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txas's review against another edition
Too academic, too deep in theories.
I expected something friendlier for newbies or laypeople who just want to know more about solidarity with animals and nature.
I feel lied to by the marketing of the book.
I expected something friendlier for newbies or laypeople who just want to know more about solidarity with animals and nature.
I feel lied to by the marketing of the book.
canamac's review against another edition
3.0
i found this book hard to get through (mainly bc of writing style), but i appreciate the sticky terms he tries to define. another book would probably have been a better intro to what have become his influential insights for OOO and the environmental humanities.
daytonm's review against another edition
3.0
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.
embiguity's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
perrydimes's review
2.0
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.
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