1. Telling the story of climate breakdown

2. Eco-Feminist Storytelling

3. Stories of the End of the World 

2. Eco-Feminist Storytelling

Ursula Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” (1996)

Part 1: Stories of "Human Nature"

The stories we tell shape how we make sense of the world. Indeed, storytelling may be the most important resource the humanities have to offer environmental activism, because narrative is one of the oldest and more powerful ways we understand our place in nature. 

Yet historically, many of our dominant narratives have had destructive plot lines: these are stories of humans controlling and consuming nature, narratives that celebrate violence and masculine power. When we never encounter alternative narratives or images, we can become trapped by beliefs that war-making, patriarchy, violence, and the domination nature are "natural" and even "inevitable."

One of the most influential science fiction writers of the 20th century, Ursula Le Guin, takes up this issue by revisiting some of patriarchy's oldest stories about how we became human.

First, read Le Guin's essay "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction," and write a few notes summarizing her main point in this piece. After completing this first part, move on to part 2 below.

Part 2: The Weapon

Le Guin's essay asks us to consider the consequence of stories suggesting that the first human tool was a weapon – and that this innovation marked the birth of civilization, culture, and "progress."

Indeed, many have argued that tools are what make us human (and differentiate us from other animals). We can see what follows from the login underpinning this claim:

> if tools make us human

> and the first tool is a weapon

> then weapons are what make us human.

 In short, to be human is to be violent, to make war, to hunt and kill. Such equations reinforce patriarchal ideals of the dominant, aggressive male, the leader of tribe, the violent alpha male.

So where can we find examples of these stories? On p. 150, Le Guin makes a brief but important reference to one of the most famous works of science fiction, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Arguably the most influential SF film of the twentieth century, 2001 left a mark on everything from Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Alien, Dune, Gravity, Interstellar, and many other works.

The opening scene, in particular, has become a cultural touchstone. It includes an editing sequence with a 4-million-year jump cut that tells the journey of homo sapiens -- from early hominoids to the conquest of space -- in just the blink of a moment. As you watch this clip, take notes on the following:

1. What’s the story that’s being told here?

2. What assumptions are being established/reinforced, and HOW does the director do this? Take note of elements like sound, music, imagery, space, camera movement/angles, editing, character, and anything else used to produce an effect on viewers.

3. How do you interpret the editorial cut from bone to space station at the end of this scene?

First, view 0:45 - 2:15 and 5:40 - 9:20 in the opening sequence of the film.

Part 3: The Basket

Recall Le Guin's point that stories both reflect and shape beliefs about the world.

So what if we told stories differently? What moral could be drawn from alternative forms of storytelling about early tool-making? In particular, how might the story change if humanity's “first tool” was represented as the basket rather than the weapon?

In exploring this possibility, Le Guin writes the following: 

“If you haven’t got something to put it in, food will escape you – even something as uncombative and unresourceful as an oat. You put as many as you can into your stomach while they are handy, that being the primary container; but what about tomorrow morning when you wake up and it’s cold and raining and wouldn’t it be good to have just a few handfuls of oats to chew on and give little Oom to make her shut up, but how do you get more than one stomachful and one handful home? So you get up and go to the damned soggy oat patch in the rain, and wouldn’t it be a good thing if you had something to put Baby Oo Oo in so that you could pick the oats with both hands? A leaf a gourd a shell a net a bag a sling a sack a bottle a pot a box a container. A holder. A recipient.” (p. 150)

This passage reminds us that the basket  -- or other containers like pots and slings, which are necessary for storage, water transport, and foraging –were at least as important as weapons for early human survival. And they were absolutely necessary for development of agriculture. Indeed, hunting may have provided an important nutritional supplement, but many anthropologists believe it was probably more occasional in the early human diet, while foraging and gathering were likely the mainstay. 

Question: Why is it that the carrier bag or pot or basket does not get the same regard as the weapon?


*Hint* Close your eyes and imagine: who is carrying the basket? who is carrying the spear or club?

As Le Guin also suggests, the carrier bag is not particularly celebrated in dominant western narratives because the basket or pot is traditionally a woman’s tool, and probably also used as a device to carry children.

 Le Guin also writes:

“It is hard to tell a really gripping tale of how I wrested a wild-oat seed from its husk, and then another, and then another … No, it does not compare, it cannot compare with how I thrust my spear deep into the titanic hairy flank while Oob, impaled on one huge sweeping tusk, writhed screaming ... and Boob was crushed to jelly when the mammoth fell on him as I shot my unerring arrow straight through eye to brain.” (p. 149)

Question: If stories of violence, hunting, conquest and male camaraderie are the ones deemed most valuable and interesting, what are the ethical consequences?  For purposes of environmental thought, what does this mean for our relation to the non human world?

3. Stories of the End of the World

David Wallace-Wells, Why Do We Fail When We Try to Tell the Story of Climate Change? Slate, 2019

In this essay, David Wallace-Wells notes the long tradition of telling stories about end of world, and the various lessons imparted with each imagined Armageddon. "You’d think that a culture woven through with intimations of apocalypse would know how to receive news of environmental alarm," he begins. And yet, as Wallace-Wells argues, pop culture suffers from an incredible failure of imagination when it comes to representing climate change. "This is climate’s kaleidoscope,” he writes. “We can be mesmerized by the threat directly in front of us without ever perceiving it clearly."

As you read Wallace-Wells' essay, consider the following:

How and why has Hollywood failed to tell the story of climate crisis, according to Wallace-Wells? Do you agree with his argument, and can you think of other examples that confirm or disprove his claim?

Haynes Brown, The end times are here, and I am at Target. The Outline, 2019.

In this essay, Brown explores the contradiction between hysteria over fictitious threats and inaction in the face of very real ones (like climate chaos).

What is Brown's explanation for why the story of climate apocalypse has failed to capture the popular imagination? Do you agree/disagree with this argument, and why? What are some connections (or discrepancies) between this piece and Wallace-Wells' analysis?