Should We Go Extinct? by Todd May
For philosopher and New York Times columnist Todd May, the question of his title is more than eye-grabbing rhetoric. May is genuinely asking, and what’s more, he’s asking readers to take the question seriously. Would human extinction be a good thing? Would life on earth and the earth itself be better off without us? It won’t shock you that May’s is not a lighthearted book – though it is short one, if concision makes reckoning with the ultimate existential headscratcher seem more palatable. May tallies the pros and cons of human civilization, weighing the satisfactions gleaned from great art and literature against the harms that humans inflict on other creatures, ecosystems, and one another. Refreshingly, he eschews the standard human myopia, taking up the novel position that other beings’ lives are of no less intrinsic value than those of the strange hairless apes currently presiding over the planet. While doing so slants his math decidedly against our species’ persistence, May is not yet ready to give up on his own kind. It is clear throughout Should We Go Extinct? that the author would badly like the answer to be ‘no.’ And so he poses a second question: what must human societies do differently, if we aim to transform our continued existence from a bane to a boon? May makes no excuses for the ongoing environmental disaster that humans are at our worst, nor does he drag readers along for gloomy slog through species-level self-loathing. In the end, he is rooting for us, problem children that we are.
For realists, wary optimists, humanists, and recovering misanthropes.
Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Gumbs
Audre Lorde, the self-described “black, lesbian, feminist, poet, warrior, mother” has been adopted by the Etsy crowd, and while not yet at the level of that Patron Saint of the Tote Bag, Frida Kahlo, Lorde is well on her way. As a result, plenty of people know certain famous quotes – “Your silence will not protect you,” “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” – from t-shirts and coffee mugs, but next to nothing about her as an artist or activist. Alexis Gumbs’ Survival is a Promise ought to do much to remedy this sorry state of affairs. I should warn you, however, that Gumbs, herself a poet, wastes none of her time conforming to the strictures of just-the-facts-please biography. What she creates instead is at once more fragmentary and more expansive, as she delves into the depths of Lorde’s archives to hone in on a largely neglected theme in the writer’s work: her relationship with the natural world. Gumbs puts the imagery she unearths – gray whales and obsidian, rivers and forests – towards a meditation on how Lorde’s poetic, political life was molded and transformed over time by forces both natural and unnatural. Here, shifting weather patterns and supernovas are set alongside the racism of Lorde’s New York City upbringing and the radioactive dust carried on currents of wind from Chernobyl as equally relevant in the shaping of a singular American voice. Readers seeking a thoughtful alternative to the icon-commodity treatment of Audre Lorde will appreciate this revitalizing engagement with a woman at risk of disappearing in the shadow of idolization.
For fans of Audre Lorde, obviously. Also recommended for poetry buffs and readers interested in black history and the women’s movement.
Since we are talking about life and death this month, I’d like to give a special mention to 222 Cemeteries to See Before You Die, by Loren Rhoads, a book bound to become the authoritative travel guide for inveterate tapophiles and Halloween day-trippers alike.
