What do you think?
Rate this book
hyposubjects: on becoming human
The time of hypersubjects is ending. Their desert-apocalypse-fire-and-death
cults aren’t going to save them this time. Meanwhile the time of hyposubjects
is just beginning. They are the native species of the Anthropocene and just
discovering what they can become. This text is an exercise in chaotic and flimsy
thinking that will possibly waste your time. But it is the sincere effort of two
reform-minded hypersubjects to decenter themselves and to help nurture
hyposubjective humanity.
cults aren’t going to save them this time. Meanwhile the time of hyposubjects
is just beginning. They are the native species of the Anthropocene and just
discovering what they can become. This text is an exercise in chaotic and flimsy
thinking that will possibly waste your time. But it is the sincere effort of two
reform-minded hypersubjects to decenter themselves and to help nurture
hyposubjective humanity.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
94 pages, Paperback
Published March 19, 2021
About the author
Timothy Morton
82 books392 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 25, 2021
Na polzu i radost svih zainteresovanih, ova intelektualna prskalica u dvojini može se besplatno preuzeti.
I nisam slučajno rekao dvojina, jer, iako je jasno da su u pitanju dva glasa (Morton/Bajer), oni su potpuno sliveni i stopljeni, tako da se u samo jednom istom pasusu može videti više obrta. Ova isprepletanost i fluidna igrivost izraz je samog naslova knjige, jer je hiposubjekt način postojanja subjekta u dobu hiperobjekata.
O čemu se, zapravo, tu radi?
Hiperobjekat je dugogodišnja Mortonova teorijska opsesija i izraz želje da se izađe iz postmoderne začaranosti jezičkom arbitrarnošću. Umesto što je sve forma jezičke igre, Morton nas podseća da „realni” objekti zaista postoje, ali ne nužno na način na koji smo mislili. Oni mogu biti i toliko nepregledno veliki, neobuhvatljivo masivni i nezaustavljivo generišući, da se opiru svakoj vrsti misaonog usidravanja. I, kako to kaže Morton na više mesta – što više znamo o njima, oni nam postaju sve neobičniji, maglovitiji (26). Tako je ovo epidemijsko nedoba došlo Mortonu kao „kec na jedanaest” za njegovu misao. Kroz pandemiju teza o hiperobjektu je nikad prisutnija. Koronavirus nas se svih tiče, sve prožima i sve nas obuhvata. Pritom, sam virus savršeno ne interesuje da li mi mislimo da on postoji ili ne. Ubija i remeti živote mimo naše volje.
To je gotovo ciničan obrt u odnosu između subjekta (gospodara) i objekta (roba), koji su tako zamenili svoja mesta. (12) Svet koji ne samo što ne treba da bude, već i suštinski nije antropocentričan, mi iznova doživljavamo tako – ravnajući sve u odnosu na percepciju i udobnost čoveka-subjekta. A šta ako se zna, a zna se, da taj i takav čovek-subjekat poseduje odnos mikroorganizama i ćelija 10:1 (64). Mi smo, takoreći, biološki, više ono što nismo i iz te otvorene skrivenosti iskrsava hiposubjekat, koji predstavlja način bivanja u hiperobjektima (22). To je nužno pitanje antropocena, ali i istovremeno, pitanje nužnosti – jer kako uopšte ostvarivati (su)život u obuzetosti hiperobjektima?
(We live in a time of hyperobjects, of objects too massive and multiphasic in their distribution in time and space for humans to fully comprehend or experience them in a unitary way. A black hole is a kind of hyperobject, a biosphere is another. But many of the hyperobjects that concern us have human origins. For example, global warming. Or antibiotics. Or plastic bags. Or capitalism. These hyperobjects exceed and envelop us like a viscous fog, they make awkward and unexpected appearances, they inspire hypocrisy and lameness and dread. (13-14))
Retko šta me raduje kao knjige iz čijih iskričavih ideja, buja inspiracija. I nije tu pitanje o istini, nego o novom, uzbudljivom putu i ushićujućim ukrštajima. A koliko je ovo čitanje bilo podsticajno i golicavo ekcentrično, osim odnosa hiperobjekta/hiposubjekta, govore i razni drugi „znakovi pored puta”: fenomenologija i ontologija banane kod Opre (32), post-postmodernistička nostalgija za desnicom (48), fašizam roštilja i predgrađa i uprirodnjavanje finansija (50), horor kao nužna faza u odrastanju (55), Sloterdijk i krave kao novi proleterijat (63), mašine koje bukvalno skeniraju snove snevača (67), iskustvo gejminga kao konstitutivno (56), šećer i zlo u svetu (81), pretakanje neradnog vremena u radno (87)...
I nisam slučajno rekao dvojina, jer, iako je jasno da su u pitanju dva glasa (Morton/Bajer), oni su potpuno sliveni i stopljeni, tako da se u samo jednom istom pasusu može videti više obrta. Ova isprepletanost i fluidna igrivost izraz je samog naslova knjige, jer je hiposubjekt način postojanja subjekta u dobu hiperobjekata.
O čemu se, zapravo, tu radi?
Hiperobjekat je dugogodišnja Mortonova teorijska opsesija i izraz želje da se izađe iz postmoderne začaranosti jezičkom arbitrarnošću. Umesto što je sve forma jezičke igre, Morton nas podseća da „realni” objekti zaista postoje, ali ne nužno na način na koji smo mislili. Oni mogu biti i toliko nepregledno veliki, neobuhvatljivo masivni i nezaustavljivo generišući, da se opiru svakoj vrsti misaonog usidravanja. I, kako to kaže Morton na više mesta – što više znamo o njima, oni nam postaju sve neobičniji, maglovitiji (26). Tako je ovo epidemijsko nedoba došlo Mortonu kao „kec na jedanaest” za njegovu misao. Kroz pandemiju teza o hiperobjektu je nikad prisutnija. Koronavirus nas se svih tiče, sve prožima i sve nas obuhvata. Pritom, sam virus savršeno ne interesuje da li mi mislimo da on postoji ili ne. Ubija i remeti živote mimo naše volje.
To je gotovo ciničan obrt u odnosu između subjekta (gospodara) i objekta (roba), koji su tako zamenili svoja mesta. (12) Svet koji ne samo što ne treba da bude, već i suštinski nije antropocentričan, mi iznova doživljavamo tako – ravnajući sve u odnosu na percepciju i udobnost čoveka-subjekta. A šta ako se zna, a zna se, da taj i takav čovek-subjekat poseduje odnos mikroorganizama i ćelija 10:1 (64). Mi smo, takoreći, biološki, više ono što nismo i iz te otvorene skrivenosti iskrsava hiposubjekat, koji predstavlja način bivanja u hiperobjektima (22). To je nužno pitanje antropocena, ali i istovremeno, pitanje nužnosti – jer kako uopšte ostvarivati (su)život u obuzetosti hiperobjektima?
(We live in a time of hyperobjects, of objects too massive and multiphasic in their distribution in time and space for humans to fully comprehend or experience them in a unitary way. A black hole is a kind of hyperobject, a biosphere is another. But many of the hyperobjects that concern us have human origins. For example, global warming. Or antibiotics. Or plastic bags. Or capitalism. These hyperobjects exceed and envelop us like a viscous fog, they make awkward and unexpected appearances, they inspire hypocrisy and lameness and dread. (13-14))
Retko šta me raduje kao knjige iz čijih iskričavih ideja, buja inspiracija. I nije tu pitanje o istini, nego o novom, uzbudljivom putu i ushićujućim ukrštajima. A koliko je ovo čitanje bilo podsticajno i golicavo ekcentrično, osim odnosa hiperobjekta/hiposubjekta, govore i razni drugi „znakovi pored puta”: fenomenologija i ontologija banane kod Opre (32), post-postmodernistička nostalgija za desnicom (48), fašizam roštilja i predgrađa i uprirodnjavanje finansija (50), horor kao nužna faza u odrastanju (55), Sloterdijk i krave kao novi proleterijat (63), mašine koje bukvalno skeniraju snove snevača (67), iskustvo gejminga kao konstitutivno (56), šećer i zlo u svetu (81), pretakanje neradnog vremena u radno (87)...
March 25, 2021
Pretty fascinating read. It is a style that, from my understanding, has not been explored much in philosophy. A collaborative project that revolves around salads and kombucha, Hyposubjects was not written to be analyzed, scrutinized, regurgitated, or systematized. Like a discourse or an argument but without the clear distinction of two, the surreal one, seemingly from a stream of consciousness, is voicing their concerns of the many: ethnicities, nationalities, generations, classes, consciousnesses, the soil. It maintains a high alert for the white boy savior, it may even be the catharsis required from leading a hyposubjectified being. It is a self-professed project of exploration, project of development: re-becoming, re-understanding, subscending . . .
I'm here for it.
I'm here for it.
July 14, 2026
So, hyposubjects, where to start? Excitement? Yes, excitement, let's start there. Dialogically, Hyposubjects represents a provocation and a response; a proposition and an extrapolation. Provocative and propositional because, in following the trajectory of Morton's earlier works, a lot (too much, frankly) gets brought up without being fully unpacked, forcing the reader into a frustrating, if (...sometimes...) rewarding, conceptual overdrive. To interject, many if not all of these concepts have at least been implicitly handled elsewhere, in 2019's Humankind, 2013's Hyperobjects, or 2013's Realist Magic Crudely put, this is the extrapolative quality of Hyposubjects: what it coaxes out of old concepts with new, or at least semi-new examples. Fair enough, though; sometimes a thing is worth repeating.
The proposition is that in a moment characterised by hyperobjectality, there is a burgeonning sensation -- Morton-voice and Boyer-voice use Raymond Williams' term "structure of feeling" that a new kind of subject is or needs to enter the political spotlight (and, in characteristic OOO manner, withdraw from it too); the provocation is that much of our orientation towards subjecthood and its responsibilities needs to change to facilitate this. Clarification: we need a move from the transcendant, or all-encompassing, infinitely wise, wired-in subject, to a kind of loosey-goosey, partial -- and happily so -- subject. Morton's term for this trajectory towards the hyposubject is subscendant -- and they've detailed it far less painfully elsewhere.
There's no need to be bitter. The response in the text is at least fourfold, at least as I read it: a) Hyposubjects responds to the proliferation of alt- and far-right parties and movements globally, as well as their counterparts on the left: UKIP, Trump, Johnson, Occupy, Black Lives Matter (whose recency marks an explicit impact on the text's optimism). b) Hyposubjects responds to the nonhuman exigencies of the present: global warming, mass extinction, infrastructuring of the biosphere, pandemic spread, and so forth. c) Hyposubjects responds to itself within itself, as a dialogue in one voice: Morton-voice and Boyer-voice ricochet concepts off one another imprecisely, seeing what lands where. -- of course this means the final text is riddled with holes; more on that later -- and d) Hyposubjects' titular move from OOO's focus on objects to the emerging hyposubject marks what I read as a partially successful -- though perhaps too-late -- attempt to reconcile with criticisms that in vaunting accepting objects as emancipatory, the field semantically erases those who, historically, had no say in their position within objecthood (a list not exhausted by crip and disabled bodyminds, Black folk, indigenous and first nations, trans and gender non-conforming people, and women). But, in a semi-tragic, semi-ironic gesture, if the text permeates with responsiveness, it might be because of a desire for continued relevance as a hyposubject once it has been opened as an agential category to those formerly subjected to objecthood. It is hard to read, especially in light of more recent publications, how genuinely open Morton-voice is to being reminded of their racial privilege, or if refrains of "four white boys" are preemptive performances of antiracism to validate thin claims of hyposubjects being "inherantly feminist, antiracist, and queer."
So for such a short text, and also one so theoretically sparse || okay, perhaps unrigorous is a better word || it's all rather easy to get wrapped up in. That's true. It's worth noting that provocation goes both ways (all ways, really. Provocation is supervalent to use a Berlantianism -- since Morton-voice definitely wouldn't).
Yes, absolutely! However, regarding supervalence: it sometimes feels, though there are two bodies, two cadences present, that there is a flattening quality to the text's ambiguous "I" and flitting (flirting?) tone that frequently gives the impression of a voice agreeing with itself. Yes, I suppose that's true.
And a note on voice: doesnt the formal quality of the text, especially the introduction which describes the writing method of two conversants in one textual body feel uncannily like something one might read from the 90s? Earlier? The rhizome chapter of A Thousand Pla--
We don't say their names anymore (see Morton's Introduction to Realist Magic's second edition... it's... it's rough). But yes, the sense is that They are everywhere in this text, but have largely fallen out of it. It's one of the many holes lying around waiting to be slipped through. Holes? Yeah, kind of: gaps, lacunae, spaces requiring a leap to get over. They did mention Cyclonopedia, haha. Haha, yes, but jokes aside, this is probably what disappoints me most about the text, no? That it is, yes, highly promising, but in delivery it leaves the door uncomfortably open, radiating insecurity.
"Don't scrutinise this 'exercise in flimsy and chaotic thinking'!", it yells but critical implications for the political dimension of the work crop up when the promises are unpacked. For instance, is subscendance a tactic or a quality or a mode of calibration? Toggling between the three, the text seems to imply that an inherant property of all objects (per Humankind and Morton's 2016 e-flux article) subscend, but that subscendance is also a political tactic, and a mode of recognising both of the former.
I found that section really tragicomic in a way, because it risks, very briefly, actualising what has up until this point been a strawman of OOO by alledging the equal distribution of capcity (rather than agency) amongst objects. Which is, for lack of a more concrete definition (on the book's part), and for lack of a better word (on my part) unbearably devastating.
So, hyposubjects, where to end? I guess by saying don't take it too seriously? That sucks! But yeah, at the end of the day these were casual conversations with minimal editing; they won't stand to dissection. Then again, neither will you: picking it apart, there will only be more and more to discover. At best, exciting or interesting ideas can be taken and run with, and the writing style enjoyed, but Hyposubjects is by no means a necessary visit on the reading list.
The proposition is that in a moment characterised by hyperobjectality, there is a burgeonning sensation -- Morton-voice and Boyer-voice use Raymond Williams' term "structure of feeling" that a new kind of subject is or needs to enter the political spotlight (and, in characteristic OOO manner, withdraw from it too); the provocation is that much of our orientation towards subjecthood and its responsibilities needs to change to facilitate this. Clarification: we need a move from the transcendant, or all-encompassing, infinitely wise, wired-in subject, to a kind of loosey-goosey, partial -- and happily so -- subject. Morton's term for this trajectory towards the hyposubject is subscendant -- and they've detailed it far less painfully elsewhere.
There's no need to be bitter. The response in the text is at least fourfold, at least as I read it: a) Hyposubjects responds to the proliferation of alt- and far-right parties and movements globally, as well as their counterparts on the left: UKIP, Trump, Johnson, Occupy, Black Lives Matter (whose recency marks an explicit impact on the text's optimism). b) Hyposubjects responds to the nonhuman exigencies of the present: global warming, mass extinction, infrastructuring of the biosphere, pandemic spread, and so forth. c) Hyposubjects responds to itself within itself, as a dialogue in one voice: Morton-voice and Boyer-voice ricochet concepts off one another imprecisely, seeing what lands where. -- of course this means the final text is riddled with holes; more on that later -- and d) Hyposubjects' titular move from OOO's focus on objects to the emerging hyposubject marks what I read as a partially successful -- though perhaps too-late -- attempt to reconcile with criticisms that in vaunting accepting objects as emancipatory, the field semantically erases those who, historically, had no say in their position within objecthood (a list not exhausted by crip and disabled bodyminds, Black folk, indigenous and first nations, trans and gender non-conforming people, and women). But, in a semi-tragic, semi-ironic gesture, if the text permeates with responsiveness, it might be because of a desire for continued relevance as a hyposubject once it has been opened as an agential category to those formerly subjected to objecthood. It is hard to read, especially in light of more recent publications, how genuinely open Morton-voice is to being reminded of their racial privilege, or if refrains of "four white boys" are preemptive performances of antiracism to validate thin claims of hyposubjects being "inherantly feminist, antiracist, and queer."
So for such a short text, and also one so theoretically sparse || okay, perhaps unrigorous is a better word || it's all rather easy to get wrapped up in. That's true. It's worth noting that provocation goes both ways (all ways, really. Provocation is supervalent to use a Berlantianism -- since Morton-voice definitely wouldn't).
Yes, absolutely! However, regarding supervalence: it sometimes feels, though there are two bodies, two cadences present, that there is a flattening quality to the text's ambiguous "I" and flitting (flirting?) tone that frequently gives the impression of a voice agreeing with itself. Yes, I suppose that's true.
And a note on voice: doesnt the formal quality of the text, especially the introduction which describes the writing method of two conversants in one textual body feel uncannily like something one might read from the 90s? Earlier? The rhizome chapter of A Thousand Pla--
We don't say their names anymore (see Morton's Introduction to Realist Magic's second edition... it's... it's rough). But yes, the sense is that They are everywhere in this text, but have largely fallen out of it. It's one of the many holes lying around waiting to be slipped through. Holes? Yeah, kind of: gaps, lacunae, spaces requiring a leap to get over. They did mention Cyclonopedia, haha. Haha, yes, but jokes aside, this is probably what disappoints me most about the text, no? That it is, yes, highly promising, but in delivery it leaves the door uncomfortably open, radiating insecurity.
"Don't scrutinise this 'exercise in flimsy and chaotic thinking'!", it yells but critical implications for the political dimension of the work crop up when the promises are unpacked. For instance, is subscendance a tactic or a quality or a mode of calibration? Toggling between the three, the text seems to imply that an inherant property of all objects (per Humankind and Morton's 2016 e-flux article) subscend, but that subscendance is also a political tactic, and a mode of recognising both of the former.
I found that section really tragicomic in a way, because it risks, very briefly, actualising what has up until this point been a strawman of OOO by alledging the equal distribution of capcity (rather than agency) amongst objects. Which is, for lack of a more concrete definition (on the book's part), and for lack of a better word (on my part) unbearably devastating.
So, hyposubjects, where to end? I guess by saying don't take it too seriously? That sucks! But yeah, at the end of the day these were casual conversations with minimal editing; they won't stand to dissection. Then again, neither will you: picking it apart, there will only be more and more to discover. At best, exciting or interesting ideas can be taken and run with, and the writing style enjoyed, but Hyposubjects is by no means a necessary visit on the reading list.
December 27, 2024
“There are now machines that can tell you what you're dreaming. They map your brain firings in a pixelated 3D space, and correlate those 3D pixels to an infinite supply of YouTube videos that suggest the movements and things about which you're dreaming. It's uncanny how accurate it is. In a way, a machine that can tell you what your brain is coming up with might be similar to being able to know what it's like to be a lettuce leaf. It scares me actually…
Roombas? Roombas of the philosophical. Actually that's quite per-fect. It's the ultimate hyposubject isn't it? The Roomba is the perfect inverse to the Skynet/Matrix, transcendent hyperobject. A Roomba is always struggling to come into its agency. It probably feels quite imploded, it's got very limited programming. It knows it wants to get dirt inside of itself, everything else it has to figure out as it goes along, with a fairly limited sensory apparatus. So it sort of trundles along, bumping into walls and furniture, staying very close to the earth. Always less than itself. It's basically a ZhuZhu pet that happens to clean things and that cats like to ride on. Do they? So the cats recognize Roombas as fellow hyposubjects, creatures to play and explore with? Yes, there's a whole genre of YouTube videos of cats sitting on Roombas, going around and around the house.”
“Hiroshima. It explores an aestheties of allowing your body to implode, allowing gravity to pull you towards earth, rather than trying to soar beyond gravity, or move despite gravity. You allow yourself to be sucked down. So perhaps the model is not the volcano, it's more like the bubbling geothermal mud, if you want to think of it Iceland style, bubbles that collapse.”
Roombas? Roombas of the philosophical. Actually that's quite per-fect. It's the ultimate hyposubject isn't it? The Roomba is the perfect inverse to the Skynet/Matrix, transcendent hyperobject. A Roomba is always struggling to come into its agency. It probably feels quite imploded, it's got very limited programming. It knows it wants to get dirt inside of itself, everything else it has to figure out as it goes along, with a fairly limited sensory apparatus. So it sort of trundles along, bumping into walls and furniture, staying very close to the earth. Always less than itself. It's basically a ZhuZhu pet that happens to clean things and that cats like to ride on. Do they? So the cats recognize Roombas as fellow hyposubjects, creatures to play and explore with? Yes, there's a whole genre of YouTube videos of cats sitting on Roombas, going around and around the house.”
“Hiroshima. It explores an aestheties of allowing your body to implode, allowing gravity to pull you towards earth, rather than trying to soar beyond gravity, or move despite gravity. You allow yourself to be sucked down. So perhaps the model is not the volcano, it's more like the bubbling geothermal mud, if you want to think of it Iceland style, bubbles that collapse.”
November 30, 2023
I found it! Finally, I found a book where someone is talking about how clever the Neanderthal moved was! Beyond clever I would say. If you are 90% Neanderthal, this book is for you, and it is ingenious the way they make you look at things, wondering how I did miss this. Really mind blowing!!! And at the same time, it does make total sense to me.
December 16, 2022
I quite liked this.
October 9, 2024
funky form, some valuable insights, but nothing ground breaking
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews