Abstract

How can Günther Anders’ concern with the threat of the atomic bomb enlighten current social thought about the Anthropocene? Building on Anders’ frustration with the “apocalypse blindness”, “laziness” and “indifference” of his contemporaries and his plea for an “apocalyptic passion,” this text sketches the contours of a thinking in and for ‘our’ end times – a time marked by destruction and the irretrievable loss of habitability on this planet. It first translates Anders’ notion of the end times into current debates about the Anthropocene, and then formulates three perspectives for such thinking in ‘our’ end times – the search for orientation, the spatio-temporal extension of responsibility, and the expansion of feelings in “the apocalyptic situation”.