The Progress of This Storm

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Andreas Malm. The Progress of This Storm

THE PROGRESS OF THIS STORM. Nature and Society in a Warming World

Contents

Introduction: Theory for the Warming Condition

1. On the Building of Nature: Against Constructionism

2. On Combined Development: Against Hybridism

3. On What Matter Does: Against New Materialism

4. On Unicorns and Baboons: For Climate Realism

5. On the Perils of Property: Sketches for Tracking the Storm

6. On the Use of Opposites: In Praise of Polarisation

7. On Unruly Nature: An Experiment in Ecological Autonomism

8. Conclusion: One step back, two steps forwards

Notes

Acknowledgements

Index

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Andreas Malm

1.On the Building of Nature: Against Constructionism

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Great blender and trespasser, climate change sweeps back and forth between the two regions traditionally referred to as ‘nature’ and ‘society’. As it happens, contemporary theory is intensely preoccupied with precisely that escalating interpenetration and churns out books, articles, special issues, conferences, all sorts of scholarly conversations on some critical general questions: whatever is this thing called nature? How does it relate to society? Who are the genuinely powerful players in the drama that weaves the two together; how do humans attach to material objects; are technologies or relations running the show; what constitutes an ecological crisis; what can we ever know about any of all this? Here we find various forms of constructionism, actor-network theory, new materialism, posthumanism, the metabolic rift, capitalism as world-ecology and a host of other conceptual apparatuses, all trying to come to grips with the imbroglio between the social and the natural. Can any of them provide a map of the path the storm is taking? This essay sets out to scrutinise some of the theories circulating at the nature/society junction in the light of climate change.

Now, theory does not seem like the most exigent business in a rapidly warming world. There is that itching feeling that the only meaningful thing to do now is to let go of everything else and physically cut off fossil fuel combustion, deflate the tyres, block the runways, lay siege to the platforms, invade the mines. Indeed, the only salubrious thing about the election of Donald Trump is that it dispels the last lingering illusions that anything else than organised collective militant resistance has at least a fighting chance of pushing the world anywhere else than head first, at maximum speed, into cataclysmic climate change. All has already been said; now is the time for confrontation. This essay presents no arguments for restraining such impulses. It is, however, written in the belief that some theories can make the situation clearer while others might muddy it. Action remains best served by conceptual maps that mark out the colliding forces with some accuracy, not by blurry charts and foggy thinking, of which there is, as we shall see, no shortage. Theory can be part of the problem. If everything is up for re-evaluation in a warming world, this must apply to it as well: theory too is called to account, required to demonstrate its relevance and declare its contributions, even if some of its producers and consumers would never consider joining some direct action against fossil fuels.

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