BOOK PROPOSAL Networked Asceticism

As of winter 2025 I have a book proposal currently in development.

Tentatively, it will be entitled Networked Asceticism in the Era of Climate Change.

Below is a summary of my idea for the book. Please do not cite or quote what you find below. My ideas are still in development and are likely to change. However, this could give you some idea of what I am up to:

Our world of the 21st-century riven by conflicts and challenged by climate change produced by a human over-emphasis on instrumental mastery and the exploitation of nature needs to develop and embrace a new global ideology I will call networked asceticism…the latter will derive specifically from a) the need to strengthen the bonds of communication and mutual understanding among human beings and among humans and other objects by furthering and refining universal education and critical capabilities, using the opportunities presented by the digital social networks humans have built since the introduction of social media, and b) to rebalance the human value of action with neglected, so-called passive values of contemplation, relaxation, and simple low-impact enjoyment in order to bring humanity into line with the need to let other objects exercise agency and to promote a new global ideology of asceticism that will allow for an economically and environmentally sustainable future.