Best Source of Hope: Care, Solidarity, Disobedience Reflected by the Climate Catastrophe

ABSTRACT

The climate catastrophe is a humanitarian catastrophe and can be considered one of the most urgent challenges facing the continued survival of the human species. Starting with a psychodynamic concept of generativity (I) and the experience of guilt and shame associated with it, I then turn to socio-critical discussions of climate and generational justice as an expression of violence and a pathology of the social. These considerations culminate in a call for a form of solidarity based on reciprocity that can be expanded to the issue of solidarity with non-human nature (II). For humanity, the climate crisis presents the challenge of what, in climate jargon, are called social tipping points. In the interaction between the individual and society, disobedience and hope can be grasped in terms of their transformative power. This is explored taking the examples of the figure of Abraham in the Old Testament and that of the Last Generation climate initiative (III).

KEYWORDS:

• Civil disobedience
• climate catastrophe
• generative care
• radical hope
• social pathology
• social tipping points

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Bauriedl-Schmidt

Christine Bauriedl-Schmidt, Dr. rer. hum. biol. Dipl.-Psych., is a psychoanalyst and group therapist in private practice. She is a member of the board and lecturer at Münchner Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Psychoanalyse (MAP). She is a member of Psychologists/PsychotherapistsForFuture (Psy4F) and has been actively campaigning for the climate since 2019. [email protected]; Nymphenburger Str. 90E, 80636 Munich, Germany.