Fighting the system, saving the Earth: Understanding climate change in Czech conspiritual milieu

Abstract

This article shows how the environmental crisis is understood and conceptualized within the Czech conspiritual milieu. It attends to the so-called conspiracy theories, seeing them as a form of knowledge, which is assembled as people develop sensibility to affects, atmospheres, and resonances. This shift in perception allows the self-styled “Awakened” to perceive an upcoming Collapse, a disaster that also bears a promise of a radical social transformation. To some degree this notion of Collapse overlaps with concerns about climate change but is primarily understood as a moral and spiritual problem that needs to be addressed—by caring for the Earth and accepting truth claims about the conspiratorial nature of the world. This position makes certain modes of political action open, while closing others.