"Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things" by Jane Bennett - 2 views

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  #1 Zach Holz on 16 Mar 12

   

  This books states that it is a philosophical and political meditation on how to better incorporate the power of "things" into our ways-of-seeing. The author, Jane Bennet, argues that there is an "active power" issuing from nonsubjects, nonhumans, ostensibly "dead" stuff-what she terms things. These "things" can be, well, just about anything: a piece of tin foil, a dead rat, a cigarette butt, fatty acids, stem cells, electricity. (Already you might be able to get a sense at how confusing this argument will get.) The purpose of her book, she states in the preface, is "to encourage more intelligent and sustainable engagements with vibrant matter and lively things" (viii). What this means is to ask big questions about the ways we conceive of agency, and the historical legacy Western political and philosophical thought has left us with-a legacy that Bennett argues keeps the nonhuman actant out of our discourse.
  
  For me, much of what Bennett has to say concerns a more intentional, aware, and meaningful way-of-seeing. By this, I mean that when we look at what we consider an "object" (a pencil or a piece of plastic or our food) we attempt to fully consider the incredible network of actors, human and nonhuman, that helped to shape, create, or somehow deliver that "thing" to you in that moment. It's about seeing a commodity chain, about sensing that the food you eat is not "inert" or "dead" but is "lively" in the sense that it makes a change in you. Bennett's meditation is trying to stretch the limits of what "agency" means-in fact, it questions whether or not humans themselves even have agency to begin with, given that we are assemblages of nonhuman things ourselves, and that the stuff that makes us up can never be fully human. A key point she makes: waste and trash never actually go away.

   

  <div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">This books states that it is a philosophical and political meditation on how to better incorporate the power of "things" into our ways-of-seeing. The author, Jane Bennet, argues that there is an "active power" issuing from nonsubjects, nonhumans, ostensibly "dead" stuff-what she terms things. These "things" can be, well, just about anything: a piece of tin foil, a dead rat, a cigarette butt, fatty acids, stem cells, electricity. (Already you might be able to get a sense at how confusing this argument will get.) The purpose of her book, she states in the preface, is "to encourage more intelligent and sustainable engagements with vibrant matter and lively things" (viii). What this means is to ask big questions about the ways we conceive of agency, and the historical legacy Western political and philosophical thought has left us with-a legacy that Bennett argues keeps the nonhuman actant out of our discourse. <br /> <br /> For me, much of what Bennett has to say concerns a more intentional, aware, and meaningful way-of-seeing. By this, I mean that when we look at what we consider an "object" (a pencil or a piece of plastic or our food) we attempt to fully consider the incredible network of actors, human and nonhuman, that helped to shape, create, or somehow deliver that "thing" to you in that moment. It's about seeing a commodity chain, about sensing that the food you eat is not "inert" or "dead" but is "lively" in the sense that it makes a change in you. Bennett's meditation is trying to stretch the limits of what "agency" means-in fact, it questions whether or not humans themselves even have agency to begin with, given that we are assemblages of nonhuman things ourselves, and that the stuff that makes us up can never be fully human. A key point she makes: waste and trash never actually go away.</div>

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