Planetarity is the condition of living on a planet whose energetic, ecological and informational foundations are now out in the open. It's also the politics that answers that condition, a solidarity that runs across species.
How the word moved
In Feb 2018 I wrote it as an equation, Planetarity == Solidarity with all beings on this planet, and tracked it through A for Animals, B for Brains and C for Climate. By Aug 2025 it meant something closer to a recognition, spreading fast, that human activity sits on energy, ecology and information on a finite planet. That recognition can come in authoritarian forms too, which I don't like but can't deny.
In Feb 2026 I made it the key factor of the third age of systems theory. In Jul 2026 I recast it as the planet thought through Epistry, reaching into how all living beings make the planet.
In my words
"Planetarity == Solidarity with all beings on this planet."
from Planetarity: the ABCs of our planetary future, 26 Feb 2018
"If there’s one place that planetarity has to destroy, it’s the factory farm."
from Planetarity: the ABCs of our planetary future, 26 Feb 2018
"Don’t assume there’s only one way of grasping planetarity!"
from Bhumics: The Pauper #9, 6 Aug 2025
Related
- Inherited from Gayatri Spivak - what I take from Spivak is planetary subjects rather than global agents.
- Inherited from Dipesh Chakrabarty - what I take from Chakrabarty is the line between the global and the planetary.
- Related Planet - the planet is its object.
- Related Philosophical Engineering - I treat planetarity as a piece of philosophical engineering.
- Related Five Fingers of Planetarity - the five fingers are my anatomy of planetarity.
- Related Three Ages of Systems Theory - planetarity is the key factor of the third age.
- Related Existential Politics - the 2018 ABC essay is where existential politics first shows up.
- Related Epistry - in 2026 planetarity became the planet thought as Epistry.
Still open
I never reconciled the 2018 ABC scheme with the five fingers of 2025. Maybe one day I will, or maybe they're just two hands.