and active governmental efforts to uphold the rights of the dead. This paper advocates for a continued and expanded dialogue of the rights of decedents, recognising their inherent dignity and the importance of ensuring their rights are respected, even in death. Only through such discussions and action can we hope to address the limitations of current theories and practices, ensuring that human rights are preserved for all individuals, living or dead.

    Bibliography

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    Beitz, Charles R. 2013. “Human Dignity in the Theory of Human Rights: Nothing But a Phrase?” Philosophy & Public Affairs. 41 (3): 259–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12017.

    China National People’s Congress. 2017. “General Principles of the Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China.” Last Modified March 16, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170316024500/http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/2017-03/15/content_2018907.html.

    Consultant Plus. 2024. “Civil Code of the Russian Federation Article 45. Declaring a Citizen Deceased.” Last modified March 11, 2024. https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_5142/807f0f66520608de738f73f326a9b309ac205a32/.

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    Eschenbacher, Stefanie, and Mahe Elipe. 2022. “In Mexico, More Loved Ones Go Missing. Their Families Keep Searching.” Reuters, September 23, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mexico-missing/.

    Eschenbacher, Stefanie. 2023. “UN Raises Concerns over Mexico’s “alarming” Numbers of Missing Persons.” Reuters, October 3, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/un-raises-concerns-over-mexicos-alarming-numbers-missing-persons-2023-10-03/.

    Hohfeld, Wesley, and Walther Cook. 1923. Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays. New Haven: Yale University Press. https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.beal/funlegco0001&i=393.

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    Kleinig, John, and Nicholas G. Evans. 2013. “Human Flourishing, Human Dignity, and Human Rights.” Law and Philosophy: An International Journal for Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy 32 (5): 539–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-012-9153-2.

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    Marquez, Richard J. 2012. “New Law in Mexico’s Disappearance Cases Requires Thoughtful and Thorough Investigation.” Diligence Group Blog. Last modified, October 17, 2012. https://digroup-us.com/blog/new-law-in-mexicos-disappearance-cases-requires-thoughtful-and-thorough-investigation.

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  • The Earth as Human Condition: Against Negative Worldbuilding in the Anthropocene

    In this essay, we will use two thinkers that are not normally associated with debates surrounding the Anthropocene: Hannah Arendt and Achille Mbembe. Even though both of them are predominantly political thinkers, we think their ideas are a good avenue to explore when thinking about the Anthropocene. We aim to do three things within this paper: first, we will use Hannah Arendt’s concepts of world and earth – and the relationship between the two – to argue that humans are conditioned by the earth in the creation of their world. Using Arendt, we identify a productivist economy based on surplus and growth without limits that threatens the recuperative processes of the earth, and therefore the possibility of creating worlds. Second, we will argue that productivism not only creates worlds, but is also a process of what we in this paper will call negative world-building in that it creates worlds without meaning or humanity. We see two examples of these negative worlds in Mbembe’s concepts of death-worlds and zero-worlds. We perceive these worlds as manifestations of what Justin McBrien calls the Necrocene. Third, we will argue – with both Arendt and Mbembe – for a form of politics that allows for a positive creation of a plurality of worlds. This is based on the idea of a shared earth, and the ethics of cohabitation.

    Earth, World and the Vita Activa

    In The Human Condition Arendt identifies three kinds of human behavior and activities that make up the vita activa: “human life as it is actively engaged in doing something” (Arendt 1958, 22). These activities are labor, work, and action, and play out in different spheres – or conditions – of human existence: earth, world, and plurality, respectively. We will briefly examine each of these conditions and the aspect of the vita activa associated with it.

    Arendt at first seems to draw a sharp distinction between earth and world. She conceptualizes the earth as the natural environment in which we, like other animals, live. The earth is characterized by cyclical movement: generations of lifeforms are replaced in recurring cycles that more or less stay the same. The uniqueness of individuals is irrelevant here (Chapman 2004, 64). For the earth, we are simply members of the same species, only differentiated through biology and genetic makeup. Death is not the loss of a specific person, but simply the replacement of one lifeform with another (Chapman 2007, 436). Labor is the activity tied to the earthly sphere: it consists of all activities that meet our biological needs or are part of our daily lives, like cooking or cleaning. These activities have no beginning or end (Chapman 2004, 62). Products of labor (such as food) are perishable: they are either consumed the moment they are produced, or returned to the earth through processes of decay.

    We live on the earth as a biological species, but as human individuals we also inhabit a world that we create through work. Unlike labor, work produces durable products and artifacts, like books, tables – and buildings especially (Chapman 2004, 63). Work processes have a clear beginning and end, as they are done with specific ends in mind: the creation of durable artifacts. The products of work make up our world and provide a stable space in which we can speak and act. As such, work creates products that can never be fully consumed or destroyed (Oliver 2015, 97). Within this stable world we are differentiated in terms of personal identity and moral excellence: we are individuals that are born, live, and die. Human life takes on a linear, rather than cyclical movement in the world (Chapman 2004, 64). While our life on earth – as imagined apart from the world – is necessary for our survival, it only becomes meaningful within the world (Oliver 2015, 74-75). Moreover, while we do not share the earth according to Arendt, we do share the world: human activities are conditioned by the fact that we live together. As we will see, however, political problems within the Anthropocenic context put this distinction between a shared world and an earth that is not shared into question.

    Arendt makes a further distinction between a world and the world. We share a world only with some people, while the world is shared by all: everyone who has ever lived and will ever live on the earth. Worlds are various perspectives or positions within the world. The “real, true, reliable world” is what these different worlds have in common. The world, however, is not the sum of all other worlds, but rather a variety of perspectives (Oliver 2015, 89). The more perspectives – or worlds – there are, the more we have of the world: not only will we understand the ‘real’ world better, it will also have a richer meaning. For Arendt (1958), existing together in the world makes us human. That world only exists through the plurality of human relationships that goes beyond “a simple multiplication of a single species” (1958, 90). This leads to questions about how many people are needed to make up a world: can a world consist of only one person? (1958, 87). Arendt herself does not seem to answer this question. For the purpose of our essay, however, we want to emphasize the shared character of worlds, and the world in particular.

    While the distinction between earth and world seems sharp at first, Arendt states that the earth is a limit condition on the world: it limits where we can move and what natural resources are at our disposal to construct the world; and it determines the conceptual resources we use to build worlds with (1958, 75). Arendt sees the earth as given, the world as made: the given is a limit condition for what is or can be made (1958, 95). Our relationship with the made world, in turn, restricts our freedom as meaning-creating subjects. Our world consists of things produced by human activities, which in turn condition their human makers. Having a world means being enveloped in a setting in which things have a potential relationship to us (Whiteside 1994, 344). This potential relationship also connects us with others. Unlike private thoughts and sensations, it can be perceived not only by ourselves but by others as well. For Arendt, the things of the world lie between us: they both separate us from others as relate us to them (Chapman 2004, 64).

    This relationship with others brings us to the last characteristic of the vita activa: action. For Arendt, action is the capacity humans have to act in ways that are unexpected, and to initiate something new. This capacity is facilitated by – and includes – speech. Arendt thinks that by acting, our humanity is most fully realized (Szerszynski 2003, 204). Because every human being is unique, their actions are unique and new as well. Furthermore, action is only possible because of other people: the condition of human action is therefore plurality (Chapman 2004, 63). Other individuals can react to an action, which then creates an unpredictable and boundless process: we cannot control the effects and consequences of our actions on other people. Therefore, action has no clear end and is only a beginning (Chapman 2004, 63). For Arendt, the highest form of action is politics, which she sees as acting in concert, or coordinated action within its condition of plurality.

    Productivism and World-Alienation

    In Arendt’s view, these three spheres of activity threaten to merge together in destructive ways through a process of productivism. Arendt described this process in 1958, but it seems to be as prevalent – perhaps even more so – with the context of the Anthropocene. Kelly H. Whiteside defines productivism as “an adherence to the belief that human needs can only be met through the permanent expansion of the process of production and consumption” (Whiteside 1994, 340).  Productivism – of which capitalism is a subset – is characterized by an emphasis on growth, which for Arendt stems from the modernist reduction of all values to that of life itself. Life processes become regulated through society: all energy is devoted to assuring everyone receives physical security and a wide range of consumption goods (Whiteside 1994, 348-349). Moreover, society encourages us to become ever more sophisticated in our appetites, removing any limits to consumption. Life is valued in an immediate, sensory way. This means a constant shifting of needs, tastes for luxury, and cravings for additional sources of pleasure, until “eventually, no object of the world will be safe from consumption and annihilation through consumption” (Whiteside 1994, 349-350).

    Under productivist conditions, the transient nature of labor has infected the permanent character of work. Production and consumption now engage in a continuous cycle, rather than the linear movement of work with its defined ends. As Bronislaw Szerszynski puts it: “questions of utility – of what is being done for the sake of what – becomes as impossible to answer and as irrelevant as they are in nature” (2003, 210-211). The cyclical nature of earth in this way invades the durable human world. This is in large part due to the fact that the stability of property – of tangible objects produced through work – has been supplanted by monetized wealth that can flow and accumulate in a way that mimics – or is even an extension of – life’s metabolic powers. However, unlike the earthly products of labor that are either consumed or returned to the earth, wealth has the capacity to create surplus. This way, growth overcomes the cyclical processes of decay that kept labor and life in check. Yet surplus is a double-edged sword: as the capacity for growth increases, so does the capacity for destruction. This in turn diminishes the earth’s recuperative powers (Szerszynski 2003, 212) Human actions threaten natural systems or cause them to produce very different conditions. This can result in drastic changes to the type and quantity of life that can be supported by an ecological system. On a global scale, this may threaten the continued existence of the human – as well as many other – species (Chapman 2007, 438).

    Moreover, as Achille Mbembe (2019) states, western politics transforms from a realm of action and excellence into the administration of a self-propelling life process. Democracy is reduced to the right to consume, making it hard to envisage a different economy, different social relations, different ends and needs, or different ways of life (2019, 24). This threatens our world, as where work serves the world, labor only serves life itself without any regard to quality. We are therefore confronted with a growing world-alienation in which people abandon the togetherness of a shared public world for subjectivist consumption. Here we use David Macauley’s definition of alienation as a disturbance in our being at home on the earth and in the world: “a loss of roots and a common, shared sense of place, a realm of meaningful pursuits secured by tradition against the forces of change” (1992, 25).

    Not only does productivism then threaten the earth through resource use, pollution and habitat loss, it also threatens the world that gives our life meaning and value (Szerszynski 2003, 212). As Mbembe notes, capital attempts to transform life itself into a commodity in an era in which all beings and species are only valued insofar they are available for consumption. This leads to a planetary pursuit of power and pure profit for their own sake. This power, moreover, is indifferent to any ends or needs except its own (2019, 21-22). Everyday life has been colonized by market relations, wealth-worship, and a mode of production based on the destruction of the natural foundations of life. Our work, needs, desires, fantasies and self-images in this way have been captured by capital (2019, 24).

    While productivism yields the benefits of material abundance, it ultimately devours the sources of its own vitality. A society oriented towards growth that is presumed endless will ultimately run up against insurmountable limits. Catastrophe will then only be avoided by fundamentally changing modes of production and consumption (Whiteside 1994, 340). However, within capitalist society we face the choice of producing without regard to social or ecological ramifications, or risk not having access to the minimum of other products we need (Whiteside 1994, 343). Justin McBrien identifies this as a process of necrosis: the biological process that occurs after an injury in which cells are killed by their own enzymes (2016, 117). Capitalism works the same way, in that it is: “the reciprocal transmutation of life into death and death into capital” (Whiteside 1994, 117). Capitalism destroys and kills itself because of its own logic. Within this process, capitalist models and practices also annihilate whole ecosystems. Moreover, both extractive (e.g. in Africa) and deindustrialized economies (primarily in the Global North) now quickly accumulate surplus populations: those with insecure or no employment – or who will never be employed at all. For Mbembe, this signifies “a new age of capital when people and things can become the objects of a sudden process of devaluation and expendability. Disposable containers, they are subject to ‘obsolescence’ and can be discarded” (2019, 31).

    McBrien therefore speaks of the Necrocene, “the age of death and extinction as a result of capitalist accumulation” (Batalla 2020, 67). For McBrien, extinction and death are essential characteristics of capitalism. Death is a fundamental trait of capitalist practices, since “capitalism leaves in its wake the disappearance of species, languages, cultures and peoples. It seeks the planned obsolescence of all life” (McBrien 2016, 116; see also Clark 2019). Capitalism, according to Mbembe, will either move towards increasing exploitation of large parts of the world through primitive accumulation of resources, or it will use its technological and regulatory prowess to “[squeeze] every last drop of value out of the planet” (2019, 33), most notably through “a planned human intervention in the climate system that would undermine all notions of limitation” (2019, 33).

    Productivism threatens to destroy the world in two ways. First, by organizing society in such a way that people withdraw from the world into a realm of superficially meaningful subjectivism. Second, because it wreaks havoc on the earth, therefore endangering the very precondition for having a world. With people losing their world, the world is damaged. While productivism damages worlds, we argue that it also brings about processes of negative worldbuilding: the creation of worlds that lack the meaning and humanity of Arendtian worlds. We base our concept of negative worldbuilding on Szerszynski’s observation that activities of labor (in Arendt’s definition) can still leave permanent traces in the landscape, therefore producing their own ‘worldly’ structures. We argue that this holds especially true within the Anthropocenic context, as productivist processes have an ever-increasing impact on the planet. Moreover, these productivist processes often go hand in hand with local power dynamics and armed conflict, especially in regions such as the Sahel and Saharan Africa. This in turn is detrimental for how people within these regions are able to construct and experience their world. We find two types of negative worlds in the writings of Achille Mbembe, who explicitly uses world in a way we find in line with Arendt’s notion of the concept.

    Negative World-Building: Death-Worlds and Zero-Worlds

    Mbembe develops two concepts of negative worlds, the death-world and the zero-world. We see these negative worlds as belonging to the Necrocene epoch as described by McBrien. Death-worlds are “new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead” (Mbembe 2017, 59). They are governed by what Mbembe calls ‘necropolitics,’ a politics in which life and death are reversed, “as if life was nothing more than the medium of death” (Mbembe 2017, 59). Like the politics of life within productivism, necropolitical power too attempts to erase the distinction between means and ends. The inhabitants of death-worlds are surplus populations: redundant life which has neither market nor real human value aside from the kind of death that can be inflicted upon it. Necropolitics is indifferent towards cruelty and has no sense of responsibility or justice when it comes to these lives it has designated as redundant. As Mbembe asks: “capitalism in its present form might need the territory people inhabit, their natural resources (diamonds, gold, platinum, and so on), their forests, or even their wildlife. But does it need them as persons?” (2019, 30). Within death-worlds, people are not so much exploited as being utterly deprived of the basic means to move and the resources needed to produce a semblance of life – the basic stability needed to create positive worlds.

    We find these death-worlds, for instance, in places within post-colonial Africa that are “extractive enclaves, some of which are totally disconnected from the hinterland, in some nowhere that is accountable to nobody except to petro-capital,” where “in order to create situations of maximum profit, capital and power must manufacture disasters and feed off disasters and situations of extremity that then allow for novel forms of governmentality” (Mbembe 2019, 30). These novel forms of governmentality come from a splintering of the monopoly on violence in these areas: military forces, police, judiciaries, local warlords, private security companies, and the criminal underworld form complex networks of temporary and shifting alliances to lay their hands on manpower and minerals (Mbembe 2017, 122). To these networks we might add the multinational companies of petro-capital. Repression and illegal trade go hand in hand in these areas, giving rise to political-cultural configurations where arbitrary violence runs rampant (Mbembe 2017, 55). Populations are regulated through wars waged to lay hold of resources. They are either killed, or their bodies are made maximum use of: either as manpower for extraction, or for (sexual) pleasure. Perpetrators of war and terror create new military markets, transforming themselves to means of production (Mbembe 2017, 56-57). They form alliances with transnational networks to further their exploitation and export of natural resources, which in turn feeds their wars (Mbembe 2017, 122-124).

    Within the Anthropocene, terror inevitably takes on forms connected to the climatological context and way of life that is specific to different ecological environments (Mbembe 2017, 57). In the Sahel and Saharan Africa, for example, dynamics of violence closely follow – and are aimed at controlling the flows of movement and trade networks. Moreover, the desert itself is in movement, changing borders due to natural and manmade climate events (Mbembe 2017, 58). Nature also becomes the medium through which military and paramilitary violence is conducted. The militarization of nature and the naturalization of war are engaged in a dialectic in which earthly matter shapes the contours of conflict, and is shaped by them in return (Mbembe 2019, 21).

    Where death-worlds are made through configurations of people in places where extractivist capital goes hand in hand with a fractured monopoly on violence, zero-worlds are landscapes left behind – but still marked – by exploitative activities. For Mbembe, these worlds on a deeper level represent the confrontation between humans and matter, and between humans and life. Specifically, it relates to processes in which humans themselves are transformed into matter – and the circumstances in which they perish. In the death-worlds, human life has value insofar as it can be killed or used as a resource. Life in the zero-world instead expands outward towards a different state that has no definite end (Mbembe 2017, 198-199). In the zero-worlds, both people and matter do not return to a previous state through a reclamation by nature. Rather, these landscapes – and the people used in exploiting it – are ‘used up’ and remain in this state.

    In impressionistic terms, Mbembe paints a picture of landscapes wrecked by processes of extraction, littered with rusty machines and the ruins of factories and graveyards, populated by people that assume the same color as the dirt and the earth they mine through “as if they are already burying themselves” (Mbembe 2017, 199-200). Zero-worlds, then, are worlds left behind by the activities of unchecked labor, such as landscapes completely reformed through the mining of rare materials. While Arendt states that labor does not create world, we agree with Szerszynski’s observation that labor can leave enduring traces in the effects of its iteration, specifically in the landscape: “the ‘collapsing’ of patterns of activity into enduring structures such as landscapes and ecosystems gives labor/life the capacity to produce its own enduring worldly structures … [that] can serve as an enduring backdrop to human biographies, can provide places and objects for meaningful human interaction, can serve as objects of appraisal and judgment” (2003, 209). The zero-worlds, however, provide no meaningful human interaction. The still threatening presence of their objects only subject to appraisal and judgment insofar as the inhabitants of the landscape – indentured servants, exploited peoples – can bear witness to what has happened here (Mbembe 2017, 200).

    So how do we escape this negative worldbuilding? How can we steer the emergence of the Necrocene towards that of what Batalla calls the Eleutherocene, “the age of liberated Earth and Humanity” (2020, 65)? We think this needs to be done by developing a politics that can restore “the witnessing structure of the world itself” (Oliver 2015, 93). We find the foundations of such a politics in the thought of both Arendt and Mbembe.

    A New Politics

    Mbembe proposes a world politics that is not based on difference but on an idea of equivalence and communality: “are we after all not condemned to live within each other’s field of view, sometimes within the same space?” (Mbembe 2017, 62). Due to this structural proximity there is no outside that can be placed in opposition to an inside: we cannot declare home to a protected area while wreaking chaos and death far away, where others live. “Sooner or later, we will reap at home what we have sown in foreign places” (Mbembe 2017, 62). To declare an area as protected can only happen in a mutual process. This requires a world politics that moves beyond thinking in terms of opposition and strangers, but also avoids the trap of a simplistic ideology of integration. More specifically: there has to be a clear distinction between universalism and communality. Universalism is based on absorbing people in a unity that is already formed; communality implies a relation of sharing, to belong to something together. This ‘something’ for Mbembe is the idea that this earth is all we have, and that it can only last when all rightful claimants share it together. Not only humans, but all species – without distinction (2017, 61-62).

    We noted that for Arendt the earth is an essential part of the human condition. The earth is the ultimate given: we are all earthly embodied creatures entirely dependent on the world for our existence and freedom. In addition to living on the earth, we inhabit and share the world. The earth allows us to be able to create the worlds through which the world – as a variety of worlds or perspectives – becomes a richer, more meaningful place. An Eleutherocene politics should start by embracing the limits of the given. For Arendt, our freedom is freedom precisely because it is bound by what we cannot control and do not – cannot! – master. Our relationship to the given might change and evolve, and we have a responsibility to interpret the given as it affects our lives. However, we do not have the power to control or master it – and might not even understand or know it. We must therefore acknowledge our own limitations insofar as we master neither the given, nor the made (Oliver 2015, 95-96). Similarly, Mbembe notes that: “If to survive the ecological crisis means to work out new ways to live with the Earth, then alternative modes of being human and inhabiting the world are required. The new ecological awareness forces us to recover an appreciation of human limits and the limits of nature itself” (2019, 21).

    Rather than imagining ourselves as limitless, we must create our world – and worlds – with what Arendt calls an understanding heart. This means accepting and embracing what is given, specifically the diversity of human existence. Arendt uses the term amor mundi (love of world) to refer to the love and friendship that carries over into our world-building activity. We should embrace our unchosen cohabitation with other people and other creatures of earth, and attend to them “in ways that open up rather than close off the possibility of response” (Oliver 2015, 102). Furthermore, we should acknowledge our own limitations, and exercise self-restraint (2015, 101). As Kelly Oliver writes: “If we associate what is given with the earth and what is made with the world, this means that for us the earth always requires a world in terms of which to view it […] finding our home may involve an endless journey visiting different worldviews in order to find ourselves situated – and, more to the point, situating ourselves – amongst them. It may involve wandering to the ends of the earth, metaphorically if not also literally” (2015, 102-103).

    This, for us, resonates with what Achille Mbembe calls the ethics of the passer-by, an ethics based on the idea that we are more capable to name a place and live in it if we remove ourselves from it. According to Mbembe, we should strive to learn how to continuously travel from one place to another, establishing a double relationship of solidarity and distance (2017, 223-224). Becoming a human in the world, according to Mbembe, is a process of metamorphosis that requires us to embrace the fractured part of our lives; to obligate ourselves to take detours and facilitate sometimes unlikely encounters; to operate within the cracks because we value finding (and giving) a shared expression of things that would normally distance ourselves from others (2017, 222-223). For Oliver, these unlikely encounters with others should extend not only to our fellow humans, but to other lifeforms as well. Contrary to Arendt, we should acknowledge that nonhuman animals can also have worlds. Moreover, we should give up our fantasies of control and mastery over nature, and – through friendship and love – embrace the feeling of ‘uncanny strangeness’ that an encounter with another species gives us (Oliver 2015, 105)

    Like Mbembe, Oliver theorizes that: “perhaps the possibility of being at home is bought at the price of continual wandering through the desert and oases of our imaginations and our planet” (2015, 110). We will always require a necessary element of the alien or foreign in every home, otherwise we run the risk of inaction or contentedness contradictory to both ethics and politics regarding the struggle for social justice (Oliver 2015, 103). As Arendt puts it: “The danger lies in becoming true inhabitants of the desert and feeling at home in it” (Oliver 2015, 103).

    Conclusion

    In this essay, we aimed to show how the writings of Hannah Arendt and Achille Mbembe might be relevant – and important – inclusions in the growing pile of literature on the Anthropocene. We specifically focused on the relationship between world and earth as defined by Arendt. This relationship is threatened by the forces of productivism, which not only causes us to retreat from our shared world into subjectivist consumerism, but also impacts the earth – and therefore the very precondition for creating worlds in the first place. Moreover, we argued that productivism not only destroys worlds but also creates negative worlds, as exemplified by Mbembe’s concepts of death-worlds and zero-worlds. We see these negative worlds as aspects of a Necrocene: an epoch marked by death and extinction. To steer the planet away from the Necrocene into the Eleutherocene – the era of liberated earth and humanity – we need a politics based on our sharing of the earth. This earth is what makes the creation of worlds possible: the world that we all share is a variety of these worlds or perspectives. If we want our world to be rich and meaningful, then, we should act in concert to create conditions that allow for a plurality of worlds, both human and non-human.

    On a final note, we would like to state that this paper is not exhaustive. Other parts of both Mbembe’s and Arendt’s thought can be explored in the context of the Anthropocene, though they fall outside the scope of our current argument. As a specific example, both Arendt and Mbembe note the connections between the human-nature divide at the root of western metaphysics and politics, and the subjugation of indigenous peoples by colonizers. Because indigenous people regarded nature as their indisputable master – and thus behaved as part of nature – colonizers regarded them as lacking the specifically human reality of a world outside of nature (Mbembe 2017, 113). More generally, we think it is worthwhile to explore the parallels between Arendt’s and Mbembe’s thoughts on technology, nature, war and politics. We’d like to explore these avenues in future papers and recommend others to do so as well.

    Bibliography

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  • Dress to Impress: Communicating Knowledge and Power Through Fashion

    If he had not worn that borrowed blazer from Princeton University, Dickie Greenleaf would not be dead. In the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Thomas Ripley fakes having attended Princeton to be accepted into the high society of New York. As part of his ruse, he flies out to Italy to visit Dickie Greenleaf, a true bon vivant living his life partying. Trying to survive in the world of the rich and pretty, Ripley has to adapt by wearing the clothes worn by high society. After rising suspicions from Greenleaf’s side, they get into a fight and Ripley kills Greenleaf. Based on the book with the same title (1955), the story follows a con-artist who desperately yearns to be part of the upper class and uses clothes to uphold his scheme. Similarly, earlier this year, the ‘old money style’ trend reemerged, with people attempting to emulate the fashion choices of the contemporary upper class. This essay entails a discussion of class distinction through clothing.

    We will argue that clothes can be used as a means of communication, transmitting knowledge about status, belonging or political statements. After explaining the term ‘old money style’, we will speculate that the style (re)gained popularity earlier this year, because its conservative roots give safety and its classic, basic look is in line with the demands for a more timeless wardrobe in the face of a climate crisis. Giving an outline of the theory of proletarianization from Marx and Engels, and adding to it with Stiegler’s notion of lack of knowledge, we will combine this theory with fashion. Firstly, clothing is used as a class distinction, shown in the example of the ‘old money style’ trend and the more concrete example of the ‘suit’ apparel. Secondly, in contrast to the desire of dressing like the upper classes, dressing in opposition to them as a political statement is explained with the example of Black people and their reclaiming of ‘Hip Hop culture’ from those who have devalued or appropriated it. Hereby the problematic, ignorant use and capitalization on the Hip Hop ‘style’ by white brands is highlighted, because the meaningful aspect of the clothes is disregarded. Having explained why clothes can be a form of communication, we will argue that choosing to not care about this communication is a form of privilege resulting from class, economic context, conventional attractiveness or fame. Furthermore, we will argue on the example of the con-artist Anna Sorokin that, apart from mere clothes, context is important. Aspects of whom the wearer is, how the garment is worn and when must also be considered when analyzing communication through clothes.

    ‘Old Money Style’

    The ‘old money style’, or ‘old money aesthetic’, is a recent clothing trend of people wanting to dress in an elegant and classic style, imitating the fashion choices of upper-class wealthy people with a grand family tree and set traditions. Popular clothing items are cable knit sweaters, linen pants, boat shoes, polo shirts, oxford shirts and navy blazers (Berlinger 2024, n.d.). As the names already suggest, the clothes are tied to a certain kind of lifestyle – having a boat, playing polo and going to esteemed universities like the University of Oxford. The specific look, worn by the likes of the Windsor family or John F. Kennedy, is based on the already existing ‘preppy’ style. ‘Prep’ stems from American and English preparatory schools, which are private schools for children who want to go to college or university (Lingala 2013, 4). The style is said to have originated in the late 19th century (Lingala 2013, 2), when the upper class could afford to study classical programs instead of having to work. This class of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, henceforth referred to as WASPs, were proud of their family history and wanted to distinguish themselves from the people who got rich through the Industrial revolution in the 19th century, marking the beginning of the separation of ‘old money’ and ‘new money’ (Lingala 2013, 8).

    The question arises – why now? Why did the trend of ‘old money’ reemerge at this particular moment? On Tik Tok, the hashtag #oldmoney has over 600,000 posts (June 2024) and on Instagram, the hashtag has over a million posts (June 2024). Additionally, the search expression ‘old money style’ gained a sudden, steep rise in interest around late February of 2024 (Google Trends, n.d.). Two connected reasons could be responsible for that. Firstly, the ‘old money aesthetic’ can give a person safety and stability, especially in times of crisis. The conservative attitude of ‘old money’ to rely on heritage and tradition, wearing what always has been worn, is somewhat against a core principle of fashion: change. Fashion is defined by its restlessness, always changing, evolving, and the need to have the latest trend. By dressing timelessly and traditionally, the WASPs cling to their rituals and rules. It is no wonder that in a time of crisis and financial instability, people yearn even more for stability and the fantasy of being rich. It could therefore be argued that on a deeper level, pretending to be ‘old money’ by wearing their attire is a form of escapism. Escapism is understood as people trying to escape reality by imagining being somebody else or somewhere else; to not be confronted with the problems of reality (Collins English Dictionary, n.d.). This presentation of one’s social status is visually heightened through the constant comparison on social media. While people have always wanted to be carefree and/or rich, the possibility of showing off one’s lifestyle and being confronted with the lifestyle of others is essentially limitless on the internet.

    Another influencing aspect on the popularity of the ‘old money style’ might be the current climate crisis and ever-escalating mass production and consumption. Fashion occurs in cycles. What was trendy roughly 20 years ago always comes back in style, sometimes in slightly different variations (Mollard 2022). Trends can emerge as a response to past trends; if big sunglasses are ‘in’, soon people will want to go against the grain and wear small sunglasses, and eventually the trend will once again cycle back to bigger sunglasses. The actual length of each phase of this cycle, however, has rapidly shortened over the past couple of years: “the advent of innovative technologies and social media has drastically condensed the life cycle of trends today” (Mollard 2022). Given the current climate crisis, a counter movement of sustainable clothing has arisen, with individuals attempting to avoid purchasing mass-produced garments. Sustainable clothing is not only sustainable in terms of their fabrics and materials, but the look should somehow transcend trend cycles and remain wearable. If the new shoe silhouette people want to buy fits the current trend but could be ‘out’ again at any moment, sustainable shoppers may instead opt for a more classical and timeless look that will stay fashionable regardless of what is currently ‘trending’. This thinking goes hand in hand with the conservative thinking (in the non-political sense) of ‘old money’ regarding clothing. However, this is not to say that the current ‘old money’ look is truly timeless. While, for example, jeans and a white t-shirt are now seen as ‘timeless’, back in the 18th century one would have been quite out of place in jeans. ‘Timeless’ clothes are therefore hard to define objectively, because it depends on who you ask, and when.

    The Proletarianization of Fashion

    In a society with a growing social media and technological presence, comparison between lifestyles becomes ever more frequent. The problem follows from the previously described term ‘escapism’. The idea that one group desires to be like the other can be linked to a problematic social class disparity that forces lower classes to take matters into their own hands to find a place within their society, or lack thereof. Questioning these dynamics takes us to several burdens, especially that of class struggle, which can be linked to proletarianization.

    ‘Proletarianization’ originally comes from Marx and Engels, who introduced the term ‘proletariat’: the working class who had no ownership and were, in a way, exploited for their work, while the bourgeois class gained the fruits of the proletariat’s labor. Marx maintained that the working class was a victim of the ruling elite because they had no ownership over the means of production (that they were producing themselves). With that, several problems came, all boiling down to substantial economic and social inequalities which were to Marx, Engels, and many thinkers of the time (and now), unacceptable. According to Hutnyk, on the topic of proletarianization, the initial stages of this term had more to do with pauperization and the lack of ownership, one which “results in the first place from the loss of savoir-faire of workers enslaved to machines, and no longer masters of their tools” (Hutnyk 2012, 128).

    Philosopher Bernard Stiegler reintroduces the term Proletarianization, going beyond the traditional Marxist view of the working class’s lack of ownership of the means of production. For Stiegler, the lack of possession that the proletariat has is not limited to ownership but rather to the dispossession of knowledge, skills, and cultural memory. The lack of “know-how” or “savoir-faire” in the consumerist and capitalist society of today has “led to a deprivation of recognition, sociability, and finally existence, generating the suffering of the consumers becoming miserable” (Hutnyk 2012, 128).

    Modern and industrial technological developments have led to a significant loss in individual thinking skills. By introducing new methods of machinery and production, workers have become unaware of what their tasks actually are – comparable to machine operators. This also links to their lack of knowledge on how to conduct certain tasks in the workforce; the same introduction and development of technological systems into human structures have removed humans’ ability and desire to learn and understand what they are doing. All these new perspectives on proletarianization are also linked to how people, in turn, live in a society. If they are reduced to limited knowledge capacities and abilities, their ability to communicate and socialize becomes equally limited, creating a society with little to no individuation. Rather, a homogenous society emerges where everyone thinks and does the same, due to a lack of ability to do otherwise.

    However, his conception of proletarianization comes, once again, closer to Marx when he suggested that the impact of this proletarianization in economic structures is great. With a concentration of technological power, control and knowledge in the hands of a few elites (leading corporations), the social structures have a more focused controlling and exploitative starting point. This only perpetuates the economic and social disparities which Marx also believed to be a problem with the working class’s lack of ownership over the means of production. The term ‘proletarianization’, as Stiegler reintroduced, can be connected to what this paper intends to examine: the lack of individuation. In a homogenous society, a ruling elite (unintentionally) sets the basis for what the lower, working class is meant to wear, and also what they wear themselves.

    The creation of a general framework of style and fashion, such as the ‘old money aesthetic’, can be associated with Marx’s bourgeoisie, which leads the behavior of the working class. If we take a step towards fashion, we can see that a growing number of people in the working classes attempt to make themselves visible within workplaces or other professional locations by wearing clothes similar to those worn by people high in command. The lack of originality that is – according to Stiegler – a product of a growing technological society, sees an increase in the homogeneity of fashion styles within communities. Let us take, for example, a suit. A suit in its full form, with all that it embodies – accessories included – has the power to establish a person wearing a suit as having a powerful position within the workplace. But this goes beyond the clothing item. There are plenty of other factors which should be taken into account alongside the suit. Namely: the brand, the shape of the lapel, the color, the lining, the fabric, the shoes that accompany it and whether they have a buckle, whether the belt is brown or black, and if it matches the suit, etc. All of these questions seem extremely superficial and irrelevant for a workplace and should say nothing about a person’s professional abilities, but unfortunately, this is not the case.

    Counter Movement: Fashion as a Means of Communicating a Political Statement

    What is seen within the proletariat in terms of what they wear are two things: they either want to come closer to the higher-class, ruling elite by dressing the same way (albeit taking into account this lack of originality and overall societal homogeneity), as seen in the old money style. Or, the opposite: where the proletariat, taking Marx’s views on the working class uniting and stepping away from all things bourgeoisie, decides to take the alternative stance and wear something completely different, thereby making a political and social statement.

    The first option is very visible within American sororities and fraternities in the Ivy League school system. Whereas ‘old money’ and ‘new money’ are no longer visible to the naked eye and require more intensive research and knowledge on each person individually, the case is now that there is a homogeneity of fashion even within the higher class. Here, it is relevant to echo Stiegler’s discussion regarding the generalized lack of know-how and originality that has emerged from an incredibly technologically dependent society. Individuals within it no longer have the ability to choose things for themselves. Going back to the Ivy Leagues, the point is that, although the principle of the clothes is the same and the idea of outfits is the same, the place where the clothes are bought are quite disparate. While some purchase their clothes in high-end stores that, today, are in vogue, others turn to lower-cost and more accessible alternatives that will provide the same concept of clothes but at a substantially lower price. This way, the sorority girls will still be a part of the community without spending a small fortune in order to look the part.

    On the other hand, there is a desire on part of the proletariat, the people that are not encapsulated within the elite class, to emancipate themselves from the framework. We have looked upon the lower classes desiring membership of the upper classes to the extent that they dress similarly (in a conceptual sense) to the latter. We will now examine another perspective that can be taken as one of emancipation, individualization, and of making a statement: “I do not want to be a part of this”. This second option entails many movements which have arisen throughout the last decades, aiming to step away from all that is known as ‘old money’. These include the punks, hippies, and Black Panthers, for example, who all decided to make their own political statements by dressing in very particular ways, exclusive to the message that they were trying to convey – mostly based on countering the leading elite’s power, in very simple terms.

    For instance, much like ‘old money’, we can look at how some Hip Hop trends increased in the late 1980s, 1990s, and remain alive in today’s society. In these decades, young Black people were establishing their own sense of style and appreciation for their culture via their clothing, following the Hip Hop trends that were on the rise within the music industry. These clothes were based on “unique styles that they feel reflects their Black identity such as bold colors or traditional garments from African cultures” (Johnson et al. 2022, 265). These are set to reflect a deeper sense of their own identities as a minority group.

    By claiming this sense of style within their community, Black people were, too, making a statement regarding their position within society. They would not give in to the hegemony (as seen in Stiegler’s works) of style just because the leading elites, the white people, were doing so. They made their own movement and chose to present themselves in these clothes because it was what made them happy for themselves and represented their culture. They could also be trend-setters, cool and powerful, within their circles, and hoped they could extend this to the racist world that surrounded them.

    This is exactly what happened. By being trend-setters to such an extent, the urban fashion movement spread so much that it started being used by white people. This was inappropriate in two ways: firstly, it was an appropriation of a style that encapsulated African American culture and their struggle (which white people couldn’t relate to, no matter how much they tried). Secondly, it exacerbated social injustice and disparities in treatment between races: while a white person wearing a hoodie and sweatpants was overlooked, a Black person wearing a hoodie and sweatpants could be considered a thug by authorities, bringing them into unnecessary trouble and creating several additional problems.

    Following this cultural appropriation, Black communities created brands that would represent their trends in clothing, in music, in relatability, in a shared struggle, in everything that meant anything to them. These brands were their way of establishing themselves within the system. By creating these brands, not only did they attempt to address an economic injustice perpetrated by white store owners who were profiting from a culture that was not their own, but they established a place where Black people’s shared interests could be found and represented. A problem arose when big brands such as Tommy Hilfiger or Hugo Boss, at the time, noticed that Black-led ‘urban’ fashion trends were increasing and, therefore, decided to create collections that would replicate these types of clothing. This was problematic, again, for two reasons. First, it was culturally appropriating clothes and trends that they, as majority white-owned companies were not familiar with and could not represent in their full essence. Secondly, as large companies, they were taking away profits that would otherwise have gone to Black-owned businesses, perpetrating further economic injustice. Big companies were feeding from trends that were created as statements, as an affront to the status quo, and turning those statements into the status quo, removing their essence entirely. They were capitalizing on Black people’s struggles and the marginalization they had experienced. These companies have significantly attenuated urban, Black fashion, whereas ‘urban’ “is a term that used to be synonymous with the Black community, now ‘everybody’s trying to use the word (“urban”) to appropriate Black culture’” (Johnson et al. 2022, 264).

    This goes to show how different cultures and clothing styles can provide different ways of asserting one’s power, status, and role within a society. From ‘old money’ clothing wearers, who stick to a century-old clothing style as a means to remain in vogue and ever-classic, ever-powerful and ever-rich; to Hip Hop clothing wearers who, in delving into new areas of styles and trying new things, are able to make basic political statements. Ultimately, there are several ways in which clothing plays a part in communication.

    The Fascinating Case of Anna Delvey – The Privilege to Not Care

    In recent years, Anna Sorokin, or as she called herself, Anna Delvey, originally from an area near Moscow, posed as a German heiress in New York’s high society and cheated many people out of their money. She was arrested in 2017, when she could no longer pay her bills (Taleb and Hellmich 2024). In 2022, the series about her, Inventing Anna, aired on Netflix and made her story even more famous. But how was she able to uphold her masquerade for around four years? She desperately wanted to be part of the glamorous world of the pretty and the rich. She therefore created her own character with a backstory, made believable through her designer outfits. She did not always have the most coherent, stylish outfits and often mismatched designer brands. That is exactly why her scam worked. As an article in Vogue Australia puts it: “She didn’t look like her outfits cost a million bucks – and that is why she looked like she had a million bucks” (Brown 2022). If you are truly rich, you do not need to show other people and convince them of your status: “Her seemingly sloppy clothing, rather than revealing her true origins, in fact made her look more like a rich person” (Tashijan 2019). You can have the privilege to not care, to not fit in, because you are able to financially stem the consequences.

    Usually, trying to distinguish one’s own class can be compared with an arms race. Because the lower classes strive to imitate the upper classes to profit from the privileges resulting from being part of that class, the upper classes must constantly adapt and find new ways to distinguish themselves. Similarly, the ‘Red Queen Hypothesis’ in evolutionary biology states that “species (or populations) must continually evolve new adaptations in response to evolutionary changes in other organisms to avoid extinction” (Langerhans 2018). The real privilege is, now, to step away from the constant comparison and to care less about refining one’s social standing within society.

    The privilege to not care can also be attributed to privileges other than being rich. Two examples are being conventionally attractive or being famous. The ‘model-off-duty look’ describes a very casual look, inspired by outfits that models wear on the street when they are in between jobs or running from airport to airport. In its formula, the ‘model-off-duty look’ shows similarities with the old-money style in its neutrality and timelessness: “To craft a genuinely effortless model-off-duty look, stick to high-quality wardrobe basics. Investing in classic pieces is sustainable and practical, as the garments will take you from decade to decade” (Chwatt 2024). The outfit consisting of a white t-shirt and jeans, which on an average person seems basic and put together without attention to detail, looks elegant and effortless on the models. Since models have a body according to the common beauty standard, their body turns into an accessory itself and makes the clothes look well-fitted and desirable. Additionally, the public knows that this is only a functional outfit for in-between duties, and not the laziness of not coming up with a creative outfit, since they are able to wear fancy dresses to Galas, in campaigns, and on the runway all the time.

    Another desired aspect is fame. The Coachella Festival, also colloquially called the “Influencer Olympics” (Espada 2023), is a very popular music festival in California. Each year, a lot of celebrities show up to present themselves, their brands and, of course, their outfits. Especially influencers, people who became famous on social media such as Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube, attend this event to present themselves. Every year, the outfits become grander and louder and bigger to not get lost in the sea of other influencers posting their outfits at Coachella. However, another trend has recently developed – non-influencers such as models show up to Coachella dressed very casually, in just a leather jacket, jeans and a t-shirt. With this act, they show that they do not have to partake in the war for attention, because they are already famous. They are so rich that such a special event like the expensive Coachella Festival is not worthy enough to dress up for.

    In summary, aspects such as good looks, fame or wealth afford the privilege to not care about broadcasting one’s adherence to these standards. Visibly and desperately working to convince other people of one’s good qualities may be an indicator that, in fact, those good qualities are missing. In a time where anybody can buy grand and colorful clothing, the choice to transcend the arms race for better, newer, more expensive clothes is seen as desirable. It is a privilege to be able to rely on other qualities – a healthy body, good manners, disposable income and connections – not having to hide the lack of one of those qualities behind a gaudy outfit. Because as much influence clothes have on how one is perceived, the matter of who wears them is of as much importance.

    The Secret Language and Habits of the Rich

    The ‘old money aesthetic’ is, in itself, a personification of class struggle. Wanting to dress up like wealthy people already distinguishes one from the other. Wanting to show off already signals a kind of missing ambivalence concerning what other people think. Although people can try to imitate the looks of the rich, customs and traditions are hard to train overnight. Furthermore, not all blouses are created equally. Just imitating the silhouette or color scheme is not enough to elevate oneself into the upper class: “Micheal Kurtis, a luxury-fashion consultant, knows of shoppers who will spend $100,000 on clothing from the ‘Row’ [high end fashion brand] that’s barely identifiable to the untrained eye. Clothes like these are a secret language, communicating wealth only to those in the know” (Brooke 2022).

    The speech act, “dogwhistle” (Olasov 2016), is a linguistic tool used in politics to allow multiple interpretations of a phrase or a word, depending on which audience you belong to. In that sense, dressing in casual high-end brands without logos to identify them on the first look, is similar to a speech act as a way to communicate your status to the people who know about it and recognize the pieces from the latest runway because they were sitting in the first row. This trend of dressing in understated yet expensive high-quality pieces is called “quiet luxury” (Fröbe 2024). It poses a counter trend to the “logomania” (Glasheen 2024) of the mid 2010s, where the “overt use of logos on apparel, accessories, consumables and – in a few unfortunate cases – printed onto model’s faces” (Glasheen 2024) was trending. Although ‘quiet luxury’ and ‘old-money’ are heading in the same direction, ‘quiet luxury’ is more toned down and about fabrics and silhouettes, while ‘old-money’ is about specific clothing items like loafers and cardigans. ‘Old money’ does not frown upon showing brand logos like Polo Ralph Lauren (Fröbe 2024).

    Even apart from the specific clothing items, Anna Sorokin’s case also teaches us that it is not merely about the items themselves, but also about how and when you wear them. The context matters. Anna “didn’t take care of her things, acted like she didn’t have to” (Brown 2022). Similarly to the Coachella Festival, if luxury items and events are nothing special for someone anymore, they do not have to take special care of them. One example of this is Jane Birkin. The French actress and singer gave her name to the famous Hermès ‘Birkin Bag’ – for many, the epitome of luxury handbags (Der Stern 2023). While most wear this bag with the utmost care due to the price, Jane herself wore her bag with ribbons, stickers and bangles. Apart from the how, the timing matters as well: “Looking wealthy goes deeper than what you wear […]. It’s about wearing a white silk suit on a rainy day in New York because you have a driver to ferry you through the gray slush” (Brooke 2022). These details come through knowledge, through experience and cannot be imitated by merely putting on clothes.

    However, clothes do create social standing. In that regard, it is a two-way street. Malcolm Barnard proposed that clothes “are not used simply to indicate or refer to social and cultural positions, they are used to construct and mark out that social and cultural reality in the first place” (2002, 38). Clothes are part of forming the classes. In contrast, one’s social standing also influences how clothes are perceived. This fine line can be demonstrated by the story of the con-artist, Tom Ripley, in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955;1999). Although initially “admitted to Dickie Greenleaf’s circle to itinerant rich kids thanks to a borrowed Princeton blazer”, he is later “skewered for wearing a heavy corduroy jacket in the Italian heat” (Brooke 2022). Passing as wealthy due to a blazer may work at first glance: “Dress is a convenient method to keep class distinction because it is so visible” (Lingala 2013, 24); but no respectable, wealthy Italian would wear a jacket in the middle of a summer day. When to dress up and when not is as much of an importance as how to take care of the clothes.

    Conclusion

    Questions like when, how and why are questions that the average person does not ask themselves when it comes to fashion. It seems superficial, indifferent and arguably should not even play such a big role within professional settings. But the cold reality is that it does. Clothing, fashion, and all that it entails has almost as much to say today as the information one learns in one’s curriculum. It seems that as society evolves, trends keep spawning back from the past, and with that, the restlessness which was talked about previously has an even greater impact in drawing the lines for knowledge and power assertion.

    However important the restlessness of different fashion trends is, there are still some timeless and permanent trends that have remained. ‘Old-money styles’, and other styles that have emerged from class struggles demonstrate how truly communicative fashion can be when it comes to power dynamics. Everyone wants to fit in somewhere; Stiegler (and Marx) displayed that there are different social groups, and one which rules them all. Eventually, the ruled groups lack means of knowledge due to the growing presence of technological artifacts in today’s society, which forces this group to follow along the lines of demarcation that have already been set. However, wanting to fit in seems to backfire in the end. As we have seen with Anna Sorokin or Tom Ripley, or even with white people wanting to wear ‘urban’ fashion clothing items that were innovations by and for Black people, there are certain things which cannot be imitated, and the truth comes out in the end. No matter how much we deny it, fashion and its context play a big role in demonstrating someone or some movement’s true colors, from the lower class to the upper class, clothing travels through it all.

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    Olasov, Ian. 2016. “Offensive political dog whistles: you know them when you hear them. Or do you?” Vox, November 7, 2016. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/11/7/13549154/dog-whistles-campaign-racism.

    Taleb, Najoua and Björn Hellmich. 2024. “Der Fall der Eschweiler Betrügerin Anna Sorokin.” Aachener Zeitung, February 26, 2024. https://www.aachener-zeitung.de/lokales/region-aachen/eschweiler/der-fall-der-eschweiler-betruegerin-anna-sorokin/8290788.html.

  • The (Un)freedom of Dutch Housing

    In the Netherlands, there is a housing crisis. This fact has been so unanimously agreed upon that it even became one of the main spearpoints in the 2023 Dutch elections under the moniker of ‘bestaanszekerheid’, or security of living (NOS 2023). The main problems that make up this crisis are the scarcity of available housing and the price of housing that is available. Citizens looking into purchasing a house are often outbid, and those applying for social housing are placed on waiting lists that may take up to 17 years in some municipalities (Buijtendijk & Buijs 2023). One of the main driving forces in this housing crisis is the privatisation of the housing market during the 90s (Kras 2022). This privatisation was aimed at providing more citizens with cheaper housing due to competition on the open market. Privatisation also meant there would be less social housing and more opportunities for house ownership. Why is it that the liberalisation of the housing market, which would give citizens more opportunities and freedom regarding housing, has made many citizens unfree due to their inability to find a stable place to live?

    ​A central turning point often mentioned regarding housing in the Netherlands is the 1990s (Kras 2022). Before this period, it was often the case that municipalities owned large pieces of land and willingly distributed these to housing associations eager to start building affordable, accessible housing. This meant municipalities had control over the amount, size, and specifications of new housing. An inevitable shift occurred during the 1990s when the citizen became important as an individual and consumer. Citizens had specific, personal wishes and desires, which also affected their perspective on the role of housing in society. Creating considerable diversity in housing types and fulfilling more specific wishes regarding lifestyle became central. Adding to this, providing citizens with the ability to own a house privately became a central political goal (Haas, Heerink, and DWARS Commissie economie, n.d., 12). To fulfil these goals, municipalities sold their shares in land and housing projects, thus privatising the housing market.

    ​This tendency in economic politics is also considered to be a shift from socialist politics towards a more liberal mindset. Liberalism, as an ideology, focuses on personal freedom and the freedom to conceive of your own personal idea of ‘the good life’. This is also often referred to as the idea of negative freedom. With negative freedom, citizens are free to decide for themselves and free from interference from others (or the state). Negative conceptions of freedom also stimulated the liberalisation of the housing market. Citizens would be able to choose a living space that best suits their taste. Thus, by focusing on providing more options (type and size of a house, private or social housing, etc.), a citizen’s personal freedom is increased. While on paper, citizens are free to choose what kind of housing they desire, in practice, they do not have the ability to actually express this freedom. Due to privatisation, housing prices have increased, and the availability of housing has decreased, which has, in practice, made citizens less free. In this sense, citizens are forced to apply to any social housing projects that remain or apply for a mortgage that limits their financial mobility significantly. While liberalism proposes an ideology of personal choice and freedom, the practical consequence is that citizens have become less free.

    ​A potential opening to escape this deadlock in housing is finding a different conception of freedom, namely, positive freedom. Positive freedom is generally conceptualised as the idea that citizens have the freedom to actualise the possibilities given to them (Warburton, n.d.). Positive freedom focuses on the ability to make a specific choice. This is opposed to a liberal conception of freedom, which focuses on the opportunity to make choices, not your actual capacity to make choices. Hegel suggested that free will is actualised through the choices that individuals and collectives make; therefore, being able to actualise choice is more an expression of freedom than the opportunity to make choices. A housing market focused on positive liberty is thus focused on realising citizens’ ability to receive housing, instead of providing irrelevant possible choices. This would, for example, lessen possible options in housing but make the options that are there more accessible.

    To provide some perspective, this idea has already been realised in Austrian social housing (VPRO 2023). In Austria, over 80% of citizens are eligible for social housing and pay comparatively little for their housing. In the Dutch context, social housing is seen as something for ‘the poor’ and is generally seen as undesirable. This is completely reversed in the Austrian context. Citizens see social housing as something positive and that it does not entail living in poor or inadequate housing. Positive freedom, when translated into providing as many citizens as possible with adequate housing, causes innovative and livable housing options to arise (VPRO 2023).

    Additionally, other opportunities open up by providing more citizens with suitable housing. Since citizens can now access housing more easily, they may also have better job opportunities and access to social and community participation. Thus, by providing accessible housing, citizens have more choices that are open to them, and become, in turn, freer. Citizens in this situation are less restricted and gain opportunities instead of losing them.

    ​While the housing crisis in the Netherlands may seem like a purely practical or technical problem, it is, in actuality, fueled by a specific, negative conception of freedom. Therefore, the housing crisis problem can only be resolved by adopting a new conception of freedom. This can be found in positive freedom, which focuses on capabilities instead of opportunities. Additionally, housing based on positive freedom has already been realised in Austria, which could serve as an example for the Netherlands to tackle its housing crisis.

    Bibliography

    Buijtendijk, Richard, and Madeline Buijs. 2023. “In Nederland sta je eindeloos op de wachtlijst voor een sociale huurwoning.” Colliers, October 5, 2023. https://www.colliers.com/nl-nl/research/factcheck-in-nederland-sta-je-eindeloos-op-de-wachtlijst-voor-een-sociale-huurwoning.

    Haas, Raoel, Vincent Heerink, and DWARS Commissie economie. n.d. “Waarom de huizenmarkt altijd faalt. Een economisch-historische analyse van huisvesting, marktfalen en woningcorporaties.” Accessed August 20, 2024. https://dwars.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Manifest-Volkshuisvesting.pdf.

    Kras, Jeanette. 2022. “Waarom oplossen woningcrisis zo moeilijk is: ‘We zitten gevangen in het systeem.” Welingelichte Kringen, January 5, 2022. https://www.welingelichtekringen.nl/economie/3158548/waarom-oplossen-woningcrisis-zo-moeilijk-is-we-zitten-gevangen-in-het-systeem.html.

    NOS. 2023. “Bestaanszekerheid is een belangrijk thema voor veel kiezers.” NOS, November 5, 2023. https://nos.nl/collectie/13960/video/2496803-bestaanszekerheid-is-een-belangrijk-thema-voor-veel-kiezers.

    VRPO. 2023. “expeditie beter Nederland.” Last modified November 30, at 20:30 (CET). https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/tegenlicht/kijk/afleveringen/2023-2024/Expeditie-beter-Nederland.html.

    Warburton, Nigel. n.d. “Two Concepts of Freedom.” OpenLearn. Accessed August 20, 2024. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/philosophy/two-concepts-freedom/content-section-3.3.

  • Splijtstof 52-3

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  • Into the Mirror World

    Naomi Klein’s new book, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World (2023), begins with Klein sharing an incident on social media where she was mistaken for Naomi Wolf, a feminist thinker who shifted her views to becoming a conspiracy theorist and engaging with very right-wing thinkers and public figures. This all took place around when the COVID-pandemic hit the world. Throughout the pandemic, Wolf propagated online and in a book that vaccines and public health measures were part of a scheme orchestrated by a “transnational group of bad actors” with intentions ranging from sterilization to transforming children into drones and undermining the Constitution.

    The confusion between the identities between Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf got so bad that it practically became an internet meme. Naturally, it was disconcerting for Klein, who is known for her serious works like No Logo (1999) and The Shock Doctrine (2007), to be associated with a figure like Wolf. No Logo explores the impact of globalisation and corporate branding on culture, society and the economy. It delves into the rise of multinational corporations and the increasing dominance of branding in consumer culture. In the book, Klein argues that these corporations exploit cheap labour and tax regulations in developing countries, while also homogenising culture and undermining local economies. The Shock Doctrine explores the concept of disaster capitalism, a notion in which economic elites exploit crises to push policies that would not be accepted under normal circumstances. Those policies often involve privatisation, deregulation, and cuts in social services. This push benefits the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

    Initially, Klein attempts to disregard “Other Naomi,” finding the humour in the mix-up and categorizing it as one of those things that are confined to the domain of the internet alone. However, she eventually becomes fixated on Wolf’s ascent in what she terms the “Mirror World” of conspiracy theories and right-wing paranoia. During the pandemic, Klein isolates herself from her family to closely follow Wolf’s discussions on Steve Bannon’s podcast. This transforms her analysis of her “doppelganger” into a meticulous exploration of online culture and political duplicity. Rather than giving in to the urge to dismiss Wolf and others in the Mirror World as strange people that should not be taken seriously, Klein undertakes a thorough investigation into their concerns and what makes them so appealing to some.

    By looking into what caused the transformation of her namesake and examining other instances of online paranoia that flourished during the pandemic, Klein traces what caused the gap between well-intentioned liberals and anti-vaxxers. She observes that we distinguished ourselves from one another, yet increasingly found similarities, even to the extent of deeming each other as non-persons.

    Her writing in this book remains clear and dynamic even though the subject matter is incredibly confusing and has so many layers. The book is therefore a nice easy read even though the contents could easily be confusing. It is a personal story which makes abstract issues in the political realm concerning conspiracy theorists and anti-vax movements into something tangible. Though Klein explains every step clearly, not expecting the reader to know everything about her, knowing something about who Klein is and the books she has written before adds an extra layer to the story.

    While Klein’s language may feel sensationalist sometimes, using terms like “Mirror World” and “doppelgangers”, it is exactly this use of words that makes the book so captivating and fun to read. By using the language of psychological thrillers, she brings her occasionally dense or theoretical content truly to life.

    The result of the whole ordeal is that Klein finds herself feeling less attached to who she is perceived as online. She finds it silly, looking back how serious she once took her online persona. In result, she now feels liberated from her public self. This book precisely documents a journey that is an example of so many of these stories that unfold in this day and age. Klein’s story is a testament to the last couple of years of our world. It tackles socio-political issues that have grown during the pandemic, mostly to do with polarisation, and it adds dimensions of social media and its effects on the public debate. Klein shares her story, in which we can all relate to certain aspects, and puts forward interesting observations and ideas that one can philosophise further about, academically and privately.

    References

    Klein, Naomi. 1999. No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. London: Picador.

    Klein, Naomi. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

    Klein, Naomi. 2023. Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. London: Penguin Books Limited.

  • An Interview with Herman Westerink on Hopes, Freud and Dreams

    Herman Westerink is Associate and Endowed Professor of Metaphysics and Philosophical Anthropology at Radboud University. A significant portion of his research is dedicated to Freudian psychoanalysis, alongside his studies in the philosophy of religion. Following his participation in a public lecture at Radboud Reflects, titled ‘What Are Dreams Made Of’, we decided to interview Herman and discuss a Freudian approach to own our theme, ‘Hopes and Dreams’. While the lecture was very informative, we had some remaining questions, especially since terms like ‘hope’ and ‘dream’ are often used interchangeably. Herman was happy to join us and further discuss these matters.

    Sophie: Thank you for joining us today. We’d like to ask you about your thoughts on dreaming, especially since the theme of this Splijtstof edition is ‘Hopes and Dreams’. Given your recent work, particularly with Radboud Reflects, we thought it would be interesting to explore the topic more.

    Herman: Excellent.

    Sophie: For the uninitiated, could you tell us a bit about the relationship between your work on Freudian psychoanalysis and dreams?

    Herman: Well, the ‘dream work’ of Freud is his most famous text, certainly among a larger audience. The Interpretation of Dreams is not necessarily in the centre of my research, but again and again, I am confronted with his dream analysis. Again and again, various texts refer to The Interpretation of Dreams, and to the dreams of patients, which are always very important in his clinical writings, as well.

    For Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams is not his only work on dreams; it is a topic that comes back again and again. Notably, the topic appears in his clinical writings, and sometimes also in his metapsychological writings, because dreams are supposed to give us an insight. That’s the first important thing to say about Freud’s interest in dreams: they tell us something about an aspect of our psychic life to which we normally have no access. To this, even dreams only grant us access to a certain extent, because there is also a kind of censorship mechanism. So, it’s also always in a filtered and indirect manner that dreams give us insight into unconscious mental processes, but nevertheless they do.

    Having said that, according to Freud, dreams also give us insight into the fundamental principles that organise psychic life. Since dreams give insight into unconscious processes, they also help us detect when certain mental principles are no longer at work, like consciousness or perception. For instance, this is the case in our ability to organise impressions into a spatial or temporal chronology. They function not only as an insight into certain principles that organise mental life, but also show what psychic life looks like when these when these principles are shut down, or partly shut down.

    Sophie: Do you think there’s much overlap between Freud’s perspective and your own? What do you think about dreams?

    Herman: I don’t have much opinion on dreams, but what intrigues me is the cultural, historical perspectives. Freud is part of that history. Generally, we in the Western world, although certainly not exclusively in the Western world, tend to attach a lot of meaning to dreams, whereas it’s not self-evident to do so. In the case of Freud, you could say dreams are a way to know more about ourselves than we would normally be able to detect or see. This is something that you find throughout Western history. I find that intriguing because it’s not self-evident that dreams have a meaning or a significant place in the way that we understand ourselves.

    Although, that’s just an observation. That’s not an opinion. I don’t know if Freud’s theories can be maintained. He argues that dreams are wish fulfilments – or attempts at wish fulfilment. There is current research, especially in neuroscience, from those who claim that Freud made a good point here. Though, I don’t know whether Freud’s arguments about dreams are absolutely plausible. It’s not my field, but as I said, I find it intriguing that he paid so much attention to dreams as being meaningful and providing self-knowledge, whereas one could also spontaneously argue dreams have no meaning – that it’s just chaos.

    Charlie: Since you mentioned wish fulfilment, I was thinking about how sometimes we use the word ‘dream’ as a synonym for a hope or a desire. I was wondering what Freud would make of this, and maybe also what you think about this yourself.

    Herman: Yeah, that’s the popular use of dreams, right? The American Dream, dreams about the future, et cetera. This use of ‘dreams’ could well be seen as a kind of popularised version of a Freudian take on dreams, right? There’s a lot of stuff in Freudian thought that has been popularised. The idea of dreams as wish fulfilment is among them. I’m not really sure whether ‘dreaming of the future’ in terms of what you hope or what you wish to happen can fully be reduced to Freudian thought. Although, I think that Freudian ideas have been very important for shaping this idea of dream as wish or hope for the future. It is indeed phrased like that today, as opposed to the classical idea that dreams can be messages from the gods that reveal what is going to happen in the future – that was a very antique idea. So, I think the idea of dreams, as wish fulfilment, or hope for the future, is a kind of popularised version of Freudian thought. I think Freud is part of that, at least.

    Charlie: That’s very interesting. I’ve never made a connection between the American Dream and Freudian thought.

    Herman: Well, the American dream, of course, also has other sources, right? It’s also the dream of the colonists to have their own country, to have their own land, et cetera, to make to make your life a success – ‘Manifest Destiny’. There are also other sources for that, but I think to phrase it in terms of dreams and dreams as wishes is a very Freudian idea popularised.

    Charlie: Yes, that’s interesting. For those of us who perhaps have less pleasant dreams, could Freud offer any words of comfort for us, or is his work likely to make us feel worse about our weirder, more uncomfortable dreams?

    Herman: Ah, yes, most dreams are uncomfortable. First of all, I would have to start by saying that Freud is very analytical, in honest and realistic depictions of dreams, and taking seriously what is communicated in dreams. If dreams are wish fulfilments, they are closely related to fantasies. That also means what you find in dreams, as I already mentioned, is somewhat – but not fully – censored. Repressed or unconscious thoughts show themselves in the form of very violent dreams. For example, you can kill people in your dreams, or you can get killed in your dreams. There is violence and absurdity in your dreams. There is also power in dreams: being able to do things that you would normally not be able to do, like flying. There are all kinds of bizarre things, but also some aspects of human life that we would normally rather not be confronted with, especially violence and anxiety.

    For Freud, nightmares are also wish fulfilments, but they are wish fulfilments in the sense that we react with fear to the consequences of what we are dreaming about. Waking up in a nightmare is usually at a point where something we do not find acceptable is going to happen. When the censorship breaks in, or when consciousness breaks in, you suddenly start to realise the implications of what you are about to dream, and this is where the dream ends. This is the point where the wish fulfilment shows its implications and then something in psychic life says, “this this is unacceptable, this cannot be!” Dreams are not just wish fulfilments in the sense that they show us pleasurable sides of our own fantasies and imaginations. Quite to the contrary, they can also show the violent or the anxious side of psychic life.

    There is also a special case to which Freud devotes some attention: the traumatic dreams of traumatised people. They may repeatedly dream about the traumatic events that they lived through. This is a really puzzling issue for Freud, because if dreams are wish fulfilments, even anxiety dreams to some extent, it is very difficult to explain why a traumatised people would return to their trauma in their dreams. That is counterintuitive for Freud. Therefore, he believed that there are some dreams that are ‘beyond’ wish fulfilments because they have something he calls ‘demonic character’. Dreams that bring us back to scenes of trauma are special case, but also shows, again, that dreams are not in any way related to pleasure.

    Sophie: Following that line of thinking, how satisfied would you be with the conclusion that our dreams don’t mean anything – none of them?

    Herman: I think that nobody would actually object to that. This is also something I said in Radboud Reflects: from the very start of our own cultural history of thinking about dreams, there has always been the idea that at least a part of our dreams is perhaps meaningless. Of course, in the antique world, that means there are dreams that don’t entail any messages about the future. Sometimes the gods are not speaking in dreams.

    Freud would probably say that some dreams are more significant than others, but there are no dreams that have no meaning. All dreams reveal something of unconscious and repressed material. In this sense, dreams are, per definition, informative about psychic life. Yet, some dreams are more significant than others.

    Sophie: What do you make of the dreams that come true? For instance, something bad might happen or things go wrong in an anxious dream and might really go wrong in practice.

    Herman: Apart from self-fulfilling prophecy? You could give an answer from the idea of a wish fulfilment. If you dream that something is going to go wrong, it’s probably because you wish, to some extent, that it goes wrong, and so why wouldn’t it go wrong? Maybe dreams can also reveal something of an unconscious self-sabotaging mechanism. They may at least show you that there is a conflicting voice to what you may consciously think. Freud would say that our psychic life is always in conflict. There’s always also another voice. There’s a counter-tendency – for instance, not succeeding in things you think you want to succeed in – and it is that kind of mechanism. A Freudian answer to your question is that there is a self-fulfilling prophecy in this case.

    I certainly don’t want to return to the idea that that dreams are really messages from ‘gods’ about what is going to happen unavoidably in the future. We can only prepare for what might happen. In the example that you mentioned, someone dreams of something that goes wrong, and it actually goes wrong. That indeed shows that they are probably self-sabotaging.

    Sophie: Would you say this further illustrates that some dreams may be considered more meaningful, or at least less random or chaotic, than others?

    Herman: Yes. I am now voicing a more or less Freudian take on dreams, but such cases are quite telling of our relation to what is going to happen. Our relation to persons or objects is never straightforward, but always ambiguous.

    Charlie: I was doing some homework for this interview and I found that Freud analysed his own dreams for his work. I was wondering if, in your opinion, we should be able to get away with this kind of practice in our own work. Could I cite something that I’ve dreamed as a source for my own dream analysis book or essay?

    Herman: I think this is a challenge. Strictly speaking, in psychoanalysis, it is not a good idea to analyse your own dreams. You could bring your dreams into analysis, vis-à-vis an analyst, but the idea of a self-interpretation of dreams is probably not the most fruitful form. At the same time, having said that, there’s a long history since Freud in psychoanalysis where analysts, and also patients, keep dream books. This is not only something in psychoanalysis: there are people who do that, who wake up and the first thing they do is make a note about what they have dreamt and keep it in a book. This can be seen as an ongoing diagnosis of their own mental states.

    There is a technical problem with doing self-analysis, which can easily take the form of a kind of self-deception. This is because I’m not sure whether we are the best interpreters of ourselves given the censorship I already mentioned. The other element in your question would be whether it is a good idea to do any form of self-analysis. Why would we be so obsessed with analysing ourselves? Self-analysis is also a way of self-problematisation, and why would we make our lives so much more difficult than necessary? This is a somewhat Foucauldian answer; he criticises psychoanalysis, notably for the obsession with analysing ourselves in Western history.

    But are we a problem? I don’t know. Should we be a problem for ourselves? Who says that we should be a problem for ourselves? This kind of argumentation that you find in Nietzsche and in Foucault can be used against psychoanalysis and against any form of treatment. Why would you make a problem out of yourself? Or consider yourself a problem? That’s actually part of the idea of self-analysis. There is something happening in myself that I want to gain control over, and what is beyond my control is de facto a problem.

    In the Radboud Reflects lecture, I already mentioned this in connection to the early Christian monks. They fought their dreams and thought the thoughts and images that appeared in dreams were fundamentally a problem. They thought their dreams were a problem, and self-analysis was a way to gain control over one’s inner life. That’s another way to answer your question.

    Charlie: Thank you. When I was re-watching the lecture, you were talking about how the contents of the dreams were worrying to the monks. I was wondering if you’ve ever had a dream about Freud when you’re in the midst of all of your writing!

    Herman: Did I ever have a dream about Freud? I must have, but I don’t remember anything. I’m not very good at remembering my dreams, and I don’t keep a dream book.

    Charlie: What do you think Freud would say about that? If you think you’ve dreamt about him, but you can’t remember, does that say anything about things going on with your psychic apparatus?

    Herman: It would be very strange if we would be able to remember our all our dreams. According to the Freudian argument that dreams reveal something of the unconscious, when you are asleep, the consciousness is more or less shut down. You would expect that in waking life, these things are again repressed, unconscious, and not accessible. In this sense, they are also not remembered for the large part. My colleague (and neuroscientist) from the Radboud Reflects lecture shows that you have a lot of dreams during the night – you don’t remember most of them. The participants in dream experiments need to immediately share what they have been dreaming about when they wake up, because otherwise the dreams are forgotten. Most dreams are normally forgotten, that’s not a strange thing.

    It is actually more or less abnormal when you remember very vividly what you have been dreaming. This is likely the case for the dreams that were really impressive somehow – disturbing or perhaps very pleasant. I don’t think that I’ve ever dreamt, for example, being in an analysis with Freud. That would be the ultimate Freudian dream – to be a patient on his sofa. And, as far as I know, I’ve never dreamt that I was the analyst and Freud was on the sofa – I’m sure about that.

    Charlie:     That must be reassuring to some extent.

    Sophie: Returning to the Radboud Reflects lecture, one thing we were curious to discuss is whether any new questions about dreams occurred to you throughout the process of preparing for the lecture and working with Sarah Schoch.

    Herman: No, not really. The lecture that I made was based on research that I had been doing in the past, which I already knew quite well. Instead, what I hadn’t realised before was that most dreams in the antique world were not about big, societal future events. For instance, when gods were believed to give messages in dreams, most dreams concerned medical issues. That was quite a new insight.

    Those dreams in the antique world still had a kind of prognostic quality in the sense that something was predicted to happen in the near future. Nevertheless, there was already something also of a diagnostic quality in these dreams because they were supposed to reveal something about psychic or somatic processes that were, as of yet, hidden and going to be a problem. This nuances the distinction between predictive dreams and more analytic dreams telling us about unconscious or hidden processes.

    Another thing I found interesting, in relation to Sarah’s talk, did not necessarily surprise me, but more or less confirmed something I had already expected. The team at Radboud Reflects discovered that there was not that big of a difference between our work. They tried to create an opposition between the neuroscientific work of Sarah and my talk, which focused mainly on Freud. They initially thought there must be a fundamental disagreement on the issue of dreams, but there isn’t. Neuroscientific research does not falsify Freud or, at least, not completely. Freud is important for thinking about dreams and putting dreams on the on the scientific agenda – I would say historically, that’s certainly true. However, they expected that the neuroscientific research would show a fundamentally different perspective on dreams and that Freud would be basically nonsense. Yet, that’s not true, there is no such fundamental disagreement. As I said, this is what I actually expected from the research, although they are completely different forms of science – if psychoanalysis is a science at all.

    Sophie: That’s certainly an interesting reflection. Given everything we’ve discussed today, I’d like to ask one final question for the readers of Splijtstof. Most of this interview has been about dreaming, but our edition is themed around ‘hopes’, too. Is there anything you’d like to share about ‘hopes’? Perhaps I’m returning to wish fulfilment with this question.

    Herman: Yes, this comes back to wish fulfilment. I don’t have specific hopes or wishes apart from very general ones that everybody would immediately agree with; these are open doors. I hope the next generation, such as you and younger people, will use all their efforts and all their creativity to find solutions to fundamental problems in our society and in our world. I’m thinking of the problems that my generation did not succeed in resolving and only made worse, such as climate change. That’s a very open-door and very general answer. I’m not very pleased with this answer, but maybe this is exactly what you wanted to hear.

    Sophie: I think that answer is a hope in itself.

    Herman: It’s always my hope that the next generation does better than the previous generation.

    Sophie: That’s a good hope to have.

    Herman: It’s a good hope to have, indeed.

    Sophie:     Thank you very much for joining us today. I’m sure Charlie and our readers would agree that this conversation has been very insightful.

    Charlie: Yes, thank you very much for your time.

    Herman: Thank you. It was a pleasure. If you have any afterthoughts or dreams about what is missing, you can always contact me.

    For further information, the Radboud Reflects lecture can be found on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/xQI9vU9PIrU?si=5V3SHc3EvMmhzP0j.

  • Animal Citizenship in Gene Drive Ethics

    An Evaluative Application of Donaldson and Kymlicka’s Citizenship Framework to Human Intervention and Management of Non-Humans in Gene Drive Engineering

    Introduction

    Increasing interest in methods of conserving non-human animals has emerged in light of the ever-growing Red List of Endangered Species. The Red List appraises each species on a series of standards in its scientific approach, ranging from population decrease within ten years to decreases in the size of their (local) population area (Hogeback 2023). This appraisal determines a statistical prediction of whether the species will become extinct within the next 20 years. As a result, the utilisation of genetic engineering techniques has gained significant attention due to their potential to address the challenges of conservation by tackling issues raising the number of predictions.

    As the Red List expands, new and innovative methods of genetic modification are explored by scientists, policymakers and ethicists. One of these methods is gene drive engineering. Characterised by their ability to alter the genetic makeup of species through biological inheritance, gene drives present a particularly interesting approach to conservation. While traditional methods of conservation rely on natural selection to spread desired genetic traits, gene drive mechanisms bias the inheritance process, ensuring that certain traits are passed onto offspring. Therefore, by targeting certain genetic traits, such as disease susceptibility and reproduction capability, gene drives offer the potential to significantly change conservation practices.

    However, the use of gene drive technology raises various ethical considerations that must be addressed carefully. Many of these considerations stem from a debate in animal rights theory on whether humans should intervene in the livelihoods of non-human species. In the case of gene drive engineering, this debate is especially relevant since the method affects the species directly, as opposed to the traditional conservation efforts that affect their surrounding environments. The method raises the question of whether non-human animals should be left alone or if humans owe them moral obligations to help actively keep more species off the Red List.

    It is also worthwhile to consider to which animal species, if any, humans owe moral obligations. This is especially the case for positive obligations, whereby humans actively intervene in efforts to help other species. Although traditional animal rights perspectives may advocate for preventing human intervention in wild animals’ livelihoods (Gamborg, Palmer, and Sandoe 2012), this approach can be considered unhelpful in gene drive discussions insofar as it provides no criteria constituting what makes an animal “wild”. Many species choose to live in close proximity to humans, benefitting from human communities while holding a status distinct from wild and domesticated animals. Since the obligations humans owe to them may differ, it is essential to explore a framework addressing the concerns that arise from the human management of non-humans.

    Furthermore, core political dimensions are at play in the ethical considerations of gene drive engineering. In investigating the relationship between climate and animal ethics, human interference and obligations to others, Donaldson and Kymlicka’s citizenship framework should be consulted. As influential authors in animal rights fields, they offer a reconceptualisation of citizenship theory that includes the role of non-human animals in political communities. Their citizenship framework can be applied to the case of human interference via gene drives, resulting in a reflection on its usefulness in navigating the method’s complexities given the urgency of the Red List’s expansion.

    This paper aims to examine the ethical dimensions of the prospective conservation method, focussing on insights from ethics, ecology and conservation biology. The examination will demonstrate these complex dimensions in terms of human interference and obligations to other species. It will first provide an overview of gene drive modification, analysing its capabilities and prospects. Following the analysis, the paper will explore the consequences gene drives can have on the target species alongside the ecosystems and communities in which they live. Next, Donaldson and Kymlicka’s extension of animal rights via citizenship theory will be consulted, reflecting on the moral obligations owed to different groups of non-human animals. Their conceptualisation of animal citizenship will then be used as a lens through which the themes of intercommunity interaction, agency and responsibility can be applied to gene drive inquiry. This exploration will lead to the conclusion that Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework provides a nuanced approach to intervention that is useful in navigating gene drive ethics insofar as humans have different, complex responsibilities to different kinds of animals.

    Exploring Gene Drives and Their Ethical Dimensions

    Due to the rapid expansion of the Red List of Endangered Species, biologists and ethicists alike have begun to consider modifying the gene sequences of species in order to conserve or increase endangered populations. A particularly intriguing variation of this research concerns gene drives, defined as “systems of biased inheritance in which the ability of a genetic element to pass from a parent to its offspring through sexual reproduction is enhanced” (National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine 2016, 15). Therefore, gene drive technology aims to spread a desired trait throughout a species’ population through reproduction, ranging from decreased disease susceptibility to the decreased reproduction of invasive species.

    The attractiveness of gene drives is found in their ability to offer new strategies for conservation when other methods are ineffective. For instance, a study conducted by Antoni Margalida outlines the use of supplementary feeding strategies in rearing bearded vulture chicks, a Red List species, in the Spanish Pyrenees. Despite his research demonstrating a widespread use of supplementary food provisions in the conservation of scavenger species (Margalida 2010, 673), the strategy was ineffective in increasing the success of rearing the chicks. Margalida concludes his research paper by considering the application of other conservation strategies whereby humans intervene in the procuring of necessary resources for the bearded vultures’ wellbeing. Nevertheless, the proposed functions of gene drive engineering could be beneficial in efforts to optimise the chicks’ survival. Since the technology promises to be “effective in reaching the entirety” of a target-specific population (Sandler 2019, 223), gene drives are considered a potentially groundbreaking conservation method.

    Furthermore, a feature unique to gene drive engineering is the use of modification technology (such as CRISPR) to actively copy a fabricated mutation from one individual’s chromosome to its partner chromosome (Caplan et al. 2015, 1422). This process means that almost all of a parent’s offspring will inherit the same mutation (desired trait). In contrast, other forms of genetic modification modify only one chromosome (Esvelt and Gemmell 2017, 3), resulting in a 50:50 chance of inheritance. Over generations, this continuous inheritance would significantly alter the population of a species, also impacting other species that rely on it for sustenance.

    Gene drives entail the biased inheritance of a selected genetic trait, meaning that its likelihood of passing from a parent to its offspring is optimal. In order to better understand the methods that could benefit the conservation of Red List species like the bearded vulture, an exploration of research conducted by The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine will prove useful. In a collaborative publication, researchers from the association explain that gene drives offer two key population control methods. The first of these methods is called population replacement, which refers to the “spread of a genetic element through a population that causes a population’s genotype to change” (The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine 2016, 16). Consequently, a species is “replaced” because its genetic makeup changes as new generations carry the desired mutation. This method could be applied to projects like the conservation of bearded vultures in the Spanish Pyrenees by optimising chicks’ digestive systems in attempts to decrease the (hatchling) mortality rate.

    On the other hand, the second method is called population suppression, referring to the “spread of a genetic element that causes the number of individuals in a population to decrease” (The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine 2016, 16). With this method, the biased trait inherited by a parent’s offspring may be maleness, for instance, resulting in decreased overall fertility of a population. Population suppression aims to decrease the population of invasive species in an effort to conserve local biodiversity. Therefore, the application of gene drive engineering to endangered and invasive species is a crucial development that proposes to effectively target an entire local population of a species.

    Nonetheless, a series of ethical questions arise in discussions surrounding the use of gene drive engineering. For decades, animal rights theorists have debated whether “wildlife policy” (Gamborg, Palmer, and Sandoe 2012), guidelines for human interference in non-human livelihoods, should leave non-domesticated animals alone. In particular, many traditional animal rights perspectives have argued that humans have no right or duty to manage non-domesticated animals. In this view, animals have shared capacities with humans, such as the ability to feel pain or self-sustain, implying their ownership of moral rights. Hence, they maintain that animals possess the (moral) right to live without human meddling, as seen in confinement, culling, and other forms of management.

    However, in debates concerning the extent of human interference in non-human livelihoods, “respect for nature” perspectives have also emerged (Gamborg, Palmer and Sandoe 2012). This view often advocates for human interference insofar as it protects the integrity of an ecosystem. It also maintains that species’ moral significance depends on “how far they promote or threaten the key environmental values at stake” (Gamborg, Palmer and Sandoe 2012). Thus, while traditional animal rights theorists argue that humans should not interfere with non-domesticated animals, other perspectives maintain that a species may be protected or culled depending on how it alters the perceived value of its ecosystem. Since the new gene drive technology places a focus on target species themselves instead of conditions affecting the species, it is important to consider the potential consequences of interacting with non-human communities.

    In their research report, Caplan et al. claim that manipulating non-human species’ genes could have detrimental effects, “not all of which concern only humans, but also other species and the environment” (Caplan et al. 2015, 1421). Consequently, the human interference and management of (non-domesticated) species have crucial implications for the ecosystems in which they live. Alongside the target species, gene drives have the potential to disrupt the livelihoods of many others due to the impact of population suppression on food webs, for instance. The research report also demonstrates that several academic centres and private biotechnology labs have started to investigate the reduction of some insect species’ lifespans and reproduction in efforts to prevent the spread of diseases they may carry to humans (Caplan et al. 2015, 1422). While humans may consider these insects pests, one must also consider the consequences of reducing their populations for species that rely on them as food sources. Therefore, although this approach to gene editing appears useful at first glance, one must consider its impact on communities other than humans.

    Another concern raised by these researchers regards oversight of the modification and release of genetically edited organisms. Specifically, they draw on the necessity of effectively monitoring organisms edited by gene drive technology. Claiming that the current framework for international regulations fails to “foster public trust in the safety” of the technology (Caplan et al. 2015, 1422), they are sceptical about the management of genetically modified organisms in the wild. Their concern further highlights the stakes of the debate on whether humans should interfere with non-human livelihoods, especially when the capabilities and usefulness of human management are questionable.

    Therefore, developments in gene drive research bring forth a host of ethical discussions surrounding human intervention and management of other species. Notably, one must question whether humans have responsibilities to maintain in their interactions with non-human communities, and if so, which framework could be applied in this case. While traditional animal rights theorists have long debated the extent of human involvement with non-domesticated species, gene drives entail the direct management of the target species instead of their surrounding environments. Due to this development, a more nuanced conceptual framework is needed.

    Donaldson and Kymlicka’s Citizenship Framework and Its Relevance to Gene Drives

    Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s Zoopolis (2011) is considered a widely influential contemporary work in the domain of animal rights theory. Considering the intersection of moral obligations and the various ways non-human animals relate to human societies, they offer a political approach to animal ethics. In doing so, they reflect on “relationships of cooperation, of collective self-government and of histories of interaction and injustice” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2015). Their ideas are relevant to ethical discussions surrounding gene drives due to the complexity of interspecies relations at play. Nonetheless, before one can apply Donaldson and Kymlicka’s work to the ethical dilemmas of gene drive engineering, a broadened understanding of the connection between citizenship theory and animal ethics in their work is necessary.

    An important point of analysis concerns Donaldson and Kymlicka’s conceptualisation of citizenship. In Zoopolis (2011), they begin their discussion of animal rights and citizenship theory by distinguishing between universal (human) rights and citizenship rights. The former, universal rights, do not depend on an individual’s relationship to a particular political community (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 52). Consider an example of passengers disembarking from a plane to illustrate this concept. When the passengers leave the plane, everyone has certain foundational rights, such as the right not to be enslaved and the right not to be killed.

    Nonetheless, some passengers, such as tourists, are temporary visitors to the country. These passengers do not have an “unqualified right to enter the country” insofar as they may have needed permission to enter, and they may not have permission to settle permanently (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 51). Similarly, the destination country is not obligated to adapt their political institutions to accommodate the temporary visitors. On the other hand, citizenship rights are dependent on an individual’s relationship to a particular political community. Citizens are the passengers who disembark the aircraft with the unqualified right to enter and reside in the destination country. In this sense, once they enter, citizens are “full and equal members of the political community” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 51). This means that their concerns and opinions play an equal part in determining what is considered to be the public good. Thus, one always has universal rights regardless of their location and relationship to a particular political community. Nonetheless, one only has citizenship rights when they are situated within a political community in which they are a member.

    However, Donaldson and Kymlicka’s extension of animal rights via citizenship theory emphasises that the analogy of passengers disembarking the plane is an oversimplification of reality. While it paints a clear picture of what is meant by “universal rights” and “citizenship rights”, the authors imply that the rigid categories of citizen and non-citizen do not reflect reality. In a later publication, they expand on this notion, claiming that there are “various ‘in-between’ categories of people who are more than mere visitors but not (or not yet) citizens” (2015). For instance, immigrants may receive residence permits for long-term stays in a country. In this case, they have a different political standing from temporary visitors despite not having citizenship. Yet, they also have a different political standing from citizens. Nonetheless, despite categorisations of citizens, non-citizens, and those in between, an underlying principle within Donaldson and Kymlicka’s Zoopolis is that “universal human rights under-determines one’s legal rights and political status” (2015).

    Donaldson and Kymlicka apply their understanding of citizens, non-citizens, and those in between to animal rights. Like humans, they suggest that the moral standing of non-human animals under-determines the rights humans owe to them. Nevertheless, they maintain that the rights owed to animals “will vary with the types of relationships they have with human communities” (2015). Aiming to demonstrate that a framework of citizenship theory can be applied to animal rights, Donaldson and Kymlicka propose three descriptions of animals that will prove useful in distinguishing the characteristics of a citizen. The first description concerns animals who are fellow citizens of a (human) political community. The two authors explain that these animals have the right to reside in and return to the shared political community while also having the right to the inclusion of their interests in determining the public good (2011, 53). Animals that are fellow citizens tend to be domesticated animals due to the intimacy and proximity of their relations with humans.

    Next, Donaldson and Kymlicka describe animals who are citizens of their own separate communities, situated in their own bounded territories that are not shared with humans. In regard to these animals, the main obligation humans have towards them is “to comply with fair terms of intercommunity interaction” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 58), meaning that humans should not intervene in the framework of their community. Therefore, Donaldson and Kymlicka maintain that animals that are members of their own separate communities are generally considered wild animals, vulnerable to “human invasion and colonization” (Nurse and Ryland 2013, 203).

    Lastly, the third description concerns animals that are residents of the human political community without being full citizens. Donaldson and Kymlicka claim that the main obligation humans have towards them is “to respect their rights as side-constraints on how we pursue our public good” (2011, 53). These animals may be described as “liminal opportunist animals” (Nurse and Ryland 2013, 203) due to their choice to move in or out of areas of human habitation. Thus, Donaldson and Kymlicka provide three descriptions of animals that function as the basis on which non-humans can be included in the political framework of citizenship theory.

    Moreover, a significant feature considered to be a characteristic of citizenship in the theory is political agency. Donaldson and Kymlicka claim that if they “accepted that animals are incapable of domestic political agency, it would not follow that citizenship theory is irrelevant to thinking about their rights” (2011, 53). In this sense, political agency is not a criterion of citizenship; it is one of several features. However, they maintain that animals can be capable of political agency, reconceptualising the term as a “cluster of values” (2011, 53) such as autonomy, trust, authenticity and self-determination. In this regard, acknowledging someone’s citizenship means respecting these values.

    Donaldson and Kymlicka also endorse animal or human citizenship through a “‘dependent’, ‘assisted’ or ‘interdependent’ agency” (2011, 60). This form of agency offers an inclusive perspective on the values it entails. One may reflect on moments in which everybody is, at some point, in need of assisted agency. For example, young children need assisted agency to help them understand new phenomena and express their frustrations. This form of agency can range from the explanation of political debates to the expression of trust seen in puppy training classes. Consequently, Donaldson and Kymlicka argue that a notion of citizenship should uphold the value of agency while also acknowledging that “capacities for agency expand and contract over time” (2011, 60). Hence, agency is not a rigid criterion of citizenship. Instead, it unravels through one’s interactions with others.

    Overall, Donaldson and Kymlicka’s application of citizenship theory to political animal rights provides an interesting foundation for exploring the ethical dimensions of gene drive engineering. Notably, their argumentation can serve as a framework for understanding the status of individuals in relation to a political community. In the context of gene drive engineering, the manipulation of non-human animals raises questions about the rights and ethical considerations owed to them. An especially relevant reflection includes Donaldson and Kymlicka’s three descriptions of animals: fellow citizens of a political community, citizens of their own separate communities, and those who may be residents of a political community without full citizenship. A fruitful discussion of this conceptualisation in the ethics of gene drive engineering can consider potential differences in obligations towards animals based on which of the three descriptions fits them best.

    Similarly, Donaldson and Kymlicka’s emphasis on the role of political agency is also relevant to ethical discussions about gene drives. Since they acknowledge that an animal may require a form of assisted agency, one may consider applying it to genetic modifications in cases such as reducing disease susceptibility. Alongside this, an evaluation of the ethical concerns surrounding gene drive engineering may consider the modification’s impact on an animal’s autonomy, trust, self-determination, etc. Since these are some of the values that constitute political agency, a discussion of how it may influence human intervention is relevant.

    Applying Donaldson and Kymlicka’s Citizenship Framework to Human Intervention via Gene Drives

    When applying Donaldson and Kymlicka’s citizenship framework to human intervention via gene drives, it is useful to consider the ethical implications of directly managing each of the three animal categories. Since they maintain that wild non-citizens, (non-human) citizens, and liminal residents without citizenship are owed different moral obligations, the degree of intervention permitted may differ. Therefore, their framework can help unravel whether managing non-humans in gene drive modification is too intrusive and, if not, when it may be an ethically viable option.

    Donaldson and Kymlicka suggest that wild animals neither want nor need an active relationship with humans, especially not the direct management of their livelihoods. As a result, they advocate for wild animal sovereignty, which means that wild animals are free of human management insofar as they meet their own social and sustenance needs. Nonetheless, the authors provide a more nuanced view than the traditional animal rights approaches arguing that humans should leave wild animals alone entirely. At the same time, their view is more considerate of animals’ universal rights than the “respect for nature” perspectives that endorse the management of non-humans based on their own ideas of an ecosystem’s worth (Gamborg, Palmer, and Sandoe 2012). Notably, the authors claim that the question one should ask is: “what are the appropriate sorts of relations between human and wild animal communities?” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 166). In this sense, they do not believe that there should not be any relationships between humans and wild animals at all. Yet, they also do not support an active relationship that manages and may ultimately affect their capabilities to self-sustain. Thus, Donaldson and Kymlicka provide an approach to human intervention that considers the intricacy of the balance between meddling and conservation.

    Additionally, they claim that although humans should be careful in justifying interference with non-human communities, “this does not mean that all conservation interventions are illegitimate” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 180). Consequently, their framework aspires to provide a conceptual lens through which humans recognise that they have no right to dominate animal territories while acknowledging that they may react to urgent circumstances, such as a species’ addition to the Red List. Therefore, one could apply this notion to gene drive modification by considering it a potential last resort. The nature of gene drives is more intrusive than other conservation methods as it affects the target animals directly. Despite this intrusiveness, the framework may be compatible with using population replacement gene drive modification in dire wild animal cases whereby other conservation strategies are either unsuccessful or do not achieve results fast enough. One could argue this is the case in Margalida’s study of rearing bearded vulture chicks (2010).

    Furthermore, within Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework, domesticated animals are the only non-humans considered fellow citizens to humans. Although they reflect on how domestication has been historically exploitative (2011, 88), domesticated animals have formed co-dependent interspecies relationships with humans that are compatible with co-citizenship. Their domestication has caused them to adapt to human society, which “closes off their alternatives” (Nurse and Ryland 2013, 203). Thus, in Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework, their preferences should be considered in the determination of the public good. While non-human animals cannot vote in elections, for instance, their active presence in a community suggests that they have a moral status that deserves equal consideration to all other (human) citizens. As citizenship entails active participation in a political community, domesticated animals have responsibilities to humans, too, such as the responsibility (to be trained) not to bite them. This notion reflects the equal standing of domestic animals in a community.

    Therefore, following the conceptualisation of domesticated animals as citizens in (human) political communities, one must question whether gene drives could permissibly be used to optimise the genetic makeup of a fellow citizen. As Donaldson and Kymlicka argue that not all conservation methods are illegitimate, the same line of argumentation could be applied to one’s fellow citizens, regardless of species. Donaldson and Kymlicka hold that “new models of ‘dependent agency’ or ‘supported decision-making’” are required (2011, 59) when considering an animal’s best interests in topics like gene drive engineering. They refute outdated models such as paternalistic guardianship whereby a human will make decisions about an animal such as their pet. Instead, they advocate for updated models that seek ways of “eliciting a person’s sense of their subjective good, often through ‘embodied’ rather than verbal communication” (2011, 59).

    Similarly, human citizens also require assisted or dependent agency, such as when suffering from illness. In these situations, loved ones often make decisions on behalf of an individual, upholding Donaldson and Kymlicka’s values of agency, such as trust, which unravel in their relationships. A similar circumstance may occur for domesticated animals, such as genetically modifying dogs carrying the canine parvovirus – a genetic virus “quickly spread among dog populations all over the world with high morbidity” (Li et al. 2017). In this case, the nature of dogs’ subjective good within a political community is discovered through learning their temperaments in unravelling interspecies relations with them. Assisted agency could be applied, meaning that a human may choose to use population replacement gene drives, removing the parvovirus carrier gene to ensure the health of generations of dogs with whom they work and interact.

    However, while animal citizens of (human) political communities have responsibilities towards humans and vice versa, animals in their own external communities also have relationships with each other. Donaldson and Kymlicka argue that humans must “comply with fair terms of intercommunity interaction” (2011, 58). This principle should apply to both wild and liminal non-citizens, even when humans may not fully understand their intricate relationships with each other. Thus, one may argue that gene drives can potentially disrupt the frameworks of non-human communities, regardless of how their internal relations manifest. This is especially the case in population suppression gene drives since the decision to decrease a species’ local population threatens the target and all other species with which it interacts. In a risk assessment of gene drive engineering, research from the International Risk Governance Center demonstrates that the (re)introduction of a modified species can impact the health of other animal and plant species (Kuzma 2023, 55). Consequently, human interference in non-human livelihoods via gene drives does not comply with the intercommunity interaction terms established by Donaldson and Kymlicka. This is because the terms suggest that humans have no right to alter the structures and relationships between beings in communities where they are not members.

    The dilemma gene drives face in the terms of fair intercommunity interaction is also echoed in the research report of Caplan et al. (2015). Suppose humans are permitted to intervene in non-human communities using gene drives. In that case, their management capabilities must be adequate to avoid disrupting the constitution of ecosystems, at least to some extent. Nonetheless, the report demonstrates that many national and international regulations are insufficient in addressing the impact of genetically modifying organisms on other species within their ecosystems (Caplan et al. 2015, 1422). Consequently, one may argue that human regulatory bodies must strive to improve the effectiveness of their management before the application of gene drives to any non-citizen animals becomes compatible with Donaldson and Kymlicka’s citizenship framework. This conclusion is important because although the potential application of gene drives to domesticated animals may uphold mutual agency in cases such as canine parvovirus, almost all Red List species are non-domesticated (Hogeback 2023). Thus, their citizenship framework is useful because its applications can help identify additional work needed to ensure humans do not overstep the boundaries of fair intercommunity interaction in conservation.

    Meanwhile, discussions surrounding human intervention in liminal non-citizen livelihoods may be considered even more complex. Liminal animals hold a political status in between that of citizens and non-citizens since they depend on human communities to some extent, e.g., for food sources, but do not actively interact with humans. Consequently, this limited degree of dependence means humans must “respect their rights as side-constraints on how we pursue our public good” (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 53). In considering the extent of intervention via gene drives, it is difficult to determine whether humans may modify liminal animals to optimise their health, as one may allow in the case of domesticated animals, or to treat gene drives as a potential last resort, as argued in the case of Red Listed wild animals. In addressing this dilemma, one may consult a response to other liminal animal dilemmas like predation, as seen in a journal article by Andrée-Anne Cormier and Mauro Rossi (2016).

    In their discussion of liminal animals, Cormier and Rossi demonstrate some assumptions made by Donaldson and Kymlicka in their framework. The first relevant to human intervention via gene drives is that liminal animals choose to avoid humans. The second assumption is that they would prefer the risks posed by other species and their environments to restrictions of liberty (Cormier and Rossi 2016, 731). In response to these assumptions, Cormier and Rossi claim that liminal animals’ aversion to human intervention loses moral weight when their fundamental, universal rights are at stake (2016, 732). As Donaldson and Kymlicka intend to include animals in the human citizenship framework, they should be treated in the same way as humans. In particular, Donaldson and Kymlicka liken liminal species to human denizens (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011; Cormier and Rossi 2016) – long-term residents settled within a state’s borders while not possessing citizenship. Yet, even for human denizen groups that opt out of political membership, the state may intervene in managing threats to their safety and livelihoods. In this sense, like wild animals, one may consider using gene drives as a last resort in conserving endangered liminal species.

    However, Cormier and Rossi’s article discusses predation, which entails a host of dilemmas concerning the risks some species pose to others. As a result, they identify the incompatibility of Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework with interventions to prevent one non-human animal from harming another due to the notion that liminal (and wild) animals are capable of navigating observable risks in their own communities. This incompatibility is arguably reflected in applying their framework to population suppression gene drives since they include the reduction of populations considered invasive and posing risks to other species, human or otherwise. Nevertheless, it does not mean the citizenship framework is also incompatible with population replacement gene drives.

    As seen in their potential to optimise domesticated animal citizens’ health and to aid the conservation of non-citizen Red List species as a last resort, population replacement gene drives appear to fit into Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework. Since the method tackles often unobservable and genetic risks to animals that may not be instinctively detected in the way pigeons may evade cats, it is not plausible to rule out population replacement alongside population suppression. Thus, although the potential applications of population replacement should differ between citizens and non-citizens, Donaldson and Kymlicka offer a nuanced framework that helps navigate a discussion on the degrees of human intervention for animals with different political statuses in light of the expanding Red List and other risks to non-human health.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, Donaldson and Kymlicka’s citizenship framework, applied to the ethical dimensions of human intervention via gene drive engineering, offers valuable insights into the intricate relationships between humans and animals. In analysing their framework, this paper explores the moral obligations owed to different categories of non-human animals and the ways in which these apply to the potential use of gene drives.

    Within Zoopolis (2011), the authors distinguish three categories of animals: fellow citizens, wild animal citizens of separate sovereign communities, and liminal residents. By analysing the rights and responsibilities associated with each category, one can develop a nuanced understanding of the extent to which human intervention via gene drives may be ethically permissible. While (population replacement) gene drives may be considered respectful of these rights when optimising domesticated animals’ health or as a last resort for conserving Red List species, the framework suggests that interventions should be carefully weighed against the autonomy of non-human animals.

    Furthermore, it is important to consider the concept of political agency within Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework and its relevance to gene drive ethics. By acknowledging that animals possess political agency, although different from human agency, one must recognise the importance of respecting their interests and subjective good in decision-making processes. This perspective demonstrates the need for inclusive models of decision-making that allow a reflection on the livelihoods of non-human animals affected by gene drive interventions that move beyond domination and paternal guardianship.

    Nonetheless, further complexities must be explored when applying this framework to gene drive technology, particularly concerning fair intercommunity interaction and the potential disruption of non-human communities. While gene drives offer conservation methods that can affect entire populations, they also pose significant risks to ecosystem integrity and the liberty of non-human species. Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework is useful in discussing these complexities because it acknowledges that there is no singular, fixed answer to questions surrounding human intervention. Therefore, the extent of this intervention must differ for different groups of animals, following the various degrees to which they interact with human communities.

    Meanwhile, the type of intervention is important, too. Gene drives may be considered more intrusive than other conservation strategies, as they affect the target species rather than its surrounding environment. Consequently, the citizenship framework is incompatible with population suppression gene drives. For Donaldson and Kymlicka, one must respect that (wild and liminal) animals are capable of navigating observable risks in their own communities. Alternatively, population replacement gene drives appear to be compatible with Donaldson and Kymlicka’s approach, given their potential to optimise domesticated animal citizens’ health and to aid the conservation of non-citizen Red List species as a last resort. Nonetheless, this compatibility requires that a more effective regulatory framework is developed to avoid as much disruption to ecosystems as possible.

    Overall, Donaldson and Kymlicka’s citizenship framework provides a useful conceptual lens for navigating the ethical complexities of human intervention with non-human species in gene drive engineering. By emphasising the importance of respecting the rights owed in various political communities, the framework encourages a nuanced approach in light of the expanding Red List and other risks to non-human health.

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    The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Gene Drives on the Horizon: Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research with Public Values. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/23405.

  • Whispers of Vanity: Unmasking the Hopes and Dreams in Wilde’s Classic

    Book Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray

    “He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.”

    The Picture of Dorian Gray is an aesthetic book that is a treat for anyone who enjoys philosophy, literature, and the arts. The book goes into all of these in great detail, while providing the reader with some of the most intense internal conflicts in classic literature. It is a fascinating, absurd, and horrifying story about how a person’s individual interests and vanity can affect not only their life, but that of everyone around them. Oscar Wilde’s focus on beauty, ugliness, youth, old age, and all that comes in between makes this one of his most important pieces to date as well as an essential book to read; by putting all of the reader’s own desires, hopes and dreams in the spotlight, the book calls out our own morality and the importance that we attribute to the vainer things in life, while comparing it to the frivolous, majestic, bon-vivant and careless lifestyle of the careless, the vexed, the one and only: Dorian Gray.

    To understand how this wonderful book relates to the hopes and dreams that are attached to our mode of living, we must first and foremost know what the story is about. The story begins when the artist Basil Hallward presents Lord Henry, his close friend, to Dorian Gray, his most recent muse and fascination. Dorian Gray is captivating young man, known for his remarkable looks and charming way of being. This beauty not only captivates Basil Hallward, who decides to dedicate a large portion of his time to painting Gray, but also Lord Henry, a man of high society who is equally fascinated by Dorian’s youth and beauty. Lord Henry is a very philosophical man, always keen on presenting his interlocutors with debates and creating turmoil within every conversation he has, promoting in himself a sort of intellectual superiority for having access to the greatest books. But despite this interest in intellect, he is still a mere mortal and therefore also very focused on appearances. In fact, he influences Gray, on one of their first encounters, to realize that “when one loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything, [(…]) Youth is the only thing worth having” (Wilde 2012, 26).

    Upon this encounter, where the artist is painting the young man, Basil realizes that this is the best painting he had ever created, and therefore gives the piece to Dorian, his muse. Upon reflecting on the painting, Dorian realizes how truly beautiful and young he is, and wishes to never age himself, and let the man on the painting age and wither away. Locking the painting away, deciding to never see it again, Dorian moves on with his young, promising, desirable and beauty-filled life.

    Fast forward some time, with a formed friendship between Dorian Gray and Lord Henry, one filled with debate and conversations, Dorian falls in love with a beautiful, young actress with the name of Sybil Vane. Vane plays several different classical characters, all of which with such love, sincerity, beauty and earnest that Dorian proposes to her, on a whim. He soon finds out, however, that the person he was in love with is not the innocent Sybil, but the characters she plays. Hurting her to her core, he breaks off their engagement in a very blunt, coarse way.

    Once he returns home, in a fit of introspection, he decides to take another look at the mighty painting that Basil Hallward had painted. Upon this, he finds that the man on the canvas had become uglier than before, forcing him to realize how harshly he has treated the poor girl and attempts to repent. However, the next morning, on preparing to meet her and apologize, he hears that Sybil Vane has tragically died, assumedly taking her own life, due to the heartbreak. Sybil Vane, a girl whose personality was not half as vain as her name, was destroyed by a man who many could consider to be the vainest of them all.

    Indignant with all that had occurred, Dorian attempts to move on with his life when Lord Henry offers him a book, one which soon becomes Dorian’s Bible. The book follows the story of a Frenchman who lives life attending to his every whim and desire, seeking pleasure and new sensations above all else. For the next two decades, in a life full of sin, disgrace, shame, pleasure, bliss, luxury, thrill and immorality, Dorian travels to several places in order to live a life filled with new sensations, as Lord Henry and the book had advised him.

    He returns to his home in London once he is more prominently talked about within his circle. Although he is the object of gossip, people can never truly hate him because his beauty and youth are unmatched and purely supernatural. While his body rejoices and remains the same as 18 years ago, the picture locked away in the hidden room withers and turns as hideous as one can be.

    Eventually, his old friend Basil confronts Dorian on his new ways of life and is aghast when Dorian shows him the painting in his ugliest form, demonstrating Dorian’s true soul. Basil begs Dorian to repent for his sins and to find morality in an immoral life. In a sort of tantrum of agony, rage and frustration, Dorian stabs Basil to death, refusing to forgive him for having created such a horrible creature as the one in the painting.

    He then calls on another friend of his, a doctor, blackmailing him to help dispose of the body. Giving the doctor the time and space to take care of the body he had violently killed, Dorian goes to an opium den. Here, he enters a minor conflict with Sybil Vane’s older brother, James, who tries to avenge his sister’s death. Scared, for having killed a man and been threatened by another, Dorian Gray flees to his estate, where he expects peace and quiet. Dorian eventually finds James there, waiting and lurking on him, prepared for anything. However, in a hunting accident, before Dorian can do anything to protect himself, his own hunting party accidentally shoots James Vane. This finally provides safety for Dorian. While this happens, the doctor friend finds no way of coping with what he had done for Dorian and he, too, takes his own life, for what the bon-vivant had forced him to gruesomely do.

    Once Dorian Gray returns to his home, in a huge house filled with only him, his servants, and an obnoxiously painful reflection of his own life in a locked room. The room is his crime scene, the murder location of one of his closest, oldest friends. Dorian confronts himself, realizing all that he had done, counting all the people who had died because of him. Realizing all the blood that lies on his sinful hands, Dorian picks up the same knife he had used to kill Basil Hallward and tries to destroy the painting. Upon hearing a crash, his servants enter the forbidden room and find their master, with a knife in his heart, uglier than ever before, lying absurdly on the floor, putting an end to an unbearable, insufferable, despicable life.

    In a strangely horrifying way, Wilde has managed, in this short novella, to present us with an incredibly internally tortured man. This is a man who pays no attention to his consequences, who lives his own life searching for that which he and only he desires, without moral concerns, and freely and candidly attending to his own dreams and hopes to live a carefree life.

    The biggest message to obtain from The Picture of Dorian Gray seems to be quite cliché in a much more sophisticated, philosophical, and beautiful way; something which can essentially be summed down to “be careful what you wish for”. We learn that although each one of us has, indeed and rightly so, their own aspirations – which in this case was to do certifiably nothing – there are other things to consider in the life we lead. There are people who walk with us in our life, like the young innocent Sybil Vane, who are hurt by the words we speak. There are friends of ours, like Basil Hallward, that take an interest in us and genuinely care about our wellbeing. There are people like Dr. Campbell, who get unwillingly involved in our own messes and for some reason end up having to clean them up all while dealing with their own internal conflicts – and sometimes, like Dr. Campbell, they do not survive them.

    Of course, a short paragraph on the ongoing theme of beauty and ugliness is also worthy. It is significant to understand how beauty has always played such an important role in our societies. From 19th century society where word of mouth was the main way of communication to now, where we are constantly bombarded by information and pictures of beauty, we can acknowledge that Dorian Gray would never have survived in the 21st century. This is because he would never be able to properly hide the dreadful picture: the digital footprint in today’s day would never allow one to fully hide away a picture which unsettles one as much as the painting did for Dorian Gray. His constant efforts to hide a picture which, to him, symbolizes the deterioration of his own soul ends up corrupting him, for fear of how ugly he could become. In reality, he was already becoming an ugly creature by hiding it in the first place.

    At the end of the day, it is about the importance we give to people like Lord Henry, to the pretentiousness of living a grand, dreamy life, without a realistic vision of what life is actually like. There are certain dreams, hopes, and wishes that are better off in our own heads, because sometimes they catch up to us and, like they did Basil Hallward, eat us up, day by day, until there is nothing left.

    It is a magnificent piece that makes each of its readers carefully rethink their past actions, thinking about their own existence and what role they play in life. Are you a Basil Hallward, a Sybil Vane, a Lord Henry, a Dr. Campbell, or perhaps even, a Dorian Gray? If you fit in with the latter then I pray that you can recollect yourself, change your ways, read this novel, and let Wilde’s incredibly philosophical statements reinvent yourself, hopefully for the better.

    On his first encounter with Lord Henry, the tragic day, Dorian claimed that “when I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself” (Wilde 2012, 26) and indeed he did. Only, at that time, he probably did not yet know all the people, the hopes, and the dreams who would be killed along with him.

    Bibliography

    Wilde, Oscar. 2012. The Picture of Dorian Gray. London: Penguin Books.