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Kantelingen #1
Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime
The present ecological mutation has organized the whole political landscape for the last thirty years. This could explain the deadly cocktail of exploding inequalities, massive deregulation, and conversion of the dream of globalization into a nightmare for most people.
What holds these three phenomena together is the conviction, shared by some powerful people, that the ecological threat is real and that the only way for them to survive is to abandon any pretense at sharing a common future with the rest of the world. Hence their flight offshore and their massive investment in climate change denial.
The Left has been slow to turn its attention to this new situation. It is still organized along an axis that goes from investment in local values to the hope of globalization and just at the time when, everywhere, people dissatisfied with the ideal of modernity are turning back to the protection of national or even ethnic borders.
This is why it is urgent to shift sideways and to define politics as what leads toward the Earth and not toward the global or the national. Belonging to a territory is the phenomenon most in need of rethinking and careful redescription; learning new ways to inhabit the Earth is our biggest challenge. Bringing us down to earth is the task of politics today.
What holds these three phenomena together is the conviction, shared by some powerful people, that the ecological threat is real and that the only way for them to survive is to abandon any pretense at sharing a common future with the rest of the world. Hence their flight offshore and their massive investment in climate change denial.
The Left has been slow to turn its attention to this new situation. It is still organized along an axis that goes from investment in local values to the hope of globalization and just at the time when, everywhere, people dissatisfied with the ideal of modernity are turning back to the protection of national or even ethnic borders.
This is why it is urgent to shift sideways and to define politics as what leads toward the Earth and not toward the global or the national. Belonging to a territory is the phenomenon most in need of rethinking and careful redescription; learning new ways to inhabit the Earth is our biggest challenge. Bringing us down to earth is the task of politics today.
140 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2017
About the author
Bruno Latour
145 books669 followersBruno Latour, a philosopher and anthropologist, is the author of Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Our Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, and many other books. He curated the ZKM exhibits ICONOCLASH and Making Things Public and coedited the accompanying catalogs, both published by the MIT Press.
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November 18, 2023
تعرفت على الكتاب من خلال الرائعة نضال وقمت بشرائه بعد عملية بحث مطولة. الكتاب مهم وثقيل. لن أدعي فهمه بالكامل كوني واجهت صعوبات في تحليل النظريات المكتوبة. كثير منها معقد وشائك. في هذا الكتاب نجد برونو لاتور وهو يطرح مواضيع تمس واقعنا المعاصر حيث يتنقل ما بين العولمة والتغيير المناخي والفوارق ما بين البشر. يربط هذه الأفكار برسمات توضيحية مثيرة للاهتمام إلا أنها تحتاج شرح وتفصيل هي كذلك. لاتور يُفرِّق بين العولمة زائد وناقص ويحلل الظاهرة الترامبية إن صح التعبير. كما يتطرق للأرض والانتماء ويحاول أن يُخرِج ما بداخلنا من تساؤلات على السطح علّنا نتمكن من تفككيها معًا. هناك نكهة سخرية وتهكم لامستها ما بين السطور. وفي الختام يحلل الصراعات الجيو-اجتماعية ويتخذ من أوروبا مثالًا كي يُفصله بسلبياته وإيجابيته. مع اقترابي للنهاية شعرت أن الكتاب بدء يتضح قليلًا. أشعر أنه طرح عدة أفكار ثقيلة ومتشابكة كما أسلفت لذلك سيسرني قراءة تحليل وشرح لنظرياته كي أفهم ما ذكر بشكل أفضل. وفي خضم هذا كله يظل السؤال "أين نرسو؟" وما هي بوصلتنا في وسط هذا الطوفان؟ قد يتبعه سؤال "هل سنرسو عالإطلاق؟" أترك لكم المساحة يا أصدقاء
December 8, 2018
Read it torn between exhilaration (this can orient us toward a new earthbound politics!) and despair (this is a manifesto for firefighting written as the house is burning down...will the manuscript itself even survive the flames?).
In many ways, this is a distillation and extension of arguments Latour has made in Facing Gaia and elsewhere, especially in his call to supplant the figural ideal of the Globe and "globalization" with that of the Earth and "terrestrialization." Here, though, Latour's usual cheerfully combative style has combined with a unique ferocious urgency and poignancy, an explicit response to the ongoing tragic farces of Trump's election, his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, Brexit, the "populist" reaction to mass migration across the world, etc. You can call this response belated or even self-evident, but it still feels audacious and horrifying to hear Latour put into words an unfolding apocalypse:
"...the elites have been so thoroughly convinced that there would be no future life for everyone that they have decided to get rid of all the burdens of solidarity as fast as possible--hence deregulation; they have decided that a sort of gilded fortress would have to be built for those (a small percentage) who would be able to make it through--hence the explosion of inequalities; and they have decided that, to conceal the crass selfishness of such a flight out of the shared world, they would have to reject absolutely the threat at the origin of this headlong flight--hence the denial of climate change...These people--whom we can call the obscurantist elites--understood that, if they wanted to survive in comfort, they had to stop pretending, even in their dreams, to share the earth with the rest of the world."
In the end, Latour proposes that we "generate alternative descriptions" of the Earth's "dwelling places," beyond the Scylla/Charybdis of the Global (the utopia of elites) and the Local (the utopia of populists, nationalists, racists). This proposal is made with Latour's characteristic (and conscientious) commitment to tracing networks, and he is aware of its apparent inadequacy: "The goal of this essay is not to disappoint, but one cannot ask it to go faster than the history that is under way..." However, I couldn't help overhearing another voice answering: it's too late; you've run out of time. This will spark a hundred papers for a dozen conferences, surely including my own; but the next "Europe 1914" you're warning against is already happening; the conflagration is raging, and we are already without a home.
In many ways, this is a distillation and extension of arguments Latour has made in Facing Gaia and elsewhere, especially in his call to supplant the figural ideal of the Globe and "globalization" with that of the Earth and "terrestrialization." Here, though, Latour's usual cheerfully combative style has combined with a unique ferocious urgency and poignancy, an explicit response to the ongoing tragic farces of Trump's election, his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, Brexit, the "populist" reaction to mass migration across the world, etc. You can call this response belated or even self-evident, but it still feels audacious and horrifying to hear Latour put into words an unfolding apocalypse:
"...the elites have been so thoroughly convinced that there would be no future life for everyone that they have decided to get rid of all the burdens of solidarity as fast as possible--hence deregulation; they have decided that a sort of gilded fortress would have to be built for those (a small percentage) who would be able to make it through--hence the explosion of inequalities; and they have decided that, to conceal the crass selfishness of such a flight out of the shared world, they would have to reject absolutely the threat at the origin of this headlong flight--hence the denial of climate change...These people--whom we can call the obscurantist elites--understood that, if they wanted to survive in comfort, they had to stop pretending, even in their dreams, to share the earth with the rest of the world."
In the end, Latour proposes that we "generate alternative descriptions" of the Earth's "dwelling places," beyond the Scylla/Charybdis of the Global (the utopia of elites) and the Local (the utopia of populists, nationalists, racists). This proposal is made with Latour's characteristic (and conscientious) commitment to tracing networks, and he is aware of its apparent inadequacy: "The goal of this essay is not to disappoint, but one cannot ask it to go faster than the history that is under way..." However, I couldn't help overhearing another voice answering: it's too late; you've run out of time. This will spark a hundred papers for a dozen conferences, surely including my own; but the next "Europe 1914" you're warning against is already happening; the conflagration is raging, and we are already without a home.
December 28, 2023
برونو لاتور، فیلسوف فرانسوی، که زمانی از منکران پرشر و شور عینیت علمی بود، بعدها راه کج کرد و به صف "باورمندان به علم" پیوست. یعنی در مقطعی به این نتیجه رسید که نهایتا باید به علم "معتقد" بود، به خصوص اگر پای مسالهی تغییر اقلیم در میان باشد
او در آثار متقدمش، مثل «علم در عمل»، با به کارگیری روشهای جامعهشناختی، عملکرد علم را تحلیل و مفهوم حقیقت علمیِ خالی از سوگیری را رد میکرد
به نظر لاتور، واقعیتهای علمی به دست دانشمندان کشف نمیشوند، بلکه شبکهای از عاملان آنها را پدید میآورند، شبکهای که دانشمندان فقط بخشی از آنند و نهادها و ساختارهای اجتماعی و خود موضوعات مورد بررسی هم اجزای دیگر آن را تشکیل میدهند
این قبیل نظریهپردازیها در دههی نود دانشگاهیان بسیاری را در دپارتمانهای علوم انسانی مشغول کرده بودند، دانشگاهیانی که اتفاقا میخواستند همان نهادهای یادشده را به اهمیت نظریههایشان توجه دهند
اما در قرن جدید اوضاع دگرگون شد. حالا تحصیلکردگان دانشگاهی به پیادهنظام جبههی مبارزه با گرمایش جهانی بدل شده بودند. از همین رو، مهمترین ضرورت روز اطمینان به علم بود و انکار عینیت علمی دیگر عقیدهای خطرناک تلقی میشد. پس دانشگاهیانی مثل لاتور به یکباره رنگ عوض کردند
اما اصلا چرا امثال لاتور، در گذشته، نگاهی شکاکانه به فرآیند تولید علم داشتند؟ حقیقت این است که شکاکیت این جماعت در آن دوره هم برخاسته از نوعی تمایل اکتیویستی برای چالشگری با نظام حاکم بود. در عصر جنگ سرد، دولتها و نهادهای بورکراتیکشان پروژههای علمی بزرگی را اداره و اجرا میکردند که برنامههای تکنولوژیک فضایی و هستهای هم جزوشان بودند. آن نظریهپردازیها راهی پیش پای این جماعت میگشود تا به خصومتشان با همچو پروژههایی رسمیت ببخشند
ولی ماجرای تغییر اقلیم با پروژههای علمی جنگ سرد تفاوت داشت. نقشآفرینان آن خود را ناجیانی میشمردند که برای نجات زمین و محیط زیست مبارزه میکنند. پیداست که چنین آرمانی با تمایلات اکتیویستی جماعتی از قماش لاتور دمساز بود
نتیجه اینکه این جماعت در مواجهه با مسالهی تغییر اقلیم، علم را حقیقی، عینی و خالی از سوگیری قلمداد میکنند، ولی به حوزههای دیگری مثل هوش یا تفاوتهای جنسیتی و نژادی که میرسند، علم را برساختهای اجتماعی و سیاسی میبینند. بدتر آنکه این جماعت منکر علمِ دیروزی اکنون چشم به دهان همان نهادهایی دوختهاند که زمانی به آنها مشکوک بودند و منتظرند ببیند آنها چه چیزی را "علم موجه" به شمار میآورند تا همان را دنبال کنند و نظریهپردازیهایشان را با آن وفق دهند
او در آثار متقدمش، مثل «علم در عمل»، با به کارگیری روشهای جامعهشناختی، عملکرد علم را تحلیل و مفهوم حقیقت علمیِ خالی از سوگیری را رد میکرد
به نظر لاتور، واقعیتهای علمی به دست دانشمندان کشف نمیشوند، بلکه شبکهای از عاملان آنها را پدید میآورند، شبکهای که دانشمندان فقط بخشی از آنند و نهادها و ساختارهای اجتماعی و خود موضوعات مورد بررسی هم اجزای دیگر آن را تشکیل میدهند
این قبیل نظریهپردازیها در دههی نود دانشگاهیان بسیاری را در دپارتمانهای علوم انسانی مشغول کرده بودند، دانشگاهیانی که اتفاقا میخواستند همان نهادهای یادشده را به اهمیت نظریههایشان توجه دهند
اما در قرن جدید اوضاع دگرگون شد. حالا تحصیلکردگان دانشگاهی به پیادهنظام جبههی مبارزه با گرمایش جهانی بدل شده بودند. از همین رو، مهمترین ضرورت روز اطمینان به علم بود و انکار عینیت علمی دیگر عقیدهای خطرناک تلقی میشد. پس دانشگاهیانی مثل لاتور به یکباره رنگ عوض کردند
اما اصلا چرا امثال لاتور، در گذشته، نگاهی شکاکانه به فرآیند تولید علم داشتند؟ حقیقت این است که شکاکیت این جماعت در آن دوره هم برخاسته از نوعی تمایل اکتیویستی برای چالشگری با نظام حاکم بود. در عصر جنگ سرد، دولتها و نهادهای بورکراتیکشان پروژههای علمی بزرگی را اداره و اجرا میکردند که برنامههای تکنولوژیک فضایی و هستهای هم جزوشان بودند. آن نظریهپردازیها راهی پیش پای این جماعت میگشود تا به خصومتشان با همچو پروژههایی رسمیت ببخشند
ولی ماجرای تغییر اقلیم با پروژههای علمی جنگ سرد تفاوت داشت. نقشآفرینان آن خود را ناجیانی میشمردند که برای نجات زمین و محیط زیست مبارزه میکنند. پیداست که چنین آرمانی با تمایلات اکتیویستی جماعتی از قماش لاتور دمساز بود
نتیجه اینکه این جماعت در مواجهه با مسالهی تغییر اقلیم، علم را حقیقی، عینی و خالی از سوگیری قلمداد میکنند، ولی به حوزههای دیگری مثل هوش یا تفاوتهای جنسیتی و نژادی که میرسند، علم را برساختهای اجتماعی و سیاسی میبینند. بدتر آنکه این جماعت منکر علمِ دیروزی اکنون چشم به دهان همان نهادهایی دوختهاند که زمانی به آنها مشکوک بودند و منتظرند ببیند آنها چه چیزی را "علم موجه" به شمار میآورند تا همان را دنبال کنند و نظریهپردازیهایشان را با آن وفق دهند
December 21, 2018
I read the NYT Magazine's profile on the man. Was impressed by his (or rather, the article's) ideas: Science as a human endeavor that is not exempt from bias -and impossible to exercise with pure objectivity. Started watching the man's presentation in youtube. Too obscure. Lots of terms that needed prior familiarity with this work. I gave him another shot. "Let's read the man's ideas in paper. They HAVE to be clearer. After all, he's one of the worlds most recognized sociologist/scientist. If he's that recognized, he must be very compelling and persuasive."
Boy was I wrong. If a book could select the most sarcastic name for its own content, "Down to Earth" would be it. Totally trollish, actually. This 100-page essay is ANYTHING but down to earth folks. Convoluted, obscure, abstract, ethereal, shoehorned, circular, ornate, baroque, repetitive, conceited, circular, arrogant, repetitious, and circular. Did I mention circular?
Here's the gist. Modernism? Wrong. Earth? Damaged. People? Betrayed. Traditions? Irrecoverable. But to solve all this, shoot for this trippy, impossible-to-describe "ideal" world called "the Terrestrial". Don't bother understanding what it means. Latour doesn't either. Something about recognizing earth's reactions to human-induced damage? A new political realignment? Still don't get it? He'll draw comically bad figures for you. Imperfect little circle means "the Local", you see. Little arrow towards a tiny Globe means globalization. Get it? It goes from Local towards Global. But it's not that simple. It never is. Here's another figure so you really get it. In it, the same 2 circles, like in the past figure, but this one has another, solid, imperfect tiny circle (this one forming the third angle of a triangle!) and that's the "Terrestrial". Not the Global. That's bad, remember. Terrestrial is... how can I explain? Do you smell it? It's that je ne se quoi. Kind of political, but it's not, because it can't be pinpointed. But it definitely has no borders. And hear the trees, please. And the bacteria. And ISIS terrorists? But the soil, man. It can feel too. And then you land somewhere. Because, something something migration. Because you're running from... colonialism? No. You're running from ecological catastrophe. Just don't call it Ecological. Because it's... not that. Instead, call it "System of Engendering". No... "Nature as Process". No... Lovelockian objects. And don't watch it from Sirius. That's too far from earth. Or is it Earth? Anyway... I digress. THAT's what the Green Political Parties got wrong, OK? They didn't get it, apparently. Never excited people. Unlike the Marxists. Whose definition of social classes still stand the test of time. But anyway. Back to migrations: good for you! You're invading the invaders. Not "you", you. But the people. And the cockroaches? Yes, the cockroaches. Also: it's not your fault. It's Europe's. Which has no power these days. Abandoned by the US. Boo hoo. But it deserves what's coming to them. Because they pushed politics on the world. And they also pushed... science? Yes, the science seen from Sirius (the bad one). Oh, and they plundered too. But they didn't know better, so cut them some slack. And hey, they want to make amends, OK? Refugees welcome.
Was that clear?
Excruciating, painfully fuzzy. Devoid of data. Absolutely lacking tangible stuff. The one aspect that kind of intrigued me a little going into it was the hope to read more details about the layer of planetary soil which is the giver of life (which I had heard of in the youtube talk). Disappointingly, Latour barely mentions it.
Anyway. All this to say, I assume, that "Down to Earth" is an exasperatingly pedantic, 100-page long mental masturbation.
Sorry you had to read this.
Boy was I wrong. If a book could select the most sarcastic name for its own content, "Down to Earth" would be it. Totally trollish, actually. This 100-page essay is ANYTHING but down to earth folks. Convoluted, obscure, abstract, ethereal, shoehorned, circular, ornate, baroque, repetitive, conceited, circular, arrogant, repetitious, and circular. Did I mention circular?
Here's the gist. Modernism? Wrong. Earth? Damaged. People? Betrayed. Traditions? Irrecoverable. But to solve all this, shoot for this trippy, impossible-to-describe "ideal" world called "the Terrestrial". Don't bother understanding what it means. Latour doesn't either. Something about recognizing earth's reactions to human-induced damage? A new political realignment? Still don't get it? He'll draw comically bad figures for you. Imperfect little circle means "the Local", you see. Little arrow towards a tiny Globe means globalization. Get it? It goes from Local towards Global. But it's not that simple. It never is. Here's another figure so you really get it. In it, the same 2 circles, like in the past figure, but this one has another, solid, imperfect tiny circle (this one forming the third angle of a triangle!) and that's the "Terrestrial". Not the Global. That's bad, remember. Terrestrial is... how can I explain? Do you smell it? It's that je ne se quoi. Kind of political, but it's not, because it can't be pinpointed. But it definitely has no borders. And hear the trees, please. And the bacteria. And ISIS terrorists? But the soil, man. It can feel too. And then you land somewhere. Because, something something migration. Because you're running from... colonialism? No. You're running from ecological catastrophe. Just don't call it Ecological. Because it's... not that. Instead, call it "System of Engendering". No... "Nature as Process". No... Lovelockian objects. And don't watch it from Sirius. That's too far from earth. Or is it Earth? Anyway... I digress. THAT's what the Green Political Parties got wrong, OK? They didn't get it, apparently. Never excited people. Unlike the Marxists. Whose definition of social classes still stand the test of time. But anyway. Back to migrations: good for you! You're invading the invaders. Not "you", you. But the people. And the cockroaches? Yes, the cockroaches. Also: it's not your fault. It's Europe's. Which has no power these days. Abandoned by the US. Boo hoo. But it deserves what's coming to them. Because they pushed politics on the world. And they also pushed... science? Yes, the science seen from Sirius (the bad one). Oh, and they plundered too. But they didn't know better, so cut them some slack. And hey, they want to make amends, OK? Refugees welcome.
Was that clear?
Excruciating, painfully fuzzy. Devoid of data. Absolutely lacking tangible stuff. The one aspect that kind of intrigued me a little going into it was the hope to read more details about the layer of planetary soil which is the giver of life (which I had heard of in the youtube talk). Disappointingly, Latour barely mentions it.
Anyway. All this to say, I assume, that "Down to Earth" is an exasperatingly pedantic, 100-page long mental masturbation.
Sorry you had to read this.
April 8, 2019
I am grateful and relieved somebody can finally understand and explain to me what I've been going through for the past five years. This has been a very personal book for me, for reasons I will explain in some paragraphs.
To attempt to summarize "Down to Earth" with my own words, this is a book about a reorientation of politics away from the front of modernization, where progress moves towards an integrated globalized socioeconomic culture (designated Global) and retreats protect local traditions, practices, preferences, institutions, and power structures (designated Local). In the past, politics operated in the useful tension between these two attractors. Instead of modernization, this book proposes a front of terrestrialization, where progress means moving towards shared practices of informed, inclusive regional stewardship. The contrary force to this new notion of progress are self-interested mediated meme-driven isolationist screw-overs that abandon notions of shared concern and even shared reality.
The suggested reason for this reorientation is that there is no longer any "there" there for either the Global or Local. Neither economic and cultural integration or retrenchment behind borders will protect societies from the geophysical response of a changing climate or prepare them to respond in any sensible way. For the sake of summarization, let us note these are not their only problems.
The book notes a similar need for others shift from modernist to terrestrial orientations:
* a shift from an economic materialism that neither prevented or really even noticed the material reality of a temperature rise of 3.5 C or the six great exinction, to a materialism that actually is grounded in our biological and geological reality
* a universal science of facts that treats obscure facts about black holes or temperatures naturally occuring nowhere as though they should be on the same level of interest as the parameters of biological survival, to a science that savvy to the comparative challenge of marshaling and dissemenating indisputable evidence about those parameters
* an inert nature acting as scenery outside to our sociopolitical theatre, to a reactive habitat that is our territory and defended and cultivated for our well-being
* a notion of rational progress that has no particular ends in mind for those it services, to a reason serving the intrinsic needs of ourselves and our habitat
This has been a very personal book, much more occasioned by political responses to "climate change" than about this geophysical phenomena in all but the most general sense.
In a way that I imagine is similar for many, I came to value a certain set of modernist virtues: an impartiality or neutrality and the idea that being a professional is the best way to care for fellow people, and that part of being a professional is to examine one's biases and set them aside for the pursuit of a care balanced to all discovered needs. However, I now disagree with this: there should always be an initial tendency for stewarding our habitat, caring for biologically-based physical and mental human needs, and otherwise limiting the interventions undertaken.
For a good portion of my life, I've worked on software or design research methods based on the premise of an inclusive neutrality. On the surface, these projects had the open rationality of globalism: any concern, any criteria, any state-of-affairs can all be included without a preference internal to the framework. However, I came to see that the rationality of these projects was also quite closed: every preference was to be added on except the preference justifying all of the resources put to the framework itself, with no accounting for externalities. It would be tempting to those with a certain bent to look for some minimum planning framework to boostrap from, but as best as I can tell, they can keep looking their whole lives.
I realized I had never actually made this kind of "rational" decision in my life, nor I think have many people. What I then sought out to do was to become more "grounded" and concerned with the "stewardship of my habitat". I'll admit to not thinking of this as a political position as such before reading this book.
The book aludes to the difficulty of "landing", or actually coming "down to earth", and I can testify to that difficulty. Attempting to work on a relevant subject won't do it; it's too easy to work on a terrestrial topic with a modernist approach. I'm not entirely sure it's possible from the perspective of software. However, the book ends on suggesting some questions to answer for oneself, as an inventory of one's habitat and commitments: on what you depend and what depends upon you.
This is only sensible, as prior to any project or plan is the situation our life consists of.
To attempt to summarize "Down to Earth" with my own words, this is a book about a reorientation of politics away from the front of modernization, where progress moves towards an integrated globalized socioeconomic culture (designated Global) and retreats protect local traditions, practices, preferences, institutions, and power structures (designated Local). In the past, politics operated in the useful tension between these two attractors. Instead of modernization, this book proposes a front of terrestrialization, where progress means moving towards shared practices of informed, inclusive regional stewardship. The contrary force to this new notion of progress are self-interested mediated meme-driven isolationist screw-overs that abandon notions of shared concern and even shared reality.
The suggested reason for this reorientation is that there is no longer any "there" there for either the Global or Local. Neither economic and cultural integration or retrenchment behind borders will protect societies from the geophysical response of a changing climate or prepare them to respond in any sensible way. For the sake of summarization, let us note these are not their only problems.
The book notes a similar need for others shift from modernist to terrestrial orientations:
* a shift from an economic materialism that neither prevented or really even noticed the material reality of a temperature rise of 3.5 C or the six great exinction, to a materialism that actually is grounded in our biological and geological reality
* a universal science of facts that treats obscure facts about black holes or temperatures naturally occuring nowhere as though they should be on the same level of interest as the parameters of biological survival, to a science that savvy to the comparative challenge of marshaling and dissemenating indisputable evidence about those parameters
* an inert nature acting as scenery outside to our sociopolitical theatre, to a reactive habitat that is our territory and defended and cultivated for our well-being
* a notion of rational progress that has no particular ends in mind for those it services, to a reason serving the intrinsic needs of ourselves and our habitat
This has been a very personal book, much more occasioned by political responses to "climate change" than about this geophysical phenomena in all but the most general sense.
In a way that I imagine is similar for many, I came to value a certain set of modernist virtues: an impartiality or neutrality and the idea that being a professional is the best way to care for fellow people, and that part of being a professional is to examine one's biases and set them aside for the pursuit of a care balanced to all discovered needs. However, I now disagree with this: there should always be an initial tendency for stewarding our habitat, caring for biologically-based physical and mental human needs, and otherwise limiting the interventions undertaken.
For a good portion of my life, I've worked on software or design research methods based on the premise of an inclusive neutrality. On the surface, these projects had the open rationality of globalism: any concern, any criteria, any state-of-affairs can all be included without a preference internal to the framework. However, I came to see that the rationality of these projects was also quite closed: every preference was to be added on except the preference justifying all of the resources put to the framework itself, with no accounting for externalities. It would be tempting to those with a certain bent to look for some minimum planning framework to boostrap from, but as best as I can tell, they can keep looking their whole lives.
I realized I had never actually made this kind of "rational" decision in my life, nor I think have many people. What I then sought out to do was to become more "grounded" and concerned with the "stewardship of my habitat". I'll admit to not thinking of this as a political position as such before reading this book.
The book aludes to the difficulty of "landing", or actually coming "down to earth", and I can testify to that difficulty. Attempting to work on a relevant subject won't do it; it's too easy to work on a terrestrial topic with a modernist approach. I'm not entirely sure it's possible from the perspective of software. However, the book ends on suggesting some questions to answer for oneself, as an inventory of one's habitat and commitments: on what you depend and what depends upon you.
This is only sensible, as prior to any project or plan is the situation our life consists of.
Read
April 19, 2023For a book-called "Down to Earth," it's anything but.
I get what Latour wants to say, I think. But lord, he can't just say it. He draws these weird diagrams indicating the "terrestrial," and... I hate to say it... it's at the same level as dumb as Jordan Peterson's "maps of meaning." Ouch, I know. The difference is that Peterson is a mouthbreathing moron, while Latour is just being French. Latour also says a lot of vague and contradictory stuff, again because he's being French, and it's the sort of thing that sounds much better in that language, ideally during a café pontification with a Gauloise and a cognac in hand. I like pontificating in cafes with Gauloises and cognac in hand. But I like my philosophy and theory to be clear, and if not clear, then at least beautiful. This fails in both respects. It should have been a 10 page essay.
I get what Latour wants to say, I think. But lord, he can't just say it. He draws these weird diagrams indicating the "terrestrial," and... I hate to say it... it's at the same level as dumb as Jordan Peterson's "maps of meaning." Ouch, I know. The difference is that Peterson is a mouthbreathing moron, while Latour is just being French. Latour also says a lot of vague and contradictory stuff, again because he's being French, and it's the sort of thing that sounds much better in that language, ideally during a café pontification with a Gauloise and a cognac in hand. I like pontificating in cafes with Gauloises and cognac in hand. But I like my philosophy and theory to be clear, and if not clear, then at least beautiful. This fails in both respects. It should have been a 10 page essay.
February 27, 2022
A very important book for understanding and articulating the importance of deep ecological politics. Latour presents a model with a vision of how to move away from unsustainable, unrealistic futures.
He connects climate change, mass migration, and inequality as different aspects of the same reaction, which vacillates between two attractors: localization and globalization. He proposes another distinct attractor for politics to orient toward: the terrestrial.
He connects climate change, mass migration, and inequality as different aspects of the same reaction, which vacillates between two attractors: localization and globalization. He proposes another distinct attractor for politics to orient toward: the terrestrial.
January 29, 2019
'We are at last clearly in a situation of war, but it is a phony war, at once declared and latent. Some people see it everywhere; others ignore it entirely.
Dramatizing somewhat extravagantly, let us call it a conflict between modern humans who believe they are alone in the Holocene, in flight toward the Global or in exodus toward the Local, and the terrestrials who know they are in the Anthropocene and who seek to cohabit with other terrestrials under the authority of a power that as yet lacks any political institution.
And that war, at once civic and moral, divides each of us from within.'
Dramatizing somewhat extravagantly, let us call it a conflict between modern humans who believe they are alone in the Holocene, in flight toward the Global or in exodus toward the Local, and the terrestrials who know they are in the Anthropocene and who seek to cohabit with other terrestrials under the authority of a power that as yet lacks any political institution.
And that war, at once civic and moral, divides each of us from within.'
March 1, 2024
I am thoroughly inspired. This offers a readable but profound philosophical account of where we are now in the Anthropocene and where we go from here. It is its emphasis on the need for a sense of a shared dwelling place in an animate world that is sorely missing in our political discourse today.
August 13, 2020
I will preface by agreeing with Latour's ideas and his identification of the injustices wrought under globalization. Those are apparent and the inaction of those in power (the "ruling class" or elites, as he refers to them) is evidently voluntary and deliberate. Filled with theoretical and speculative arguments rather than empirical evidence, this 100-pg essay reads as a lengthy and pretentious way to argue that unfettered capitalism and its encouragement of deregulation have exacerbated social and economic inequality and incentivized a global campaign of climate denial. Latour severely overlooks the nuances involved in determining equity, the paradoxes that plague policy design. His writing does not add any value to the discussion, merely repeating the rhetoric that many climate activists embody and what for? To fuel confirmation bias? Disappointing, given its premise.
January 6, 2021
Yes, four stars. Because it does more than I expected it to do in so few pages, and set me thinking, and resonated a lot. I would not put this in just anyone's hand in terms of approach and language, although it's very accessible compared to other work by Latour. But for my brain, it clicked and was very inspiring.
July 2, 2019
Latour’s diagnosis for our current political situation is, I think, spot on. In short: the extremely rich figured out 3-4 decades ago that the Globe envisioned as the end goal of globalization could not exist, so they surreptitiously gave up all sense of a shared future with the rest of the world, and began stockpiling capital and eroding bonds of solidarity both intra- and internationally so they would have maximum cushion and minimum obligation when the shit hit the fan. None of this in a conspiratorial way, just emergent properties from a re-reading of contemporary political science, a reading which poses climate as the main driver of political headwinds since at least the 80s, before most of the public even knew about it. His proposed solutions (as well as his weirdo diagrams) are slightly less compelling if only because they so decadently flout occam’s razor, though his concept of the Terrestrial seems important and worth developing.
December 7, 2018
I think this book is very prescient and is predicting essentially the next few decades of politics very accurately, in my view.
August 19, 2019
I was encouraged by reading this book, simply by the fact that it is good to hear opinions geared towards solutions. I agree with the author that we have a far way to go, but this is a great start!
January 4, 2023
Dónde aterrizar trata de establecer como se sitúa la política actual ante el nuevo régimen climático. Interesante, da para mucho, un poco confuso a ratos, también apasionante y un coñazo.
February 9, 2021
A risc de ser acusat de racisme, xenofòbia i altres sufixos anti-humanistes: es nota que està escrit per un francès.
December 8, 2021
Ein erschreckendes Buch, weil Latour an vielen Stellen wohl Recht hat.
December 18, 2018
Vague and unsubstantiated, this essay is delightfully blunt. Blunt in expression and blunt in its assertions. In the essay, Latour boils down a long career of thinking, writing, reading, and research to basically tell it how he sees it. And so, it begins with a rundown of the past 20-30 years. At the fall of the Berlin Wall and the winning of the cold war, we saw a push for massive deregulation on a global scale. We all saw this first hand. Especially those of us who spent this years overseas. We saw the relentless nature of the Washington Consensus--and we watched as there were winners and losers, leading to what he calls the "deadly cocktail of exploding inequalities, massive deregulation, and conversion of the dream of globalization into a nightmare for most people." Latour then turns to the elite. But it is not clear who he is talking about exactly. Are the elite the oligarchs? Or does this class include what we sometimes call the 9.9% ers as well? [this is very reminiscent of the history of colonization where the plunders are assisted by a sub-class of colonials who are granted special privileges in exchange for helping to keep the status quo in place]. This state of affairs is sometimes called globalization, but Latour rightly points out that this is not a globalization of multiplicity but rather is the pushing of one worldview across the globe (he doesn't call it this but I think it is a Washington Consensus style view as a default normal). "These are the rules of the game and if you want to play, you have to play by our rules..." (Anthropologists the Comaroffs talked about this a decade ago).
The book takes as its ground zero Donald Trump's victory and the walking out of the Paris Accord--not because either caused anything per se but rather that they exemplify and are representative of certain kind of sin. It this a sin of omission or of commission? Well. because he does not define the actors, instead referring to them as the "elite' it is hard to follow this part --and there is no proof whatsoever-- but he posits a calculated wealth grab at the expense of the rest of us.
"Let's deregulate; let's rush to pumpout bigtime everything that remains to be pumped. Drill, baby, drill. We are going to win in the end, by betting on this nutcase, we'll get 30 or 40 years of respite for us and our children. After that, the deluge can come; we'll be dead by then anyway."
This is the mindset he is referring to and whether this is a conscious "bet" or whether it is a matter of simply choosing not to think about things and just doing what works for themselves and their families, it is hard to understand. Specifically he is wonderfully blunt about the fossil fuel industry. These people intentionally have funded disinformation--and no matter what they might claim about carbon, there is no denying what plastics and other petrochemicals are doing to our planet.
This is also about animals and the soil.
Pitting global (the pre-Trump status quo of open markets and post WWII alliances) versus local (where those who have no other place to go are fleeing but this can itself lead unsavory styles of populism)... so he offers what he calls a third option: the Terrestrial.
Identifying this with soil--this is an embedded bottom-up attention to the details of human-nonhuman entanglements, but without the national boundaries and identities of the past (or, put more crudely, without the “blood” of “blood and soil”).
Ambiguous perhaps?
The book ends with a wonderful meditation on why Europe can lead the way. I loved this part of the essay as it was so personal but it also spoke volumes to the experiment of the EU--which we all know is a pretty impressive balancing act between local cultures and an overarching bureaucratic system that does not overtly privileging one culture over others and which as a massive bureaucracy will be able to leverage money and energy into solving these issues. Open borders and communal good.
It is not perfect but the EU for my money has the highest quality of life anywhere. And it has been so far a very promising organization that moves beyond the nation-state. Nation-states seem to be less able to combat oligarchy and greed. And the problems we face today will require very BIG THINKING and BIG CHANGES. That means this isn't about Trump. It is about Capitalism and dirty industries; oligarchs and greed.
Latour is correct that Trump's leaving Paris (as flawed as that entire document is) was a call to war. We will defend our American lifestyles to the end (and it will be the end since we have exported and offshored the dirtiest aspects creating what is perhaps an impossible situation).
I read this because it was recommended in Donna Haraway's Staying with the Trouble. Highly recommend that book as well. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The book takes as its ground zero Donald Trump's victory and the walking out of the Paris Accord--not because either caused anything per se but rather that they exemplify and are representative of certain kind of sin. It this a sin of omission or of commission? Well. because he does not define the actors, instead referring to them as the "elite' it is hard to follow this part --and there is no proof whatsoever-- but he posits a calculated wealth grab at the expense of the rest of us.
"Let's deregulate; let's rush to pumpout bigtime everything that remains to be pumped. Drill, baby, drill. We are going to win in the end, by betting on this nutcase, we'll get 30 or 40 years of respite for us and our children. After that, the deluge can come; we'll be dead by then anyway."
This is the mindset he is referring to and whether this is a conscious "bet" or whether it is a matter of simply choosing not to think about things and just doing what works for themselves and their families, it is hard to understand. Specifically he is wonderfully blunt about the fossil fuel industry. These people intentionally have funded disinformation--and no matter what they might claim about carbon, there is no denying what plastics and other petrochemicals are doing to our planet.
This is also about animals and the soil.
Pitting global (the pre-Trump status quo of open markets and post WWII alliances) versus local (where those who have no other place to go are fleeing but this can itself lead unsavory styles of populism)... so he offers what he calls a third option: the Terrestrial.
Identifying this with soil--this is an embedded bottom-up attention to the details of human-nonhuman entanglements, but without the national boundaries and identities of the past (or, put more crudely, without the “blood” of “blood and soil”).
Ambiguous perhaps?
The book ends with a wonderful meditation on why Europe can lead the way. I loved this part of the essay as it was so personal but it also spoke volumes to the experiment of the EU--which we all know is a pretty impressive balancing act between local cultures and an overarching bureaucratic system that does not overtly privileging one culture over others and which as a massive bureaucracy will be able to leverage money and energy into solving these issues. Open borders and communal good.
It is not perfect but the EU for my money has the highest quality of life anywhere. And it has been so far a very promising organization that moves beyond the nation-state. Nation-states seem to be less able to combat oligarchy and greed. And the problems we face today will require very BIG THINKING and BIG CHANGES. That means this isn't about Trump. It is about Capitalism and dirty industries; oligarchs and greed.
Latour is correct that Trump's leaving Paris (as flawed as that entire document is) was a call to war. We will defend our American lifestyles to the end (and it will be the end since we have exported and offshored the dirtiest aspects creating what is perhaps an impossible situation).
I read this because it was recommended in Donna Haraway's Staying with the Trouble. Highly recommend that book as well. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
April 16, 2022
Published in 2017, Latour speculates that Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords may trigger either a world war (!!) or "at least a war over what constitutes the theater of operations" (whatever that means). He goes on to explain that Europe's migrant crisis is actually a climate crisis, as if rising temperatures (and not NATO) bombed Libya, and that everything is always "connected" to climate in some primary way (conveniently obscuring causal relations between events he doesn't bother to understand).
In the past decade, climate change discourse has become increasingly dominated by professional mediocrities, like Latour, for access to an already captive audience. Hence: Nathaniel Rich, whose novel-writing career never took off, and Elizabeth Kolbert, who wrote about NYC politics in quickly out-of-print books, and Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who covered baseball for New York magazine, and Amitav Ghosh, whose books have never sold outside of India, are now bestselling and award-winning climate writers. They have gone from stalled careers full of remaindered books to being household names to anyone with a New Yorker subscription. Latour, one of the worst forecasters imaginable, has positioned himself as another one of these Cassandras to a readership of ideologues who don't mind that he often writes things that are laughably absurd (the WW3 prediction above) or grossly inaccurate (he says on the first page that US deregulation began in the nineties).
In the past decade, climate change discourse has become increasingly dominated by professional mediocrities, like Latour, for access to an already captive audience. Hence: Nathaniel Rich, whose novel-writing career never took off, and Elizabeth Kolbert, who wrote about NYC politics in quickly out-of-print books, and Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who covered baseball for New York magazine, and Amitav Ghosh, whose books have never sold outside of India, are now bestselling and award-winning climate writers. They have gone from stalled careers full of remaindered books to being household names to anyone with a New Yorker subscription. Latour, one of the worst forecasters imaginable, has positioned himself as another one of these Cassandras to a readership of ideologues who don't mind that he often writes things that are laughably absurd (the WW3 prediction above) or grossly inaccurate (he says on the first page that US deregulation began in the nineties).
October 27, 2018
Der Sound dieses Textes ist wie von einer anderen Welt. Spannende und sehr genaue empirische Analyse der Verschiebung einer gesellschaftlichen Tektonik. Leider bleibt die Frage offen, wie sich die Analyse (die hoch politisch ist) in Politik übersetzen lässt
November 24, 2018
Latour's recent lectures (transcribed, etc) start with an incredible energy: finally, the philosopher of fine critique looses his language from its unhappy clutches and comes to ground! The lectures are "written with deliberate bluntness", Latour admits. From that position, much that is good unfolds (an honest evaluation of the failures of contemporary politics, of the need for a new understanding of science and ecology), but also a tendency toward the hopelessly abstract (the diagrams are... not that helpful) and a return to Europe.
In Latour's favour, European politics are a critical piece of the world-ecological puzzle, but as he presents them here, they are not only provincial, to freely adopt his own description of them, but also totalizing, as no other region of the planet emerges into view. The result is strangely blinkered, a partial view of the ideal future at best.
At first I believed that this lecture series would be a great introduction to the new Latour but by the conclusion I no longer believed so. If you can find it at the library, go forth!
In Latour's favour, European politics are a critical piece of the world-ecological puzzle, but as he presents them here, they are not only provincial, to freely adopt his own description of them, but also totalizing, as no other region of the planet emerges into view. The result is strangely blinkered, a partial view of the ideal future at best.
At first I believed that this lecture series would be a great introduction to the new Latour but by the conclusion I no longer believed so. If you can find it at the library, go forth!
October 10, 2022
All impressions (and so reviews) say as much about the reader as the writer - and I am Anglo while Latour is very very French, very very continental. And we (Anglo-s) just don’t get it. This book is (much) better than the other french intellectual book I read earlier this year (Thumbelina by Michel Serres) but is stylistically and methodologically similar: it really isn’t the “transdisciplinary” work promised on the back cover - it adopts the standard top-down conceptual re-engineering one expects - which just seems rather pompous and overblown, even megalomaniacal. Latour is not wrong insofar as one can follow the analysis - but which of his innovative categories and neologisms isn’t something already familiar? He’s also right that new paradigms of discourse are needed - but can you create these, ex nihilo, at this high level of abstraction based, mostly, on reflection on how the world seems to an author it be? Seems to me these can only emerge from below, following painstaking work in many disciplinary areas.
August 9, 2021
Geen gemakkelijk boekje, maar wie mee durft te stappen in Latours woordenstroom vindt een uiterst verfrissend en verhelderend perspectief op de klimaatcrisis. Niet alleen een sterk pleidooi om van abstracties en het vooruitgangsdenken af te stappen en terug te keren naar de directe ervaring van het aardse, maar vooral ook een poging om te omschrijven wat er nu eigenlijk op die humuslaag, die wij als aardbewoners bewonen, gaande is. En het is dan ook vooral in die omschrijving, in de ronkende taal en metaforen, prachtig vertaald door Rokus Hofstede, dat Latour weet te verassen en je naar de keel weet te grijpen.
'Wij moeten even slim zijn als die oude zeeman: niet geloven dat we het er levend vanaf zullen brengen, niet stoppen met het registreren van het afdrijvende wrakgoed; misschien ontdekken we dan in een flits waarom sommige wrakstukken naar de bodem worden gezogen terwijl andere door hun vorm als reddingsboeien kunnen dienen. "Mijn rijk voor een leeg vat!"'
'Wij moeten even slim zijn als die oude zeeman: niet geloven dat we het er levend vanaf zullen brengen, niet stoppen met het registreren van het afdrijvende wrakgoed; misschien ontdekken we dan in een flits waarom sommige wrakstukken naar de bodem worden gezogen terwijl andere door hun vorm als reddingsboeien kunnen dienen. "Mijn rijk voor een leeg vat!"'
July 29, 2021
Latour is not my cup of tea (especially Actor-Network Theory -ANT). Still, I think he has made very important contributions, especially to science's philosophy, and that’s the reason I picked this book.
Following ANT, this piece is a depoliticized idea of a white European male about the climate crisis. For the same reason, I think he abandons developing interesting takes (as, for example, the elites' responsibility on the disaster -by the way, he never answers who are those elites). As dwelling lands wasn’t THE problem for capitalism, he calls to transform Earth as a new political actor. Ok, maybe Latour is discovering Zapatistas? Of course, he doesn’t acknowledge any source outside the Western world.
Obviously, liberals will LOVE this book.
Following ANT, this piece is a depoliticized idea of a white European male about the climate crisis. For the same reason, I think he abandons developing interesting takes (as, for example, the elites' responsibility on the disaster -by the way, he never answers who are those elites). As dwelling lands wasn’t THE problem for capitalism, he calls to transform Earth as a new political actor. Ok, maybe Latour is discovering Zapatistas? Of course, he doesn’t acknowledge any source outside the Western world.
Obviously, liberals will LOVE this book.
July 4, 2022
ماهو مكتوب على ظهر الكتاب كتعريف به مشوِّق ومثير جدا للاهتمام، ولكن الكتاب لم يكن كذلك للأسف -أو على الأقل بالنسبة لي-.
أبرز ما يتم تناوله في الكتاب هي قضية التغيير المناخي ويتم تسليط الضوء عليها بشكل كبير وكيف ارتبطت بالسياسة الأمريكية واستغلها رؤساء مثل ترامب ليتكسَّب من ورائها أصواتًا في الكونجرس ويفوز بالانتخابات. هذا ما وجدته في الكتاب،، كان يتمحور حول هذا الموضوع وليس كتابا عاما شاملا لمختلف الأحاديث والمواضيع السياسية كما تبيَّن لي من عنوانه.
لم يرُق لي محتوى الكتاب لأني غير مهتمة بهذه القضية للدرجة التي أقرأ عنها كتابا كاملا حتى لو قليل الصفحات، أقصاها أن أشاهد فيديوهات عاليوتيوب لا غير 😅
نجمة واحدة فقط للكتاب وبالأحرى لطبعته الفاخرة وحجمه الجميل الذي كان دافعي الأكبر لاقتناءه 😅😌❤
أبرز ما يتم تناوله في الكتاب هي قضية التغيير المناخي ويتم تسليط الضوء عليها بشكل كبير وكيف ارتبطت بالسياسة الأمريكية واستغلها رؤساء مثل ترامب ليتكسَّب من ورائها أصواتًا في الكونجرس ويفوز بالانتخابات. هذا ما وجدته في الكتاب،، كان يتمحور حول هذا الموضوع وليس كتابا عاما شاملا لمختلف الأحاديث والمواضيع السياسية كما تبيَّن لي من عنوانه.
لم يرُق لي محتوى الكتاب لأني غير مهتمة بهذه القضية للدرجة التي أقرأ عنها كتابا كاملا حتى لو قليل الصفحات، أقصاها أن أشاهد فيديوهات عاليوتيوب لا غير 😅
نجمة واحدة فقط للكتاب وبالأحرى لطبعته الفاخرة وحجمه الجميل الذي كان دافعي الأكبر لاقتناءه 😅😌❤
October 15, 2020
some promising ideas, but the charts just made everything more confusing
November 28, 2022
zo ongelóóflijk veel nieuwe inzichten gekregen door dit boek! giga-aanrader!
May 7, 2020
Why have we been so slow to understand that we're in a New Climatic Regime, and how do we find a place to "land"? These are the questions for which Latour attempts to build a framework.
The era of “derugulation” coincided with a “vertiginous” explosion of inequalities, which were both a function of the systematic effort to deny climate change (climate being defined as the broad relation between human beings and the material conditions of their lives). These three conditions were born out of a unique historical situation: the ruling classes no longer had room enough for everyone else.
Since the 80s, the ruling classes have abandoned the notion of a common horizon and instead have begun to shelter themselves. In this way, we have entered a New Climate Regime. It is navigating the room of smoke and mirrors intentionally created by the elites that is the project of our time; landing means orienting everything around this fact. It means steering the rudderless ship away from the abyss, instead of acting like it doesn’t exist. The obscurantist elites had to stop pretending, even in their dreams, to share the earth with the rest of the world.
By pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, Trump affirmed that climate was the animating geopolitical concern of our time. It affirmed what Bush Sr. said in Rio, that “our way of life is not negotiable!” The very notion of soil is changing, and either we continue to deny the existence of the problem or we look for a place to land. The ordeal of finding ourselves deprived of land is the issue that we all share.
Our sense of vertigo in politics is due to the fact that the ground is giving way beneath everybody’s feet. The new universality is the feeling of the ground giving way. Looking for a place to land means embracing the fall. It also means calling a spade a spade, such as defining what the hell globalization actually means. Latour does this by dividing it up into two parts: globalization-plus and globalization-minus. Globalization-plus, at its best, means multiplying viewpoints and registering a greater number of varieties. Globalization-minus accuses everyone who disagrees as being Luddites. Is it possible to make those that are enthusiastic about globalization understand it is normal to want to preserve a way of life?
“In the end, what counts is not knowing whether you are for or against globalization, for or against the local; all that counts is understanding whether you’re are managing to register, to maintain, to cherish a maximum number of alternative ways of belonging to the world” (pg 33).
The era of “derugulation” coincided with a “vertiginous” explosion of inequalities, which were both a function of the systematic effort to deny climate change (climate being defined as the broad relation between human beings and the material conditions of their lives). These three conditions were born out of a unique historical situation: the ruling classes no longer had room enough for everyone else.
Since the 80s, the ruling classes have abandoned the notion of a common horizon and instead have begun to shelter themselves. In this way, we have entered a New Climate Regime. It is navigating the room of smoke and mirrors intentionally created by the elites that is the project of our time; landing means orienting everything around this fact. It means steering the rudderless ship away from the abyss, instead of acting like it doesn’t exist. The obscurantist elites had to stop pretending, even in their dreams, to share the earth with the rest of the world.
By pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, Trump affirmed that climate was the animating geopolitical concern of our time. It affirmed what Bush Sr. said in Rio, that “our way of life is not negotiable!” The very notion of soil is changing, and either we continue to deny the existence of the problem or we look for a place to land. The ordeal of finding ourselves deprived of land is the issue that we all share.
Our sense of vertigo in politics is due to the fact that the ground is giving way beneath everybody’s feet. The new universality is the feeling of the ground giving way. Looking for a place to land means embracing the fall. It also means calling a spade a spade, such as defining what the hell globalization actually means. Latour does this by dividing it up into two parts: globalization-plus and globalization-minus. Globalization-plus, at its best, means multiplying viewpoints and registering a greater number of varieties. Globalization-minus accuses everyone who disagrees as being Luddites. Is it possible to make those that are enthusiastic about globalization understand it is normal to want to preserve a way of life?
“In the end, what counts is not knowing whether you are for or against globalization, for or against the local; all that counts is understanding whether you’re are managing to register, to maintain, to cherish a maximum number of alternative ways of belonging to the world” (pg 33).
December 12, 2018
I think I am liking the Bruno Latour of Facing Gaia and, now, Down to Earth.
This book is interesting in its exploration of the failure of 'globalization/modernization' and the emerging 'attractor' of nationalism/populism/skepticism disconnected the material realities of our existence. Latour also flirts with class, capitalism, and neoliberalism as he critiques our collective predicament. He offers the Terrestrial as a hopeful reorientation for right & left politics representing the interests of the masses. If not exactly a solid direction, the book offers a clear description of the motivations of the hoi oligoi, their abandonment of the masses to their illusions of infinite progress and modernization, and the eventual backlash once we realize what has happened. Latour suggests that we come back 'down to earth' and rebuild a human community commensurate with earth systems.
"To land is necessarily to land someplace" (p.99).
This book is interesting in its exploration of the failure of 'globalization/modernization' and the emerging 'attractor' of nationalism/populism/skepticism disconnected the material realities of our existence. Latour also flirts with class, capitalism, and neoliberalism as he critiques our collective predicament. He offers the Terrestrial as a hopeful reorientation for right & left politics representing the interests of the masses. If not exactly a solid direction, the book offers a clear description of the motivations of the hoi oligoi, their abandonment of the masses to their illusions of infinite progress and modernization, and the eventual backlash once we realize what has happened. Latour suggests that we come back 'down to earth' and rebuild a human community commensurate with earth systems.
"To land is necessarily to land someplace" (p.99).
October 17, 2020
[3.5*]
Ο Λατούρ, βλέποντας τόσο στον ακροδεξιό τοπικισμό και όσο και την χωρίς όρια, νεοφιλελεύθερη παγκοσμιοποίηση, προτάσσει τον όρο του Επίγειου. Και μας ωθεί να συνειδητοποιήσουμε ότι -στο τωρινό κλιματικό καθεστώς- η γη, από πεδίο δράσης, έχει γίνει το υποκείμενο της δράσης. Έτσι, οι μετακινήσεις (μας) επανεξετάζονται βάσει των επιπτώσεών τους στην ίδια τη γη, η οποία αυτή τη στιγμή φαίνεται ότι θα κληθεί να αντιμετωπίσει μελλοντικά τα ζητήματα της κατοικησιμότητας και της βιωσιμότητας (βασικά, συμβαίνει ήδη).
Δεν ξέρω αν φταίει που δεν τα πάω πολύ καλά με τους Γάλλους (γενικά, ευτυχώς υπάρχουν κι εξαιρέσεις), αλλά τούτο το μικρό βιβλίο με κούρασε κάπως να το διαβάσω. Ίσως κάποτε (σύντομα, δηλαδή) πρέπει να αρχίσουμε να μιλάμε λίγο πιο απλά, ειδικά για ζωτικά θέματα. Όχι τίποτε άλλο, για χάρη ενός δημόσιου διαλόγου στον οποίο θα μπορεί να συμμετέχει περισσότερος κόσμος.
Ο Λατούρ, βλέποντας τόσο στον ακροδεξιό τοπικισμό και όσο και την χωρίς όρια, νεοφιλελεύθερη παγκοσμιοποίηση, προτάσσει τον όρο του Επίγειου. Και μας ωθεί να συνειδητοποιήσουμε ότι -στο τωρινό κλιματικό καθεστώς- η γη, από πεδίο δράσης, έχει γίνει το υποκείμενο της δράσης. Έτσι, οι μετακινήσεις (μας) επανεξετάζονται βάσει των επιπτώσεών τους στην ίδια τη γη, η οποία αυτή τη στιγμή φαίνεται ότι θα κληθεί να αντιμετωπίσει μελλοντικά τα ζητήματα της κατοικησιμότητας και της βιωσιμότητας (βασικά, συμβαίνει ήδη).
Δεν ξέρω αν φταίει που δεν τα πάω πολύ καλά με τους Γάλλους (γενικά, ευτυχώς υπάρχουν κι εξαιρέσεις), αλλά τούτο το μικρό βιβλίο με κούρασε κάπως να το διαβάσω. Ίσως κάποτε (σύντομα, δηλαδή) πρέπει να αρχίσουμε να μιλάμε λίγο πιο απλά, ειδικά για ζωτικά θέματα. Όχι τίποτε άλλο, για χάρη ενός δημόσιου διαλόγου στον οποίο θα μπορεί να συμμετέχει περισσότερος κόσμος.
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