1/ Continuing my threads on Où suis-je? (see previous threads) – chapter 6 provides an example of @BrunoLatourAIME’s constructive interpretation of Christianity as a religion that can inculcate forms of attentiveness & responsibility with respect to our Gaian interconnectedness.
2/ Lockdown has been interesting for “les âmes religieuses”: after all, these people normally have their eyes fixed on the hereafter, & yet lockdown has forced them to appreciate the significance of the “ici-bas”, for a while at least! (p.66).
3/ The religious “above” was never intended to indicate a topography or spatiality; rather, “l’envol vers un au-delà de paix, de recompense et de salut” (p.67) was intended to inspire forms of sympathy, co-belligerence & peace for those who live down here, the poor & downtrodden.
4/ However, all that has been obscured by the importation of the “co-ordinates” of Modernity from the 17th century onwards; this imposed upon this original religious-spatial schema the foreign notion of Cartesian “extended substance”.
5/ In modernity, Christianity is skewed: the heavenly & eschatological "above" becomes not a motivation for good deeds (as it should be), but a site that is (somehow) attainable to those with means, that is to say, through western modes of technicity, Capitalism & snobbery.
6/ For Latour, this deadly form of “politicized religion” underlies our modern, secular being; it encourages “la quete du Paradis, mais sur terre” (p.69), & thus engenders asymmetry, hegemony & denunciation of those who do not have the means to follow. The religion of Elon Musk!
7/ Latour here once again shows his interest in Eric Voegelin’s diagnosis of the “immanentizing” forces of secular religiosity, as described in his wonderful l938 essay “The Political Religions”.
8/ Most of all, the “religion of Modernity”, which Latour has described in various works since 1991, occludes that most precious value – attention to the delicate networks that undergird life on Earth. It constitutes “un projet explicite de fuite definitive hors du monde” (p.75).
9/ By contrast, “les terrestres” know there is nowhere else to flee other than this Earth. And they search for a value that will motivate the work that is now needed. Where can it be found? Well, by no means in secular social or political theory!
10/ As always, Latour finds the most precious value needed to face the present times in ... religion. In fact, in Laudato Si’ (and, I would add, in the v. interesting recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti): “c’est la chance que saisit pour eux le pape François” (p.74).
11/ What is it about recent Catholic Social Thought that Latour finds so refreshing? It is the way it promotes an ethic based on life 'with' the Earth, “la vie avec Terre” (p.74) – not life on or in spite of or against the Earth.
12/ He points to a number of tropes found within Catholic Social Thought, & Christian systematic theology in general, that he thinks can help here:
13/ Incarnation: “la figure de l’incarnation résonne avec celle de l’atterrissage” (p.74).
14/ Or even eschatology: Latour points to his reading of a rather obscure book, Westhalle, "Eschatology and Space", which was recommended to him by @nemoid321, & which has revolutionised his understanding of “the end times” as a resource for politics. palgrave.com/gp/book/978023…
15/ In summary, this chapter is very important in the evolving context of the book, once again providing evidence that “political theology” is the crucial & indispensable category by which to analyse Latour’s recent thought.
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1/ The tenth chapter of @BrunoLatourAIME’s Où suis-je? pivots from how the pandemic has challenged the ideological structures of modernity (the Economy, the object, Nature), to the way it has caused us to rethink the intimate & apparently subjective site of the human body itself.
2/ Latour rejects simple dichotomies of objective materiality to which is added “mon corps vécu de l’intérieur, celui de ma subjectivité” (p.120).
3/ Crucially, & poignantly, Latour explains that he has been reminded of this by his own, very sad experience of cancer over the last two years, that I know he has faced with dignity and good faith.
1/ I am continuing my chapter-by-chapter summary of @BrunoLatourAIME’s new book, où suis-je. Here, we come to the ninth chapter. For previous chapter threads, do scroll down on my feed.
2/ Latour begins by recounting his participation in a piece of performance art designed by architect & urban planner Soheil Hajmirbaba that visualises attachments & dependences in a group by means of a compass diagram drawn on the floor that is traversed. s-o-c.fr/index.php/abou…
3/ This highlights the artificiality & brutality of any art that interrupts movement in order to fix it on a wall. For Latour, this is quintessentially represented by the “white cube” gallery aesthetic characterised by its square shape, white walls & elevated light source.
1/ And so I continue my reading of @BrunoLatourAIME’s new book, "où suis-je?". The fifth chapter, entitled ‘Troubles d’engendrement en cascade’, asks what have been the diagnostic effects of lockdown. What have we learnt from this dreadful experience?
2/ No doubt we all agree that lockdown has prompted a sort of generalised concern, “une angoisse partagée par tous”, with respect to the terms of our shared existence with others & how this needs to stay the same or change in the future.
3/ In the political realm, it has exacerbated the tenor of certain existential questions: how to prevent the collapse of the modes of life we had come to rely on? (hence the discourse of “extinction” in XR & other movements, as charted by Danowski & Viveiros de Castro) ...
1/ In the fourth chapter of "Ou Suis-Je?" (2021), Bruno Latour takes us back to the central organising trope of the entire book: this strange celebration of the “insect-being” of Kafka’s metamorphized character Gregor Samsa.
2/ Contrary to what we might assume, Latour will not let us suppose that Gregor is reduced, de-animated or demonised by his transformation; on the contrary, he is the most free person, because he embodies a “terrestrial” existence.
3/ Locked in his room, Gregor finds he no longer exists in "res extensa" - regulated & co-ordinated space, external to his being. Rather, Gregor understands that he must compose the environment in which he then subsists: “il construit cet espace de proche en proche” (p.39).
1. adam_tooze is a thinker & writer of the highest quality. His intellectual historical insight, combined with laser-like focus on the key events that define the sweep of meaning in history, is exactly what is needed - a sort of negentropic hopefulness.
2. This article “After Escape: The New Climate Power Politics”, is well worth reading ... & re-reading. Contrary to the sense of terminal fragmentation that some political theologians assume is our destiny, he offers a vision of consolidation & consensus. e-flux.com/journal/114/36…
3. Politics is beginning to move in subtly consensual directions, he claims, even on the climate. Not by baptising a metaphysical paymaster that can prematurely unify disparate actors by force, but because human agents are realising this is a form of life that makes sense.