Duistere ecologie

by Timothy Morton, Huub Stegeman (Translator)

In dit wonderlijk onorthodoxe boek combineert Timothy Morton filosofie, wetenschap, kunst en cultuur tot een verontrustend geheel. Hij sluit aan bij de steeds breder gevoerde discussie over het Antropoceen, het tijdperk waarin de mens een geologische factor is geworden en een destructieve invloed uitoefent op het klimaat en de gesteldheid van de aarde. Tegelijkertijd verzet hij zicht tegen de simplistische stelling dat het hier om eenrichtingsverkeer zou gaan: de mens wordt op zijn beurt net zo goed doorboord en bewerkt, aangetrokken en afgesloten door niet-menselijke actoren; zoals bacteriën en moleculen. Het duistere geheel dat deze interactie vormt laat zich niet makkelijk beschrijven: je moet het ervaren door dit boek te lezen.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Ecology, Nature, Environment, Science, Theory

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Timothy 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.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.5* of five

***COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS GAVE ME A REVIEW COPY AT MY REQUEST. THANK YOU.***

I can honestly say that Author Morton was writing directly to my most dearly held concerns. The Anthropocene, the current post-Holocene epoch of geological time, is a given in the author's thinking; if you're not in sync with 21st-century thinking and deny that climate change is not only happening but is largely if not entirely of human genesis, this book will not do one single thing for you. That is, it will make you screechingly furious, but it won't change your mind.

For the rest of us, the book's foundations in logic has lacunae. I'd expected to see the role of Big Science play a major part here; also Toxic Technology; instead Author Morton focuses on the philosophical and cultural roots of the Anthropocene. It's less about What Happened than it is about Why Things Are. We go down a bunch of rabbit holes to explore the nature of the Anthropocene's genesis, we spend a lot of time (in the footnotes) digging for truffles in the dirt of our Collective Unconscious, and in the end come to the surface of our minds with some useful new concepts. "Agrilogistics" and "ecognosis" are worthy neologisms for deep and tangled concepts. A simple explanation of them is that the reductive power of modern STEM-based environmental discussion ignores a huge reservoir of knowledge that comes from our shared, lived experience; this isn't in any way a comprehensive explanation so my suggestion is to read the 192 pages of the book slowly and carefully.

It repaid me enormously to do so and it could do that for you as well.

[6655321 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like *liking* or *hating* this book is a matter of taste; i actually don't *hate* it so much as i wish Morton would settle the fuck down and sometimes cash out ideas more directly while spending less time explaining OOO and hyperobject theory as much as i *appreciated* that he is writing fairly accessibly about difficult topics. Mostly, I guess and this is the nihilist in me, this feels like a less fang-y and updated theoretical version of Against Leviathan Against His-Story and yet it also has a less *optimistic* space and I wish that Morton would dwell there more and just *give the fucking difficult and horrifying* time to breathe and envelop because the ending feels like an optimistic cop out. I still think people should read this and it is good to think with?

[Laura Walin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book that I read from Timothy Morton and I continue to have the feeling that he is just kidding me. Although this one is an easier read than 'Ecology without Nature', it seems to me that Morton makes his argument too difficult to follow, just for art's (fun's, f**k's, whatever) sake. Contrary to EwN though, I think I understood the main arguments: Invention of agriculture was when things between humans and nature started to go wrong, starting from the fact that we made the distinction between nature and us. We shoul re-learn to let go of that, and see everything in this planet just intertwined whole. After closing the book I have the uneasy feeling that he could have made this point in 25 pages in a much more coherent way. But maybe it is just the natural scientist in me talking.

[Buck Wilde · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gibberish. The book is a stack of loose connections that never get paid off. Morton invents more complex phrasings for concepts that already exist (spare me the "hyperobjects", everything an English professor is going to grapple with exists in discernible units of time) then relay-races back and forth between them in an effort to make an argument, such as it is, look less like a collection of Burning Man doodle book scratchings.

It's an emperor's new clothes situation, and has little to do with either ecology or darkness. Skip it.

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 3 out of 5]

Čak kad izgubi uzde nad sopstvenim konceptima, Timoti Morton ima onu potrebnu i podsticajnu dozu provokativnosti, koja, preispitujući, inspiriše i osnažuje. Njegov naježeni tekst vrvi od ideja i još više od želje da retorika postaje dovoljno dobar poligon za dobro temperovani ontološki galimatijas, gde se, ako neko baš zapne, može naći teorijski ćup na kraju duge. Kao jedan od najpoznatijih predstavnika ekokritike, Morton uporno preispituje (odnosno, dekonstruiše) osnovne ekokritičke kategorije. Metodom petlje, odnosno, zamršenosti, pokazuje kako su smisao i besmisao sijamski blizanci i kako je priroda, zapravo, proizvod kulture. Zbog toga antropocen, kao geološka epoha u kojoj je uticaj čoveka toliki da se reflektuje na čitavu biosferu, nije ne-prirodan, već je njen košmarni, toksični oblik. Uzrok pojave antropocena Morton pronalazi u nečemu što naziva „agrilogistics”, odnosno, poljoprivredni impuls. Svaka ostala aktivnost čovekova proističe upravo iz tog podsticaja – obrade zemlje. Morton ide toliko daleko da u navedenom konceptu pronalazi uzrok patrijarhata, ali i kapitalizma, jer tek obrađivanjem zemlje, odnosno, shvatanjem da zemlja nije samo prostor (space), već i mesto (place), pokreću se i pitanja posedovanja. Kultivizacija predstavlja, stoga, nameru da se hijerarhija promeni – umesto da prostor ima nas, mi, pripitomljavajući ga, imamo prostor. Morton izdvaja tri agrilogistička aksioma, koji su utrli put silnim nevoljama: 1) logički zakon neprotivrečnosti je neizbežan; 2) postojanje znači stalno prisustvo; 3) količina postojanja važnija je od načina postojanja. Pokušaj da se navedeni aksiomi razobliče, nije sasvim uspešan, ali taj pravac razmišljanja je vrlo zanimljiv, pa i potreban. Takođe, pišući o, na primer, globalnom zagrevanju, Morton analizira koje su odlike nečega što se zove „wicked problem”. To, otprilike, ide ovako: 1) ako se rešimo globalnog zagrevanja, nikada nećemo moći da dokažemo da bi ono moglo da zaista uništi planetu; 2) WP su problemi neodređene beskonačnosti (ja bih dodao – poput pandemija); 3) rešenja za WP ne mogu biti određena kao ispravna ili pogrešna, već kao dobra ili loša; 4) mi smo u problemu dok ga rešavamo, problem se, zapravo, ne može iz sebe izdvojiti... I štošta ovde može još da se kaže, ali mislim da je ovo sasvim dobro za utisak. Verovatno je suvišno reći da i Morton, poput mnogih savremenih mislilaca, nije imun na autoreciklažu, s time što zna da se izvuče nekim šašavostima – jer, ko bi mogao još da spoji Lori Anderson i Huserla, Deridu i WALL-E-ja, Hegela i Bodlera sa „U potrazi za Nemom”, Šilera, Žižeka i Šopenhauera i veštačko meso. Razbarušen um jedan, Timoti.

Nije slučajno da je uroboros (zmija koja samu sebe jede), ključni simbol ove knjige – prisutan na kraju svakog poglavlja. Mračna ekologija je, svezajedno, bauk nakićen svetlećim lampicama, pušten u sobu punu ljudi, pa kako se ko, u razularenosti, snađe.

[Dean Zochert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A challenging book to read and assimilate. New terms, new ideas (that are really old ideas being brought to light), and a style of writing that is truly aesthetic. Morton explores the philosophy of the current ecological paradigm and how we got to where we are. He also investigates where we need to go from here. He explains how current environmentalism is missing the mark, totally, because it's based on the thinking of the old paradigm. We need a new way of speaking about the web of life and its interconnectedness. Morton starts that conversation with new terms such as "agrilogistics" and "ecognosis" and "arche-lithic." This is not a book to be understood as much as it is a book to experience, ponder, and settle into.

I will say that I had the advantage of reading this book in a group setting over just a few days. We were able to discuss and flesh out concepts that otherwise would have gone unnoticed for me. The group was facilitated by a woman who is well educated, has college level teaching experience, and has a passion for language. Yes, I had an unfair advantage.

[Daniel Petersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently finished a brief academic review of this for The Kelvingrove Review. Will link to it when it comes out. This is a very difficult work because Morton is trying to break out of dominant modes of logic (especially the 'Law of Noncontradiction', so you can imagine!). Yet it's also a scintillating read, full of vertiginous ideas and images, swallowing up the human in hyperobject upon hyperobject. 'Hyperobject' is Morton's term for something so gigantic in time and space that you can't see it all at once. The main hyperobjects he evokes and explores in this book are the human species, the age of agriculture, the Anthropocene, and global warming.

You might be tempted to give up half way through but you'd be missing out on the payoff of following his discussion through to its climax and fullness. Not that it ties things up neatly. But the full impact only comes from the cumulative conceptualisation achieved by the end. And, of course, it's a book that needs to be re-read a number of times.

It's worth noting that references to monsters, ancient and modern, Sphinx to Godzilla, abound in this book. It could almost be titled Monstrous Ecology. Those involved in Monster Studies will find much of interest. My favourite line in this regard is: ‘There’s a monster in the dark mirror, and you are a cone in one of its eyes’ (p. 42). In context, it packs quite a punch.

His breakdown of three kinds of dark ecology was helpful and fascinating. It's a descending order where the lower/deeper you go, the more real things get: 1) dark-depressing, 2) dark-uncanny, and 3) dark-sweet. (I'm reminded of the owl licking the tootsie pop.) I think I've been mostly focusing on Morton's engagement with the dark-uncanny in my interaction with his previous works. I'm excited to engage more with his dark-sweet ecology - which involves laughter in the sadness, comedy, and 'The Joy' at the bottom of everything, beneath the horror. (He does a controversial but very interesting take down of ecophilosophers' love affair with Lovecraft.) Though he's stoutly against monotheism throughout the book, his deepest layer of dark ecology, in which Joy pervades, has a lot in common with Trinitarian theology. He does note that his view is not one of atheism, but of an undecidable tension between a pointless universe and a meaningful one (or something along those lines).

Indeed, the whole book is about the open-endedness of being, the 'gap' in all things, as Morton calls it (a term Graham Harman favours as well) and learning to live with and within that gap. The gap is a breakage and spillage between what a thing *is* and its many appearances (drawing on Heideggerian thought), which, if honoured, and even magnified in a way, preserves mystery and 'magic' in all things. So Morton argues.

It's the most tenaciously philosophical work I've read by Morton, largely leaving to one side his usual field of ecocriticism (the study of environment in literature). He engages literature a little bit, and he features his usual peppering of films, contemporary art, pop music, etc., but he focuses mostly on ironing out and mapping out a new conceptual space for ecological thinking. It builds on, and to some degree recapitulates, what he's written before. Yet it blazes genuinely new territory. I really look forward to seeing it discussed in a variety of communities and disciplines. He's strongest when unpacking positive ideas and weakest when dismissing (often quite sweepingly and not a little snarkily) the ideologies he opposes, from agriculture to Aristotelianism. The snarkiness makes for a punchy read, but also obviously begs for rebuttals. He describes the metaphysics he opposes as 'Easy Think' ontology and pits against it his 'Difficult Think' ontology. I'm hugely sympathetic, but I also am somewhat familiar with some of what he opposes and 'easy' is not at all how I'd describe it (that hylemorphism, for example, is some cop out theory of being is laughable).

It's an exciting book that I hope is widely read and discussed. I know it will inform my own ongoing doctoral research and will make a strong contribution to my theory of 'ecomonstrous' poetics in literature.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Dark Ecology” is an environmental philosophy book by Rice professor and notorious object-oriented ontologist Timothy Morton. In this book, Morton attempts to convey a new framework through which to view the current climate collapse. This new method of thinking he called dark ecology, and defines as a method of ecological knowing in which one is conscious not only of their being a part of ecosystems rather than above them, but also that the very nature of ecology is in and of itself a strange and dark one. Further developing this infant thought through the remainder of the book, Morton draws upon Post-Kantianism, hyperobjects, and modern art to not only convey what a dark ecology is, but to awaken the reader themselves to the weirdness of such.

This book, more than many things I’ve ever read, tends to walk a thin line between being a work of genius and being incomprehensible nonsense. In many ways it’s both, and for that reason it’s a book I’ll never be able to say with certainty that I actually “get.” Nonetheless, in my opinion it ultimately erred toward the side of genius, though it sure did bring a great deal of nonsense along with it.

Morton writes like an anthropologist that’s trying to be a philosopher. Meaning, his work is infused with the very same critical theoretical jargon that in anthropology I find so nauseous, but without the ethnographic bit that makes anthropologists actually worth reading. Only making matters worse is that, along side this, Morton seemed to find it necessary to fill this book with all manner of pop culture references, muddling an already muddled collection of cited literatures.

Much like the “joy beneath the sadness” that Morton in this book declares so incremental to dark ecology, however, there shines beneath this book’s slough of words a treasure trove of ideas and concepts. Take agrilogistics, for example: here, introduced in the first chapter, is a concept of agriculture coming from a larger system of interconnected logics that determine the way we rationalize not only food production, but literally everything about our world. And that’s just one of many of the genius frameworks which Morton brings to the table. Take for example his antithesis to agrilogistics, the arche-lithic.

Don’t just take my word for it, though. Pick up the book yourself and give it a read, and understand why it may be one of the most important texts written on the anthropocene to date. Or maybe starting with Morton’s earlier works and moving chronologically would be better. I know that what I’ll be doing from here on out.

[Becka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moments of lucidity interspersed with large swathes of nonsense. I will admit to skim-reading this rather than taking in every detail, but that is partly because Morton's style is too playful for its own good - he seems to be arguing some obvious things with an awful lot of waffle piled on top for the sake of it. Academic writing which deliberately obscures its own meaning feels more like a form of gatekeeping to me than ever at the moment, so I'm not inclined to be forgiving of it.

[xenia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Morton writes like Derrida, except instead of developing a point, he gives the point ten different names, as if doing so develops it. It's an easy if shallow read, especially in relation to other speculative philosophers like Karen Barad, Dylan Trigg, or Benjamin Noys.

My thoughts on Morton are thoroughly documented here. Dark Ecology furthers his project of developing a species-consciousness that transcends individual-consciousness. This is not a transcendence that erases the I, but rather connects it to the us of global warming, and other geophysical systems ignored by both capitalist and Marxist economics (John Bellamy Foster may refute Morton's claim). The Anthropocene is an intervention, whereby human forces become intimately entwined with "natural" ones. Such a connection is weird, an iteration of the sublime, wherein the thought of an immense force is precisely immense due to its unthinkability. For Morton, this limit is the gap between the noumenal and phenomenal, and unlike the speculative realists, he argues this gap cannot be crossed. Yet, like the new materialists, he argues that things are more than language. Things rear themselves up and shatter our preconceived notions of them. Even if all we know is phenomenal, the noumenal is agential and material, beyond our grasp and control. The gap between knowledge and thingliness is itself a strange knowing. The I falters when they find themselves caught in a strange loop between statistical irrelevancy and catastrophic climate change: the turning of a car key transmuted into the meltdown of the ice caps. Through strange loops, different scales of space and time collapse and remain eerily apart. The I doesn't disappear, but it becomes implicated in something larger than itself, which cannot be resolved.

Modern weird fiction scholarship, and new weird literature, explore such moments of collapse and connection. An explosion of new terms have been coined and elaborated on in the past thirty years: the abhuman, the unhuman, the sublate; the monstrous, the unnatural, the nonhuman, the cyborg. All share the general theme of modernism and postmodernism: the displacement of the human under modernity. Yet, many of these terms, and their exploration in weird fiction, understand the role of the human in displacing itself. The shift from weird fiction (1890-1930) to New Wave science fiction (1960s-1980s) is a shift in the experience of cosmic horror from the register of the ontological to the political. In weird fiction, the protagonist realises their insignificance in relation to forces outside of their control. Such forces are radically alien. Such forces erase the I. In New Wave science fiction, such forces are revealed to be human in origin, a move that transforms the alien into alienation. Outsideness becomes coupled to subjugation. From William H. Hodgson's "The Voice in the Night" (1907) to Thomas Disch's The Genocides (1969), the inhumanity of the outside shifts from recruitment into a nonhuman ecological system (parasitism) to recruitment into a dehumanising economic system (colonisation). Both stories involve reverse colonisation. In "The Voice in the Night," the protagonist is colonised by an unknown fungi into a source of food. In The Genocides, Earth is terraformed by an alien race into a colony for profit extraction. In both cases, the human is displaced by an alien Other, however, The Genocides connects this event to a strange loop—to the contingency of an economic system that is uncannily our own. The ontological displacement of the weird emerges out of a distinctly political event.

I am deeply indebted to posthumanist thought, but I take issue with thinkers like Morton and Barad, whose ontologies cannot account for alienation and hierarchies of power. This moment in The Genocides, when the reader realises that the book is about us, is a moment that cannot be understood apart from an understanding of inequality. Such an inequality is not merely quantitative. The aliens in The Genocides are qualitatively different from humans due to class. They have fenced off the Earth with the humans inside. They have reduced the Earth into a plot of land. The Genocides is a genocide because humans aren't even wage labourers anymore. They have neither exchange value nor use value. They have become pests to a crop sown to meet the dictates of an interplanetary iron cage. What is horrifying in The Genocides is not a gap between knowledge and thingliness, but a gap between agency and thingliness. There are two degrees of alienation at work here: 1) between the alien profiteers and their technocratic operators (exploitation), and 2) between the alien and human species (genocide). The alien technocrats calculate yield quotas and productivity rates to the unheard choir of human screams. They dehumanise themselves through the effacement of living others. New materialists are obsessed with refuting correlationism, but what matters at a political level is not a gap in knowledge, but a gap in autonomy. Whenever I read thinkers like Morton and Barad, I become increasingly incensed at their failure to grasp this aspect of alienation. What is the point of us-ness, if it's merely a species-consciousness, and not one capable of resolving different political groups, and the function of certain groups in controlling, exploiting, and killing others?

I'm so sick of reading about the horror of Kant, because I'm still living in the horror of Marx.

*Throws China Miéville book at screen.*

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I do not claim to understand this book or any of Morton’s ideas. That said, along with Donna Haraway, I consider Timothy Morton to be the most exciting thinker around right now. Despite this being shorter than his other books, Dark Ecology is arguable the most challenging. I mean, he does a damn good job of channeling his inner Heidegger —from the lyrical —romantic or baroque?- style of writing to the endless string of new terms he coins —also a la Martin Heidegger.

arche-lithic, the mesh, subscendence, weird weirdness, phasing loops, strange loops, ecognosis, etc.
Are you still reading?

Along with the dizzyingly playful new terminology, literary details pop off the pages. His writing is beautiful—even if you have a hard time ever figuring out what in the hell the man is trying to argue.

His book Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People is probably my favorite so far --and many of the ideas in that work are presented here as well-- but I think the other one is just much more rigorous in terms of laying out the idea and presenting an argument. So if you are only going to read one, I would recommend that one… even over hyperobjects.

Thoughts I had while reading (not necessarily relevant to Morton’s book since I can’t be sure of anything). Where, Heidegger saw humankind (i.e. German people) as having progressed through a series of changing understandings of being, Morton is saying we had one big transition and that happened when we transitioned from Paleo to Neolithic…

“How Mesopotamian of us.” (That is my favorite sentence in the book, by the way.)

We became agriculturalists. This resulted in the technological understanding of being of Heidegger but Morton is saying it also resulting in what we call the anthropocene. He hates the word Nature because it functions to solidify the abyss Neolithics created between some humans and the rest of existence. We are already a multi-species crowd. That is, he rejects Cartesian dualism—even self/other human/animal.

A lot is going on in the book. It is like Nietzsche has come back from the dead and is writing more fever dreams.

The other thing I loved about this book is the concept of play. Play happens in the gap between a think and its correlation… this kind of open-endedness of being. Morton feels it is through play and imagination that will preserve mystery and magic. Why is this good? Well, we are trying in his book to step out of the production/consumption loop that he is arguing has been with us since Mesopotamian times.

If you are at all interested, I wrote this some years ago about play, and I believe Morton is dead right about the function of play and we avoid it at our peril
https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...

Okay, I might need to re-read this one again and then try again at this review...

[Reinier van Baaren · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cool thing about this book is that it presents a kind of paradigm shift, offering a dark ecological perspective that challenges conventional views of the world. Morton's style is evocative, which serves as both a strength and a weakness. On one hand, it brings a refreshing, thought-provoking, and original approach to the subject matter. On the other hand, the book's use of associations, metaphors, and complex sentences can make it challenging to fully grasp the author's intended meanings, or to make sense of the book at all even for yourself.

[Pearse Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got 1/3rd of the way through. I'm disappointed in myself. I just could not absorb or comprehend half of what he was saying, and that's partially my fault, but Morton also does not make it an easy job. I think he's best absorbed through OTHERS: when Vandermeer described his hyperobjects idea online, or when The Guardian did a profile on him, I understood it. Here: nope. Nope nope nope, and I hate that inaccessibility.

[Jen Cater · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a very misleading book. What i believed i was buying was a book on theory. About ecology. But what it really came down to was Morton continuously repeating the same philosophical drivel over and over. I was expecting facts and figures. Maybe to even learn about something but all i learnt is that this book was inspired by some warped political incentive. Such a shame. My fault for buying a book based on what it promises, i guess?

[G. Munckel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morton reflexiona sobre el impacto que el hombre ha tenido en el planeta desde la invención de la agricultura, quizás el punto de inicio del daño, quizás el primer antecedente del Antropoceno. Cuestiona las convenciones sobre nuestra relación con el medioambiente e invita a buscar una respuesta a los problemas ecológicos pensándolos desde nuevas perspectivas que quiebren la lógica tradicional: hay que pensar a mayor escala, apuntando a la coexistencia entre seres humanos y seres no humanos.

No voy a mentir: esta ha sido una lectura difícil. Pero reconozco que el problema fue mío: me faltó bagaje teórico para aprovechar mejor este libro (mis conocimientos sobre ontología son casi nulos, por poner un ejemplo), me faltó paciencia para investigar algunos términos que Morton maneja como básicos, me faltaron lecturas de su obra previa que quizás me hubieran facilitado su comprensión.

Por otro lado, la facilidad con que Morton pasa de las referencias filosóficas a las de la cultura popular, la soltura con que crea o se presta neologismos, inventando conceptos cuando le hacen falta, le dan a su estilo un aire fresco, por más que no siempre sea muy ordenado para presentar sus ideas.

[Maud Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

The need to complete this book burdened me for 5 years, but I held on tight. Morton has a fascinating mind and way of writing, heavily intellectualising situations with classics, science, pop music and art references. On top of this, I find that Morton is the best at then 'neuroticising' concepts- within a sentence, concepts grow and burst, shatter, and loop around going faster and faster, everything is real but not. A playful yet dark funhouse of thought. The world is an insanely bad psychedelic drug trip, anxiety spiral, panic attack, whatever you want to call it. Everything reinforces itself, beginnings and ends blur. And yet... Laugh at it. Play around. Morton seems to get at that.

This book offers an abstract new perspective. Micro-perspectives maybe, with the many concepts to pick from and expand on in our own way. I enjoy the descriptions of knowledge like geographical space, like 'uncanny valleys' and plains to indicate a fully entangled life, although this was only a page or two, it would have been good to extend and further discuss that concept. Same goes to the concept of humanity and the 'autoimmune', are we a virus upon ourself? Huh? Also the idea of the ecological to be comprising of spectres, ghosts and spirits- hauntology is of course discussed. Folklore- proposing for the establishment of new folklore of our troubled times (honour not nature, but ecology- plutoniuming ourselves, honouring the plutonium with routine care and such). The concept of toys will stick with me- that everything is a toy, art, mechanism, like art, it is a physical manifestation of ecology. And toy-making can be loop-dismantling, redefining. Everything can be a toy. New politics, philosophies. Everything is play (as is their writing and concepts I suppose!). Morton's argued concept of agrilogistics is sound to me as well- how the original Mesopotamian agricultural practice was a key turning point for humanity, rooting how we view and control environments, and so people, information, Abrahamic religion, architecture, everything.

Lesser compelling, more so dizzying. Every page was dense, and I've let it detangle every way I've perceived the world, a mass ecological ego (egological?) death, many ideas and sentences of interest to pick, consider, and extrapolate as I mentioned above. Reading and digesting this as I read it was such an interesting experience. With books like this, digesting it is a constant process. This is a 2016 publication, just at the turn of acknowledgement of the climate crisis. Weirdly now, you'd consider such a book dated. Whether it has aged well or not is neglible, it is too early to tell. Whether it has aged like a 'fine wine'?! I'm not sure it's even a wine to drink. This book's some permanent uniquely flavourful dip on the side of everything, a 'bittersweet dark ecological chocolate' sauce. For every meal to come. I look forward to read all of my future books with this newly developed neurotically critical, bleak, ironic, doomed dark ecology lens.

It's a book that, despite being a painful read with dense sentences, some ideas extended and some irritatingly not, shakes everything up about what you think you know. If it hasn't affected you completely, it should have at least caused a slight quiver amongst the structures of everything you hold to yourself - to me, this is what a good book should do. And I feel stupid at the end. I love it. No book should ever make you feel that everything is solved. But really, this book might have taken it far- it is too many ego deaths and panic attacks. All ecologies are loops, reinforcements of themselves. When are we leaving, what are we? And a million more questions and even more potential answers. I'm sure Morton wants Dark Ecology to haunt me in the background, an irritating, looming cackle around me as I try to go about my life.

Finally finished this after reading it on and off since 2019. And it sure was interesting to do so. 2019-2024 was a period of immense societal change, a shift in the perception of nature, of climate change, has truly occurred. Also, a shift in how we view and relate to eachother, shifts in governmental and technological control. Paranoia, echo chambers.... whether Morton's words hold true, we'll see.

A couple of issues however: since Elon Musk has quoted that he is 'Dark MAGA', the concept of Dark Ecology keeps reminding me of that. Which is so annoying.
And, Morton writes, and writes, and writes with their unique references and intellectualisation-neuroticisation, but will this help the average person? What can we do? In the 2010s, it was easy to mull about the meaning of nature, whether we have an 'anthropocene'... but now in the 2020s as effects are being felt, we must consider action above intellectualising the whole thing. We can laugh at it, but we can't laugh at storms destroying homes, food shortages. Darkened by the age of misinformation, this book has instilled thought about potential future disparities in 'acknowledging' climate change. Climate change provokes academics and many to question nature. With Morton, they ponder the importance of art in transporting dynamics and place to ecologically affect us, agrilogistics, the eeriness of beauty and ennui, depression, and so on. But let's loop all the way back. Are we in too deep? What about those who don't get climate change? Who aren't academics, average working people who probably have no time or interest to learn? Will such people be victims of difficult weather, food shortages, cease to acknowledge, and resort to anger and superstition? Believe it is a biblical phenomenon? Believe some kind of matrix and go against one another? Find the world 'weird', 'off', 'not how it used to be', and blame it on certain populations? Will the disparity of how people understand climate change and nature widen? What limits our chance as a society to 'play' and make 'toys'?

[Xavier Roelens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toen ik aan het boek begon, had ik niet verwacht in zo'n taaltrip terecht te komen. Zigzaggend van prikkelende (of soms onnavolgbare) gedachte naar culturele verwijzing naar treffend (altijd weer treffend) beeld skiet Morton met de lezer als een willoze rugzak de berg af. Na het eerste hoofdstuk denk je nog: recht op de afgrond af. Maar hel wordt vagevuur wordt hemel. Aan het eind van het boek werd ik vrolijk door hoe hij aan ons consumentisme en narcisme een positieve draai gaf en verdedigde dat we enkel vanuit vrolijkheid iets aan ons klimaat kunnen doen. Of is het toch: met de glimlach naar de verdoemenis gaan?

[Jed Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

At its best this work of ecocritical theory sends the mind racing almost as quickly and feverishly as that of its author, spinning off to fresh avenues of thought and approaches to thinking through our disastrous ecological moment. At its worst the reader (or at least this one) struggles through page after page, hoping for a moment of clarity that would make the journey worth it. But one has to accept Morton on his own terms, and this book did enlighten me on a number of issues and approaches and I think I am a little bit smarter and more aware for having read it.

[Francis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ik lees nochtans regelmatig 'moeilijke ' boeken maar deze gaat er los over. Ik geef u één zin:

Het saterspel onderbouwde de agrilogistieke machinaties van de tragedie in haar ambigue archelitische grenstoestand tussen Neolithicum en Paleolithicum, waar 'monsters' en hybriden tussen mens en niet-mens (saters en centauren) rondwaren.

Bijna iedere (ellenlange) zin is overgoten met een sausje van de moeilijkste woorden en de bizarste filosofische overpeinzingen. Ik heb me door de eerste 40 pagina's geworsteld maar finaal opgegeven.

[Tybo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a disappointment. The beginning lured me with lyrical descriptions but it quickly dissolved into wordy, navel-gazing, post-modern drivel. The only point I think the author got correct was his insistence on narcissism; the whole book struck me as a show off of how many elaborate philosophical ideas and pop culture references he could cram into each paragraph. Obtusely dense for no reason (except I suspect to stroke his own ego, a la many a post modern writer: sexual pathology masquerading as political ideology yet again). Thank Gaia it was so short.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

while the book is extremely enjoyable to read, I think the author likes to generate new ideas more than teasing out the obvious errors in his playful judgment

[Olga_Kotki]

no to naprawdę nie musialo byc takie dlugie. Wstep od pana polaka>>>reszta ksiazki

[Carlo Wijers · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Dit wonderlijk onorthodoxe boek', aldus de flap. Geen boek, zeg ik: een installatie. Nieuwe woorden in een oude context, oude woorden in een nieuwe context; de verknopingen van toneel, film en wetenschap; het schetsen van een (agri)culturele historie; onze plek op of in of met de wereld - ik weet verdomme niet genoeg, begrijp niet wat er staat, het is gissen naar wat die Morton wil. Ik lees door, bang om het ritme te verliezen. Hopend op een pot goud sleep ik mij hijgend naar het einde. Nietzsches Zarathustra schiet door mijn gedachten, het boek te willen begrijpen lijkt niet de bedoeling. Morton lijkt erop uit je te bedwelmen, in een bepaalde staat te krijgen.

Een overdadige herziening van onze plek in deze alomvattende eindigheid. Een bruisende oproep om een andere manier van 'ons-verhouden-tot'. Verhoudingen tussen zijnden en niet-zijnden; verhoudingen 'tussen' een zijnde; ontologische cirkelbewegingen; vreemdheid; duistere ecologie; de wet van het al dan niet uitgesloten midden; ecognosis. En de ouroboros, de alchemistische slang die, in zijn eigen staart bijtende, een eeuwige cirkel vormt.

'De filosoof-profeet van het Antropoceen', volgens The Guardian. Weer Zarathustra. Maar toch meer de Pythia van het orakel van Delphi. Een boek in tongen. 203 pagina's aan stonede luciditeit.

[La Central · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Que una ecología sea oscura parece, de entrada, una contradicción. Una ecología que prescinde del verde, que no tiene a la naturaleza en el centro de la reflexión. ¿Una ecología sin naturaleza? No, no es una contradicción, esta es la propuesta del filósofo Timothy Morton. Una mirada crítica que analiza el impacto del hombre desde su aparición y más allá. Un esfuerzo por pensar todo lo que acontece (humano y no humano) a gran escala, a muchas escalas, a diferentes escalas, que se aumentan, contraponen, incluyen, comprimen, complementan. Estamos inmersos en un bucle, cuyo origen es casi imposible de rastrear. Y hace falta un cambio radical en nuestras mentes para poder salir de él. De lo contrario, cuanto más pretendamos solucionar el problema, con más contundencia lo perpetuaremos. Sirviéndose de la literatura, la filosofía, el feminismo, las referencias a la cultura popular, e inventando nuevos conceptos cuando es necesario, Morton abre un espacio de entendimiento, como ningún otro pensador ha sabido hacer. Este libro es una explosión a las estructuras del pensamiento convencional para el despertar de una comprensión capaz de romper el bucle de ese desastroso acontecer." Laura Sala

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim's reading of Sophocles at the start of The Second Thread shimmers brilliantly.
The page where he continues to scale out the loops of massive shifts within which Anthropocene is one will melt your mind in a good way that liquefies its plastic rigidity.
I would recommend Dark Ecology to those who've read some of his work already rather than as a starting point. If you're looking for the starting book: I say The Ecological Thought.

[Brian Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Playful, dense, difficult, provocative -- what else might we expect from Morton? -- and a significant contribution to the necessary reorientation of feeling (not just thinking) that's required for a possible sustainable future: "A thing is saturated with nothingness....Entities are so incredibly themselves." And it's this "themselves-ness" that we need to sense, which might give us what the earth needs from us: respect.

[Robotronik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m an ecologist by profession and I found this incomprehensible. This is a book for those that enjoy and are accustomed to reading technical philosophical prose. A shame for the rest of us since the book’s premise seems interesting. I heard the author speak on a podcast and really appreciated his perspective and sought out the book to learn more. But I found the logic exhausting to follow and gave up quite quickly.

[Ruby S · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reaaaaallly wanted to love this book and have an aha moment but Morton’s post structuralist way of writing is a level beyond my comprehension. I glimmered a few pieces of wisdom and intrigue and I like his emotional understanding of ecological awareness. Maybe in years to come I’ll try and tackle this again with more patience and time.

🥀🖤🧃

[Garrett Peace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understood about 40% of this, but it was engaging almost all the way through. Thought-provoking stuff.

[Costanza Miccichè · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 stelle in realtà)

Questo è un saggio molto strano. E penso che all'autore farebbe piacere questa definizione, visto che ha impostato questo (come altri saggi) sul concetto positivo e catartico di "strano":

"Strano significa dall'aspetto strano; stranezza sta per curvatura della casualità."

Avevo preso questo libro con l'intenzione di usarlo per la mia tesi di laurea, mossa dall'intento dell'autore di criticare l'ambientalismo e l'ecologia classici, quelli per intenderci nati negli anni Sessanta e che oggi, effettivamente, sono a un punto morto, perchè non sono riusciti ad andare oltre alla nozione di Natura come una sfera intatta ma soprattutto separata rispetto all'essere umano. Ci sarebbe da fare un lunghissimo discorso su questa concezione (per esempio, Philippe Descola ci ha fatto un saggio "Oltre natura e cultura" che meriterebbe di essere letto e riletto per capire che il concetto occidentale di separazione tra umano/civiltà/società e natura/animali/biosfera non è l'unico nè è quello legittimo), ma il punto di Morton è dimostrare come un certo ambientalismo vecchio stampo che "ha anche fatto cose buone" in realtà non serva davvero a tirarci fuori da guai.

Per intenderci, il "ritorno alla natura" o la riscoperta che ogni cosa è intrecciata, che cioè esiste un'ecologia delle relazioni tra non umani, non viventi, viventi e umani, non è in realtà un vero ritorno a un'origine. Perchè questo, appunto, presuppone che il sistema Terra sia un'entità separata di cui come specie non facciamo parte. Quello che è vero, invece, è che fingiamo di non volerne fare parte. Tutto questo è frutto di una società industriale, che per Morton non è solo quella moderna, ma quella neolitica (che lui chiama "agrilogistica"), ovvero quella agricola: l'agricoltura mesopotamica da cui deriva la nostra società moderna è stata, in effetti, l'inizio dell'industria. Ha dato l'avvio al pensiero del profitto, dell'accumulo, della disuglianza e soprattutto, tramite il rovesciamento dei ruoli (la terra che dà frutti all'umano come a un padrone e l'umano che sfrutta la terra come schiava, come cosa "strana ma diversa"), ha fatto sì che l'essere umano si distaccasse e al tempo stesso si ponesse in una situazione di controllo e di superiorità.

Se si vuole quindi superare i problemi ambientali attuali, bisogna perciò (dice Morton) abbandonare del tutto le convizioni binarie e opponenti del pensiero occidentale. Iniziare a vedere le cose come iperoggetti (cioè cose troppo grandi che non si possono vedere ma che hanno effetti simultanei su tutte le cose le compongono) è il primo passo per comprendere che tipo di soggetti vogliamo essere.

Se siete arrivati fino a qui, forse vi rendete conto che è difficile capire esattamente dove vuole andare a parare l'autore. Sicuramente è difficile riassumere tutto il libro in una recensione, ma il vero problema non è l'analisi che Morton fa, ma la soluzione a cui arriva: infatti, non arriva a nessuna vera proposizione definitiva (o anche solo suggerita). Questo libro è un buono strumento d'analisi, ma non è di facile lettura se non si hanno già nozioni pregresse sull'ecologia, sulla dicotomia natura/cultura, sul dibattito olistico dell'antropologia, e soprattutto se ci si attende delle istruzioni. C'è una sorta di avvitamento su sè stesso che alla fine non produce molto, ed è questa la carenza di questo libro, che in effetti può anche essere un vantaggio perché spinge a farsi ulteriori domande e a ragionare.

Fondamentale l'introduzione a questo libro, se ci si vuole veramente comprendere qualcosa. Perchè è veramente veramente complicato... e stilisticamente ostico.