Dark Ecological Awareness

Dark ecology is Morton's practice of inhabiting ecological crisis without pretending to stand outside it. 'Dark' not as hopeless but as a room where lights are off and eyes haven't adjusted — movement proceeds by feel, by attention, by willingness to stumble. The ecological crisis is not something happening to us from outside. We are the crisis. We are emitters, consumers, builders. The system producing damage and the system seeking repair are the same system. Applied to AI, dark ecological awareness begins with the admission: the builder is inside the loop. The tool is building the tool. The builder is being built by what they build. The critique is inside what it critiques. There is no position of innocence, no clean hands, only the loop.