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A review by akemi_666
The Ecological Thought by Timothy Morton
2.0
Ok, so Morton wants to challenge both environmentalism (for reifying nature the same way fascists do) and techno-optimism (for fully capitulating to capitalist realism). Anyone familiar with critical theory will know the argument. The nature-civilisation dichotomy is a recent invention perpetuated through colonial and capitalist discourses. Fictions, philosophical treatises, self-help manuals, paintings, murals, concerts, advertisements, Instagram, what have you. This is all fine and dandy. We should critique environmentalism for its obsession with returning to a pristine nature, as well as tech bros who think we can invent our way out of climate change without a radical transformation of our social relations.
Morton provides interesting counterpoints to environmentalist metaphysics. Indigenous peoples aren't living in a more immediate relation to the world (a racist concept even if resignified as desirable). Tibetan monks have a cosmology that transcends Earthly time and space, that understands meditation on Earth as a mere drop in a galactic ocean of other sentient meditating beings. Morton believes we need to let go of a localism that too often falls into fascistic sentimentality. Instead, we need to develop a global consciousness for an age of globalisation.
Morton cites Darwin as the progenitor of a worldview where nothing in nature is natural. Climates shift, continents break, beings mutate, without any teleological goal. Darwin was the first biologist to radically undermine the idea of a pristine nature. Instead, everything is strange, and the closer we look, the stranger things get. We're all trapped in this weird mesh of becoming, where there are only accidents that happen to work. We don't evolve towards efficiency, rather, many of our features come into being because they aren't deleterious. We contain excesses of pointless but fun wee traits. Contra fascism and environmentalism, there is no optimal being (in the world). We're symbiotic assemblages that contain, and are contained in, multitudes.
Morton then repeats these thoughts for another two chapters. Again, the examples he brings up are interesting, but his argument doesn't go anywhere. It ultimately boils down to "Treat the strange stranger with curiosity and respect because you're just as strange. Sit with your discomfort and be open to novelty." There's no depth to Morton's ethics, no exploration of how some strange strangers are more vulnerable than others, how pollution makes the body permeable through violation and violence, how nomadism is forced upon immigrant labourers and refuges. There's similarly no exploration of how local knowledges and practices operate as a refusal to the logic of capitalist hegemony (to engage with social media, to consume your lack away, and to always always talk about the latest entertainment product), nor of rootedness as existing prior to fascism. In other words, there is no systemic or historical analysis despite Morton's systemic rhetoric.
Are we really going to let fascists claim our love of soil? Of the fertile spaces and peoples we engender and grow with? Not all of us can afford a trip to Tibet. I wonder who brings the food to the Tibetan monks? I'll never know because Morton doesn't mention them once.
Morton provides interesting counterpoints to environmentalist metaphysics. Indigenous peoples aren't living in a more immediate relation to the world (a racist concept even if resignified as desirable). Tibetan monks have a cosmology that transcends Earthly time and space, that understands meditation on Earth as a mere drop in a galactic ocean of other sentient meditating beings. Morton believes we need to let go of a localism that too often falls into fascistic sentimentality. Instead, we need to develop a global consciousness for an age of globalisation.
Morton cites Darwin as the progenitor of a worldview where nothing in nature is natural. Climates shift, continents break, beings mutate, without any teleological goal. Darwin was the first biologist to radically undermine the idea of a pristine nature. Instead, everything is strange, and the closer we look, the stranger things get. We're all trapped in this weird mesh of becoming, where there are only accidents that happen to work. We don't evolve towards efficiency, rather, many of our features come into being because they aren't deleterious. We contain excesses of pointless but fun wee traits. Contra fascism and environmentalism, there is no optimal being (in the world). We're symbiotic assemblages that contain, and are contained in, multitudes.
Morton then repeats these thoughts for another two chapters. Again, the examples he brings up are interesting, but his argument doesn't go anywhere. It ultimately boils down to "Treat the strange stranger with curiosity and respect because you're just as strange. Sit with your discomfort and be open to novelty." There's no depth to Morton's ethics, no exploration of how some strange strangers are more vulnerable than others, how pollution makes the body permeable through violation and violence, how nomadism is forced upon immigrant labourers and refuges. There's similarly no exploration of how local knowledges and practices operate as a refusal to the logic of capitalist hegemony (to engage with social media, to consume your lack away, and to always always talk about the latest entertainment product), nor of rootedness as existing prior to fascism. In other words, there is no systemic or historical analysis despite Morton's systemic rhetoric.
Are we really going to let fascists claim our love of soil? Of the fertile spaces and peoples we engender and grow with? Not all of us can afford a trip to Tibet. I wonder who brings the food to the Tibetan monks? I'll never know because Morton doesn't mention them once.