This week found us yet again in the world of Bruno Latour. We began with a look into his fifth Gifford lecture, “War of Humans and Earthbound.” In this lecture Latour makes the case that there are two types of people on the planet, Humans and the Earthbound, and this here rock ain’t big enough for the both of us.
Latour calls the Humans people of the soil. That is, people of the earth and by the earth, people who look to Nature as the revelator or the guide in times of ecological trouble. On the other hand, the Earthbound are those that are merely on the earth. Even Latour’s language is provocative. Earthbound. As if they could transcend their earthly bonds if it weren’t for their mortal condition. Yet it is this very condition of mortality that Latour urges us to accept. For the only way to win the war against Gaia is to face the oncoming future with fear. A fear of Gaia. A fear of the destructive power of the earth-goddess. She (pardon me, the ungendered “it” is much preferred by Latour) will wipe us off the face of the earth if we do not change our ways. This is the rabbit Latour has not yet pulled from his theoretical hat; not to say he hasn’t set the stage to do so.
Here’s Latour’s hat, sitting on the table, and here’s the method he’ll use to find the bunny:
Latour says our motivation for change (assuming that change is reduced carbon emissions and “better lifestyles” altogether) must come from a “prophylactic” use of the apocalypse. That is, to Latour, we must use science to understand impending climate disaster (and the subsequent decimation of our species) and face this future as if it were the end in order to motivate change to prevent it. In our conference I called this Latour’s “rhetorical prophylactic realist dialectic of Gaia.” Allow me to break down this terminology:
Rhetorical- Latour urges us to make the threat of annihilation appear real artificially. That is, only through rhetoric might we make the threat visibly real enough to motivate action.
Prophylactic- Latour says we need to embrace the apocalypse now in order to prevent it later. Much in the same way one preemptively takes medication in order to avoid contracting malaria.
Realist- Latour’s entire argument is built on the foundation that the world’s scientists actually know something about Earth Systems. At least enough to tell us we’re headed down an uncertain path.
Dialectic- Latour follows in the continental tradition by advancing his argument through rational processes and logic.
Furthermore, Latour’s use of language is indeed heavy, but I believe also intentional. The future of our species is not something to be taken lightly, especially if our destruction (and the extinction of other species as well) came from our own hands. The term “at war with” is therefore apt, due to the concept that we are at war with an earth that we ourselves have manipulated past the point of hospitality. But are we at war with Gaia? Or at war with ourselves? That is, Homo sapiens at war with Homo sapiens, but two distinct factions: the Earthbound at war with Humans.
At this point, Latour’s argument feels like a sort of Neo-pragmatic Apocalypticism. For those of us who can see the end coming, we need to believe in it in order to motivate action to avoid it. Now the only remaining question is, how to act? How to live? Isn’t that the very question defining our species’ existence?
Let’s see how Latour tackles this one.