The Great Derangement
by Amitav Ghosh
Key Concepts
Literary Derangement
Modern literature struggles to integrate climate change into its narratives without becoming allegorical or non-fiction.
Uncanny Climate
Climate events are increasingly bizarre and defy conventional human-centric storytelling.
Historical Amnesia
We fail to recognize climate change as a historical force, treating it merely as a scientific problem.
Colonial Echoes
The climate crisis is deeply intertwined with historical patterns of colonialism and resource extraction.
Narrative Crisis
Our existing storytelling modes are inadequate for the non-human scale and agency of climate change.
Action Items
Demand that art and literature directly confront the climate crisis.
Challenge the anthropocentric bias in our understanding of history.
Recognize the deep historical and colonial roots of environmental injustice.
Seek new narrative forms capable of representing non-human agency and scale.
Advocate for political systems that can respond to global, non-human threats.
Core Thesis
Our cultural forms, particularly serious fiction, are profoundly ill-equipped to represent the scale and strangeness of climate change, contributing to our collective inaction.
Mindset Shift
From viewing climate change as a purely scientific or economic problem to understanding it as a profound cultural, historical, and imaginative crisis.