In this series of personal, political, and literary essays, Nation writer and veteran activist Wen Stephenson traces his search for resolve and solidarity in the face of the advancing climate crisis and widening political abyss.
After three decades of failed international efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change, progressive visions of a better world are now increasingly circumscribed by ecological and social breakdown. The geophysical forces unleashed by carbon-fueled global heating have converged with forms of political nihilism not seen since the rise of fascism in the 20th century. For many, despair has become the only honest response.
Born of his own struggle, Learning to Live in the Dark is Stephenson’s argument for resolve in the face of an intellectual, moral, and spiritual abyss. In essays that reach back to the ideas of mid 20th-century thinkers Hannah Arendt, Vaçlav Havel, Simone Weil, Albert Camus, and Frantz Fanon—and back to Thoreau and Dostoevsky in the 19th century—Stephenson finds a constant among these iconic figures—a resolute embrace of universal human solidarity in dark times.
Engaging with contemporary writers along the way—including William T. Vollmann, Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, Andreas Malm, China Miéville, and Jane Hirshfield—Stephenson charts a personal and political journey from the horrors of Trump’s first presidency; through a renewed political engagement via the Green New Deal and his ongoing commitment to escalated nonviolent direct action; to a moral reckoning in the depths of the COVID pandemic and on up to the U.S.-sponsored genocide in Gaza. Throughout, Stephenson poses a question that resonates for many on the left today: If nothing short of revolution can salvage the possibility of a better world, and yet if a viable revolutionary-left politics is nowhere on the horizon, then what does a life of radical commitment look like in the shadow of catastrophes that will not wait?
Learning to Live in the Dark answers not with fatalism or any cost-free hope, but with something sturdier: a resolve and solidarity as real as the dark itself.
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Praise for What We’re Fighting for Now Is Each Other
“Wen Stephenson has written nothing less than a love letter to the student organizers, preachers, and frontline fighters struggling for climate justice across the United States. Together, these portraits coalesce into an impassioned call to action, offering a deep well of wisdom for any person coming to terms with the climate crisis.”
—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything
“This is a young, fascinating, in-motion movement, and Wen Stephenson captures it with grace and power. I learned a good deal about things I thought I already understood.”
—Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org
“Impassioned, provocative, beautifully written.”
—Mark Hertsgaard, Daily Beast
“In this harrowing, compelling call to action, Stephenson argues for radicalism, for a moral and even spiritual awakening similar to what fueled 19th century abolitionism.”
—Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe
“Thoughtful and self-aware...Stephenson grapples with the existential threat of environmental catastrophe by turning his gaze outward, onto the foot soldiers of the young and growing climate justice movement.”
—Chris Bentley, Chicago Tribune
“At its heart, this book is about a transformative social movement that is desperately needed and might just already be here.”
—Caroline Selle, Orion
“Readers will feel that they’ve traveled along with Stephenson and will likely be as transformed as he was as they think about what they might contribute to the environmental movement.”
—Booklist
“Impassioned, provocative, beautifully written...The great value of the book, as well as its great risk, is that it forces each of us to ask: what am I doing about the train that’s barreling down the tracks towards me, my loved ones, and all we hold dear?”
—The Daily Beast
“In this powerful treatise, Wen Stephenson chronicles the convergence of climate activism and human rights struggles in frontline communities viewed through a climate justice lens. He convincingly presents climate change as the definitive global environmental justice issue of our day.”
—Robert D. Bullard, author of Dumping in Dixie and co-author of The Wrong Complexion for Protection