# Manual for Depending Better *Steps toward Possible Liberation in Times of Planetary Oppression* By [Dj Hegel](https://paragraph.com/@djhegel) · 2025-09-19 postcapitalism, regenerative, regerativefutures --- There is no _outside_[_1_](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-1-169729462) —this is the root of anthropocentric planetary oppression. There is no _outside_ to which we can escape in this time of nested global crises that deny the future of our species—and that of many others. There is no _outside_ where we can hide the externalities of an extractivist metabolism of the human, allowing us to conceal the suicidal condition of unlimited growth. Faced with this oppression of the finite, capital imposes itself through the logic of “there is no alternative.” That is, there is no possible _outside_ to this way of existing as a species, to this capitalist contract that marks our shared world written in modern script. Thus, capital subjugates us, breaks us, subdues us, and subjugated, forces us to feed this desperate and kamikaze effort to maintain a dominion that can no longer be. Without an _outside_, we remain oppressed, powerless, on the side that suffers the pressure of this capitalist realism pushing against the realism of the finite. There is no _outside_ to this existential conjuncture—even a possible postcapitalism would remain trapped within this interconnected realism. Therefore, emancipation must resignify its realization, reinvent itself in paradox and relation, to open new paths that liberate without an outside, and thus make possible the art of _depending better_. 1\. Recovering Our Severed Existence ------------------------------------ > “If my survival depends on the relation with others, with ‘you’ or a set of ‘yous’ without whom I cannot exist, then my existence is not only mine, but is found outside of me, in this set of relations that precede and exceed the limits of who I am.”[2](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-2-169729462) My existence is not only mine. Descartes fell short when he appeared in his own thought as a thinking being, discovering the recursive loop of relation with himself that granted his existence. But he failed to attend to the fact that we also appear in relation with others, and thus he severed our existence, raising an invisible wall that separates us from a part of ourselves and from others. In some way, he invented a diminished _subject with a possible outside_. This distance inspired centuries of purification of the self and of man that dominates modernity, but which enters crisis before the “there is no outside” of our time. _Emancipaction without an outside_ is first to traverse the modern Cartesian disemancipation, to recover the part of our existence that allows us to return within the _us-with-everything_, to from here resignify liberation. This recovered existence is that existence that «is not mine» according to Butler, which is instead ours, because it needs you and me. Thus, in some way, we exist in relation, as Butler tells us—and so many others: Whitehead, Latour, Barad, Deleuze. But where does this relation occur? Well, my eyes show me a body that, apart from being in relation, says, «I am here, in this place where my differentiated body lives»[3](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-3-169729462) , because to exist is also to differ[4](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-4-169729462) , to differentiate. «Existence proceeds from Latin (including a Greek prehistory). The verb existere means ‘to emerge, to appear.’ Translated literally, the word means ‘to stand out,’ ‘to come forth,’ ‘to distinguish.’ What exists stands out and differentiates itself from other objects through its characteristics»[5](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-5-169729462) . To exist is to appear differentiated, but perhaps this emergence is confused with separation when perceived, which would suppose an absolute differentiation that is not possible. In Butler’s “here,” my eyes ontologically cut my body, they look in space-time, which is posterior to the field of affectation (Morton 2024), of agency, where relation can effectively occur. Recovering our existence means understanding that difference is not synonymous with ontological discontinuity, and that the self, and the _here_, are configured from changes in the ontologically connected _there_. Therefore, liberation without an _outside_ is a reconfiguration of what is assembled[6](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-6-169729462) , of the entanglement. Faced with oppression, the self contorts itself in contractions to attempt to “release itself” from the bodies of relation whose subordination it must leave behind. But this “releasing” is a redefinition of dependencies and not a breaking of connection—the relation changes, rarely disappears completely. Emancipation seeks the ontological “birth,” perhaps following the inertia of primordial involuntary emancipation, which in a forced and violent way—by expelling us from the womb—taught us the path we are and how to make life through contraction. However, _emancipation as a reconfiguration of dependencies_ is imbricated in our interdependent existence. Thus the different stages of a life are defined by an emancipatory path also from former “selves”—former dependencies—before arriving at emancipations from the other. Butler says that the body «is outside itself, in the world of others, in space and time that it does not control, and not only exists in the vector of these relations, but is the vector itself». Within this vector, _self_ and _other_ form an inevitable _us_—a space where the boundaries of being dissolve. Emancipation emerges from the tensions within this _us_. When this _us_ becomes parasitic, it first oppresses us ontologically, then begins to suffocate our very existence. Emancipatory contractions generate change and, with it, new forms of subjectivity. By recovering our severed existence, we can operate from a subjectivity that creates ontological shifts—displacements that reconfigure our interdependent existence and open pathways for emancipating _from_ in order to re-associate _with_. When these contractions succeed, they reassemble us. 2\. Taking Responsibility for Our Vulnerability ----------------------------------------------- Our vulnerability emerges from this recovered existence, from this _us_ that obliges us to inhabit the same space of affectation. For Butler, «the body that exists exposed and proximate to others, to external force, to everything that can subjugate and dominate it, is vulnerable to harm; harm is the abuse of this vulnerability»[7](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-7-169729462) . Similarly, for Marina Garcés, «we are vulnerable beings, inseparably linked to our physical, mental, political and cultural fragility. We are vulnerable because we are damageable. This condition puts us in each other’s hands and demands of us the responsibility to care for ourselves»[8](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-8-169729462) . From our finitude—the connected finitude that makes felt the agency of some over others—vulnerability is the great equalizer. «The call to interdependence is, therefore, a call to overcome the chiasm and to move toward a recognition of the general precarious condition. It cannot be that the other is destructible and I am not; and it cannot be that I am destructible and the other is not; but rather that life, conceived as precarious life, is a generalized condition». But this vulnerability is not only openness to harm. The very exposure that makes us susceptible to damage also holds the potential to free us from suffering. And thus, it is also the possibility of care that Garcés articulates. «To have one’s survival linked to others in this way is a constant risk of sociality: its promise and its threat. The very fact of being linked to others establishes the possibility of being subjugated». But also, «the very fact of being linked to others establishes the possibility of being freed from suffering, of knowing justice and even of loving»[9](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-9-169729462) . Accepting this equalizing vulnerability is the first step to being able to grasp its emancipatory power. Thus, «taking responsibility for what we are»[10](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-10-169729462). In _emancipation without an outside_ we “stay,” and we surrender to our vulnerability through care. We stay with the trouble, as Donna Haraway requests. To offer the palliative, to repair harm, for «all those works associated with social reproduction»[11](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-11-169729462). But also, to allow «the very existence of communities and common goods \[...\] against the individualizing tendency»[12](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-12-169729462). To raise «resistances in relation to the different forms of destruction that global capitalism provokes in social, political, cultural and natural environments, as well as in physical and mental health»[13](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-13-169729462). And from these, reconfigure new dependencies that resignify into new liberated, more livable lives. Accepting this vulnerability means being radically honest, also with our hypocrisy[14](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-14-169729462) for not being able to not contribute with our lives to the connected entanglement that produces the oppression we want to reassemble. Accepting this hypocrisy means dismantling the _cynical distance_ that fictitiously separates us[15](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-15-169729462). It means being honest also with this fear that, from vulnerability, permeates everything. It is from this radical honesty that the minimal trust needed to take the brave step toward the different emancipatory bond can be cultivated. That lowers the pride that also distances us from the other. That allows us to seek the shared refuge of care from which to depend better. 3\. Surrendering to Sufficiency ------------------------------- _Emancipation without an outside_ needs the life-generating force of care that Garcés presents to us. And we must avoid, as she fears, operating solely from its palliative dimension[16](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-16-169729462). She is not wrong—the _war on life_ forces priorities and may leave no space for this positive greatness of care. Therefore, we must seek the space where violence abates and different new life can germinate. For this, we must surrender toward sufficiency. La Boétie saw very well the paradox in which the one who subjugates others finds themselves. How in networks of servitude, counterintuitively, the degree of freedom is inverted toward the center. Those fortunate enough to live at the points most distant from the center of the “loyalty” networks that sustain this servitude will be those who, insofar as possible, are most free. He tells us, «the country people, whom they trample and treat worse than convicts or slaves, are nonetheless happier and freer than them. The farmer and the artisan, however subjected they may be, remain at peace by doing what they are commanded»[17](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-17-169729462). Surrendering, letting go, thus also presents itself as liberating. In _emancipation without an outside_, we will embrace the positive dimension—contrary to Garcés— of anthropological surrender[18](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-18-169729462), until finding its sufficient term that distances us from the center of tyranny. However, it might then seem that the path of surrender implies taking distance toward an _outside_, but as we have said, this is not possible. The modern tyranny that oppresses us has a toroidal form—it is the center that surrounds us. As Buenaventura De Sousa tells us, «the center is at the margins»[19](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-19-169729462). Capitalist realism presents us with a gradient of life that ranges from the most oppressive _everything_ to the most violent and immobilizing _nothing_. Between forces of mobilization for selfimprovement, success, great accumulation, and the tension of marginal centripetal exclusion[20](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-20-169729462) of what has no value and is pariah. Between lives always insufficient and discarded lives. _Emancipation without an outside_ occurs at the midpoint of equilibrium between these energies that constitutes the sufficiency. Sufficient servitude to have a life, sufficient rebellion to create dignified life from care. Moreover, because the path of the sufficiency reconfigures a _better depending_ by neutralizing unlimited growth. And thus it emancipates. Alonso Hernández Sánchez [alonso.hernandez.mmm@gmail.com](mailto:alonso.hernandez.mmm@gmail.com) [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alonso-hernandez-sanchez/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alonso-hernandez-sanchez/) Barcelona ### References: Butler, J (2008), Vulnerabilidad, supervivencia. Barcelona: CCCB. Herrero, Y (2018) Por una antropología de la vulnerabilidad y los límites, Lección en Egoa (UPV-EHU). Garcés, M. (2019), Comprensión y reparación. Por una filosofía del cuidado y el daño, Folia Humanística, 12 Garcés, M. (2019), Emancipación, en AAVV, Humanidades en acción, Rayo verde. Sousa Santos, B. de. (2006). Capítulo II. Una nueva cultura política emancipatoria. En Renovar la teoría crítica y reinventar la emancipación social (Encuentros en Buenos Aires). Morton, T. (2018). Hiperobjetos: Filosofía y ecología después del fin del mundo (A. García Casado, Trad.). Madrid: Alpha Decay. Latour, B. (2008). Reensamblar lo social: Una introducción a la teoría del actor-red (M. I. Yriarte, Trad.). Buenos Aires: Manantial. Harman, G. (2018). Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. London: Penguin Books. La Boétie, E. (2008). El discurso de la servidumbre voluntaria. Buenos Aires: Terramar. Gabriel, M. (2015). Por qué el mundo no existe (J. M. Madariaga, Trad.). Editorial Pasado & Presente. [1](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-1-169729462) Timothy Morton, Hiperobjetos: Filosofía y ecología después del fin del mundo, trans. A. García Casado (Madrid: Alpha Decay, 2018), 17. Originally published as Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013). All translations from Spanish sources are my own unless otherwise indicated. [2](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-2-169729462) Judith Butler, Vulnerabilidad, supervivencia, quote translation from the Spannish transcript (lecture, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, February 12, 2008), video available at CCCB. [3](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-3-169729462) Butler, Vulnerabilidad, supervivencia. [4](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-4-169729462) Latour recalls this conception of existence from Jean-Gabriel de Tarde in Bruno Latour, Reensamblar lo social: Una introducción a la teoría del actor-red, trans. M. I. Yriarte (Buenos Aires: Manantial, 2008), 33. [5](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-5-169729462) Markus Gabriel, Por qué el mundo no existe, trans. J. M. Madariaga (Barcelona: Pasado & Presente, 2015), 44. [6](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-6-169729462) From DeLanda and Latour’s perspective, existence is understood as an entanglement of material and symbolic relations. Change, then, is not about transforming isolated entities, but about reconfiguring the relational assemblage that constitutes them. [7](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-7-169729462) Butler, Vulnerabilidad, supervivencia. [8](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-8-169729462) Marina Garcés, “Comprensión y reparación: Por una filosofía del cuidado y el daño,” Folia Humanística, no. 12 (2019), 2. [9](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-9-169729462) Butler, Vulnerabilidad, supervivencia. [10](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-10-169729462) Garcés, “Comprensión y reparación” 14. [11](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-11-169729462) Garcés, “Comprensión y reparación” 5. [12](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-12-169729462) Garcés, “Comprensión y reparación” 5. [13](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-13-169729462) Garcés, “Comprensión y reparación” 5. [14](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-14-169729462) Morton states that “humans have entered an era of hypocrisy. \[…\] The time of hyperobjects is a time of hypocrisy, weakness, and inconsistency” (2018, 214). [15](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-15-169729462) Morton also indicates that “\[…\] if there is no metalanguage, then cynical distance, the dominant ideological mode of the left, is in very bad shape and will not be able to face the time of hyperobjects” (2018, 17). [16](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-16-169729462) Garcés, “Comprensión y reparación” 3. [17](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-17-169729462) Étienne de La Boétie, El discurso de la servidumbre voluntaria (Buenos Aires: Terramar, 2008), 69. [18](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-18-169729462) Marina Garcés, “Emancipación,” in Humanidades en acción, ed. varios autores (Barcelona: Rayo Verde, 2019), 2. [19](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-19-169729462) Boaventura de Sousa Santos, “Capítulo II. Una nueva cultura política emancipatoria,” in Renovar la teoría crítica y reinventar la emancipación social (Encuentros en Buenos Aires, 2006), 50. [20](https://substack.com/@alohernandez/p-169729462#footnote-anchor-20-169729462) Sousa Santos, “Una nueva cultura política emancipatoria,” 54. --- *Originally published on [Dj Hegel](https://paragraph.com/@djhegel/manual-for-depending-better)*