November 30, 2016 - 23:10
1. The Earth is not just a planet hanging in space, but rather an actor, with agency and emotions. Latour sees it appropriate to personify the Earth, referring to it as "Gaia", and argues that it is being moved by our actions. Latour seeks to refine our ideas about subjects and objects, and frames the Earth as subject in what he calls our geostory. "We all agree that, far from being a Galilean body stripped of any other movements than those of billiard balls, the Earth has now taken back all the characteristics of a full- edged actor. Indeed, as Di- pesh Chakrabarty has proposed, it has become once again an agent of history " (3)
2. One of the main issues regarding our reaction to climate change is that it occurs on too large a scale for us to comprehend and we feel powerless to respond, which generates apathy. It is our view of ourselves as powerless objects, and nature as a subject, which has led to this crisis. "Through a complete reversal of Western philosophy’s most cherished trope, human societies have resigned themselves to playing the role of the dumb object, while nature has unexpectedly taken on that of the active subject!" (11)
3. Latour also takes issue with a number of dichotomies that he sees as counterproductive, such as those between subject and object, necessity and liberty, and nature and society. He seems to be arguing for an more complex and nuanced view of climate change and the issues surrounding it. "If the various threads of geostory could ally themselves with new sources of activity and dynamism, we would be free from the older modernist distinction between nature and society, but also from all the dialectical efforts to “reconcile” those two distinct domains." (15)
My question is, what does it take to acheive an objective understanding of a situation?