Planetary Mindset
Did a climate catastrophe really have to happen for people in the Global North to develop a planetary consciousness? Perhaps. However, ‘we’ should not fall into the misconception that it is ‘our’ own invention. ‘We’ have always claimed to be the vanguard of civilization, expecting everyone else to follow ‘our’ lead. However, ‘we’ must now acknowledge that many of those we have labeled ‘underdeveloped’ had a planetary consciousness long before ‘we’ did – for example, those on the margins of Western modernity whose cosmologies are not based on domination over nature. What can ‘we’ learn from them today? What role do the arts play in this context? What would a reflective, decolonial approach to technologies that enable such awareness look like? How can these lessons ultimately feed into a planetary mindset that could serve as the nucleus and expression of political subjects of a better tomorrow?