Relating to Objects

= an introduction to some recent philosophies that are taking 'objects' very seriously

Discussion

By Andre Ling:

'One of the key philosophers whose work I have been engaging with for some time now is Bruno Latour. His work went a long way to collapse the nature culture divide, to give non-human entities an agential role in 'society', to point out the dangers of taking 'wholes' as givens (e.g. society as a 'whole' that is somehow prior to that which composes it rather than attending to the details of how society is composed), proposed a symmetrical anthropology for engaging with both moderns and non-moderns, developed the notion of the 'factish' to describe those 'things' created/discovered/invented by humans but then unleashed into the cosmos where they have their own autonomous existence (e.g. DNA, bacteria, GM crops, private property, etc.). One of his particularly interesting and relevant shorter pieces is the 'compositionist manifesto' (linkhere) in which he proposes the word composition to describe the process of constructing a common world and the word decompose for the taking apart of whatever structures exist. Latour's current project on modes of being is concerned primarily with questions of ontology; more specifically, recognising that there are multiple modes of being each with their own particular ontological characteristics.

Another great philosopher of society and the social is Manuel DeLanda. His work is profoundly Deleuzian and he uses his very deep knowledge of Deleuze's work to produce highly accessible stuff like 'A New Philosophy of Society' where he focuses in particular on the relationship between individuals and 'wholes' using assemblage theory to examine the various human and non-human structures that deserve the ontological designation of 'real entity'.

Most of the philosophers I have been reading can be called realists, which often operates as a source of tension with those firmly in the critical theory/post-modern schools of thought. The accusation they level is that, for the latter, too much of reality has been reduced to words, language, meaning, ideology, symbols, etc. and attention to the non-human, to the reality that exists independent of human thought, has been neglected. One particular group of philosophers, who are all very active in the blogosphere, is called Object Oriented Ontology. This school of thought posits that reality is composed of objects: objects or things are the fundamental unit of reality. Now this can be a bit frustrating for those who have struggled hard to point out that we need to get beyond some kind of atomistic vision of reality and instead recognise that everything is interconnected... But the OOO-ers have a number of valid points. Their objects are not simple: they all withdraw from access in some form or the other, they are not static things but are agential, have molten cores, are split along various dimensions, are processual, are like little machines, etc. They enter into relationships with each other, are composed of yet other objects... They cannot be reduced to some fundamental substrate object (this is called undermining) that is the basis for all others (the real ground of being) and they are not somehow merely a display put on by some transcendent other object (this is called overmining), what these authors often call onto-theology. There is probably too much for me to share in detail here, but the names of the best known ones are: Graham Harman, Timothy Morton and Levi Bryant. They all have radically different blogging styles, are all committed to open access publishing (see the Open Humanities Press, see Levi's book Democracy of Objectsthere in particular) and all recognise that the Internet has played a vital role in permitting the growth and development of their philosophical work. You can get an overview of OOO over here (newly put up).

The final philosopher whose work I wanted to mention in this context is Isabelle Stengers, a Belgian philosopher (of science, amongst other things) whose work encompasses (in my view) much of the work of the others I have mentioned above. She is concerned with the politics of human practices in the cosmos, crossing human and non-human boundaries, modern and non-modern. She is ardently anti-capitalist but takes a profoundly nuanced path to the question of how we might best respond to the challenges with which we are confronted. Her concept of 'cosomopolitics' provides a way of taking stock of politics at work as groups of humans and other entities enter into relationships with each other that can have profoundly disturbing effects for one group or the other. Every group has its own conditions of existence, the things (human or not) that permit them to reproduce themselves as that group (e.g. a particular tribe, a profession, etc.) and the actions of one group can threaten to undermine the conditions of existence of another. Cosmopolitics then is about groups entering into relationships with each other in a manner that recognises their own vulnerability, and in which the forging of an agreement between them is founded on both groups putting their own conditions of existence on the debating table, rather that the more unilateral form of 'negotiation' or 'participation' that we witness under contemporary liberal capitalism. Her most recent books (Capitalist Sorcery: Breaking the Spell and Au Temps des Catastrophes: Resister a la Barbarie qui Vient) are specifically about resisting capitalism and responding to the imminent (if not already present) ecological disaster and, even more specifically, about avoiding falling into the traps that will plague those seeking to construct/compose another reality.

All of the above take a radically de-centred approach to grappling with reality and the questions of praxis. They are inspired by past philosophers including the phenomenologists (Heidigger, Husserl amongst others), Deleuze, Leibniz, Alfred North Whitehead and other lesser known philosophers such as Gabriel Tarde and Etienne Souriau. At the same time, they are all profoundly reluctant to talk about 'wholes' that quite literally subsume their parts (as suggested by the popular phrase 'the whole is greater than the sum of their parts').'

Relating to other cultures in a multi-natural world

Andre Ling:

'Timothy Morton, who I linked to in my earlier mail, in his book Ecology without Nature does a fantastic job of showing that there is no such thing as Nature (note the big 'N') that is out there, a kind of backdrop or background against which things happen, a holistic totality or underlying ground of being, or something that can be turned to as a source of 'wisdom', etc. This idea of Nature is born out of a form of alienation and it is a cultural construction. Instead, there is just a cosmos full of things, a nature with a small 'n' if you will, made up of all kinds of things, some of which are human and some of which are created by humans as they interact with non-human things (Latour calls such things 'hybrids'). In this sense, the multiple nature thesis would be the one that says that there are multiple 'Natures' (big N) but only one nature (small n).

However, drawing on the work of ethnopsyhciatrist Tobie Nathan (as do both Stengers and Latour), it rapidly becomes clear that the realities encountered by people with non-modern cosmologies and ontologies, can be affected by the entities that they believe exist: spirit powers, djinns, witchcraft, etc. while those who do not believe in these entities cannot be affected by them (in the same manner). The scientist or regular psychiatrist/psychologist has been trained to see these entities as mere fantasies, beliefs, etc. Those believing in such things must be purged of their false beliefs in order to return to a 'normal' life, to be cured. However, Tobie Nathan's work shows that it is by taking these entities seriously, as real entities, that the troubles they induce can be effectively released. What then is real? And what is not? Once culture is understood not as something distinct from Nature but, more accurately, as part of nature, then so-called cultural constructions, what Latour calls 'factishes' (such as totem poles or DNA) must also be taken as real entities that are capable of circulating (in longer or shorter networks) and exerting some kind of agency or influence as a result.

Latour's work is, I think, both subtle and nuanced (perhaps this is why it seems to be open to such misunderstanding?) - and so is his treatment of what he calls 'the moderns'. This is why he can write one book called We Have Never Been Modern and another called The Modern Cult of the Factish Gods...

For Latour, the moderns are those who claim to have established the separation of nature and culture, whose Science gives them access to rationality and objectivity and who have finally liberated the human spirit from the clutches of nature through something like the project of Enlightenment. This, he contends, is a fallacy. There is no nature that is separate or distinct from culture, no separation was ever executed or discovered. Hence, 'We have never been modern'. At the same time, the so-called moderns (with their fallacious self-narrative) can be analysed through what Latour describes as a symmetrical anthropology: one that is capable of approaching moderns and non-moderns on an equal footing, rather than taking the former as the appropriate position from which to consider the latter (the distinction of those who 'know' from those who 'merely believe'). This notion of a symmetrical anthropology is itself a huge contribution to any kind of critical praxis. One of Latour's conclusions from symmetrical anthropology is that moderns and non-moderns can be distinguished by the nature of the rhizomal networks they construct around their factishes, with moderns constructing significantly longer/more complex networks than non-moderns.

Stengers, however, commenting on Latour's work, notes that while this certainly makes it possible to describe and compare, for example, climate scientists and the Yoruba (a West African tribe), it also carries risks with it. Its major advantage is that it is able to problematise the practices, the culture, the truth-claims, etc. of the moderns, those calls to objectivity, rationality, etc. that deny non-modern cultures and practices (such as those of the Yoruba) any claim to deserving a seat in the Parliament of Things (a space Latour imagines where human and non-human entities can be represented and where a true political ecology – one that really holds the space for everything from climate change and polar bears to microchips and seed varieties). Let us not forget, in our celebration of modernism's achievements, that these ride on the back of a highly complicit saga of violence, colonisation, slavery, environmental destruction, cultural imperialism, etc., etc. What I think we need, in part at least, is theory that interrupts and complicates our smugness; what we take for granted about our own achievements and what we manage to brush aside as 'something else' rather than that with which it co-evolved.

Stengers notes that there is a danger of putting all practices on an equal footing, so that they can be compared side by side, since we feel that it invites us again to start sorting them, by defining criteria by which they can be sorted, a priori. Of course, the symmetrizing anthropologist must situate themselves too, and must recognise that they can never have a claim to speak for everyone that they study. This does not, however, descend into some reductio ad absurdum as your friend seems to suggest, but asks you to proceed with caution when dealing with other cultures, their practices and their realities. Rather they function as diplomats crossing from one culture to another on the basis of a precarious peace, what Stengers calls 'diplomat's peace'. Finding the way of putting different cultures on an equal footing, which is precisely what Latour's symmetrical anthropology (and its underlying ontology) permits, provides a starting point for addressing the bigger question:

- "Here we [the moderns] return to the question “How do we live with the Yoruba?” not in the sense that the problem would be resolved but in the sense that it can begin to be explored. If sorting is not the business of science, but again relates to a technical problem that can only be introduced “with” the Yoruba, how can we construct this problem in such a way that it does not assume we are “angels,” capable of understanding everything, sharing everything, and, therefore, sorting everything. We, who are not angels but think in political terms, must therefore create obstacles that prevent us from rushing toward others while requiring that they resemble what we might become, obstacles that prepare us to wonder about their conditions, the conditions they might establish for eventual exchange. This is our problem. Its construction in no way ensures that the Yoruba will meet with us (any more than the construction of an experimental device ensures that the being we wish to mobilize will agree to show up). Our words are relative to out practices and we now ask that they tell us which obligations will guide us where angels fear to tread." (Stengers, Cosmoplitics 2, The Curse of Tolerance, p.362)

In her book The Curse of Tolerance, Stengers goes into considerably more depth to explore just what is entailed in the exchange between two cultures. I can't summarise it all here but you can find quite an extensive discussion of it on my blog here. The crux, however, is that tolerance is not the answer to our contemporary crisis of cultural diversity. Tolerance, is what a powerful group can choose to express with respect to another group whose beliefs and practices they believe to be predicated on false conceptions of reality. We can tolerate the Muslims with their Sharia law in London (unless they turn into terrorists), or we can tolerate indigenous people in jungles (unless we get a sudden need for the resources they live on top of) but by no means do we make any kind of attempt to enter into a genuine exchange, a meaningful exchange with them. Which is what cosmopolitics entails. It is a much more cautious mode of engagement with others, one that seeks to create the conditions that will make possible a genuine attempt to find ways of living together peacefully. It is based, I think, on the belief that there is no short-cut to cultural change, that we cannot simply rely on legal institutions to enforce new cultural practices unilaterally, but that change must always be wrought locally, meaningfully, by people who are enmeshed in specific contexts and who have earned the legitimacy to occupy those contexts, interact with the people concerned and play the delicate and risky diplomatic role of bring about cultural transformation and exchange. Of course, they must also do this with the recognition that cultural change is not a unilateral affair; it is a matter of exchange between two or more groups whose very conditions of existence (i.e. identities) are at risk or must be put at risk in order for the possibility of an equal exchange to occur and for the possibility of a new, more hybridised cultural formation to be produced as a result of this."