Can the new concept of the planetary infuse a positive, and constructive narrative for our common future? What theories and viewpoints are gained when moving from the global to the planetary? Can it serve as a uniting concept, building bridges between contemporary powers while bringing the ecological aspects in tune with the economic, social, and political ones, ultimately reshaping global governance?
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The concept of the planetary is gaining in prominence. Over recent years, robust and multi-perspective scholarship has emerged. Will the planetary be able to capture enough traction and become a core concept around which narratives of the future may cluster? Will it be strong enough to hold a normative position when it comes to legitimating policy adoptions? What are planetary choices? Or, rather, which choices – social, political, economic – can or even need to be made for humans and non-humans to thrive on our planet.
As an alternative to the until recently all-pervasive globalization narrative of neo-liberalism, the planetary perspective presents a view that conceives of the world as bounded, and in need of political coordination. Crucially, such new narratives need to not only reset the economic and financial imaginations underlying deve-lopmentalism and economic progressivism that have evolved into dominant for-ces in many parts of the world. They also need to find scenarios for global order that are no longer primarily defined by its main unit: the nation state. There is a need to ‘ecologize’ economic thinking and to promote the conscious sharing of our limited resources – resource democracy – based on humanity’s shared space, our planetary commons.
The humanities emphasize the moral and ethical capacities of humans to make not only individual but collective decisions, and to act their basis. This capacity can and must be translated into an effective collective process of taking responsibility for our common future. The humanities can play a major role in this endeavor, and can, by joining forces with the social and natural sciences, become the fertile ground for new, progressive, and inclusive narratives for our shared ecosystem.
While planetary thinking stirs the imagination in inclusive and creative ways, there remains a lot to be wary of and to think through. Being still relatively open as a political concept, ideological temptations emerge around the planetary inviting positions about how we “ought to” live in prescriptive ways. “Oughts” are shared moral presuppositions – how can we make sure they remain malleable and able to absorb various individual variations? And how can one related to positions that reject the planetary as a shared presupposition as is increasingly the case in right-wing discourse?
The effect of inserting the planetary as a core concept into our global imagination has significant knock-on effects. During the decades of globalization, all concepts adjacent to globalization not only charged the concept of globalization with meaning, they also changed their own meaning: freedom, society, prosperity, democracy (and certainly more concepts) all changed their meaning in relation to globalization and its neoliberal spirit. If ‘planetary’ takes the place of ‘globalization’, what does this imply for the meanings of freedom, society, prosperity, economics, democracy, knowledge, and more?
