Affects After Finitude

In: Anthropological quarterly: AQ, Band 96, Heft 3, S. 545-565

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This essay approaches current anxieties about climate catastrophe by differentiating between a philosophy of the end and a social theory of settler late liberalism that is situated after the end. In order to suggest such a social theory, I begin with two examples of moods and dispositions cultivated in my birth family and among my Karrabing colleagues. Instead of what moods should be fostered at the end—optimism, hope, panic, anxiety, despair—I ask what moods and dispositions have been cultivated in spaces long living after the end? I outline some resonances and differences between these two worlds, both of which sat within a cascade of violent endings, in order to turn to the question of whether optimism should characterize our approach at the end—or to the end? Across my discussion I differentiate between affects and moods on the one hand and dispositions and dispositifs on other hand. I conclude by asking why affects and dispositions become the question in the shadow of the end. As s social thought and commentary piece, I am taking liberties in terms of the depth with which I'll pursue all and any of this—instead I hope merely to open up some new directions.