Bruno Latour’s and Nikolaj Schultz’ book “On the emergence of an ecological class”

“We have never been modern” is the title of a book published almost thirty years ago by the late Bruno Latour. He articulates an insight central to the work of this widely-received scientific researcher and sociologist—that we became the moderns through a misunderstanding of believing that a sharp line could be drawn between areas in which our human affairs are at play , and a counterpart that can be separated from it, in which things come into view as they happen to be, unaffected by our interests. A boundary that separates the socio-cultural terrain from that of the natural facts recorded by the sciences.

But Latour never tires of keeping this sharp line, with ever-changing accents, that cannot be drawn. A closer look at how the sciences proceed almost universally suffices. In the early 1990s, this diagnosis sounded different than it does today. For the simple reason that aspects of the natural context in which we are involved as actors were becoming more and more evident, and not in a friendly light. The fact of climate change penetrated the general consciousness and with it the prospect of a catastrophe, the scientific evidence of which is becoming ever better documented, does not change the fact that, in the absence of sufficient countermeasures, it is still drawing closer.

Many new and hard conflicts

Latour had recently reacted to this lack of mobilization in several writings. For him it was central that we are still in one way or another clinging to the “modern” demarcation and are happy to close our eyes to an actually unmistakable revolution in the relationship to nature, a new cosmology that needs to be practiced. The narrow volume entitled “On the emergence of an ecological class” which has just been published by Suhrkamp follows on from this motif.

However, this last volume, written together with the young sociologist Nikolaj Schultz, is less about the natural-philosophical foundation of the new climate regime and more directly about the political opportunities of the ecological movements. The climate movements, insofar as they are “modern”, would still rely too much on the moving and unifying power of the scientific findings presented. But neither does the pedagogical variant of their actions lead to political agency, nor does it apply that the nature described in this way unites. On the contrary, many new and hard conflicts awaited if political ecology seriously set out to win political majorities.

In the end things happen in a different way anyway

The authors would like to sketch out the reasons for revolutions in (political) thinking on the way there. The use of the concept of “class” is not a happy one, but it shows Latour’s tendency to accept even the most recalcitrant traditions, provided he suspects useful energies in them. Even if it can then be shown immediately that the new “class” has very little to do with the old ones, but is merely intended to inherit a – generously historically indicated – will to assert itself. Just as they have to operate “materialistically”, but precisely against the old constellation, which was geared towards production conditions and guaranteed prospects of progress. Because now it is no longer about “nature” as an outsourced resource, but about the preservation and generation of the terrestrial habitability conditions. The ecological power must be one against production as the central driver.

It does not contain any advice for the next climate summit. As always with Latour, things are more fundamental, despite and precisely because of the political thrust. And whatever one may think of the authors’ sometimes touching attempts to outline the possibility of future majorities and cultural hegemony of their rather loosely introduced “ecological class”: It is a reminder that the upheavals that are emerging have little to do with of the rotation will be mastered with a few adjusting screws. Whatever the actual outcome, Latour and his co-author are careful not to present themselves as prophets: “Of course, everything will happen in a very different way.”

Bruno Latour and Nikolaj Schultz: “On the emergence of an ecological class”. A memorandum. Translated from the French by Bernd Schwibs. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2022. 93 p., br., €14.