The Repentance of Prometheus

Since time immemorial, humans have had to organize their metabolism with nature. For Marx, the most important factor in this was labor. When Prometheus brought fire to Earth, another crucial input was added. For hundreds of thousands of years, it has been used to cook food and harden tools. In this sense, it can be said that all history is the history of applications of fire. However, where trees could previously only be burned once, the balance of the factors of labor and fire shifted with the discovery of underground deposits of coal and oil. Modern humanity, according to Peter Sloterdijk, can be seen as a collective of arsonists setting fire to the underground forests and bogs. If Prometheus were to return to Earth today, he might regret his gift, as it threatens nothing less than ekpyrosis, the destruction of the world by fire. Only a new energetic pacifism can prevent this catastrophe.