Our future promises to be as savage as our past. While it may be true that two centuries of carbonfueled economic plenty and the widespread ramification of state control have led to a general decrease in daily violence, at least in industrialized nations, the human animal has not purged itself of bloodlust, nor have we put war and violence aside as solutions to our problems. In order to come to an understanding of what it will mean to live and die in the Anthropocene, we must begin to understand what the Greek philosopher Heraclitus meant when he wrote: “It should be understood that war is the common condition, that strife is justice, and that all things come to pass through the compulsion of strife.” 87

Our future promises to be as savage as our past. While it may be true that two centuries of carbonfueled economic plenty and the widespread ramification of state control have led to a general decrease in daily violence, at least in industrialized nations, the human animal has not purged itself of bloodlust, nor have we put war and violence aside as solutions to our problems. In order to come to an understanding of what it will mean to live and die in the Anthropocene, we must begin to understand what the Greek philosopher Heraclitus meant when he wrote: “It should be understood that war is the common condition, that strife is justice, and that all things come to pass through the compulsion of strife.”