Roy Scranton: Presuming the worst can be a resilient approach to facing climate change
As director of the Creative Writing Program, Roy Scranton knows the power of frightening fictional stories.
Scaring people about very real climate change may be effective, as well, said Scranton, who also directs the Environmental Humanities Initiative and is writing a book titled Endgame: Climate Change, the Myth of Progress and Ethical Pessimism.
“As various philosophers have argued, and as I'll show in the work I'm doing, pessimism can actually be a resilient way of facing adversity,” he said, which includes “presuming the worst and going to work to see what you can save anyway.”
The associate professor in the Department of English said it’s key to come to terms with the fact that we don't know what's going to happen with climate change and the ecological crisis. To some degree, we have to accept that, he said.
“And still figuring out how to keep living into a future, I think, is one of the deepest, most intractable philosophical problems we face,” he said.
Scranton said Notre Dame is an excellent place to think through this philosophical question, as well as other questions about how to live and work together toward new common good.
“There's an emphasis on the spirit here, on the soul, on the character of the community that's inflected by a concern for social justice and inflected by the kind of focus on integral ecology and ethics and compassion that we see in Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical Laudato si’,” he said. “This is a unique place to be and it's a special place to be. And I think we have a great opportunity here and I think we have a great obligation.”
Originally published by al.nd.edu on September 20, 2023.
atLatest Research
- Studying Survivor : How two Notre Dame courses apply reality TV to philosophy, psychology, and mathStudents…
- Junior Alex Young named 2025 Truman ScholarUniversity of Notre Dame junior Alex Young has been named a 2025 Truman Scholar. He is the University’s 13th Truman Scholar since 2010, a group that includes three Rhodes Scholars: Alex Coccia (’14), Christa Grace Watkins (’17) and Prathm Juneja (’20).
- Notre Dame listed as World Leader in Nuclear AstrophysicsNuclear astrophysics…
- “Contagious capitalism”: Keough School Dean Mary Gallagher shares research insights on law, labor and justice in ChinaMary Gallagher, the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs, delivered the fifth annual Justice and Asia Distinguished Lecture at the school’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asia Studies on April 8, drawing on her research expertise to share insights on law, labor and justice in China.
- Thirteenth Annual Harper Cancer Research DayRohit Bhargava The 13th annual…
- Two Notre Dame historians win Guggenheim fellowshipsTwo faculty members in the University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts & Letters have been awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation as part of its 100th class of honorees.