New WEs for the Planetary Turning Point
Why Are We Blind?
The accelerating climate crisis presents an existential threat to human and non-human life on Earth. Public discourse frequently demands more ambitious political strategies to halt global warming, reduce emissions, and protect planetary ecosystems. Yet actual behavioral change among populations—and even among political and economic leaders—remains strikingly limited. Many people continue to resist substantial lifestyle changes, such as reducing car and air travel, limiting meat consumption, or shifting to locally sourced food. These behavioral patterns persist despite the overwhelming scientific evidence of environmental degradation and growing global inequalities.
Several interrelated factors contribute to this widespread inertia. First, many individuals believe that small-scale ethical actions—such as consuming less, recycling, or choosing sustainable products—have little impact on global systems. This sense of futility contributes to passivity. Second, modern liberal societies value individual autonomy and personal freedom, making people generally resistant to perceived restrictions on consumption and mobility. Ethical self-limitation is often interpreted as an infringement on fundamental rights. Third, many underestimate their capacity for compassion, believing they are unable to meaningfully engage with the suffering of distant others.
These patterns, I argue, reflect a broader lack of individual reflexivity, which is deeply embedded in capitalist societies. The psychological comfort of selective blindness—an unwillingness to acknowledge uncomfortable realities—allows individuals to distance themselves from ecological and humanitarian crises. Through this distancing, many come to believe that they hold little responsibility for the conditions shaping our shared future.
Are We Good Ancestors?
My research on collective trauma investigates precisely this phenomenon of societal blindness. A crucial question emerges: Are we born into a traumatized society that reproduces patterns of avoidance and denial? Traumatic events can shape collective identity and cultural memory in enduring ways, often leading to numbing, dissociation, or moral paralysis.
Drawing on my personal background, I reflect on Japan’s collective history. As a Japanese citizen, I feel deep shame regarding the government’s decision to release treated cooling water from the Fukushima nuclear disaster into the ocean. This policy, which continues to spark international criticism, may be symptomatic of a deeper, unresolved trauma linked to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Collective trauma can render societies simultaneously hypervigilant and blind—sensitive to certain dangers while numbing themselves to others.
Holocaust survivor Batsheva Dagan posed a haunting question: “Where was everyone? Where was the world that could see this, that could hear this, and yet did nothing?” (Morris, 2020). This question resonates profoundly today. Climate change is not only a scientific or political issue but also a moral one. Similarly, Wallace-Wells (2023) notes that a global temperature increase of 2°C—as compared to 1.5°C—may lead to 150 million additional deaths from air pollution alone, a number equal to “25 Holocausts.”
These comparisons are not rhetorical exaggerations but ethical provocations. They force us to ask: How can we become good ancestors? How do we act—without denial and without paralysis—so that future generations will not ask us, “What did you do while the planet was being devastated?”
Climate Crisis and a New Turning Point
In grappling with these questions, I developed the “Roadmap for Planetary Heating or Healing” for the WittenLab magazine. The climate crisis is not merely an environmental issue; it is transforming the foundations of scientific inquiry, political practice, organizational development, and societal imagination. These fundamental shifts can be understood through the concept of a “turn”—a paradigmatic reorientation in how problems are conceptualized and addressed.
Over the past decades, several major TURNs have shaped contemporary thought:
- Socio-Ecosystem Turn:Investigates how society and nature are interconnected within complex adaptive systems.
- Transformational Turn:Explores how sustainable transformation can occur in organizations and society, including frameworks such as the SDGs.
- Consciousness-Based System Change Turn:Considers how collective change emerges from shifts in consciousness (e.g., Theory U).
- Relational Turn:Examines humans’ relational entanglement with nature and each other.
Sociologist John Urry (2000) and later Szerszynski (2018) argue for integrating these developments into an overarching Planetary Turn. This turn expands the scope of inquiry beyond human systems to include the more-than-human world, emphasizing relational entanglement across species, ecosystems, and planetary processes.
The Planetary Turn invites two central questions:
- Who is the planet?
- How are we connected to the planet?
These questions challenge anthropocentric worldviews and suggest a move toward relational ontologies, where the planet is not a passive backdrop but an active participant in shared becoming.
Transformation of Consciousness Through New Narratives and New Language
Responding to these planetary questions requires acknowledging the limitations of our existing linguistic resources. As Wittgenstein famously stated, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Language shapes cognition, perception, and imagination. Consequently, transforming consciousness necessitates transforming the linguistic frameworks that condition our understanding of the world.
Expanding language allows us to construct new conceptual possibilities. Examples include gender-neutral pronouns in Swedish, honorifics in Japanese, or David Bohm’s notion of “rheomode,” a verb-based language that reflects reality as continuous process rather than static entities.
In this spirit, I propose expanding the meaning of the second-person plural pronoun “WE.” Many languages differentiate between an exclusive we (we = us, not you) and an inclusive we (we = you and us together). Exclusive WEs emphasize boundaries and separation; inclusive WEs foster mutual responsibility and relational repair.
To foster a relational and planetary consciousness, I propose cultivating three new forms of inclusive WE:
1. Global WE
This WE recognizes the interdependence between populations in the Global North (approximately 15% of humanity) and the Global South (85%). Climate change disproportionately affects the Global South, where environmental degradation, extreme weather events, and resource scarcity force millions of people to migrate.
By 2050, climate-related displacement may affect over 140 million people, compared to 22 million in 2022. In interviews with refugees in Calais and Ventimiglia, many expressed that migration was not a choice but a survival strategy: “We do not want to leave our countries, but we are forced to come to Europe.” The consumption patterns of the Global North significantly contribute to these conditions.
A Global WE entails recognizing shared responsibility: We are together with you (from global south), and we are responsible for climate refugees.
2. Transgenerational WE
This WE situates present-day humanity within a temporal continuum of past and future generations. Approximately 100 billion humans have lived over the last 50,000 years, and an estimated 6.75 trillion may live over the next 50,000 years, assuming human survival.
The dead are our ancestors, and we will become ancestors to future generations. The Iroquois “Seven Generation Principle” offers a powerful example: every decision should consider its implications for the seventh generation—approximately 200 years into the future. This principle guides ethical relationships with plants, animals, water, land, air, and fellow humans.
A Transgenerational WE affirms: We are together with you (ancestors), and we are responsible for future generations in the next 200 years.
3. Planetary WE
This WE extends beyond humans to include the Earth itself as a co-constitutive participant in life. As Carl Sagan famously stated, “We are made of star stuff.” The Māori worldview exemplifies this relational ontology. In 2017, New Zealand granted the Whanganui River legal personhood, recognizing it as a being with intrinsic value and rights—reflecting a long-standing Māori understanding of rivers and lands as kin, not objects.
A Planetary WE asserts:
We and you (planet Earth) are part of the universe and seek to live together harmoniously, in accordance with human rights and planetary justice.
The three proposed WEs resonate with contemporary theoretical developments by Karen Barad, Hartmut Rosa, Timothy Morton, and Thomas Hübl. Across these perspectives, relationality is not merely conceptual but embodied and enacted. Processes such as resonance, tuning, and witnessing enable connection on cognitive, emotional, and physical levels. These relational practices support not only personal transformation but also cultural healing and planetary attunement.
Resilience Narrative
Scientific projections of climate change paint a sobering picture. Given current trajectories, optimism without grounded action is insufficient. The unfolding climate crisis generates a form of collective trauma, which, if unaddressed, may evolve into cultural trauma—a fragmentation of meaning, identity, and belonging lasting for generations.
I do not want to leave behind a traumatized culture for future generations. In this context, the three WEs—Global, Transgenerational, and Planetary—function as resilience narratives, activating culture’s self-healing capacities. They provide frameworks for responsibility, relationality, and ethical orientation in a rapidly destabilizing world.
These WEs invite humanity to cultivate new forms of belonging and mutual care that can sustain life through crisis and transformation.
Kazuma Matoba
References
Formatted in APA 7 style.
Morris, A. (2020). Title of source. Publisher.
Szerszynski, B. (2018). Title of article or chapter. In Editor (Ed.), Book title (pp. xx–xx). Publisher.
Urry, J. (2000). Sociology beyond societies: Mobilities for the twenty-first century. Routledge.
Wallace-Wells, D. (2023). The uninhabitable earth: Life after warming. Penguin.
