Anthroposin
Original Sin: new and improved for the Anthropocene!
Last month, I wrote about the feeling of doom that is epidemic among humans of the Anthropocene. Every action we take involves a choice between the lesser of two evils. This can trap us in an existence where everything we do feels inherently bad. It sometimes feels as if our very existence in this world is predestined to make things worse by committing acts of evil.
My inner Catholic schoolboy piped up at this point, noting how strikingly similar this mindset is to the doctrine of Original Sin, “the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the act of birth, inherit a tainted nature with a proclivity to sinful conduct.”1
It’s the exact same thing.
So I have coined a new term: Anthroposin, which I define as “the secular mindset that humans, through the act of being born into the Anthropocene, inherit a tainted nature with a proclivity to sinful conduct.” It’s Original Sin with a new and improved formula, now conveniently secular!2
An Archetype?
The irony, of course, is that philosophers, theologians, and feminists have spent centuries dismantling the doctrine of Original Sin in order to free humanity from the unbearable burden of being inherently evil. The minute that was fairly well accomplished, we’ve gone and tangled ourselves up in exactly the same mindset with Anthroposin. D’oh! 🤦
I can see a few reasons for this:
Original Sin is true, and will therefore manifest in culturally-appropriate guises through the eras.
Humans are psychological masochists by nature; we always find some way to punish ourselves.
Humans through the ages always need to find a cosmic explanation for seemingly insurmountable difficulties.
Human culture doesn’t reward narratives of hope, positivity, and general goodness. Narratives of doom and gloom prevail.
As an amateur Jungian, I’ll simply propose that it is clearly a powerful archetype deep within the collective psyche.
As I reflected further on this archetype, the number of similarities between Original Sin and Anthroposin became eerie. Here are three that stood out:
1. Sins of the Ancestors
We inherited Original Sin through a mistake of our ancestors: Adam and Eve’s plucking of the forbidden fruit.
So it is with Anthroposin: we’re tainted by the sins of our forebears, whose development of a fossil-fuel based economy and extractive corporate greed cursed us to a life of climate chaos.
2. Gender
The weight of Original Sin fell mainly on women, as it was Eve who picked the apple, precipitated the Fall, and thus bore ultimate responsibility for humanity’s fate.
Anthroposin too is more burdensome for women: childbirth has become a guilt-ridden decision. The data shows bringing a child into the world is single greatest carbon emission a person can make.3 And many potential mothers ponder the morality of bringing a child into a world where they will be doomed to suffer. Once again, the wombed sex is punished more severely.4
3. The Garden of Eden
The narrative of Original Sin is the fall from the Garden, and the pain of exclusion from that natural paradise, which was full of bountiful fruits and cool talking animals and stuff.
Anthroposin’s narrative is also the fall from an Edenic paradise: habitat destruction, mass extinction, the loss of the natural paradise that our ancestors knew.
The Solution
Christian sects developed ways to purify people from Original Sin: baptism, good works, reformation. What is our secular rite of baptism that can cleanse us from the burden of Anthroposin?
I found a clue in the definition of original sin from The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, which I quoted part of earlier. Here it is in full: “the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the act of birth, inherit a tainted nature with a proclivity to sinful conduct in need of regeneration” [emphasis mine].
The solution to Anthroposin is the same: we need regeneration.
Regeneration, simply put, is an action that creates a cascade of positive change, even into completely disparate fields.
Last month I wrote about how to cultivate a regenerative mindset, and gave an example of the power of regeneration in the context of gardening. Here’s the gist in biblical terms: healthy plants begat healthy soil begat healthy water begat healthy food begat healthy humans begat healthy climate begat healthy culture.
The beautiful thing about regeneration, as opposed to say, baptism, is that it is not doled out by a central authority: it is disseminated and democratic. Everyone can partake in it on their own terms. Everyone can cleanse themselves of the burden of Anthroposin.
My focus is on regenerative agriculture and gardening. But the philosophy of regeneration can be applied to any field—imagine regenerative industry or commerce, regenerative transportation, even regenerative government. What would cascading positivity look like in those fields? What one beneficial action could beget many more? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
From The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms.
After writing this article, I googled “anthroposin” to see if I indeed coined the term. Props to the musician Strong T who beat me to it with his piece “Anthroposin Interlude II”. But as his definition differs from mine, I’ll still take credit 😉.
See, for example, The Quickening by Elizabeth Rush, and her interview on the excellent podcast Mother is a Question.