Creative destruction
Can climate change be understood as a concept of creative destruction? The concept of creative destruction has existed since ancient times. In Hinduism, this process is embodied by the deity Shiva or the demon Kali. According to Buddhist and Hindu teachings, we have been living in the Kali Yuga, the dark or iron age of corruption, decay and strife, for 5000 years. The idea of creative destruction can be found in Marx’s Capital as well as in Darwin’s evolutionary concept of the origin of species. In the field of economics, the term was coined by the economist Peter Schumpeter.
If we assume that a fundamental change is always preceded by a process of creative destruction, i.e. a process of death, in order to enable the emergence of something completely new, what does this phenomenon mean in relation to climate change and the extinction of species? Is it still possible to think and apply the concept of creative destruction to a process of destruction as profound as the ecological crisis in which we currently find ourselves? Can such an outlook on history give us a useful form of hope, does such a form of hope for a happy ending inhibit or promote our powers of initiative? Is the concept of creative destruction in relation to the crisis really still creative – especially when viewed in connection with the ideals of transhumanism – or does it not already contain such a strong destructive tendency that there can no longer be any talk of creativity?
Where are we in evolution and where does the new come from in the world?
