The Natural History of Evil: The Political Role of Raw Materials from the Stone Age to AI

Lecture by historian Alexander Etkind, based at Central European University in Vienna and head of the Hub for Politics of the Anthropocene. Respondent: Yana Tannagasheva, Indigenous activist. Moderator: Maria Lind.

This lecture features unusual protagonists: peat and hemp, sugar and salt, iron ore and oil. Raw materials belong both to nature and the economy — they drive culture. Modern life depends on them, yet they also generate inequality, oppression, and war. Etkind summarizes arguments from his recent books Nature’s Evil and Russia Against Modernity, using case studies from both “deep” history and the present. He argues that today’s economies should focus on productive labor and human creativity rather than parasitic extraction of natural resources.