How has it come to pass that so many think they are our Enlighteners but act so as to rule?

I

We are so used to hearing “failure is not an option!” when it comes to major events that we miss the reality: It is somewhat the other way around, isn’t it? We are already managing complex critical systems as reliably as we do so as to prevent their systemwide failure now. Focusing on what could happen by way of possible management to save the planet is not the same as focusing on what will happened if real-time management isn’t as effective in saving critical infrastructures, at least until the next failure ahead.

It’s more than passing odd then that those exhorting “failure is not an option” seem to believe we all are not trying hard enough.

II

Consequently, it’s no surprise that those who accused of not “giving whatever it takes to save the planet” find themselves admitting the adverse effects of the climate emergency while focusing on what they know can be managed or have better chances. Consider one such example:

We emphasize the importance of taking political time and maintain that collective social responses to major climate impacts must center actually existing material and symbolic inequalities and place procedural and distributive justice at the heart of transformative action. This is so even where climate change will have devastating physical and social consequences.

https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article/122/1/181/319765/Taking-Political-Time-Thinking-Past-the-Emergency

Note the last sentence: At least it has the merit of recognizing an entailed devastation by stiving to be more democratic. Not for them a “doing whatever it takes” on the backs and in the flesh of already poor people and minorities globally, who have no say in their ongoing punishment (see https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4416499).

III

So what?

In your plans for reform, you forget the difference between our two roles: you work only on paper which consents to anything: it is smooth and flexible and offers no obstacles either to your imagination or to your pen, whereas I, poor empress, work on human skin, which is far more prickly and sensitive.

So wrote Catherine the Great to Denis Diderot, the French Enlightener.

How has it come to pass that so many today think they are Enlighteners but act as our Empress, as if we corporeal bodies had no alternative?