The Ecological Thought

It is not easy to determine what this book is about: The author does not provide us with a clear summary. After much thought, I have concluded that it is about Professor Morton’s hypothesis that a global ecological crisis will be averted or mitigated if sufficient people adopt a perspective that the author calls “The Ecological Thought”. This perspective involves a realization that humans and their environment are interconnected; these interconnections the author calls “The Mesh”. In this context, the environment has no boundaries; it comprises all things that mutually influence one another, whether physical or intellectual. Examples include humanity, all life forms, the atmosphere, the oceans, the landscape and geology of the Earth, science and technology, and human artifacts, ideas, and history. The author even extends the mesh to include the galaxy and the universe because of their influence on our perspective of ourselves and our world. Their vastness compared to Earthly scales and their age compared to the human lifespan make us realize our insignificance in relation to the universe in which we live. The author believes that an acceptance of our insignificance is essential to achieving the mindset for effective ecological thinking: Only by stepping outside our immediate surroundings can we obtain a realistic picture of ourselves.In this book, the author chooses not to demonstrate that adoption of The Ecological Thought will be successful in mitigating a global ecological crisis which he believes is already upon us: Rather, he assumes it to be self-evident that success will be the result. The majority of the book is spent in exploring the nature and interconnections of the Mesh. In particular, the author introduces a concept of “The Strange Stranger”, which he does not define but which emerges from his discussions as one or more aspects of The Mesh to which we are interconnected and that we may find disconcerting or frightening. Professor Morton appears to believe that it is very important that, as part of The Ecological Thought, we learn to accept (even love) these initially unwelcome Strange Strangers. Professor Morton also believes that The Ecological Thought will (or should) lead to new directions in scientific research (such as consciousness and suffering in animals and artificially intelligent systems), in the philosophy of ecology, which he believes must move from seeing a division between Nature and humanity to seeing the two as a holistic system within The Mesh, and ultimately in politics.The two paragraphs above are my summary of the book. What else is there? What have I left out? The most solid underpinnings are the passages, drawn from evolution, in which the author illustrates the connections between earthly life forms, including humans. He occasionally quotes from poets such as Shelley, Milton, and Coleridge: Their relevance is much less easy to see. He also spends considerable time in one-sided debates with other humanist writers, most of whom he disagrees with. This may be of interest if you are a professor of the humanities but it is too arcane for those of us who are not. There is little else. The author offers no reason to believe that, even if it is widely adopted, The Ecological Thought will result in the mitigation of ecological catastrophe. The book gives no detail of what The Ecological Thought will look like, very little idea of what policies or actions may emerge, and no glimpse of what an “Ecologically Thought” future will look like.What, then, of the concept of The Ecological Thought itself, to the extent that any picture of it emerges from the book? The name is new but the realization of the interconnectedness of humans, other earthly life, and the planet itself has probably occurred to all those who have seriously studied evolution, and the earth sciences. In studying those disciplines together with cosmology, it is impossible not to also grasp the fragility and insignificance of planet Earth and its living cargo. However, for most of us, the realization has not been developed into an explicit attitude towards ecology. Nor does this book undertake that step.The intended audience for the book is not clear. The author does say that he hopes that people who are not specialists in critical theory will read the book. If it is intended for non-specialists in the humanities in general, it would seem that the author has lost touch with the rest of the world. Certainly as a non-specialist, I found the book to be very difficult to read. The writing is incoherent: Key terms (The Ecological Thought, Strange Strangers) are used extensively but not defined; there is no close reasoning and careful argument; the style comes across as pretentious, self-indulgent intellectual exhibitionism. The result is that meaning is obscured. In much of the book the author seems to believe that, if he tosses a heap of words onto the page, meaning will spontaneously emerge. An example of the book’s style is the following passage: “Environmental rhetoric is too often strongly affirmative, extraverted, and masculine; it privileges speech over writing; and it simulates immediacy (feigning one-to-one correspondences between language and reality). It’s sunny, straightforward, ableist, holistic, hearty, and “healthy”. Where does this leave negativity, introversion, femininity, writing, mediation, ambiguity, darkness, irony, fragmentation, and sickness?”. The only reasonably lucid passages are those where Professor Morton is drawing on Darwin; apparently his feet are held to the ground by Darwin’s own admirably clear writing.The global ecological crisis requires stronger treatment than intellectual froth.

For anyone concerned about the human-nature-relationship, and why it is going so terribly wrong, or for those coming from an ecopsychology perspective -- this is a tremendously exciting book. It most reminds me of John Dewey's attempt to articulate a non-dualistic stance ("Experience and Nature"), and more recently with Gregory Bateson's writings (especially "Mind and Nature -- the Pattern That Connects"). Morton's book articulates that pattern, which of course is "ecology" -- but in this case, he expands the meaning of ecology (as many now do) to encompass the interactivity of "mental processes" and one's environment. The view that "nature" is "over there" (apart from us) somewhere is dropped, and the exploration of the human-nature-relationship begins with the assumption of an already existing interactivity -- which, of course, when one "thinks about it" -- is obviously accurate. The book is at times dense, but the main difficulty is, in my view, a healing difficulty -- and that's the startling perspective it presents, a perspective that to the attentive reader can reveal just how deeply embedded the Romantic and/or Cartesian and/or materialistic-reductive viewpoint is permeating our culture and thus our thinking. I recommend this book, along with any and all books on "ecocritiism" -- another source of human-nature relationship insight that both precedes and currently engulfs the attempts to create an ecopsychology with legs! Having said that, the issue still remains (whether from a dualistic or non-dualistic perspective): just how does this interactivity take place. For that I'd turn to the recent Joseph Dodds book, "Psychoanalysis and Ecology at the Edge of Chaos", as well as to the book "Integral Ecology" (Sean Hargen and Michael Zimmerman). Both attempt to "reach" that point of interaction between mind and nature, and both use the concept of "intersubjectivity" to do so. But Morton's book is a gift to this whole field of exploration, and I recommend it highly.

I've just recently encountered Morton and I will certainly continue to read more of his thought-provoking work. Morton's idea of the 'mesh', in particular, is a wonderfully useful grid of intelligibility for understanding global interconnectivity and imagining the sort of ethics that will be required to thrive (survive?) in a post-postmodern world.A notable strength of this book is how it uses a mixture of science, art, literature, philosophy, and critical theory to deconstruct mainstream ideologies about climate change and destabilize existing attitudes toward the 'environment' itself. This is a truly engaging textual strategy and one that also lends itself to further meditation(s) upon interconnectivity.Nevertheless, I also found a few passages deeply grating -- particularly the tired gendered references to 'radical passivity' as 'feminine' and the call for 'feminine' warmth when 'opening onto the infinite' (Levinas). As several decades of feminist thought has demonstrated beyond a doubt, this brand of dualism is part of the problem and has no place in a book as forward-thinking as this one. Moreover, these sorts of references tend to undermine Morton's own arguments about the problematic 'nature' of Masculine Nature.It's also important to remember there are existing lived philosophies like yoga and Jainism that are based upon mesh-like models of reality (Morton briefly mentions Buddhism and yoga in what appears to be a positive light but does not expand upon their utility for embodying the ecological thought). It would be a delight to read Morton's views on these lived philosophies (or others) and their 'ecological thought' potential. Can we expect a new book?

Ecological theory takes many forms. This is not a book for naturalists or earth-scientists, but offers a brilliant literary critic's response to the environmental crisis that faces us all. Timothy Morton is a brilliant theoretical agent provocateur, and one of the most exhilarating commentators on the cultural implications of ecological crisis.

good book

E' un testo meno interessante del primo: "Ecology without Nature" in cui lo stesso autore sostiene l'idea che tutte le cose del mondo sono interconnesse e che modificandone una si modificano tutte le altre. In conformità con questa visione complessa, si tenta una ridefinizione anche di tutte le attività estetiche dell'uomo: dall'arte alla poesia. Secondo l'autore nessuna espressione vivente è pensabile al di fuori di una rete d’interrelazioni con tutte le altre, ed è ribadito che il concetto "Ecologia", contrariamente a quello di "Natura", è l'unico valido per pensare l'uomo e il mondo nelle sue varie forme.L'idea e le intenzioni sono interessanti, ma il modo in cui sono esposte è fumoso, caotico e alla fine poco chiaro.E' comunque apprezzabile lo sforzo fatto per indicare un nuovo paradigma.

A must-read!

英国生まれ、現在は米国で活躍する思想家Timothy Mortonの著作のひとつ。人間と人間ならざるもの（動植物、鉱物、さらにはロボット、サイボーグなど？）との共存を考える方には、格好の入門書。本書の思想的よりどころは、ダーウィンの進化論が中心であるが、映画「ブレードランナー」のレプリカントや、ディズニーの未来ロボットアニメ「Ｗａｌｌ-e」なども引用され、著者の他著に比べ、比較的読みやすい。著者のカリフォルニア在住時代に書かれたせいか、比較的軽くて明るいトーンが基調。路傍の虫も仏になれるといった釈迦の思想と相通ずるものがあります。しかし、エコロジー至上主義者では、ありません。ポスト思弁哲学の流れでしょうか。