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These defenses operate to secure a conscious and preconscious sense of existential significance while rendering unconscious the terrifying reality of existential insignificance. This analysis also provides a partial explanation for the sources of the climate polycrisis and the strong resistance to effective climate action. That is, dissonant subjects have an antagonistic relation to \u201cnature,\u201d deeming all that falls under this abstraction mute and dumb (unintelligent).<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1521\/prev.2026.113.2.131","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,4]],"date-time":"2026-06-04T17:49:44Z","timestamp":1780595384000},"page":"131-156","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The Climate Polycrisis and the Question of Whether We Are Alone: A Psychoanalytic Perspective"],"prefix":"10.1521","volume":"113","author":[{"given":"Ryan","family":"LaMothe","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology 200 Hill Dr. St. Meinrad, IN 47577,"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"377","reference":[{"key":"ref1","volume-title":"Potentialities: Collected essays in philosophy","author":"Agamben G.","year":"1999"},{"key":"ref2","volume-title":"The open: Man and animal","author":"Agamben G.","year":"2004"},{"key":"ref3","volume-title":"What is an apparatus? 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