Table Of ContentMacCormack, Patricia. "Dedication." The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the end of the
anthropocene. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. v–vi. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 19 Apr.
2020. <>.
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v
For Circe and Francesco
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MacCormack, Patricia. "Acknowledgements." The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the end of the
anthropocene. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. viii. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 19 Apr.
2020. <>.
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viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Th ank you to Liza Th ompson and Frankie Mace at Bloomsbury for
encouraging me to write this and agreeing to take such a sympathetic
risk. Th ank you to the many scholars who live their philosophies.
Th ese include, but of course are not limited to, those who have read
and helped me with this book, including Colin Gardner (with whom
I hope to write much more), Ruth McPhee, Chrysanthi Nigianni,
Marietta Radomska, Claire Colebrook, Meredith Jones, David
Rodowick, Phil Hine, Christina Oakley-Harrington, renee hoogland,
Margrit Shildrick, Nina Lykke, Rosi Braidotti, the Queer Death
Studies Network, the Posthumanities Hub and the Animal Catalyst
Network. Th is book celebrates the memory of my dear Jane and Steve
Ash, and the support of my beloved Gabriel.
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MacCormack, Patricia. "Preface." The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the end of the
anthropocene. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. ix–xii. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 19
Apr. 2020. <>.
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ix
PREFACE
Th is book is a book which calls for action. Direct, available and
immediate action. It is not an academic treatise which seeks to
deconstruct contemporary issues with which the earth grapples. It
does not search for a balanced, logical, emotionless evaluation of how
human exceptionalism is perpetuating destructive impulses. Many
academic texts already exist which perform this function, and I refer
my readers oft en in this book to their more even critiques of the
relevant areas of posthumanism, environmentalism, animal rights and
population issues. Th is book does not seek such an evaluation. Th is is
a manifesto – I seek here to make manifest an alternate way of writing,
reading and ‘doing’ ahuman work. Th at is, activating forces that seek
not to solve our crises but to, at the very least, uncompromisingly
shatter the presuppositions which are the foundations of the logic
affi liated with humanism (including posthumanism) so that each
expression of life, human and nonhuman, has a greater capacity for
expression and liberty, and the earth’s multiple environments have
a chance at one of many varied alternative presents and futures. In
order to dismantle the dominance of the human, I have sought to no
longer argue like a human, with other humans. For this reason, the
term ‘ahuman’ refers to an alternate way of writing and reading that
will defi nitely meet with resistance but that involves making ourselves
vulnerable, available, accountable and careful in diff erent ways. I ask
the reader to be aware of this requirement. Disagreement is expected;
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x PREFACE
as a manifesto, the claims herein are adamant, extreme, unpalatable,
even unthinkable. We are in the midst of manifesti coming from
extremes too oft en enamoured of hate and destruction. Th is manifesto
may seem to hate humans. It does not. It simply seeks diff erent
trajectories to the more typical political, academic human versus
human arguments. It is a manifesto of doing something right now,
individually, collectively, artistically. It is a manifesto of joy. But the joy
is for all life, not only ours. It is a manifesto that repudiates hierarchy,
that refuses that some human rights should be privileged over others,
and that human rights should be privileged over nonhuman. Th ese
claims are presumed rather than argued, so the calls to action are
presented not as balanced contemplations but as para-academic DIY
pleas to activism, small and large. I could have grounded this book
within a gap in the academic market. I could have off ered a slight
tweak to existing arguments about animal rights, ecology, population
and earth devastation. As I have already paid that due, politely and in
a scholastically respectful way in Posthuman Ethics ( 2012 ), it would be
a waste to repeat or update it. Scholastic musings do not seem enough
without action. We must live the life we theorise or desire, even if
it seems utopic, deluded or extreme, three expected evaluations of
this manifesto. But those evaluations are contingent on the level of
investment in human exceptionalism of the reader. Additionally, this
manifesto requires a little optimism, something increasingly diffi cult
to muster. As a manifesto, this book chooses the adaptability and
specifi city of individual and environment for the development of the
action, so it does not off er a replacement system per se. It is a book that
I call a work of radical compassion. Radical compassion is available to
all humans. Radical compassion is as simple as it is diffi cult – simple
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xi
PREFACE xi
because very few demographics of humans would be unable to adopt
the practices of compassion off ered, diffi cult because addressing our
own privilege as humans can unveil a devastating awareness of what
human compulsions have wreaked, with which we are all complicit.
Th is awareness is our unmaking, but it may remake the world. I do not
ask the reader to agree with this work of radical compassion, but I do
ask that arguments against radical compassion be extended beyond
concepts that take as their fi rst presumption human exceptionalism,
an idea that is just as extreme, subjective, uncompromising and more
detrimental than radical compassion. So perhaps while reading this
manifesto of radical compassion, I ask the reader to off er a kind of
compassionate reading. What matters is how we can still care for and
in this world.
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xii
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