Lending a Voice to the Terror of Nature. Reflections on Critical Theory and Eco-Marxism in an Escalating Climate Crisis: Überlegungen zu Kritischer Theorie und Ökomarxismus in einer eskalierenden Klimakrise

Despite intensifying ecological crises, climate policy measures are increasingly delayed or diluted, while authoritarian forces—denying climate change and sabotaging environmental protection—gain influence. This article analyzes these blockades of social change through central motifs of Critical Theory, specifically the Dialectic of Enlightenment. In doing so, it critically engages with the eco-Marxist critique that denies Critical Theory its capacity for ecological analysis. While it is true that the latter focuses primarily on the social and political consequences of excessive mastery of nature and neglects ecological ramifications, this does not justify the demanded "sharp break." Rather, it is argued that these social and political consequences—particularly transformation blockades and authoritarian escalation dynamics—are constitutive moments of the climate crisis itself. Instead of turning away from Critical Theory, this essay thus aims to expand its scope toward climate policy. It draws upon Philip Hogh's idea of continuing the Dialectic of Enlightenment such that modern society's mastery of nature fails not only politically—by producing societies incapable of action—but also in a second sense: through the return of the terror of nature, which was once thought to be overcome. The essay further develops this reflection by arguing that the climate crisis intertwines both forms of failure. The terror of nature strikes politically blocked societies that are hardly able to respond appropriately. Drawing on Adorno's demand to "lend a voice to suffering," the article concludes by pleading for the terror of nature to also be lent a voice in order to overcome current blockades to transformation and authoritarian escalation dynamics.