A Hard and Brutal Mysticism

Author and environmentalist Edward Abbey dreams of a ‘hard and brutal mysticism’, one in which he transcends the anthropocentric perspective to experience things as they are in themselves. Abbey’s quest evokes distinctions made by Michel Serres, who distinguishes between le dur, reality in its raw givenness, and le doux, reality as manipulated or interpreted by humans. However, Abbey’s hard and brutal mysticism – as well as the inhumanism of poet Robinson Jeffers and other related perspectives – risks trading anthropocentrism for misanthropy. There is, however, another potion. Rather than denying or minimizing the unique value and personhood of each human, philosopher Erazim Kohák extends that personhood to all reality – animals, plants, abiotic entities. This approach may be ‘hard’ in Serres’s sense, insofar as it embraces the givenness of reality, including the ways in which it resists and thwarts our preferences. However, it does not frame inhumanism in terms of indifference or brutality, but rather in terms of a common creatureliness.