Alexander Etkind

In 1992, Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish-born sociologist who saw it all, wrote that "communism was moder­nity's most devout, vigorous and gallant champion ... It was under communist, not capitalist, auspices that the audacious dream of modernity... was pushed to its radical limits: grand designs, unlimited social engineering, huge and bulky technol­ogy, total transformation of nature."

Gaiamodernity is real, but not quite; it is also Utopian. This modernity is utilitarian, provided that it includes the elements of nature and people in its calculus. It is democratic: experts represent nature, but judgment is left up to the people. Most importantly, it is reflexive. Having failed in so many other tasks, we contribute our reflexivity to the life of Gaia.

Ironically, cul­tural factors are more consequential in authoritarianism than in democracy. In democratic governance, political choices follow economic and ecological realities, as the people articu­late them in their debates and elections. With authoritarians at the helm, it is their idiosyncratic preferences - aesthetic tastes, cultural and sexual prejudices, historical