Tomorrowland: Critical Social Theory of Planetary Politics

We live in ‘Tomorrowland’; a land at the nexus of social science and natural science where the solution to our problems will be found tomorrow. The paper addresses the impossibility of international relations by proposing an alternative approach located in critical social theory. The paper utilises critical social theory to critique contemporary liberal assumptions and rationalisations of cultures of consumption as suffering from the challenges of living in Tomorrowland. In Tomorrowland the future is today, meaning that questions of pollution, biodiversity, and climate change can be addressed in a liberal sense by accelerating the transition to future technology today, no matter what the costs of consumption. Critical social theory will be used to analyse the way in which the Disneyfication of Tomorrowland does not render sustainability more likely through accelerated technological transition. To the contrary, the Disneyfication of Tomorrowland into easily consumed and culturally acceptable technological fantasies ensure that allocation and access will never be adequately addressed in international relations.