DESTRUIÇÃO E REIFICAÇÃO: POR QUE AS PESSOAS NÃO SE IMPORTAM COM A CRISE ECOLÓGICA PLANETÁRIA?

Abstract

Environmental tragedies have grabbed many headlines in mass media and brought deaths and significant changes to the lives of many of their victims. This is a subject that, therefore, has become common and known to everyone. It is not, however, a new problem: scientists have long been warning humanity about the dangers of destroying nature and, what is even worse, of destroying it at the rate we have been doing. Despite the objective seriousness of this situation, most people do not seem to care about the environmental issue. Our objective in these lines is to offer a possible explanation for the phenomenon in question. We argue that the category of reification of consciousness, as exposed by Georg Lukács in History and Class Consciousness, can contribute to our understanding of the reasons that lead most people to an apathetic stance in the face of this serious problem.