ABSTRACT
This chapter is organized into two halves. In the first we develop the idea that collectives are historically evolved things. Two broad approaches to historical understanding are examined. The first is that history is cyclical, the second that it is a line with an upward-moving trajectory. The first view is tragic, the second progressive. Only by combining the two models we will understand our unique historical moment. The second half of the chapter develops the idea that there is no longer a meaningful separation between artifacts and nature. Our essence, and that of nature, is now thoroughly technological. There is no going back from this state of the world. This demands a new metaphysics: Anthropocene monism, the idea that there is a just a single complex human/nature field of meaning.
