Mikirtumov, I. (2024) Duty to Nature and the Digital Culture of Presentism – МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ ЖУРНАЛ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ

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Ivan B. MIKIRTUMOV
National Research University Higher School of Economics
16, Sojuza Pechatnikov st., Saint Petersburg, 190121 Russian Federation
Professor of the Department of Philosophy, St. Petersburg School of Humanities and Arts
Doctor of Science (in Philosophy)
e-mail: imikirtumov@hse.ru
ORCID: 0000-0001-9382-249X

Mikirtumov, I. (2024) Duty to Nature and the Digital Culture of Presentism

Abstract: Modernity is characterized by presentism and by the spread of digital culture and mediatization. In these conditions, we think about the environmental problem, about preserving nature as a habitat for humanity. The problem of nature is political, on this I agree with Bruno Latour. Political problems in the last three centuries were solved in the context of historicism, which lay at the basis of all political ideologies of modern. Postmodern presentism is the antithesis of historicism and replaces it with weakened narratives that are schematic and imaginary. Popular history and the fantasy genre are merging, displacing even science fiction. The politics of nature is an as yet unrealized prospect of rethinking the essence of man and humanity. In it, man and nature should be equal in rights. For such a revolution, it is necessary to launch political processes of the emancipation of nature. They require a new historicity, which is impossible due to the rise of presentism. But this same presentism made it possible to raise the very question of the rights of nature and its subjectivity. Nature as a discriminated subject today shares space with diverse discriminated minorities. How could this happen if nature creates the conditions for the survival of humanity as a whole? The answer comes from a combination of presentism and digital culture. For a person in the post-industrial world, they create a specific image of nature, which can be called virtual. Regarding him, there is an affect of moral duty, an obligation without a statute of limitations. His experience is also accompanied by ideas about lost harmony with nature and about balance, homeostasis, which must be achieved. These ideas and images are, however, unevenly distributed. They concern a rich part of humanity, whose lifestyle is as far removed from nature as an object of economic exploitation. For the poor part of humanity, mediatized virtual nature doubles the nature that provides resources for life. This social order does not prevent the rich part of humanity from performing imitative actions to protect virtual nature. They do not in any way affect the ecological situation, but create cognitive and affective conditions for thinking through a new social order in which humanity would not think of the essence and purpose of its existence separately from the natural environment. What is happening in the sphere of imagination is a collision of what is and what should be, that is, a symptom of a crisis and the opening possibilities of change.

Key words: nature, historicism, presentism, digital culture, moral duty.

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For Citation:

Mikirtumov, I. (2024) Duty to Nature and the Digital Culture of Presentism. International Journal of Cultural Research, 3 (56). 47–64. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2024_3_47

DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2024_3_47