Who’s ’The Elite’ in the Anthropocene? - Nikolaj Schultz (2017)
https://www.academia.edu/37867214/Whos_The_Elite_in_the_Anthropocene
The Elite should focus on a minority of politically powerful (officials, politicians), a minority of economically powerful (business leaders, the rich) or a minority of culturally powerful (artists, intellectuals, media).
But, what about the ecologically powerful? These are left out of the discussion. And thus,
the elite debate unfortunately ends up as a rather dull and unimaginative affair, since
nobody seemingly tries to rethink the elite question in the light of our times’ most
paramount challenge: the ecological mutation.
...
Of course our generation has a power over the lives of future generations! Of course our
and previous generations dominate future generations possibilities to breathe, to not see
their territories erode and become inhabitable. It does not take much metaphysical
imagination to realize so. Unfortunately, it takes a lot more imagination to imagine the
opposite.
And hence, we might also have to understand that we, the Modern, Western capitalist
civilisation is, will be and was a ’
Geo-Historical Elite’, while future generation – both rich
and poor, Western and non-Western – will be the ’Geo-Historical Non-Elites’, living in
our ruins.