ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a scholar’s anxiety over doomsaying approaches to the Anthropocene. Finding that these approaches are metaphysically deterministic in an objectionable sense, the scholar asserts the ontological possibility of changing the social world. Noticing that the term “Anthropocene” hides the major social systems of the world that have caused dangerous planetary, environmental change and thereby hides the world that needs to change, the scholar articulates the notion of a “social process obfuscation,” whereby discourse covers over the social causality of a situation in a way that benefits dominant social systems. The scholar argues that against the use of the “Anthropocene,” autonomy must be emphasized, specifically as a planetary form, which the scholar calls “anthroponomy.” The scholar then sets the task of articulating anthroponomy from out of reflection on autonomy as a way of challenging the discourse surrounding the “Anthropocene” and seeks to do this practically in the context of community politics. But how should he engage in community politics?
