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Humankind: Solidarity with Non-Human People
A radical call for solidarity between humans and non-humans
What is it that makes humans human? As science and technology challenge the boundaries between life and non-life, between organic and inorganic, this ancient question is more timely than ever. Acclaimed object-oriented philosopher Timothy Morton invites us to consider this philosophical issue as eminently political. In our relationship with nonhumans, we decide the fate of our humanity. Becoming human, claims Morton, actually means creating a network of kindness and solidarity with nonhuman beings, in the name of a broader understanding of reality that both includes and overcomes the notion of species. Negotiating the politics of humanity is the first crucial step in reclaiming the upper scales of ecological coexistence and resisting corporations like Monsanto and the technophilic billionaires who would rob us of our kinship with people beyond our species.
What is it that makes humans human? As science and technology challenge the boundaries between life and non-life, between organic and inorganic, this ancient question is more timely than ever. Acclaimed object-oriented philosopher Timothy Morton invites us to consider this philosophical issue as eminently political. In our relationship with nonhumans, we decide the fate of our humanity. Becoming human, claims Morton, actually means creating a network of kindness and solidarity with nonhuman beings, in the name of a broader understanding of reality that both includes and overcomes the notion of species. Negotiating the politics of humanity is the first crucial step in reclaiming the upper scales of ecological coexistence and resisting corporations like Monsanto and the technophilic billionaires who would rob us of our kinship with people beyond our species.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 4, 2017
138 people are currently reading
1742 people want to read
About the author
Timothy Morton
82 books371 followersTimothy Bloxam Morton is Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University. They are the author of Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence; Nothing: Three Inquiries in Buddhism (with Marcus Boon and Eric Cazdyn); Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World; and other books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
October 2, 2017
Stylistically designed to mask a lack of novel ideas or interesting synthesis of existing knowledge. Smug and obfuscatory language is knowingly used to couch a series of ideas the author seems to beleive are evident in their assertion without recourse to real world context or evidence (evidence? Reductionist!), interjected with non-sequiturs and cringe worthy folksiness. At least I was able to scrape the bibliography for interesting references, references this text puts a fog in front of rather than shines a light on.
May 16, 2024
Timothy Morton’s contribution to object-oriented ontology (000) involves expanding Marxism to include all beings.
Not just humans.
But animals and plants too.
Morton seeks to re-construe ethics such that:
An assault to ONE
Is an assault to ALL.
Polar bears and frogs are people too.
Mass extinction is mass extinction.
No exceptions.
Morton collapses US/THEM & HERE/THERE binaries.
Morton argues that there is no THEM/THERE
Only US/HERE.
When we flush the toilet.
It doesn’t go AWAY.
It ends up in the OCEAN.
Morton argues that if the water, air and food that we depend on die. So do we. As such. There is no someplace else.
There is no THEM/THERE.
There is only US/HERE.
An assault to ONE.
Is an assault to ALL.
Mass extinction is mass extinction.
No exceptions.
As previously mentioned.
Morton seeks to expand Marxism to include solidarity with nonhuman entities.
Marxism asserts that Capitalism depends on the exploitation of the lower (working/renting) classes and environmental resources by upper (ruling/owning) classes, for the production/extraction of surplus value (profit).
In other words.
Capitalism needs most people to be on the bottom.
So that some people can be on top.
In Marx’s Europe.
The people on the top were the bourgeois/aristocracy (permanent ruling class). And the people on the bottom were the proletariat/peasantry (permanent underclass).
In Contemporary America.
Racism, sexism, poverty, and heteronormativity function as barriers to upward mobility. As such, rich, straight white men are the normative permanent ruling/owning class. And BIPOC, LGBTQ, and Women are permanently competing for a piece of that apple pie. With enough token exceptions to make it seem like the American dream is more than a multilevel marketing scheme.
Marxism (and liberalism more broadly) has sought to engender solidarity between marginalized people. With the prospect of greater economic and political equity, and ecological sustainability as the dangle.
And so far.
Well…
Not so much.
Timothy Morton explores the ethical implications of extending personhood to non human animals. And even plants and stuff.
Morton argues that acknowledging our interconnectedness and interdependence of humans with nonhumans can lead to a more ethical/sustainable stewardship of the environment.
Morton explores this prospect from a variety of philosophical, psychological, ecological, and ethical perspectives.
Morton argues that “speciesism” is an expression/extension of racism. Morton argues that speciesism isn’t any more justified than racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or any other form of discrimination/exploitation.
Morton ultimately argues that if we fail to cede our human privilege to all beings. And step out of the egocentric, phallogocentric, anthropocentric dominance hierarchy.
With straight white maleness at the top. And everyone else falling below them in the privilege, status and rights.
Then we can expect to keep getting what we’re getting.
Which is mass extinction.
No exceptions.
Ultimately.
If we acknowledge that there is no “away” to throw trash.
And there is no something or someone “else” to exploit.
That we are here.
And that there ain’t no where else to go.
And that them is us.
And we’re all in this together.
Then maybe we can create a truly inclusive ethics.
That provides the fundament.
For a echo revolutionary sustainable future.
I loved this book.
Morton is relatable, creative, funny and down to earth 🌍
5/5 Stars ⭐️
Not just humans.
But animals and plants too.
Morton seeks to re-construe ethics such that:
An assault to ONE
Is an assault to ALL.
Polar bears and frogs are people too.
Mass extinction is mass extinction.
No exceptions.
Morton collapses US/THEM & HERE/THERE binaries.
Morton argues that there is no THEM/THERE
Only US/HERE.
When we flush the toilet.
It doesn’t go AWAY.
It ends up in the OCEAN.
Morton argues that if the water, air and food that we depend on die. So do we. As such. There is no someplace else.
There is no THEM/THERE.
There is only US/HERE.
An assault to ONE.
Is an assault to ALL.
Mass extinction is mass extinction.
No exceptions.
As previously mentioned.
Morton seeks to expand Marxism to include solidarity with nonhuman entities.
Marxism asserts that Capitalism depends on the exploitation of the lower (working/renting) classes and environmental resources by upper (ruling/owning) classes, for the production/extraction of surplus value (profit).
In other words.
Capitalism needs most people to be on the bottom.
So that some people can be on top.
In Marx’s Europe.
The people on the top were the bourgeois/aristocracy (permanent ruling class). And the people on the bottom were the proletariat/peasantry (permanent underclass).
In Contemporary America.
Racism, sexism, poverty, and heteronormativity function as barriers to upward mobility. As such, rich, straight white men are the normative permanent ruling/owning class. And BIPOC, LGBTQ, and Women are permanently competing for a piece of that apple pie. With enough token exceptions to make it seem like the American dream is more than a multilevel marketing scheme.
Marxism (and liberalism more broadly) has sought to engender solidarity between marginalized people. With the prospect of greater economic and political equity, and ecological sustainability as the dangle.
And so far.
Well…
Not so much.
Timothy Morton explores the ethical implications of extending personhood to non human animals. And even plants and stuff.
Morton argues that acknowledging our interconnectedness and interdependence of humans with nonhumans can lead to a more ethical/sustainable stewardship of the environment.
Morton explores this prospect from a variety of philosophical, psychological, ecological, and ethical perspectives.
Morton argues that “speciesism” is an expression/extension of racism. Morton argues that speciesism isn’t any more justified than racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or any other form of discrimination/exploitation.
Morton ultimately argues that if we fail to cede our human privilege to all beings. And step out of the egocentric, phallogocentric, anthropocentric dominance hierarchy.
With straight white maleness at the top. And everyone else falling below them in the privilege, status and rights.
Then we can expect to keep getting what we’re getting.
Which is mass extinction.
No exceptions.
Ultimately.
If we acknowledge that there is no “away” to throw trash.
And there is no something or someone “else” to exploit.
That we are here.
And that there ain’t no where else to go.
And that them is us.
And we’re all in this together.
Then maybe we can create a truly inclusive ethics.
That provides the fundament.
For a echo revolutionary sustainable future.
I loved this book.
Morton is relatable, creative, funny and down to earth 🌍
5/5 Stars ⭐️
September 7, 2017
Reading this book was like having the conversation that comes at the end of the film "Her," but where I, the reader, realize that Tim, with Alan Watts/Buddhist flavors, has achieved like a quantum capacity beyond my capacity to imagine.
BUT, unlike in "Her," I didn't feel narcissistic and depressed to witness this leap that left me limning my limits. Because things flicker and I still see some of them.
BUT, unlike in "Her," I didn't feel narcissistic and depressed to witness this leap that left me limning my limits. Because things flicker and I still see some of them.
April 10, 2020
It took me two tries, but I finally managed to finish this book, and it was, to say the least, frustrating.
The goal of the book is to imagine a Marxism that includes nonhumans. This is very theoretical, and Morton passes through ontology, metaphysics, sociology, and so on to make his point. However, what this practically means (and this is the unfortunate bit) remains to be explained. Although by no means does this invalidate the book, the word "veganism" does not appear, and to my knowledge "vegetarianism" appears only once -- despite the fact that the predominant way in which humans interact with some of the most abundant life-forms on the planet is by killing them and eating them or using the byproducts for other purposes. You would think this would be at least addressed. But, and I do understand this, this is a book about philosophy and as such it is heavy on theory. It is a playful journey through the history of ideas. But the problem with speculative realism (and OOO or object-oriented ontology, the scene/school with which Morton is most closely associated) is that it does't change anything about how one interfaces with the world. It is a shuffling around of the categories of being "behind the scenes".
There are a handful of interesting concepts in this book, and though Morton's method of philosophy is irreverent and sloppy, a few shining bits of insight break through. Let's start with those.
First, there is the concept of what Morton classifies as the "correlationist" world view. To paraphrase Kant, there is truly a world out there, but all that we (we being humans, and often humans of a specific caste) can access is data about that world. There is a gap, and so one restricts the definition of "world" to be the sphere accessed by humans. Morton imagines a slider between the "correlator" and "correlatee". What is necessary, then, is to turn the slider towards letting the thing-in-itself assert itself. Of course, any "access mode" we have is incomplete, and we cannot escape the prison of our perception, so this doesn't much change how we think about nonhumans. But downstream of this ontology (which is related to animism or First Peoples religion) one can imagine a world in which the agency of nonhumans is treated with more reverence. An intriguing idea, and one I agree with.
Next, there is the "Severing", a moment (but really a process located everywhere in space and time-- what Morton calls a hyperobject) at which humans walled off the nonhuman concomitant with the Neolithic revolution. Morton asserts that a truly staggering amount of Western cultural perceptions is a consequence of the trauma of this event. While I don't really buy this, it is true that exclusionary societal structures necessarily entail violence, and that speciesism and racism can both be seen as mirroring the cloistering-in of humanity away from nature that is the Severing. At the very least, it is true that in "taming nature", there is a violent exclusion going on, one which certainly has higher order effects.
Morton critiques teleology in a number of guises, and this is where things start to get sloppy. A number of terms are defined as being "the same", as the group of "things Morton doesn't like" grows like a game of Katamari Damacy. There is Hegel's Geist, "explosive holism" (the belief that the whole is greater [in what sense? Keep wondering!] than the sum of its parts), agrilogistics, western patriarchy, Mesopotamian utilitarianism, and so on. For the record, I more or less agree with this critique, but the connections drawn between all these subtly different concepts are not at all well-justified. In its stead, Morton posits a theory of "implosive holism", or "subscendence", the belief that the whole is "less than the sum of its parts". Again, it's a bit of a mystery what more than/less than mean exactly (Morton says "has more qualities than", which doesn't clear much up) but the attractiveness of the idea survives. Instead of thinking of each individual as subservient to capitalism, the human species, the planet etc, we turn this upside down and say that the individual is more than a component of a whole. This is subtly different than neoliberal individualism (there is no society), since instead, individual and society are placed on more or less equally footing. There is some dodgy mathematics here where Morton argues that a forest is "ontologically smaller" (there is no such thing) than its trees because a forest is one thing, and each tree is one thing. It's not nearly as original an idea as Morton seems to think it is, nor does this theory make neoliberalism or capitalism less powerful and dominant, but it is an appealing idea. I'm not willing to go to bat for Morton, though, when he insists that "cynical reason" is all that is behind the belief that capitalism is more powerful than any of us.
One of the ways in which teleology is self-destructive is that in an "explosive holist" framework, quantity of life is more important than quality of life, which is ultimately how the proliferation of life becomes a death drive. We see this confirmed in climate change. The problem is that the concept of life is not so stark. This is where Morton introduces (or parlays Derrida's concept of) spectrality, which is unfortunately very muddy.
Spectrality is a "shimmering" an "X-quality", and a superpower. It is the paradox that something is exactly what it is, yet not exactly what it appears. At the same time it is the potentiality of the future, "givenness", the curiosity of ennui, the uncanny, and more. At the very least, I agree with Morton that humans are haunted. By the weight of dead traditions, the potentiality of the future, and the halo of nonhuman entities with which we are independent in the "symbiotic real". Solidarity is, for Morton, recognizing this spectrality. Recognizing our interdependence with nonhumans is part of this.
Most of the book meditates on these ideas and a few more. There is also a fascinating and utterly unnecessary analysis of the Christopher Nolan movie Interstellar. The ideas double back on themselves, and at some points one wonders if one has accidentally jumped backwards a few chapters. You haven't, it's just that the structure of this book is not exactly linear. It's more of an improvised homily than anything.
But its maddening structure is not the worst part of this book. In fact, at times I found the structure to be quite beautiful, as there is a poetic interconnectedness to it all. A total lack of direction combined with the almost imperceptible feeling of progress -- it was almost dreamlike at times.
The style of Morton's prose -- which blends high culture, with low culture, abstract philosophy-jargon with slang and breezy conversation -- is not that fresh or new anymore. At times it is genuinely exciting, and there are nuggets of profundity in this book, as you would find in any two hundred page work of philosophy. But Timothy Morton is not Nietzsche. Most of the time, however, it is cheeky to the point of irritating, especially when it is totally opaque. This is especially maddening when the book takes a turn for the New Age, as Morton recklessly flirts with exponents, quantum physics, Möbius strips, the continuum hypothesis (which one of you told him about the continuum hypothesis?!) and other quantum spirituality Deepak Chopra clichés, never making it totally clear how serious he intends these metaphors to be.
It's not that the writing style is obfuscating here -- that would imply there is something to be obfuscated. Instead, Morton seems content to half-commit to half-positing a half-idea, and let you do the rest of the work for him. Among some of the most irritating Zen koans here:
"X just is Y" (usually not given with any serious explanation)
"X is retweeting Y" (Kant retweeting Hegel....it just makes one cringe a bit, doesn't it?)
“Greater than” must mean “having more qualities than.” “More real than” must mean “having more essence than.”(Dodgy ontology and metaphysics)
"X is the cool kids version of Y"
"X is cheap" (Probably the most maddening of them all, as the central thesis of the book is that 'solidarity is cheap', but it unclear whether cheap means abundant, easy to access, easy to cultivate, or something else entirely)
"An idea exists in the same way as a quasar" (Yet more dodgy metaphysics)
"X is a twelve inch remix of Y"
"X exists in the VIP lounges of agricultural-age religions"
While Humankind does occasionally reach the exalted key of joyful, playful philosophical theorizing, its flimsy foundations, sloppy methodology, and tendencies towards philistinic pseudo-profundity ultimately render the whole book more of a gesture towards a theory of solidarity with nonhumans than what it could have been, a thought-provoking and thorough manifesto. There is enough philosophy in here to keep the curious reader entertained (and it is probably worth skimming the bibliography just for culture -- Morton is nothing if not a skilled name-dropper), and equally enough sketchiness to keep a disciplined and clear thinker agitated.
The goal of the book is to imagine a Marxism that includes nonhumans. This is very theoretical, and Morton passes through ontology, metaphysics, sociology, and so on to make his point. However, what this practically means (and this is the unfortunate bit) remains to be explained. Although by no means does this invalidate the book, the word "veganism" does not appear, and to my knowledge "vegetarianism" appears only once -- despite the fact that the predominant way in which humans interact with some of the most abundant life-forms on the planet is by killing them and eating them or using the byproducts for other purposes. You would think this would be at least addressed. But, and I do understand this, this is a book about philosophy and as such it is heavy on theory. It is a playful journey through the history of ideas. But the problem with speculative realism (and OOO or object-oriented ontology, the scene/school with which Morton is most closely associated) is that it does't change anything about how one interfaces with the world. It is a shuffling around of the categories of being "behind the scenes".
There are a handful of interesting concepts in this book, and though Morton's method of philosophy is irreverent and sloppy, a few shining bits of insight break through. Let's start with those.
First, there is the concept of what Morton classifies as the "correlationist" world view. To paraphrase Kant, there is truly a world out there, but all that we (we being humans, and often humans of a specific caste) can access is data about that world. There is a gap, and so one restricts the definition of "world" to be the sphere accessed by humans. Morton imagines a slider between the "correlator" and "correlatee". What is necessary, then, is to turn the slider towards letting the thing-in-itself assert itself. Of course, any "access mode" we have is incomplete, and we cannot escape the prison of our perception, so this doesn't much change how we think about nonhumans. But downstream of this ontology (which is related to animism or First Peoples religion) one can imagine a world in which the agency of nonhumans is treated with more reverence. An intriguing idea, and one I agree with.
Next, there is the "Severing", a moment (but really a process located everywhere in space and time-- what Morton calls a hyperobject) at which humans walled off the nonhuman concomitant with the Neolithic revolution. Morton asserts that a truly staggering amount of Western cultural perceptions is a consequence of the trauma of this event. While I don't really buy this, it is true that exclusionary societal structures necessarily entail violence, and that speciesism and racism can both be seen as mirroring the cloistering-in of humanity away from nature that is the Severing. At the very least, it is true that in "taming nature", there is a violent exclusion going on, one which certainly has higher order effects.
Morton critiques teleology in a number of guises, and this is where things start to get sloppy. A number of terms are defined as being "the same", as the group of "things Morton doesn't like" grows like a game of Katamari Damacy. There is Hegel's Geist, "explosive holism" (the belief that the whole is greater [in what sense? Keep wondering!] than the sum of its parts), agrilogistics, western patriarchy, Mesopotamian utilitarianism, and so on. For the record, I more or less agree with this critique, but the connections drawn between all these subtly different concepts are not at all well-justified. In its stead, Morton posits a theory of "implosive holism", or "subscendence", the belief that the whole is "less than the sum of its parts". Again, it's a bit of a mystery what more than/less than mean exactly (Morton says "has more qualities than", which doesn't clear much up) but the attractiveness of the idea survives. Instead of thinking of each individual as subservient to capitalism, the human species, the planet etc, we turn this upside down and say that the individual is more than a component of a whole. This is subtly different than neoliberal individualism (there is no society), since instead, individual and society are placed on more or less equally footing. There is some dodgy mathematics here where Morton argues that a forest is "ontologically smaller" (there is no such thing) than its trees because a forest is one thing, and each tree is one thing. It's not nearly as original an idea as Morton seems to think it is, nor does this theory make neoliberalism or capitalism less powerful and dominant, but it is an appealing idea. I'm not willing to go to bat for Morton, though, when he insists that "cynical reason" is all that is behind the belief that capitalism is more powerful than any of us.
One of the ways in which teleology is self-destructive is that in an "explosive holist" framework, quantity of life is more important than quality of life, which is ultimately how the proliferation of life becomes a death drive. We see this confirmed in climate change. The problem is that the concept of life is not so stark. This is where Morton introduces (or parlays Derrida's concept of) spectrality, which is unfortunately very muddy.
Spectrality is a "shimmering" an "X-quality", and a superpower. It is the paradox that something is exactly what it is, yet not exactly what it appears. At the same time it is the potentiality of the future, "givenness", the curiosity of ennui, the uncanny, and more. At the very least, I agree with Morton that humans are haunted. By the weight of dead traditions, the potentiality of the future, and the halo of nonhuman entities with which we are independent in the "symbiotic real". Solidarity is, for Morton, recognizing this spectrality. Recognizing our interdependence with nonhumans is part of this.
Most of the book meditates on these ideas and a few more. There is also a fascinating and utterly unnecessary analysis of the Christopher Nolan movie Interstellar. The ideas double back on themselves, and at some points one wonders if one has accidentally jumped backwards a few chapters. You haven't, it's just that the structure of this book is not exactly linear. It's more of an improvised homily than anything.
But its maddening structure is not the worst part of this book. In fact, at times I found the structure to be quite beautiful, as there is a poetic interconnectedness to it all. A total lack of direction combined with the almost imperceptible feeling of progress -- it was almost dreamlike at times.
The style of Morton's prose -- which blends high culture, with low culture, abstract philosophy-jargon with slang and breezy conversation -- is not that fresh or new anymore. At times it is genuinely exciting, and there are nuggets of profundity in this book, as you would find in any two hundred page work of philosophy. But Timothy Morton is not Nietzsche. Most of the time, however, it is cheeky to the point of irritating, especially when it is totally opaque. This is especially maddening when the book takes a turn for the New Age, as Morton recklessly flirts with exponents, quantum physics, Möbius strips, the continuum hypothesis (which one of you told him about the continuum hypothesis?!) and other quantum spirituality Deepak Chopra clichés, never making it totally clear how serious he intends these metaphors to be.
It's not that the writing style is obfuscating here -- that would imply there is something to be obfuscated. Instead, Morton seems content to half-commit to half-positing a half-idea, and let you do the rest of the work for him. Among some of the most irritating Zen koans here:
"X just is Y" (usually not given with any serious explanation)
"X is retweeting Y" (Kant retweeting Hegel....it just makes one cringe a bit, doesn't it?)
“Greater than” must mean “having more qualities than.” “More real than” must mean “having more essence than.”(Dodgy ontology and metaphysics)
"X is the cool kids version of Y"
"X is cheap" (Probably the most maddening of them all, as the central thesis of the book is that 'solidarity is cheap', but it unclear whether cheap means abundant, easy to access, easy to cultivate, or something else entirely)
"An idea exists in the same way as a quasar" (Yet more dodgy metaphysics)
"X is a twelve inch remix of Y"
"X exists in the VIP lounges of agricultural-age religions"
While Humankind does occasionally reach the exalted key of joyful, playful philosophical theorizing, its flimsy foundations, sloppy methodology, and tendencies towards philistinic pseudo-profundity ultimately render the whole book more of a gesture towards a theory of solidarity with nonhumans than what it could have been, a thought-provoking and thorough manifesto. There is enough philosophy in here to keep the curious reader entertained (and it is probably worth skimming the bibliography just for culture -- Morton is nothing if not a skilled name-dropper), and equally enough sketchiness to keep a disciplined and clear thinker agitated.
July 5, 2023
I considered awarding this an extra star for chutzpah, but I couldn't do it.
This is a book that defines "spectre", "rock", and "solidarity", but neglects to explain a sentence like, "In the world of macro-Hegel, the Slinky is implausibly capable of going upstairs." At one point, I forgot what page I was on and skipped ahead fifty pages or so without realizing it. Now that I've finished, I'm still not sure if I actually read the whole book. It's a mess.
I should add that I am sympathetic to many of the arguments made by Morton in this book, so I was rooting for him.
But it's just such a bewildering barrage of references, "cool professor"-speak ("Micro-Hegel is generally awesome", "Infrasound is a Tolstoy novel about mountains, oceans, and deserts", etc.), and then at the end there's an extended exegesis of "Interstellar" that is totally incomprehensible. That was really the final nail in the coffin of the book for me, because I don't care what Tim Morton says, that movie was terrible.
I picked up this book because I was interested in a book about "Solidarity with Non-Human People." Maybe I'm a dummy. This book is about many things, but perhaps least of all "solidarity with non-human people." Rarely have I felt so keenly the truth of the old saw about judging books by their covers.
Having read one other of his books ("Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence"--again, great title), I am beginning to suspect that he has a hat full of cool book titles and subtitles and chooses them at random whenever he finishes a new one.
I'll probably keep reading his books, though.
This is a book that defines "spectre", "rock", and "solidarity", but neglects to explain a sentence like, "In the world of macro-Hegel, the Slinky is implausibly capable of going upstairs." At one point, I forgot what page I was on and skipped ahead fifty pages or so without realizing it. Now that I've finished, I'm still not sure if I actually read the whole book. It's a mess.
I should add that I am sympathetic to many of the arguments made by Morton in this book, so I was rooting for him.
But it's just such a bewildering barrage of references, "cool professor"-speak ("Micro-Hegel is generally awesome", "Infrasound is a Tolstoy novel about mountains, oceans, and deserts", etc.), and then at the end there's an extended exegesis of "Interstellar" that is totally incomprehensible. That was really the final nail in the coffin of the book for me, because I don't care what Tim Morton says, that movie was terrible.
I picked up this book because I was interested in a book about "Solidarity with Non-Human People." Maybe I'm a dummy. This book is about many things, but perhaps least of all "solidarity with non-human people." Rarely have I felt so keenly the truth of the old saw about judging books by their covers.
Having read one other of his books ("Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence"--again, great title), I am beginning to suspect that he has a hat full of cool book titles and subtitles and chooses them at random whenever he finishes a new one.
I'll probably keep reading his books, though.
April 4, 2019
I’ve read a lot of Morton, and probably with the huge mistake of not totally immersing myself in Graham Harman and the other OOO-types in advance. I might actually hate Morton, but also find myself bursting out in laughter when he writes things like “again I must be the devil,” because I think he somehow knows how much I hate him, and I realize now that a lot of what he is doing is “playing.” I’m sure some folks have spent careers trying to “debug” Marxism, and done so a lot less successfully than Morton does (or doesn’t? It doesn’t seem like he’s quite all the way there in this, but it was still nice following his ideas in this book, particularly as it reads more coherently than Dark Ecology did). Morton cuts to the chase when necessary, makes the best of a discipline obsessed with jargon by making his own candied-buzzwords (his are always the sweetest), and by pointing out some things that we really need to remember when we “do theory,” most importantly, that dumb questions are really important, maybe most important. I can see the appeal for those who love him, and I can see how folks who are tangled up in the wires of obfuscation and purity-politics and finding truth in one clear philosophical line are completely flabbergasted by Morton’s appeal. Not sure I can recommend it, but if any of this sounds appealing, why don’t you give it a go?
July 13, 2018
As a representative of OOO- Object Oriented Ontology- Timothy Morton rejects "Correlationalism" which is the tendency for Philosophy to persistently have only two options - Is reality a construct of the human mind? or is the human mind the product of physical substantial objectivity? A third consideration is a de-anthropocentric approach where all objects, from the smallest particles to the great galaxies and ourselves have a mutual referential interplay. That is to say my perception of the flower is of no less or of more importance than the flowers' perception of me. Whether connected to the above or not, he also dismisses what he calls "hyperobjects" - not too dissimilar to the post modern dismissal of the meta-narrative. A hyperobject is any whole that is considered to be greater than the sum of its parts - "Nature" being one. Timothy's argument is that these two perceptions limit the contribution we can have towards ecology. Only as we truly relate to objects and participate from a bottom up rather than a top down approach can we make a positive contribution. There is much more to this book and apologies for any misrepresentation(s) I may have made. I read it a couple of months ago.
My personal interest is from a theistic perspective. Timothy quite clearly dismisses the idea of God as just one more hyperobject. I think (at least my idea of) God can cope with that. For me the greatness of God does not consist in bigness but in how small God can become yet remain God. I believe fully in the bottom up idea - hence the incarnation.
The deanthropocentrism is also containable within my theology. While I still believe that man is created in God's image I do believe that religious man has falsely interpreted this to mean that humankind is more important - more valuable - and the rest of creation is a mere commodity to that end. But if we take the words of Christ who said "let him who is the greatest become the least - become the servant of all" seriously, then the closer we are to God's image the least we become. The outcome should be that complexity carries with it responsibility and this in Christian terms means to become a humble servant of creation - to care selflessly for all objects.
I understand the god that Timothy is dismissing but there are different ways to view God that actually affirm his concerns and contribute to his aims in this book.
That whole is not greater than the sum of its parts is an oversimplification although I believe that what Timothy is saying "What if we consider the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts". That said I would say that the whole does not needto be greater than the sum of its parts but it can be. Take England football team last night each individual player was brilliant but as a team they just didn't work well. On other occasions the team worked well and produced something that exceeded the sum of the individuals. So that would need looking into (Perhaps he did - sorry if that's the case)
At the end of the book I became aware of the significance of the title "Humankind" (Trudeaux would be impressed!) and the meaning implied by the word "kind" as in kinship as in mutual reciprocal participation in this thing we call life illiciting respect and compassion.
I've missed loads out and made considerable highlights which I will have to go back to but for all its complexity and quirky terms, whatever the motive, I have come away enlightened, informed and thinking in more depth, my part in the cosmos and my faith in God. For that I am grateful :)
My personal interest is from a theistic perspective. Timothy quite clearly dismisses the idea of God as just one more hyperobject. I think (at least my idea of) God can cope with that. For me the greatness of God does not consist in bigness but in how small God can become yet remain God. I believe fully in the bottom up idea - hence the incarnation.
The deanthropocentrism is also containable within my theology. While I still believe that man is created in God's image I do believe that religious man has falsely interpreted this to mean that humankind is more important - more valuable - and the rest of creation is a mere commodity to that end. But if we take the words of Christ who said "let him who is the greatest become the least - become the servant of all" seriously, then the closer we are to God's image the least we become. The outcome should be that complexity carries with it responsibility and this in Christian terms means to become a humble servant of creation - to care selflessly for all objects.
I understand the god that Timothy is dismissing but there are different ways to view God that actually affirm his concerns and contribute to his aims in this book.
That whole is not greater than the sum of its parts is an oversimplification although I believe that what Timothy is saying "What if we consider the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts". That said I would say that the whole does not needto be greater than the sum of its parts but it can be. Take England football team last night each individual player was brilliant but as a team they just didn't work well. On other occasions the team worked well and produced something that exceeded the sum of the individuals. So that would need looking into (Perhaps he did - sorry if that's the case)
At the end of the book I became aware of the significance of the title "Humankind" (Trudeaux would be impressed!) and the meaning implied by the word "kind" as in kinship as in mutual reciprocal participation in this thing we call life illiciting respect and compassion.
I've missed loads out and made considerable highlights which I will have to go back to but for all its complexity and quirky terms, whatever the motive, I have come away enlightened, informed and thinking in more depth, my part in the cosmos and my faith in God. For that I am grateful :)
October 16, 2022
*151st Climate Book*
This was another book I put down early in the pandemic in favour of comfort reading and recently picked back up again. Good thing, because this was definitely more digestible in a better frame of mind.
But only in comparison, rather than in absolute terms: Morton is an academic philosopher, after all, and it shows.
I appreciated his development and use of novel terms (severing, subscendence, etc.) and the way old terms and ideas were reframed to suit his hypothesis. (Subscendence, for example, is the idea that the whole is *less* than the sum of its parts, and that if you split a whole open, more spills out than you could imagine would fit inside.) And I also appreciate his efforts in extending personhood and agency well beyond the human into the animal and plant kingdoms. (I'm less convinced by his findings of agency among rocks and tables.) These are things I already knew and experienced, and possibly you did too, but the analysis was interesting.
Morton's larger goal is to reintroduce anarchism into a lower-case-c communism, to build a politics of solidarity with (as he says) nonhuman people. I'm solidly on side with the anarchism and the solidarity, and less so with the communism; you need to have an understanding and appreciation of a lot of foundational communist texts, well beyond Marx, to even follow some sections of the book, as he often references bits of text and quotes from people I'd never heard of to make points that don't make a lick of sense without that context. I think he's possibly read every Russian analysis of 1917 ever, and good for him, but the problem is that he assumes the reader has, too.
I would have given a solid 4 stars to everything right up to the last chapter, Kindness, where it fell apart for me. At least 20 pages of that last chapter were devoted to a deep philosophical analysis of the movie Interstellar, which I hadn't seen in years and had no wish to rewatch to follow this analysis and which worse seemed to contribute nothing to the ideas of the book or his conclusions. Kind does indeed have two meanings ("of the same kind" and "be kind"), but you can't map the one directly onto the other in a bit of etymological sleight-of-hand, and that irritated me. But then maybe I'm just not enough of a communist, of any size of "c."
Morton's ideas are foundational to a lot of ecological action, as well as philosophy and arts, so I'm glad I read him and will continue to, though to my mind "solidarity with non-human people" is better encouraged by reading Mary Oliver.
This was another book I put down early in the pandemic in favour of comfort reading and recently picked back up again. Good thing, because this was definitely more digestible in a better frame of mind.
But only in comparison, rather than in absolute terms: Morton is an academic philosopher, after all, and it shows.
I appreciated his development and use of novel terms (severing, subscendence, etc.) and the way old terms and ideas were reframed to suit his hypothesis. (Subscendence, for example, is the idea that the whole is *less* than the sum of its parts, and that if you split a whole open, more spills out than you could imagine would fit inside.) And I also appreciate his efforts in extending personhood and agency well beyond the human into the animal and plant kingdoms. (I'm less convinced by his findings of agency among rocks and tables.) These are things I already knew and experienced, and possibly you did too, but the analysis was interesting.
Morton's larger goal is to reintroduce anarchism into a lower-case-c communism, to build a politics of solidarity with (as he says) nonhuman people. I'm solidly on side with the anarchism and the solidarity, and less so with the communism; you need to have an understanding and appreciation of a lot of foundational communist texts, well beyond Marx, to even follow some sections of the book, as he often references bits of text and quotes from people I'd never heard of to make points that don't make a lick of sense without that context. I think he's possibly read every Russian analysis of 1917 ever, and good for him, but the problem is that he assumes the reader has, too.
I would have given a solid 4 stars to everything right up to the last chapter, Kindness, where it fell apart for me. At least 20 pages of that last chapter were devoted to a deep philosophical analysis of the movie Interstellar, which I hadn't seen in years and had no wish to rewatch to follow this analysis and which worse seemed to contribute nothing to the ideas of the book or his conclusions. Kind does indeed have two meanings ("of the same kind" and "be kind"), but you can't map the one directly onto the other in a bit of etymological sleight-of-hand, and that irritated me. But then maybe I'm just not enough of a communist, of any size of "c."
Morton's ideas are foundational to a lot of ecological action, as well as philosophy and arts, so I'm glad I read him and will continue to, though to my mind "solidarity with non-human people" is better encouraged by reading Mary Oliver.
January 9, 2018
Perforated, fuzzy, broken & spectral: that’s how the arguments of this book are, making its way through continental philosophy and Marxism to insert non-humans, only to argue, ultimately, that there’s no such thing as solidarity without non-humans anyway. Reading it is a game: annoying, because you don’t know the rules, but nonetheless, fascinating. Morton keeps being in conversation with this, and that, from critical theorists to pop icons, jumping and jumping, unable to be grasped, constantly unfollowing himself from the reader’s understanding. But for all that it tortured me with, I loved it. I both believe it and not believe it. It makes such great arguments: adding non-humans to marxist theory, ontologically unpinning species (and thus race, and racism, too), accepting the fuzziness of the world (its spectral x-being), but also its toughness (it’s object oriented, not socially constructed), strongly in favor of an implosive holism (one that isn’t a whole greater than the sum of its parts, but less – subscendence), and pushing (rocking) against anthropocentrism. But also, it’s not very serious, it’s rather playful, which is, maybe, the point, or part of it, anyway. Is it like this so it cannot be contradicted? Maybe. Morton would love that, getting into a space into which contradictions are possible, and present – an excluded middle. Getting us into a loop, or brain-fucked, or preferably both, but in a beautiful, disgusting kind of way.
<< Love is not straight, because reality is not straight. Everywhere, there are curves and bends, things veer. Per-ver-sion. En-vir-onment. These terms come from the verb „to veer”. To veer, to swerve toward: am I choosing to do so or am I being pulled? Free will is overrated. I do not make decisions outside the Universe and then plunge in, like an Olympic diver. I am already in. >>
<< Love is not straight, because reality is not straight. Everywhere, there are curves and bends, things veer. Per-ver-sion. En-vir-onment. These terms come from the verb „to veer”. To veer, to swerve toward: am I choosing to do so or am I being pulled? Free will is overrated. I do not make decisions outside the Universe and then plunge in, like an Olympic diver. I am already in. >>
May 11, 2023
Wordcellery
September 9, 2022
An important book which clarifies kindness and solidarity with nonhuman people as essential aspects of what it means to be part of the world.
July 13, 2019
I believe the role of philosophy has always been to question, to reflect, to envision all possibilities and the possibilities of those possibilities. To embrace and accept paradoxes and that nothing is certain or “written in stone”.
We live on an age where nothing is valid if it’s not “scientifically” proven. We also live on an age where we accumulate massive evidence of what fits our prejudice.
I felt that this work humbles ya down to where philosophy should. It points out how anthropocentrism clouds our vision in a new and fresh way. Even pointing out how philosophy can also be biased by our anthropocentrism and even envisioning anthropocentrism is in itself anthropogenic because we can never escape our “human” point of view. But like I said before. Philosophy should embrace paradoxes. It’s is its job.
I believe that philosophy is not out there to show us the answers, but to ask questions. Questions that disrupt our certainties and truths not validate them.
I’ve seen people slam this book because it has “over the top” or “pretentious” language to “say what has already been said” and that it provides no evidence of what it implies. Well. Sorry to disappoint you guys, this book is not a scientific paper. It embraces the philosophical paradox that what it implies might not be 100% true or factual but makes the observation that paradoxes are ok. We don’t need to fix on a law of non-contradiction. It’s a book about the paradox of acceptors anthropocentrism exists while looking at it through an anthropocentric lens.
It’s ok to accept paradoxes. That’s philosophy’s role.
We live on an age where nothing is valid if it’s not “scientifically” proven. We also live on an age where we accumulate massive evidence of what fits our prejudice.
I felt that this work humbles ya down to where philosophy should. It points out how anthropocentrism clouds our vision in a new and fresh way. Even pointing out how philosophy can also be biased by our anthropocentrism and even envisioning anthropocentrism is in itself anthropogenic because we can never escape our “human” point of view. But like I said before. Philosophy should embrace paradoxes. It’s is its job.
I believe that philosophy is not out there to show us the answers, but to ask questions. Questions that disrupt our certainties and truths not validate them.
I’ve seen people slam this book because it has “over the top” or “pretentious” language to “say what has already been said” and that it provides no evidence of what it implies. Well. Sorry to disappoint you guys, this book is not a scientific paper. It embraces the philosophical paradox that what it implies might not be 100% true or factual but makes the observation that paradoxes are ok. We don’t need to fix on a law of non-contradiction. It’s a book about the paradox of acceptors anthropocentrism exists while looking at it through an anthropocentric lens.
It’s ok to accept paradoxes. That’s philosophy’s role.
October 26, 2021
A true confederacy of dunces that if was not written as a joke, then why waste so much time to try and say so much without saying anything?
May 1, 2024
Unapologetically dense, so it took (checks watch) ~~four whole months~~ "some time" to make it through this bad boy. But coming out of it, now I can confidently say "yeah! Awareness does 'rock'! I do get it!" (There is more to this book, I promise.)
Morton's style is... messy, to say the least. While it words great for their object-oriented memoir, The Stuff of Life (2023), it isn't as appreciated here, especially with their Hegelian Slinky metaphor. Still not sure I completely grasp that. However, the highs of this book totally make up for any stylistic qualms I may have. The reading of Nolan's Interstellar in the final chapter is just a touch of sherry on the theory pound cake.
Definitely looking to pick up more of their work in the future.
Morton's style is... messy, to say the least. While it words great for their object-oriented memoir, The Stuff of Life (2023), it isn't as appreciated here, especially with their Hegelian Slinky metaphor. Still not sure I completely grasp that. However, the highs of this book totally make up for any stylistic qualms I may have. The reading of Nolan's Interstellar in the final chapter is just a touch of sherry on the theory pound cake.
Definitely looking to pick up more of their work in the future.
June 6, 2018
Didn’t understand much. The language was just unnecessarily too complex. Says a person who has been known to enjoy reading Heiddeger... I am sure it is a good book, maybe I’ll try again some day.
October 11, 2019
In addition to his central preoccupation with making Marxist thought compatible with ecological thinking, Tim Morton also develops a radical philosophical theory of ROCKING. Mr. Schneebly approves.
August 21, 2024
A wonderful reflection on the complexities of interdependency. A move away from the human as central figure.
December 6, 2022
morton needs to cut it out with his jargon. im not a fan of this book.
February 15, 2019
In Humankind: Solidarity with Non-Human People, Timothy Morton looks on Marx as a piece of computer software. Specifically, he seeks to sweep through Marx’s thinking and identify the ‘bug’ in his system, which is, according to Morton, his anthropocentrism. Whether Morton succeeds or not seems to me a difficult question, but, for reasons I hope to spell out, I’m pretty much willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
First off, in the interest of being totally honest, I must confess I did not entirely understand everything in this book. Morton deals in some deep-cut philosophy and ontology my grasp of which is tenuous at best. So, if my description is inaccurate, I apologise and am happy to be corrected!
Morton is most associated with ‘Object Oriented Ontology’ (he calls it ‘OOO’ throughout the book), which, as far as I can tell, is about investigating the actual nature and qualities of the object, remaining focused on it, instead of obsessing over our perception of the object. Morton takes it further and posits the existence of ‘hyperobjects’, objects we can’t immediately access with our senses but the qualities of which are distributed across several objects, e.g. taste, texture, smell, and — according to Humankind — the idea of being a person. Morton seeks to cheapen humanity and personhood so that it can be applied in a ecocentric context, thereby adjusting (or, ‘de-bugging’) Marx, ridding him of his anthropocentrism and leaving him equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21st Century, the Anthropocene, and the 6th Mass Extinction Event.
My main problem with this isn’t the prescriptions or the criticism of Marx, rather it’s Morton’s seeming reluctance to completely spell out his framework. That was the main barrier to me getting on board. It may well just be me being characteristically dumb, but the fact Morton finds space in his book to give a winding, somewhat odd review of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) but not to quite explain what OOO is in a consistent few pages left me feeling a tad lost. I like to think I had a grasp of it by the end, but surely it wouldn’t have hurt Morton to go a little slower for those of us at the back. Furthermore, in his limited description of OOO, Morton seeks to differentiate it from ‘naive essentialism’; I myself do see the merit in keeping ontology rooted in the object, but again I don’t think Morton actually manages to spell out the difference completely.
That said, good swathes of the book are extremely enjoyable reading. The section on ‘Spectrality‘ was especially interesting, pointing to the fascinatingly un-present nature of human beings in a world we are (not so) slowly killing, surrounded on all sides by grim totems and ghosts of extinct species. In this context, the idea of ‘Fossil Fuels’ become even more gothically upsetting. (On a humourous note, it’s genuinely pretty funny to keep reading ‘OOO’ in a chapter about ghosts.)
Morton, to his credit, doesn’t give into a horror-tinged fatalism, and instead says that the positive elements of kindness and ‘humankind’ are achievable, conditional on solidarity with non-humans and our natural environment. And despite the fact it took me a little more effort to get on board with his framework that I would’ve liked, I’m willing to credit Humankind with doing something important. I firmly believe that the realities of the 21st Century, the Anthropocene and the 6th Mass Extinction Event means we require new and adaptable theory to cope with the challenges. Humankind begins, at least, to tend in that direction, asking us to abandon our anthropocentric concept of personhood and extend solidarity to the world around us. This is exactly the kind of new thinking I think I’m looking for, so regardless of my poor grasp on OOO and Morton’s reading of Marx (comparing Marx to a piece of software is a bit difficult, I think; if nothing else it suggest Marx does actually have a system in the first place), I’m pretty happy to extend my solidarity in the way Morton asks.
Overall, tricky though it can be, I’d recommend Humankind as an ecocentric text for anthropocentric people seeking to challenge themselves.
First off, in the interest of being totally honest, I must confess I did not entirely understand everything in this book. Morton deals in some deep-cut philosophy and ontology my grasp of which is tenuous at best. So, if my description is inaccurate, I apologise and am happy to be corrected!
Morton is most associated with ‘Object Oriented Ontology’ (he calls it ‘OOO’ throughout the book), which, as far as I can tell, is about investigating the actual nature and qualities of the object, remaining focused on it, instead of obsessing over our perception of the object. Morton takes it further and posits the existence of ‘hyperobjects’, objects we can’t immediately access with our senses but the qualities of which are distributed across several objects, e.g. taste, texture, smell, and — according to Humankind — the idea of being a person. Morton seeks to cheapen humanity and personhood so that it can be applied in a ecocentric context, thereby adjusting (or, ‘de-bugging’) Marx, ridding him of his anthropocentrism and leaving him equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21st Century, the Anthropocene, and the 6th Mass Extinction Event.
My main problem with this isn’t the prescriptions or the criticism of Marx, rather it’s Morton’s seeming reluctance to completely spell out his framework. That was the main barrier to me getting on board. It may well just be me being characteristically dumb, but the fact Morton finds space in his book to give a winding, somewhat odd review of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) but not to quite explain what OOO is in a consistent few pages left me feeling a tad lost. I like to think I had a grasp of it by the end, but surely it wouldn’t have hurt Morton to go a little slower for those of us at the back. Furthermore, in his limited description of OOO, Morton seeks to differentiate it from ‘naive essentialism’; I myself do see the merit in keeping ontology rooted in the object, but again I don’t think Morton actually manages to spell out the difference completely.
That said, good swathes of the book are extremely enjoyable reading. The section on ‘Spectrality‘ was especially interesting, pointing to the fascinatingly un-present nature of human beings in a world we are (not so) slowly killing, surrounded on all sides by grim totems and ghosts of extinct species. In this context, the idea of ‘Fossil Fuels’ become even more gothically upsetting. (On a humourous note, it’s genuinely pretty funny to keep reading ‘OOO’ in a chapter about ghosts.)
Morton, to his credit, doesn’t give into a horror-tinged fatalism, and instead says that the positive elements of kindness and ‘humankind’ are achievable, conditional on solidarity with non-humans and our natural environment. And despite the fact it took me a little more effort to get on board with his framework that I would’ve liked, I’m willing to credit Humankind with doing something important. I firmly believe that the realities of the 21st Century, the Anthropocene and the 6th Mass Extinction Event means we require new and adaptable theory to cope with the challenges. Humankind begins, at least, to tend in that direction, asking us to abandon our anthropocentric concept of personhood and extend solidarity to the world around us. This is exactly the kind of new thinking I think I’m looking for, so regardless of my poor grasp on OOO and Morton’s reading of Marx (comparing Marx to a piece of software is a bit difficult, I think; if nothing else it suggest Marx does actually have a system in the first place), I’m pretty happy to extend my solidarity in the way Morton asks.
Overall, tricky though it can be, I’d recommend Humankind as an ecocentric text for anthropocentric people seeking to challenge themselves.
May 31, 2021
Whilst I’m completely sympathetic to and wholly supportive of Mr Morton’s cause, and find his writings to be absolutely stimulating, fascinating and a somewhat refreshing diversion from what passes for most other high theory and philosophical writing these days, Humankind is - for the most part, I’m sorry to say - a more or less complete repetition and/or reiteration of the ideas already discussed quite adequately I thought in Morton’s Dark Ecology, with virtually every single concept (the excluded middle, subscendence, symbiosis, agrilogistics, hyperobjects, OOO and the Anthropocene) and argument rehashed all over again but without any significant changes, differences or conclusions. Although Morton’s intention is ostensibly presented as a dialogue with Marxian communism proper to show how Marx’s (anthropocentric) writings can be elevated and transmogrified in support of an ecologically centered (nonhuman) rereading, it is completely unnecessary for the most part and adds nothing substantially new or important to his earlier publication. And what is more, I haven’t entirely made up my mind whether or not this interpretation of a Marxist framework is wholly successful in conveying the efficacy of Morton’s undertaking as a whole. If we follow the logic of “first as tragedy then as farce”, then this book would seem to represent a particularly literal interpretation of just such a notion. This book has no real reason to exist insofar as the far superior Dark Ecology more than suffices to illuminate Morton’s thesis. In the end, however, it all comes down to which of Morton’s two books one chooses to read first as to the position one takes up on this dilemma. Moreover, there is also a certain undercurrent of delicious irony at work in this regard (or it is just my cynical reasoning?) in that to publish two quite identically similar books, which obviously consume precious resources in their (re)production, serves only to undermine Morton’s position as an ecologically orientated thinker who apparently thinks holistically “being-in-solidarity” with the nonhuman “symbiotic real”. Morton’s tethering to an undiluted and ubiquitous anthropocentrism is thus all over the economic fingerprints that underpin the book’s production. To expend resources unnecessarily is, frankly, a total waste of those resources and quite hypocritical conceptually speaking, as I’m sure Morton himself would no doubt acknowledge on some level. But isn’t that precisely one of the main tenets of his thinking after all? In an anthropocentric and human-centered world we are all of us hypocrites, and certainly the main cause of almost all of our most pressing problems - even the possibility of own demise as a species. Or perhaps it is just a cynical ploy by publishers to make money out of an already existent endeavor, much as one might choose between two different (yet identical) brands of toothpaste, to employ one of Morton’s own examples (Dark Ecology is published by Columbia University Press and the present volume by Verso). The book, therefore, is only awarded three stars for that reason as, for me, it serves no real purpose vis-a-vis Morton’s other published works. That being said, Morton is no doubt a brilliant and original thinker to be sure, and I certainly have an enormous amount of respect and admiration for his scholarly pursuits.
February 15, 2019
WARNING: Not a very generous review. Absolutely sloppy in fact.
This was such a frustrating read. At some times I outright hated the book, and wanted to throw it away (I think it's because I knew, deep down I had to finish it, that it was a nemesis of mine, and the thought of having to go through a hundred more pages of the same stuff was so revolting). I very much doubt if I'm on the same team as Timothy Morton. Aesthetically and viscerally, I don't like this book. Unfortunately, there's no way around it, because so far it is the only one explicitly dealing with a crucial question of our time: How to imagine something like the core of communism in a way that is about more than human relations? (And this is not just a euphemism for some kind of veganism, even if this is a stop Morton has taken and is related to it. But if you start to think of communism in terms of attachment instead of equality, which is how the question has been raised most strongly in France recently [e.g. in the ZAD] you inevitably end up with more than human attachments, e.g. the attachment to the place you live, the specific seasonal patterns there, the smell and the flora of the nearby wetland, this building that I squatted two years ago and my life-long dog companion etc. etc.). Morton does deal with these things and for that this book should be applauded. I would not recommend my friends to read it though, because it was so frustrating. I still struggle with describing why it was so frustrating, and one could counter: this is exactly why you need to read this book more, to explore any differences still implicit and turn it into an interesting conflict between two potential positions that are basically in close family ties (not to mention how these two imaginary positions are already a subset of a much larger communist tradition that has tended to exclude the more than human world, so we are really talking about a fierce fight between two very close and marginal positions). And of course, these are the conflicts which are most interesting. Unfortunately, I have a strong feeling, this won't happen. At least, I don't think I will do any work for it, here or elsewhere. I can only hope someone with the stamina and clarity would. This book could definitely be plundered for the many small stories or metaphors that appear through the book, if you ignore the overall idea of the book (which I admittedly still don't get). There's something messy and opportunistic about this book, I wouldn't want to waste too much time. And my gut tells me there's a lack of sincerity in Morton's use of the communist tradition. It reminds me of the constant change of vocabulary and symbols in the many shifting fads of the art industry (of which Morton is a frequent collaborator). I just don't trust this world, sorry.
This was such a frustrating read. At some times I outright hated the book, and wanted to throw it away (I think it's because I knew, deep down I had to finish it, that it was a nemesis of mine, and the thought of having to go through a hundred more pages of the same stuff was so revolting). I very much doubt if I'm on the same team as Timothy Morton. Aesthetically and viscerally, I don't like this book. Unfortunately, there's no way around it, because so far it is the only one explicitly dealing with a crucial question of our time: How to imagine something like the core of communism in a way that is about more than human relations? (And this is not just a euphemism for some kind of veganism, even if this is a stop Morton has taken and is related to it. But if you start to think of communism in terms of attachment instead of equality, which is how the question has been raised most strongly in France recently [e.g. in the ZAD] you inevitably end up with more than human attachments, e.g. the attachment to the place you live, the specific seasonal patterns there, the smell and the flora of the nearby wetland, this building that I squatted two years ago and my life-long dog companion etc. etc.). Morton does deal with these things and for that this book should be applauded. I would not recommend my friends to read it though, because it was so frustrating. I still struggle with describing why it was so frustrating, and one could counter: this is exactly why you need to read this book more, to explore any differences still implicit and turn it into an interesting conflict between two potential positions that are basically in close family ties (not to mention how these two imaginary positions are already a subset of a much larger communist tradition that has tended to exclude the more than human world, so we are really talking about a fierce fight between two very close and marginal positions). And of course, these are the conflicts which are most interesting. Unfortunately, I have a strong feeling, this won't happen. At least, I don't think I will do any work for it, here or elsewhere. I can only hope someone with the stamina and clarity would. This book could definitely be plundered for the many small stories or metaphors that appear through the book, if you ignore the overall idea of the book (which I admittedly still don't get). There's something messy and opportunistic about this book, I wouldn't want to waste too much time. And my gut tells me there's a lack of sincerity in Morton's use of the communist tradition. It reminds me of the constant change of vocabulary and symbols in the many shifting fads of the art industry (of which Morton is a frequent collaborator). I just don't trust this world, sorry.
February 12, 2018
Reading this was like being transported to a parallel universe, a very smart one.
Even though most of it made no sense at all, at least to me, I kept going because the writing was so good. Some of the other reviewers complained that the language was unnecessarily difficult, but the vocabulary is challenging precisely because Morton wants us to think carefully about what he is saying. If you look past that, you see that the syntax is simple, elegant, and unpretentious.
Plus, the man uses a Slinky to explain Hegel; there should be some kind of a Nobel Prize for that.
Even though most of it made no sense at all, at least to me, I kept going because the writing was so good. Some of the other reviewers complained that the language was unnecessarily difficult, but the vocabulary is challenging precisely because Morton wants us to think carefully about what he is saying. If you look past that, you see that the syntax is simple, elegant, and unpretentious.
Plus, the man uses a Slinky to explain Hegel; there should be some kind of a Nobel Prize for that.
December 20, 2020
"The waste products in Earth's crust are also human in this expanded, spectral sense, as if what the human becomes is a flickering ghost surrounded by a penumbra of flickering shadows that seem to hover around it like a distorted halo. This is what we shall call 'spectrality'."
The sentence above hints at both a core topic of Morton's non-human solidarity, but also at his frustrating, and at times unintelligible, writing style. I do not know if the author made an attempt to write "accessibly" or perhaps this simply is the author's voice. However, this book's language is paradoxical in a sense: acessible on its surface, but the essence of Morton's ideas is incredibly challenging to grasp. The drive-by references to Big Philosophical Names, the vague definitions that are rarely if ever well-explained, the metaphoric speech that simply does not "click", all of these aspects contributed to my thorough dislike of this book.
I fully expected to enjoy Humankind because I was deeply interested in the topic. Only from about page 120 onwards, did some aspects of the "spectrality" proposed by Morton start making sense. However, I do not attribute this to Morton's clear explanations, but rather to my own understanding of ecological systems. Maybe I am not the right audience; I am not a philosophical savant and I cannot claim to understand all of the works referenced by Morton. I still find this a shame, since the topic is probably broadly interesting to a range of folks.
Near the end of the book, Morton uses popular media (music and movies) to explain his ideas. In particular, there is a large exposition on his interpretation of Interstellar. I am not convinced that this discussion of popular media contributed greatly to the book's central thesis. I also found it very frustrating, because frankly, you should not have to google a movie plot to understand what Morton is going on about.
To summarize - after I was finally able to reconcile my understanding of species definitions with Morton's definition of spectrality, the book started making more sense. The ideas hold value, are interesting and probably extremely relevant to the ways we tackle major crises in modern-day society. However, it is unfortunate that the language in this book is mostly a source of frustration, rather than understanding.
The sentence above hints at both a core topic of Morton's non-human solidarity, but also at his frustrating, and at times unintelligible, writing style. I do not know if the author made an attempt to write "accessibly" or perhaps this simply is the author's voice. However, this book's language is paradoxical in a sense: acessible on its surface, but the essence of Morton's ideas is incredibly challenging to grasp. The drive-by references to Big Philosophical Names, the vague definitions that are rarely if ever well-explained, the metaphoric speech that simply does not "click", all of these aspects contributed to my thorough dislike of this book.
I fully expected to enjoy Humankind because I was deeply interested in the topic. Only from about page 120 onwards, did some aspects of the "spectrality" proposed by Morton start making sense. However, I do not attribute this to Morton's clear explanations, but rather to my own understanding of ecological systems. Maybe I am not the right audience; I am not a philosophical savant and I cannot claim to understand all of the works referenced by Morton. I still find this a shame, since the topic is probably broadly interesting to a range of folks.
Near the end of the book, Morton uses popular media (music and movies) to explain his ideas. In particular, there is a large exposition on his interpretation of Interstellar. I am not convinced that this discussion of popular media contributed greatly to the book's central thesis. I also found it very frustrating, because frankly, you should not have to google a movie plot to understand what Morton is going on about.
To summarize - after I was finally able to reconcile my understanding of species definitions with Morton's definition of spectrality, the book started making more sense. The ideas hold value, are interesting and probably extremely relevant to the ways we tackle major crises in modern-day society. However, it is unfortunate that the language in this book is mostly a source of frustration, rather than understanding.
December 7, 2022
If an author has something to say that's worth my reading, he should write it in language that a reasonably intelligent person (as I think of myself) can understand.
The inside flap of the dust jacket makes complete sense: For instance "becoming human ... means creating a network of kindness and solidarity with nonhuman beings, in the name of a broader understanding of reality that both includes and overcomes the notion of species."
But page 2 (the beginning of the introduction, where I would expect the author to write in clear prose that sets us up for a more complex argument with more technical jargon in the next chapter): "Relying-on is the uneasy fuel of the symbiotic real; this relying-on always has its haunted aspect, so that a symbiont can become toxic or strange-seeming relationships can form, which is how evolution works. The right word to describe this reliance between discrete yet deeply interrelated beings is "solidarity." Without the tattered incompletion of the symbiotic real at every scale, solidarity would have no meaning. Solidarity is possible and widely available because it is the phenomenology of the symbiotic real as such." A
If only the person who wrote the dust jacket summary had written the entire book.
I read only the first 12 pages and set this book aside. I could spend months poring over what Morton is trying to say, worrying it to death, underlining, highlighting, sticking Post-it notes in it, and tearing my hair out, but there are many other books out there to entertain me intellectually. I have more books remaining on my must-read (and must-read-again) list than I can read in the years I have left.
The inside flap of the dust jacket makes complete sense: For instance "becoming human ... means creating a network of kindness and solidarity with nonhuman beings, in the name of a broader understanding of reality that both includes and overcomes the notion of species."
But page 2 (the beginning of the introduction, where I would expect the author to write in clear prose that sets us up for a more complex argument with more technical jargon in the next chapter): "Relying-on is the uneasy fuel of the symbiotic real; this relying-on always has its haunted aspect, so that a symbiont can become toxic or strange-seeming relationships can form, which is how evolution works. The right word to describe this reliance between discrete yet deeply interrelated beings is "solidarity." Without the tattered incompletion of the symbiotic real at every scale, solidarity would have no meaning. Solidarity is possible and widely available because it is the phenomenology of the symbiotic real as such." A
If only the person who wrote the dust jacket summary had written the entire book.
I read only the first 12 pages and set this book aside. I could spend months poring over what Morton is trying to say, worrying it to death, underlining, highlighting, sticking Post-it notes in it, and tearing my hair out, but there are many other books out there to entertain me intellectually. I have more books remaining on my must-read (and must-read-again) list than I can read in the years I have left.
May 24, 2024
Most of it went over my head—not an easy read. For a more rewarding experience it feels like one may need to be at least somewhat familiar with the writings of Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Heidegger, Whitehead, Adorno, Derrida, Deleuze and Badiou to name only a few, in no particular order. My knowledge of these thinkers and their work is practically non-existent, so I struggled. I had to reread some sections more than twice and still couldn’t quite follow. The fact that “His prose, constructed of successive declarative zingers, often lacks adequate connective tissue,” as per the LA Review of Books, didn’t make it any easier.
Occasionally though, these “declarative zingers” along with shreds of “connective tissue” provided adequate markers, and I could get a feel for the compelling arguments and ideas in the book. Apart from those mentioned above, he references and touches on scores of other interesting thinkers and texts worth looking into—one of the great things about the book. It acts as a kind of gateway drug (like all good books should?).
Despite the struggle, I enjoyed it, and look forward to revisiting it at a later stage (perhaps when I’m more familiar with the thinkers and texts he draws on). As frustrating as it was at times, I appreciated the overall experience and it inspired me to want to read some of his other books.
For a great review try:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/k...
Occasionally though, these “declarative zingers” along with shreds of “connective tissue” provided adequate markers, and I could get a feel for the compelling arguments and ideas in the book. Apart from those mentioned above, he references and touches on scores of other interesting thinkers and texts worth looking into—one of the great things about the book. It acts as a kind of gateway drug (like all good books should?).
Despite the struggle, I enjoyed it, and look forward to revisiting it at a later stage (perhaps when I’m more familiar with the thinkers and texts he draws on). As frustrating as it was at times, I appreciated the overall experience and it inspired me to want to read some of his other books.
For a great review try:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/k...
July 19, 2023
In an anecdote in the book, Morton points out that he encourages students in theory courses to "dare to ask dumb questions". In line with this mindset, he does not write a highly complex, abstract and hard to understand book on ecological theory. Rather, the book is highly readable even to a layperson like me. Part of the readability is how much he stays down-to-earth and connects complex theories to everyday concepts. He discusses Marx and Heidegger at the same time as he picks up on Björk's song Hyperballad, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Interstellar and Star Wars.
However, that does not make the book trivial. Rather, it warps your mind so you try to discard your anthropocentrism and see yourself as part of a planetary whole, at the same time as you are more than a tiny part of the planet, you are also a biome of microorganisms and the story of eons of evolution. And it makes you question your actions. Is it really so insignificant what I as an individual do to the environment?
With planetary awareness, "there is no "away" to flush your toilet waste to" (p. 49).
However, that does not make the book trivial. Rather, it warps your mind so you try to discard your anthropocentrism and see yourself as part of a planetary whole, at the same time as you are more than a tiny part of the planet, you are also a biome of microorganisms and the story of eons of evolution. And it makes you question your actions. Is it really so insignificant what I as an individual do to the environment?
With planetary awareness, "there is no "away" to flush your toilet waste to" (p. 49).
January 31, 2022
Humankind: Solidarity with Non-Human People reads like an epic free verse poem that had me giggling out loud almost constantly!
Marxism or communism must include solidarity with non-human people to be coherent!
Tim emphasizes the specter of the symbiotic real and how 'life' is more expansive than our correlating reason can manage to capture, which leads to a traumatic 'severing' when we try to operate within systems that ignore this (such as the full richness of subjective value being severed as one projects it into one-dimensional monetary value). (This made the book especially fun to read concurrently with The Body Keeps the Score.)
Speciesism is seen to be little different from racism: seeking excuses to justify lording over other beings.
The idea of 'subscendence' and how wholes such as 'capitalism' are less than their parts is cute to play with :- p
The conclusion is to make the little piggies happy :-3
As befitting a poem, impressionistic brain-massage occurred more than gaining clearly regurgitatable summaries.
Marxism or communism must include solidarity with non-human people to be coherent!
Tim emphasizes the specter of the symbiotic real and how 'life' is more expansive than our correlating reason can manage to capture, which leads to a traumatic 'severing' when we try to operate within systems that ignore this (such as the full richness of subjective value being severed as one projects it into one-dimensional monetary value). (This made the book especially fun to read concurrently with The Body Keeps the Score.)
Speciesism is seen to be little different from racism: seeking excuses to justify lording over other beings.
The idea of 'subscendence' and how wholes such as 'capitalism' are less than their parts is cute to play with :- p
The conclusion is to make the little piggies happy :-3
As befitting a poem, impressionistic brain-massage occurred more than gaining clearly regurgitatable summaries.
Read
June 21, 2019This book has made a great companion, counter-position, on my travels through Italy looking at the great iconographic paintings of the Catholic Church (I grew up in an American gulf coast version of that church). My focus has been Piero, whose pure geometric forms feel more transcendent than most, but for the most part it’s a closed symbology.
Morton’s position weakens the plot for Catholicism. Slow back-stitch reading for a month.
The text urges one towards a less human-centric understanding of Marxism, or if you like, a more ecological view of life on earth- particularly in its economic realizations.
I like his views on the spectral quality of existence and it’s ontological implications in the realm of economics. To my mind, they say everything about the urgent role
Of Painting and the visual arts in earth’s surface survival as well as our human experience.
Morton’s position weakens the plot for Catholicism. Slow back-stitch reading for a month.
The text urges one towards a less human-centric understanding of Marxism, or if you like, a more ecological view of life on earth- particularly in its economic realizations.
I like his views on the spectral quality of existence and it’s ontological implications in the realm of economics. To my mind, they say everything about the urgent role
Of Painting and the visual arts in earth’s surface survival as well as our human experience.
February 13, 2021
Full of provocative and useful ideas, but the style is too dense and jargon-filled for my taste. Some sections were compelling, others a slog to get through. He has a frustrating (to me) habit of making a series of assertions that to my mind don't really logically follow from another but are presented as if they are the most undeniable sequence of insights in the world. He might critique my preference for things logically following, but oh well. His central task – a communism for humans and nonhumans – is one I support, even where I disagree on details (or couldn't really tell whether I agree or not).
Having just read the southern reach trilogy, it's unsurprising that Jeff VanderMeer likes Morton, in fact I kind of wish I'd read this first.
Having just read the southern reach trilogy, it's unsurprising that Jeff VanderMeer likes Morton, in fact I kind of wish I'd read this first.
November 19, 2023
I will give this two stars because the author is concerned about including animals within a leftist/Marxist worldview/policies, but as a longtime vegan and animal activist, I didn't need persuading. And as a person who dislikes western philosophy, I could barely understand a word that Morton meant. I got through maybe 20 pages or so and finally gave up (life is short). From what I recall, he has made up terms and then uses them to explain why animals should be included in leftist politics. This book could be of use to people who enjoy reading Nietzsche and Marx and debating them, but I am definitely not that audience. Just couldn't get through it.
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