Becoming homo sapiens sapiens: Mapping the psycho-cultural transformation in the anthropocene

Abstract If it is true that humans are about to leave behind the environmental conditions we have known for the 150,000–200,000 years of our species’ existence, then we are now changing the context in which we have evolved to date. This means Homo sapiens will have to co-evolve further with the climatic and environmental conditions it is creating through its planetary impact in the Anthropocene. Given the rapidity of the changes humans have set in motion, however, this next evolutionary phase may be cultural rather than biological, reflected in behaviors, practices, artifacts, institutions and underlying values and worldviews, and, therefore, psychological. Such a psycho-cultural transformation is frequently called for, but rarely explored in detail. This paper presents a model of psychological transformation from the fields of depth psychology and anthropology known as an archetypal death-rebirth process. Applied to a cultural transformation, the model offers a frame to interpret this time of unprecedented environmental and cultural endings. It gives purpose and meaning to the suffering involved in transformations and, crucially, offers hope through the vision of renewal. Its tripartite progression of severance, threshold, and reincorporation provides a map for navigating the terra quasi-incognita of this transformation that tells us what to expect and therefore how to respond. Finally, it offers an explication of how a transformation far more profound than changes in actions and policies may allow us to become the truly wise humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, our species’ name denotes we could be.

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