Abstract
The “Deocene” is a new term encompassing the great diversity of world religions and ethical cultures that shaped human consciousness and affairs from time immemorial to the end of the 18th century. Although its dominance has diminished, the Deocene persists today as enclaves and island outposts in a dominantly secular “Anthropocene” ocean. Geoscientists have proposed dating the Holocene/ Anthropocene transition to three very different eras: (1) the Neolithic Revolution; (2) the Industrial Revolution; and (3) the so-called “Great Acceleration” of 1950. The field of “Big History,” a monolithic appropriation of contemporary Western science, also invokes these thresholds. These approaches valorize materialistic explanations of life and the universe and either ignore or elide the insights provided by the world history of cultures, religions, and spiritual practices. What if we turn our attention away from cosmology and geoscience to the French revolution and invoke the cultural discontinuity it represents? For example, with the beheading of the French king Louis XVI in 1793, an event that symbolized a shifting of the axis of human affairs from royalist, religious, traditional, mostly rural, agrarian and hierarchical societies with vast inequities to increasingly secular, urban, industrial, and capitalist societies with vast inequities. This event is a candidate marker for a “Deocene/ Anthropocene” transition in the West. There is a plethora of others. This paper uses the concept of the Deocene — its emergence, demise, and possible reemergence — to introduce new perspectives on the big stories and fundamental cultural ruptures currently under widespread discussion.
Presenters
James R. FlemingCharles A. Dana Professor Emeritus, Interdisciplinary Studies/ Science, Technology, and Society, Colby College, Maine, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Religious Commonalities and Differences
KEYWORDS
Anthropocene, Deocene, Emergence, Re-emergence, Thresholds
