Earth’s Last Hour: Climate Crisis Defeatism and Green Anarchism in Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth

Abstract

This thesis argues that the titular “science fantasy” setting in Jack Vance’s collection of interrelated stories, The Dying Earth, helps to illuminate the harms of the ideology of climate defeatism. In the text, “magical” representations of technology manifest as forms of environmental speculation rather than a lack of environmental thinking. By “bending the truth” of technological applications, such as representing the “echo chamber” phenomenon as a literal force field, Vance demonstrates how defeatism serves as a political tool intended to frame attempts to combat the climate crisis as utterly hopeless, so as not to risk entrenched power positions. In the text, a “green anarchist” society created by overthrowing the ruling class is posited as a necessary ideological shift in a system where “doomerism” has become normalized. The thesis expands on research in green anarchism by demonstrating how the hyper-awareness of climate change can serve as a barrier to environmental movements.