The stirring speech given by Peter Sloterdijk in Lucerne in October 2022. From time immemorial
humanity has had to organize their metabolism with nature.” For Marx the most important factor
in this process was labor. When Prometheus according to the myth brought fire to earth
another crucial input was added. Fire has been used to cook food and harden tools for hundreds
of thousands of years. In this sense it can be said that all history implies the history of
the uses of fire. But whereas trees could only be burnt once labor and fire shifted with the
discovery of underground deposits of coal and oil. Modern humanity according to Peter
Sloterdijk can be considered a collective of arsonists who set fire to the underground forests
and moors. If Prometheus were to return to earth today he might regret his gift after all
what looms is nothing less than Ekpyrosis the demise of the world in fire. And only a new
energetic pacifism can prevent this catastrophe.
