Dark ecology : for a logic of future coexistence

209 Pages·2016·2.6 MB·English

by  Morton

For a Logic of Future
Coexistence
TIMOTHY MORTON
DARK
ECOLOGY
the wellek library lectures in critical theory
The Wellek Library Lectures in Critical Theory are given
annually at the University of California, Irvine, under the
auspices of the Critical Theory Institute. The following
lectures were given in May 2014
the critical theory institute
Gabriele Schwab, Director
DARK
ECOLOGY
For a Logic of Future
Coexistence
TIMOTHY MORTON
Columbia University Press
New York
Columbia University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Morton, Timothy, 1968– author.
Title: Dark ecology: for a logic of future coexistence / Timothy Morton.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2016. (cid:91)
Series: Wellek Library lectures in critical theory (cid:91)(cid:3)Includes bibliographical
references and index
Identifiers: LCCN 2015026796 (cid:91)(cid:3)ISBN 9780231177528 (cloth : alk. paper) (cid:91)(cid:3)(cid:3)
ISBN 9780231541367 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Nature—Effect of human beings on —Philosophy. (cid:91)(cid:3)Human
beings—Effect of environment on—Philosophy. (cid:91)(cid:3)Human ecology—Philosophy.
(cid:91)(cid:3)Naturalness (Environmental sciences)
Classification: LCC GF75 .M685 2016 (cid:91)(cid:3)DDC.2—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015026796
Columbia University Press books are printed on
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This book is printed on paper with recycled content.
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Cover design by Julia Kushnirsky
Cover illustration by Hannah Stouffer
References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of
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is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed
since the manuscript was prepared.
For Allan
It was surprising how pure the sense of loss was—in a sense it’s because
nonhumans don’t have the same mediation with humans. I mean, you
know your grandma or whoever is sick and that there is a hospital, there
is a timeline of some kind. That and the fact that the “outside” (I should
know this by now) is actually the (human) inside, so it’s strangely like
losing a child to war. It’s a war zone against nonhumans.
He was hit by the mail truck, the new delivery person having a habit of
driving up the driveway. The worst aspect was that he tried to crawl back in
with a smashed neck and head, so I found him right outside the cat door,
still warm yet with rigor mortis. We buried him like an Egyptian with his
favorite things and did a Buddhist death ritual right away. For the next few
days we were totally rigid with depression, which slowly liquefied.
He wasn’t murdered—though for a moment the obvious blunt force
trauma to his neck looked very like it. One of my friends had a cat who
was indeed killed by some psychopath who showed her the cat’s body in
his freezer. Nevertheless Allan Whiskersworth was killed by humans in
a “friendly fire” “collateral damage” sort of way. Cats weirdly symbolize
the ambiguous border between agricultural logistics and its (impossible
to demarcate) outside. I mean we don’t let dogs just wander about. It’s as
if we want to use cats to prove to ourselves that there is a Nature. Allan
was very happy bristling among the grasses and talking to his friend, the
gray cat. He lived a Neil Young sort of life (burning out) and died at only
two years old. I’ve always liked Lennon’s response that he’d much rather
fade away (and look what happened to him).
Right after his death the Charon-like gray cat came to visit, never
before or since.
Progress means: humanity emerges from its spellbound
state no longer under the spell of progress as well, itself
nature, by becoming aware of its own indigenousness to
nature and by halting the mastery over nature through
which nature continues its mastery.
Theodor Adorno
Dark is dangerous. You can’t see anything in the dark,
you’re afraid. Don’t move, you might fall. Most of all,
don’t go into the forest. And so we have internalized this
horror of the dark.
Hélène Cixous

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
Beginning After the End 1
The First Thread 3
The Second Thread 61
The Third Thread 111
Ending Before the Beginning 159
Notes 163
Index 187