Abstract

The pessimistic and catastrophist literature, which permeates the so-called postmodernism, is now more alive than ever. It takes new forms and thrives on the terrain of environmental risks that – this is the point – increasingly appear as real. Catastrophes are being prophesied and new disciplines are being founded to study the collapse of industrial civilisation, the psychological aspects of catastrophes and the reactions they provoke in human beings. The environmental crisis is undoubtedly a fact and mankind has undoubtedly become a geological force capable of profoundly altering our planet and endangering its own survival. But neither optimists nor catastrophists are helpful in dealing with it. In both cases we are grappling with the myth, now that of progress, now that of the end. What, on the other hand, is useful?