What remains of the Man and of the World. Reflections on the age of ecological crisis

Abstract

Man and world look like residuals: human being is an organic remnant relic), as the survivor of a process of self alienation, in which the machine has been elected as a despot; world (or nature) is exhausted in the attempt to maintain a balance. The contemporary massive technological development seems supported by the idea that man is a Homo faber authorized to operate on nature without limits. This is the idea of a superior being with a dominant role in the world. The Judaic-Christian tradition has certainly promoted this idea; but it reproduces in another dimension the relations typical of the greek oikos: not justice, but authority and subordination for advantage the “head of the family”. Renouncing to want own the Earth (like an ordinary thing) can perhaps open the way for a new ethic.