In Roy Scranton’s introduction “Coming Home” from his book Learning to Die in the
Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization, Scranton begins making connections between his experiences in Iraq and his experiences at home with the current issues involving climate change. The connections made by Scranton are a way for him to make a better connection with his audience and to help build his credibility as an author by using his experiences to persuade the audience to learn to die. Scranton also maintains a consistent tone throughout the introduction that helps to convey how serious of an issue we face with climate change and global warming. His tone also resembles the idea of doomsday due to the beliefs, mentioned repeatedly throughout the introduction, that we are already dead and that nothing can be done to change or stop climate change.
In the introduction, Scranton makes connections between his experiences in Iraq and his experiences at home with the current issues involving climate change, this helps build his credibility as the author. For example, Scranton first makes a connection when, while watc
hing Hurricane Katrina on television, he experienced the same “shock and awe” (14) as he did in Iraq. He also mentions the “grim future” (14) that he came home too. Scranton is using his experiences in Iraq to connect with the audience and to build his credibility by showing he has experience with the “same chaos and collapse” (14) that is occuring now as it did when he was in Iraq. Also, by using his experiences it helps Scranton connect to the audience because he isn’t a scientist writing this book, he is using his experience not just studies and facts. Another example is when he tells the reader that “Learning to die isn’t easy.” (21). To elaborate on this statement, he tells the reader how, despite the odds he would return home safely, everyday he was afraid of dying. Scranton read a Samurai manual titled the Hagakure that advised on meditating about dying which led to the discussion of how he began owning his death instead of fearing it by imaging himself “getting blown up, shot, lit on fire, run over by a tank, torn apart by dogs, captured and beheaded,” (22) everyday before going on a mission. Scranton claims that since he was already dead in his mind, he no longer worried about dying. This is another example of how the connections that Scranton makes between Iraq and home are a way for him to connect better with his audience. Scranton also helps build his credibility as an author by using his experiences, such as when he mentions how he was afraid of dying, to seem more relatable to the audience and to persuade the audience, such as when he uses his fear of death to bring up the idea of learning to die. All of these examples given help in building Scranton’s credibility as an author.
While Scranton did use his experiences to help connect to the audience and build his credibility, his tone seems very dark in the introduction due to the way he believes that we are already dead and that nothing can be done to change or stop climate change. His beliefs displayed are very similar to those of doomsday, which can be defined as a time or event of crisis. For example, when examining the philosophical challenges in living in the Anthropocene, he claims that we have to understand that we, as a civilization, are already dead (23). To elaborate on this, he tells how acceptance is relevant to how soon we can stop trying to change things and can begin to adapt to our new world of the Anthropocene. This is where Scranton
begins to resemble doomsday to me. He repeatedly says the we are already dead, that the human civilization is over, and that nothing we do will change anything. Another example is when he says that global warming is “not hysteria. It is a fact.” (17) and that we have already “passed the point where we could do anything about it.” (17). Furthermore, Scranton very bluntly states “We’re fucked. The only questions are how soon and how badly.” (16). Also, he mentions that “we have failed to prevent unmanageable global warming and that global capitalist civilization as we know it is already over.” (24). Another example from the introduction is when Scranton says “For humanity to survive in the Anthropocene, we need to learn to live with and through the end of our current civilization.” (22). Throughout the entire chapter, Scranton continuously tries to convince the audience that they are already dead or dying and that nothing we do can change or stop the issue of climate change and global warming; furthermore, he is very consistent in retaining his dark tone throughout the introduction, which helps the reader understand that this is a serious topic that should not be taken lightly.
In the introduction “Coming Home” from Roy Scranton’s book Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization, the reader is constantly faced with Scranton’s dark tone that he uses to reveal the seriousness of the issues we face with climate change. Throughout the introduction, he constantly discusses how the human civilization is already dead and that no matter what we try to do, nothing will stop or change the issues we face concerning global warming. Scranton pushes his ideas onto the reader rather bluntly on how we should just accept our deaths and move on. Scranton also makes connections between his experiences in the military to his experiences at home with global warming. The connections Scranton makes allow the reader to connect with him due to him being a more relatable author than a scientist with multiple studies and words that the reader more than likely wouldn’t understand unless they also were scientists; furthermore, the connections Scranton makes also help him build his credibility as an author.
Works Cited
Scranton, Roy. Learning to Die in the Anthropocene:Reflections on the End of a Civilization. City Lights Books. 2015.
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