Green Populism?—Action and mortality in the Anthropocene by Will Davies | July 2019
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Green Populism?—Action and mortality in the Anthropocene by Will Davies | July 2019 The rise of populism in the twentyfirst century has been widely regarded as harmful to prospects for environmental sustainability. Not only have political leaders such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro stood on policy platforms that are explicitly hostile to the preservation of the natural environment, championing the interests of ecologically destructive industries, but there is a perceived ‘anti-science’ dimension to the rhetoric of many populists, which undermines the public credibility of issues such as climate change and the extreme urgency of addressing them. Bruno Latour has written that “Donald Trump’s supporters should be thanked for having considerably clarified… that the climate question is at the heart of all geopolitical issues and that it is directly tied to questions of injustice and inequality”. (Latour, 2018: 3). Populists and their allies in the media (and on social media) often seek to politicise scientific research, to question or expose the normative and political commitments and privileges of scientists. If the defining
quality of populism is to draw a moral distinction between a morally innocent ‘people’ and a corrupt ‘elite’ (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017), experts face the threat of being associated with journalists and professional politicians as part of ‘the elite’, accused of being a self-interested clique. Many commentators claim to have spotted a thread linking ‘postmodern’ critique and contemporary populist rhetoric, inasmuch as both treat ‘facts’ as political constructs (e.g. D’Ancona, 2017; Kakutani, 2018). ‘Objectivity’ is rendered less publicly credible by the combined assaults of poststructuralists and populists (Latour, 2004), or else it becomes aggressively reasserted as a ‘Western’ political program, in the hands of neo-positivist intellectuals such as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Pinker. The latter ideal is exemplified in environmental politics by the ‘eco-modernist’ movement, advanced by agencies such as the Breakthrough Institute. But in any case, the capacity for science to stand outside of politics, as autonomous and self-justifying, seems severely weakened at 3
Moreover, this exemption (in combination the present juncture. with capitalist growth) has evidently While the politicisation of science by contributed to the ecological condition we populists may be dangerous and frightennow face, by presenting the non-human ing, some form of politicisation of science world in value-free, infinitely exploitable (including areas such as climate science) terms (see Brennan, 2000). is not only inevitable The theoretical task of but arguably welcome There is a perceived thinking natural and at the present historical ‘anti-science’ dimension human history together is juncture. Indeed, theorists to the rhetoric of entangled with the practical of the ‘anthropocene’ have many populists, which task of doing science and argued that the separation undermines the public democracy together (Wark, of human history from credibility of issues such 2015). In that regard, the natural history is now as climate change and possibility of a ‘green over (Chakrabarty, 2009), the extreme urgency of populism’ cannot be ruled and theorists of the addressing them. out entirely, although its ‘capitalocene’ that the risks need to be seriously very idea of ‘nature’ as a reckoned with. mechanical objective domain was an early How and where do the logics of populism modern invention that served the needs and of environmental care overlap? One of capital (Moore, 2015). The riddle that immediate answer lies in the sense of the anthropocene poses is that the human urgency that are features of both today. Part and non-human worlds are no longer of the appeal of populists (at least in their ontologically distinct from one another, and rhetoric) consists in their promise to act yet it is modern science that has established now, to circumvent the empty talk of ‘liberal this (Latour, 2013; Hamilton, 2017). Science elites’, and deliver what ‘the people’ need. must abandon its claim to be politically Of course, this risks tipping into illiberal or autonomous, without this generating a even Fascist politics, that sidesteps legal wholesale legitimacy crisis for scientific and constitutional procedure. Meanwhile, a expertise, of the sort that many populists key feature of the major environmental risks seek to exploit. facing the planet today is how little time One question this poses is whether there there is to deal with them, as in the case of are ingredients of populism that might the IPCC’s 2018 claim that contribute beneficially to there was just twelve years the political re-positioning If the defining quality to act to avoid catastrophic of expertise, at this critical of populism is to draw levels of global warming. Our historical moment—if they a moral distinction ecological condition should can be separated from their between a morally trigger a sense of emergency, dangerous political hosts innocent ‘people’ potentially summoning in some way. If we can see and a corrupt ‘elite’, up new forms of ‘state of beyond the more alarming experts face the threat exception’ (Agamben, 2005). cases, such as Trump, might of being associated One way in which the climate there be something to learn with journalists and from the populist critique professional politicians ‘emergency’ has been welded together with political tactics of ‘elites’, about how green as part of ‘the elite’, of an ‘exceptional’ nature is politics might prosper and accused of being a selfin the ‘Climate mobilisation’ ‘nature’ might be politically interested clique. movement, which seeks to re-conceived? While the model climate policies along the lines of genealogy linking post-structuralist wartime mass mobilisation of economic and philosophy and contemporary populism civic infrastructures. This type of emergency is often drawn far too crudely, there is response, at national and international nevertheless an underlying truth to the scales, is one possible manifestation of claim that many of the purveyors of modern what a democratic ‘green populism’ might reason have often been exempted from look like. public accountability or democratic norms. 4
quo. Theorists of ‘ecological democracy’ More pressingly, there are already and ‘environmental citizenship’ have indications of how ecological politics can explored various ways in which values of be wedded to nationalism, potentially environmentalism and participation can be synthesising a new wave of ‘eco-fascism’. combined and fused (Dobson & Bell, 2005; The businessman, politician and intellectual Schlosberg et al, 2019). The challenge in Herve Juvin, who exerts influence over mobilising a ‘people’ around emancipatory Marine Le Pen, has argued that Europe must environmental concerns is to foreground become re-founded as an ‘alliance for life’, what Latour terms ‘terrestrial’ politics which reconnects Europeans with their own (which starts from the fact that we are territory, and rejects migration and tourism earth-bound) and avoiding a ‘territorial’ (Juvin, 2019). Environmental and climate one (which starts from the premise that we concerns are entering the policy platforms of are spatially bordered). a number of nationalist parties in Northern This paper explores possible philoEurope (Arnoff, 2019). It is not hard to sophical underpinnings of see the potential synergies ‘green populism’, by turning between a fascist and an While the politicisation to the work of Hannah Arendt, environmentalist worldview, of science by populists in particular her account of in which shrinking resources may be dangerous the tensions between science (including land) are hoarded and frightening, some and politics, and the need for and biological-cultural form of politicisation political action to exist in a hierarchies re-asserted. A of science is not ‘common world’ inhabited defence of ‘nature’ becomes only inevitable but by mortal beings. What has a basis on which to abandon arguably welcome at changed ontologically in commitments to certain the present historical the Anthropocene is that types of human, such as juncture... Science the mortality and agency of the refugee (Penny, 2019). must abandon its the natural world has come Frase’s science fictional claim to be politically to the fore, in contrast to scenario of ‘exterminism’ autonomous, without the eternal, universal and is the extreme telos of an this generating a mechanical laws of nature economy organised as a wholesale legitimacy crisis for scientific that were the original concern negative-sum-game (Frase, expertise, of the sort of modern science. The paper 2016). that many populists is structured as follows: The While it is possible to envisseek to exploit. next section considers the age forms of exceptional and de-politicising nature of violent sovereign action in modern science, and the ‘unworldliness’ the face of environmental emergency (Mann of Cartesian reason, as defended by Weber & Wainright, 2018), popular mobilisation as the ‘vocation’ of modern science, but in the face of environmental threats is the criticised by Arendt as a retreat from more hopeful alternative. Populism is not political life. I then turn to the question necessarily authoritarian or nationalistic, of populism, and its crucial characteristic but can be legitimately rooted in the of ‘anti-elitism’, that finds expression in a democratic construction of a ‘people’, and rejection of modern aspirations to objective not just in demagogic rhetoric (Mouffe, representation. The third section considers 2018; D’Eramo, 2013). ‘Left populism’ can what a ‘populism for the anthropocene’ be distinguished from ‘right populism’, by might look like, that took seriously Arendt’s the fact that its critique of ‘elites’ involves critique of ‘unworldly science’, and brought no third party, in the form of the immigrant science back into the sphere of living and or minority group, but simply denounces dying beings. The paper concludes with unaccountable concentrations of power some normative and political implications (Judis, 2016). The popular revival of the of this argument, emphasising how care for ‘Green New Deal’ signals how technocratic mortal beings is an ethic that potentially and democratic visions can be welded infuses a politics of both humans and nontogether, around a sense of urgency and humans. Whether this ethic is likely to be the deep unsustainability of the status 5
seized predominantly by the Left or by the Right remains under-determined.
Weber saw as characteristic of modernity, and which poses the threat of nihilism. The critique of disenchantment emerged Science and unworldliness with reflexive modernity, as reason became turned upon itself from the late 18th century The ‘scientific revolution’ of the 17th onwards (Habermas, 1987; Foucault, century established a new perspective on 1984). Within this critical tradition, I want the non-human world, which treated it to highlight the arguments of Arendt, as ontologically separate from the realm which echo aspects of of human freedom, values and culture (Latour, 2013). Weber’s, but which trace The rationalist Cartesian the problem of scientific Populism is not tradition privileged a priori separateness back much necessarily mathematical laws, which further. Arendt’s genealogy authoritarian or determined the geometrical of ‘objectivity’ begins with nationalistic, but can movements of objects in Homeric narrative, which be legitimately rooted space, and were knowable to portrayed wars from the in the democratic disembodied human reason. unusual perspective of the construction of a The empiricist tradition disinterested observer, the ‘people’, and not just in that emerged with learned start of a “curious passion, demagogic rhetoric. societies and mercantile unknown outside Western communities privileged civilization, for intellectual human experience, but nevertheless integrity at any price” (Arendt, 1993: 263). depended on strict measurement devices According to Arendt, this passion was and recording standards in order to intensified by Plato, who imposed a schism codify and discipline it. In both cases, the between the activity of politics and the perspective of modern science depended philosophical study of truth. The former has on a strict distinction of the knowing mind a worldly character, in which political actors from the realm of the objects that appeared seek ‘immortality’ through exceptional before it. deeds, whereas the latter has an unworldly The ‘nature’ that is known by modern quality, which departs from the sphere science has a mechanical and ethically of human activity in search of ‘eternal’ empty quality. Natural objects have no laws and truths (Arendt, 1958). Political intrinsic value or meaning, which is also action, for Arendt, arises between beings what makes them available to exploitation conscious of their own mortality, who seek by capital (Moore, 2015). At the same to transcend death through heroism in the time, because nature is eyes of others. Given that a ontologically distinct from polity outlives us, we can What has changed human freedom and culture, achieve immortality through ontologically in the the pursuit of scientific memorable words and deeds, Anthropocene is that knowledge becomes that live on as legends. the mortality and separated off from ethical Philosophy, by contrast, is a agency of the natural or political inquiry. While turning away from finitude world has come to the modern scientists adopt and mortality altogether, in fore, in contrast to strict disciplinary methods, favour of an immersion in the the eternal, universal scientific knowledge offers no infinite and the timeless. It and mechanical laws answers to ethical questions renounces the flux of politics of nature that were of how to live or whether in favour of the certainty of the original concern of life has any meaning. As truth. modern science. Weber emphasised, modern In Arendt’s account, science cannot even provide modern science radicalises evidence of its own intrinsic value, but must the Platonist attack on the realm of politics, proceed with a wholly dutiful commitment by identifying timeless laws that underpin to its own methods (Weber, 1991). This is the everyday worldly life. Crucially, the same famous ‘disenchantment of the world’ that mathematical principles that explained 6
maintain a sense of obliviousness to the the movement of the stars could also now consequences of their actions. What Weber explain the natural world inhabited by saw as the ‘vocation’ of science is to commit humans, and indeed human activity itself. to method alone, with no sense of the direct With the formation of statistics in the late consequences for humanity. This vocation 17th century, ‘society’ was envisaged as places no value in any particular human life obeying its own immanent, rational laws or lives, and treats death as meaningless. of behaviour, in a way that was no different The study of statistics, for example, was to the planets or other aspects of nature initially preoccupied with studying trends (Arendt, 1958: 46). Thus, where philosophers in mortality and natality; however, it could since Plato had previously found refuge only identify the ‘laws’ of population by from the political realm in order to seek abstracting away from the meaning of any truth, modern science devours the space of particular birth or death. The particularity political action by identifying the universal of lives and deeds is necessarily overlooked. truths and laws that run through it. The human world, where politics necessarily takes place, is reduced The ‘nature’ that is known by modern science to the status of any other object has a mechanical and ethically empty quality... in an infinite universe, a mere At the same time, because nature is ontologically specimen governed by timeless distinct from human freedom and culture, laws (Arendt, 1958: 258). Modern the pursuit of scientific knowledge becomes science is oblivious to the unique separated off from ethical or political inquiry. nature of the earth, as the only habitat of human beings, and In Weber’s account, modern science diverts to mortality as the shared condition of attention away from individual lives and embodied human beings. Via Cartesian experiences, towards a more abstract doubt, modern reason breaks free of the universal goal of ‘progress’, which extends earthly, mortal limits of humankind. indefinitely into the future. Equally, the Arendt’s understanding of rationalist Cartesian separation of human from nondisenchantment is of a gradual withdrawal human worlds doesn’t simply assert the from an ephemeral world of politics and autonomy of the former, but represents appearances, in pursuit of certainty and nature as without intrinsic value and permanence. Political heroism seems amenable to endless violent exploitation to offer a viable escape from mortality, (Moore, 2015; Hamilton, 2017). As the bestowing immortality via commemoration meta-value, ‘progress’ over-rides all local or and legend in the political community. intrinsic values. But if polities themselves are mortal (the This does, however, pose an awkward lesson that Arendt sees in the fall of Rome), question once ‘progress’ threatens the very then the conditions of this immortality are conditions of human life. Modern science themselves finite. The withdrawal from may be blind to the value of particular politics towards a disembodied realm of human lives, but can it still be blind to the timeless, abstract reason, is a quest for a necessary conditions of human life? Arendt more dependable source of permanence. argued that it can: What scientific logic offers is certainty, “The simple fact that physicists split founded on Cartesian doubt, but there is a the atom without any hesitations the very loss of worldly meaning and action in the moment they knew how to do it, although they process. Existential certainty is achieved in realized full well the enormous destructive reason, at the loss of a common and singular potentialities of their operation, demonstrates ‘world’ of shared appearances. that the scientist qua scientist does not even A consequence of the unworldliness care about the survival of the human race on of modern science is that it necessarily earth or, for that matter, about the survival of abstains from acknowledging various kinds the planet itself.” (Arendt, 1993: 276). of worldly or political questions. Firstly, in The technological innovations of the order for science to be value neutral (in the twentieth century, including the atomic way that Weber defended), scientists must 7
receive public recognition for a given bomb and space travel, radicalised the discovery?) has allowed modern expertise question of the purpose or vocation to sustain an image of itself as ‘apolitical’, of modern science. The principle of and without need of public justification. In disembodied, Cartesian reason was no longer Latour’s terms, the scientific establishment just an ascetic ethos, but disavowed and is ‘janus-faced’, presenting itself on the endangered the basic physical conditions one hand as a mere vessel for the truth that of human life. This is the contradiction that belongs to nature or society, and on the the dawn of the Anthropocene highlights, other as a heroic force of political progress namely that modern science has been and enlightenment that deserves ample willing to acknowledge and defend its own political and economic support (Berger & methodological preconditions, but not its Luckmann, 2011; Latour, 1987). existential ones (Latour, 2018). The question The deconstructive, genealogical and that Arendt’s work poses, in the face of the ‘social’ study of science that developed existential risks of the Anthropocene, is from the 1960s onwards challenged this how do scientists respond once the venture exceptionalism, by placing modern science of science itself confronts its own mortality. back into a cultural and political history. Secondly, the vocation of modern science Once politics and culture are brought back involves a silencing of political and social into the picture, questions questions regarding the of power, rhetoric, historical organisation, governance Political action, for accidents, private interests and practices of scientific Arendt, arises between and meaning start to appear activity itself (Latour, 1987). beings conscious of within expert communities Historians of science have their own mortality, that had denied the shown how the scientific who seek to transcend significance of these things. revolution was dependent death through heroism Viewed this way, the on various political, in the eyes of others. ... institutional and technical Philosophy, by contrast, successes of modern reason can be understood partly in preconditions. Experimental is a turning away from terms of political strategy methods were developed finitude and mortality and control, in successfully within the confines of altogether, in favour creating and sustaining carefully restricted societies of an immersion in consensus within tightly and clubs, which had to the infinite and the restricted communities. One argue for their political timeless. It renounces crucial means of achieving right to dictate truths about the flux of politics in favour of the certainty this is by strictly delimiting nature, in the face of both of truth. the public that participates theological and political in consensus-formation, opposition (Shapin, 1994; to those who are deemed to have the Shapin & Schaffer, 2011). Norms of recordappropriate moral character and credentials. keeping and measurement were needed Thus, entry to the earliest experimental in order for observations to be converted societies (which granted the right to into ‘facts’ that could be distributed and witness experiments being performed) was recognised via international networks of delimited to those of good social standing, expertise (Poovey, 1998). Statistical data allowing each participant to trust the ‘good were first collected with the backing and word’ of any other (Shapin, 1994). As Latour funding of the sovereign state, often in puts it, “The Moderns are those who have colonial settings (Desrosieres, 1998). kidnapped Science to solve a problem of While modern scientific reason might closure in public debates” (Latour, 2013: relentlessly question its own methodological 129). Scarce moral resources, of reputation and epistemological preconditions, it is and educational accreditation, remain basic wilfully blind to its social and political building blocks of how scientific facts are ones. A refusal to confront the politics of established, combined and supplemented. expertise (whose knowledge counts? How From this more anthropological is inconvenient knowledge suppressed? perspective, the tension between science How will research be funded? Who will 8
higher echelons of public life (Mills, 1999; and politics is not merely ‘vocational’ or Khan, 2012). These cultural privileges, philosophical, but concerns the pragmatics especially indicated by elite education, of how (if at all) to bring controversies to a are deemed more significant than any close. Arguments over the ‘politicisation’ economic advantages. By attacking ‘elites’, of science (where dissensus is injected populists emphasise that liberal systems of into expert communities), or conversely accountability are a sham, the ‘de-politicisation’ of and that senior decisionpolitics (where experts seek Where philosophers makers are acting in to impose consensus on since Plato had policy), point to the blurred previously found refuge concert with one another. and shifting boundary from the political realm Consensus on policies and rules is actually a symptom between matters of fact and in order to seek truth, those of deliberative value modern science devours of the closure and cultural homogeneity of the ‘elite’. judgement. Scientific issues the space of political Secondly, by opposing start to ‘heat up’ where action by identifying they become pervaded by the universal truths and ‘elites’ to ‘the people’, distinctions within the normative controversy, and laws that run through it. latter are also eroded. experts become increasingly Since its emergence in late expected to mediate or 19th century Kansas, populism has never influence democratic deliberations (Callon been understood as a class-based political et al, 2011). Meanwhile, politics becomes phenomenon, but unifies various interests, increasingly technocratic and hollowed out, including petit bourgeoisie, farmers and where particular policy issues are delegated workers. Populism rests on the assumption to rarefied expert communities to resolve that there is some sort of ‘general will’ that (Fischer, 1990; Mair, 2013). In an effort to is shared by this morally virtuous mass, steer between a surfeit of technocracy and but which is thwarted by existing systems a surfeit of democracy, different models of representative democracy including of ‘governance’ are developed to produce established political parties (Mudde & policies that combine space for deliberation Kaltwasser, 2017). Populism drifts towards with respect for expert consensus. nationalism or fascism where the identity The ‘elitism’ of experts? of ‘the people’ becomes founded in exclusionary national or ethnic categories, The term ‘populism’ has become both and ‘elites’ are accused of favouring minority ubiquitous and contentious. But its key groups or immigrants. The assumption of characteristics have been usefully identified a homogeneous ‘people’ allows far-right as follows: populists to accuse dissenters of being “A thin-centered ideology that considers ‘enemies of the people’ and inauthentic society to be ultimately separated into two (Mueller, 2018). But a ‘left populism’ is also homogeneous and antagonistic camps, “the feasible, where ‘the people’ includes anyone pure people” versus “the corrupt elite,” and who wishes to join a movement, to construct which argues that politics should be an a people anew, and to mobilise against expression of the volonte generale (general ‘the elite’ (Judis, 2016; Mouffe, 2018). Left will) of the people. (Mudde & Kaltwasser, populism seeks to introduce dissent to areas 2016). of economic policy-making, which had In drawing this moral distinction, previously been controlled by elite expert populists seek to do two things. Firstly, consensus. they hope to erase distinctions between I want to highlight an additional quality ostensibly separate centres of power and to populism, which will help to illuminate authority, such as opposing political parties, its potential threat to the authority of both the media, senior public administrators and experts and professional politicians: it technocrats, the judiciary and business consists of a critique of the multiple forms leaders. The term ‘elite’ emphasises the of representation on which liberal societies various cultural and social qualities that are and government depend. This grants its shared across different power nodes, in the 9
duty or virtue, meaning that their flaws and weak but undeniable family resemblance to misdemeanours do not count against them post-structuralist critique, and its critique in the same way as their opponents’ are of liberal democracy. The Hobbesian ideal deemed to. Viewed this way, what is suspect of a sovereign judicial state representing about ‘elites’ is their claim to be able to the public interest is cast into doubt, as only act in the general interest, as impersonal some combination of direct democracy and representatives of the public and reporters charismatic leadership is viewed adequate of facts, rather than merely from their to articulating the authentic popular will. own local and personal perspective. The Institutions that offer to represent society vocation to impartiality or objectivity—to in terms of objective facts, including seek a view from nowhere—is a recipe for statistical agencies, journalists and social hypocrisy, seeing as it starts from a denial scientists, are suspected of serving the of the embodied, cultural nature of every interests of their own cultural milieu. human perspective on the world. Political parties become viewed as machineEvidence from surveys on trust tend like and bureaucratic, while civil servants to show that the professions viewed with and regulators are viewed as politically greatest cynicism in liberal partial. Educational divides democracies are journalists in liberal societies, especially The question that and politicians (see Funk between graduates and nonArendt’s work poses, & Kennedy, 2019). Trust graduates, have become in the face of the in scientists, including one of the major cultural existential risks of the climate scientists, holds up rifts that populist parties Anthropocene, is how reasonably well. However, exploit (Runciman, 2018; do scientists respond universities increasingly Goodwin & Eatwell, 2018). once the venture of find themselves drawn The rise of social media science itself confronts into political controversies has broken the control that its own mortality. that are fuelled by populist professional editors and rhetoric against ‘political correctness’ and broadcasters have over the circulation of the values of a ‘liberal elite’. While individual public information, meaning that access to experts might be viewed as uncorrupted, the public sphere is no longer so restricted right-wing populists inculcate a view that by systems of accreditation. academic culture is oblivious to particular In seeking to understand the emotions national interests, and governed by a set of that mobilise people, potentially towards ‘liberal’ or ‘global’ interests that transcend violence, Arendt observed that “if we local or national culture. This can manifest inquire historically into the causes likely itself in viciously nationalistic terms (as in to transform engages into enrages, it is not the elimination of the Central European injustice that ranks first, but hypocrisy” University from Hungary in 2018) or forms (Arendt, 1970: 65). This is a crucial insight in of conspiracy theory (such as claims about making sense of the anger and resentment the pervasive influence of ‘cultural Marxist’ that drives populist movements. What ideology on American campuses). Studies is morally abhorrent about elites is not have shown, for example, that populist that they are flawed or self-interested as support across Europe is correlated to such, but that they purport to transcend the spread of the ‘anti-vax’ movement personal interests or tastes, because they (Kennedy, 2019). Climate denialism is purport to be acting in a representational encouraged by efforts to paint climate capacity. As Hochschild discovered in her scientists as members of the liberal elite, as ethnography of Tea Party sympathisers anti-capitalists or as hypocrites who gladly in Louisiana, government officials and live the lifestyles that they criticise in others liberals are loathed because of their phoney (e.g. James, 2017). claim to be acting on behalf of everybody And yet an engagement with conservative (Hochschild, 2016). By contrast, a ruthless epistemology demonstrates that there businessman or enraged celebrity politician is also a more nuanced dimension to the makes no pretence to represent the whole. critique of elite knowledge, that plays a They may equally make little claim to public 10
democracies (Latour, 2004). The claim that part in the sensibility of populist support. a specialist minority is able to represent In her study of ‘rural consciousness’ in reality in a “non-interpretive” fashion, that Wisconsin, Cramer found that scientists is central to the epistemology of the ‘modern from Wisconsin University were viewed fact’, needs questioning (Poovey, 1998). as aloof and arrogant when conducting What Nixon refers to as the research on local rivers, showing no interest ‘environmentalism of in the testimony of those the poor’ speaks to the familiar with the rivers. One The successes of same epistemological and rural Wisconsite told her: modern reason can political issue, though “They don’t want anything be understood partly with an emphasis on the to do with ya. They think in terms of political destructive post-colonial they’re smarter than ya. Got strategy and control, dimensions of capitalist that book learning. People go to in successfully creating exploitation (Nixon, college they come out dumber and sustaining 2011). The long-distance, than they went in. They got consensus within ‘slow violence’ enacted the books there, those books, tightly restricted by arms-length corporate it’s not like the experience.” communities. investments and accidents (Cramer, 2016: 126) afflicting the global south As pragmatist philosodamages not only ‘nature’, but also lived phers have argued, the emphasis on epistemic and political life-worlds that objective and representational knowledge cannot then be repaired. Against a notion (‘knowing that’) can mean a devaluing that ‘environmentalism’ is a rationality of of practical and embodied knowledge the developed north, which is imposed on (‘knowing how’) (Wittgenstein, 2001; the global south, Nixon demonstrates how Polanyi, 1969). This is often a conservative knowledge and care for the environment critique (e.g. Hayek, 1944; Scruton, 2014) is manifest in local vernaculars, especially but it has also been made in defence of in the texts of ‘activist writers’ seeking to local democracy and autonomy, against the represent what is being lost. Literature power of technocratic and colonial forms of performs the work of environmental expertise that govern from a distance (e.g. representation that objectivist expertise Scott, 1998; Flyvbjerg, 2001). As science does not or cannot. studies has shown, concepts of ‘nature’ and Recasting populist rhetoric in Arendt’s ‘the environment’ are artefacts of cognitive terms, we might understand the critique of cultures and traditions that see such things elites, including of experts, from afar, via the instruments more as follows. Those of science, based in From this more individuals who deal in facts metropolitan centres, rather anthropological than expressions of those perspective, the tension and figures are exempting themselves from the common who live with the natural between science world of politics, in favour environment, who may not and politics is not of attention to universal see their experiences of merely ‘vocational’ and eternal methods and ‘nature’ reflected in objective or philosophical, but facts about it. Cultures of concerns the pragmatics rules. More acutely, they expertise involve strict of how (if at all) to bring are turning away from a controversies to a close. sphere of embodied conduct hierarchies and delineations defined by mortality, ‘rare ofwhoseempiricalexperience deeds’ and commemoration, in favour of of the world is to count as ‘objective’, and a commitment to abstract, disembodied whose is merely ‘subjective’, with a critical and eternal principles of reason. As Weber role for technologies of measurement and accepted, the vocation of modern science observation in distinguishing one from is oblivious to the meaning and tragedy of the other. But if we’re to acknowledge that death or destruction, locating it instead there is a politics to this distinction, then we within an infinite time horizon of endless must also recognise that this has possible progress. As Latour’s work has indicated, implications for the status of facts in 11
few obvious, demonstrable data that confirm there is something hypocritical about the human freedom.” (Arendt, 1993: 250) modern scientific vocation, which seeks to The difficulty for anyone seeking to hold up every facet of physical and social constrain political action and argument nature to observation, other than the actions within the terrain of ‘facts’ is that this can of scientists themselves (Latour, 1987). appear like a denial of political possibility— Expertise does possess cultural and political not simply a constraint on democracy (as is privileges in society, that protect centres of the typical populist critique of technocracy) knowledge from democratic interference or but a turning away from the ‘vita activa’ that moral judgement. All of this is a normative characterises political life. precondition of capitalist This produces a profound devastation dressed up as Populism drifts towards dilemma in facilitating the ‘progress’ or ‘development’, nationalism or fascism co-existence of politics which moves too quickly where the identity of and truth, without one and at too much distance to ‘the people’ becomes eradicating the other. ever be accountable for its founded in exclusionary Climate science faces a full consequences. Arendt’s national or ethnic particularly acute problem observation that it is categories, and ‘elites’ here, in that it deals with hypocrisy, not injustice, that are accused of favouring is most likely to “transform an object that exceeds minority groups or engages into enrages” is unmediated human sensibiimmigrants. revealing here. lity. The consequences of global warming are now In Arendtian terms, the entering everyday experience on a frequent political appeal of the populist leader, basis, yet the object known as ‘climate’ in contrast to the scientific expert or only exists thanks to networks of satellites, technocrat, is that they dwell in the common computer models and weather stations world of action—where humans are born around the globe (Edwards, 2010). As a and die—rather than in a world of timeless, set of objective facts, climate is as far universal laws and immutable facts (Arendt, removed from the political world of shared 1958). If a leader appears uninterested in experiences and appearances as is possible, ‘facts’, this only reinforces their status seeing as they exist at the scale of the global. as a political actor, in a common world of The epistemological implications of the appearances. We needn’t sympathise with Anthropocene, however, are that natural or believe the liar in order to understand science is no longer a project of objective their appeal. Arendt argues: representation of a non-human domain, “There is hardly a political figure more but an unavoidably political exercise in likely to arouse justified suspicion than the managing a single unfolding of humanprofessional truthteller who has discovered natural history. As Latour some happy coincidence argues, there is no longer between truth and interest. But a ‘left populism’ a binary division between The liar, on the contrary, is also feasible, where ‘universals’ of scientific needs no such doubtful ‘the people’ includes enquiry and ‘particulars’ accommodation to appear anyone who wishes of culture and politics, but on the political scene; he has to join a movement, rather—for the first time in the great advantage that he to construct a people human history—a problem always is, so to speak, already anew, and to mobilise stemming from the fact that in the midst of it. He is an against ‘the elite’.... humans are a terrestrial actor by nature; he says what It seeks to introduce species. Thus, while Arendt is not so because he wants dissent to areas of argued that satellite images things to be different from economic policyof the earth from space what they are—that is, he making, which had represented the ultimate wants to change the world... previously been denial of political action our ability to lie—but not controlled by elite (representing the planet as necessarily our ability to tell expert consensus. just another value-less object the truth—belongs among the 12
culture of therapeutic care— and its inevitably psychoWhat is morally somatic dimensions—points abhorrent about to an aspect of the medical elites is not that vocation that is unlike the they are flawed or value-free scientific vocation self-interested as defended by Weber, in which such, but that they “death is meaningless”. The purport to transcend personal interests or quest for scientific certainty tastes, because they and truth is blended with an Populism in the purport to be acting engagement with the world Anthropocene in a representational of human suffering, loss, capacity. memory and mourning. Reflecting on the interThe dawn of the Anthrosection of health policy and pocene grants a new ontolo-gical equivalence democracy in the time of Trump, the health to the human and non-human worlds, albeit policy scholar Ted Shrecker has argued that with a particular responsibility accorded to “we can and should envision an alternative humans in effecting the natural disasters populism, organised around a rubric like: that now confront human and non-human ‘Stop, you’re killing us!’” (Shrecker, 2017). history (Hamilton, 2017). ‘Human’ and Shrecker refers to the mounting evidence ‘natural’ history converge into a single field, of how social and economic policies in the as the separation of nature from culture, global north since 2008 have been leading science from politics, is no longer tenable. to risks to public health and, in certain This nevertheless poses the question of how populations, reduced life expectancy and the non-human world is to be introduced rising mortality rates (Whyte & Cooper, to politics and represented as a matter of 2017). This is a reflection on the inequality concern. My proposition is that, echoing and class politics that has split liberal Shrecker’s claim, the very safeguarding democracies since the late 1970s, and and mourning of life itself can become the nothing to do with the defence of ‘European trigger for political engagement, in which life’ that is becoming a tool in the armoury expertise becomes modelled around the of nationalists. ideal type of the nurse rather than of the One thing that stands out from the classically modern scientist. And yet, in the survey evidence on trust in professions Anthropocene, the care for life cannot stop and institutions across liberal democracies at the bounds of humanity, but must extend is that medical professions, and especially beyond that. To recognise our ‘terrestrial’ nurses, retain very high levels of public being is not only to reject borders as the limits confidence, compared to other sources of of ethical commitment, but also species. expertise (Gallup, 2018). We might speculate As Hamilton argues, anthropocentrism is that, following Arendt, the expertise unavoidable given the unique role played and authority of medical practitioners by human beings in bringing us to this geodo not suffer from the political problem human point in history, but at the same of unworldliness that besets scientific time the project of caring for the nonexpertise and technocracy. Arendt’s work human and desisting our violence against points to why this might be: by focusing it is now an ethical injunction that should on and caring for the human body across supplant the scientific ‘vocation’ towards the cycle of birth, life, loss and death, the infinite ‘progress’ (Hamilton, 2017: 143).The medical gaze remains fixed on the sphere of modern conceit, that the value of ‘progress’ action where human beings appear before can be oblivious to rare deeds or losses, is no one another as unique and irreplaceable. longer tenable. On the contrary, recognising The dramatic progress of medicine from the and publicising the meaning of specific seventeenth century onwards was clearly losses, through rare deeds and mourning, driven by scientific progress, treating the is integral to the politics of conservation. body as a specimen of physical matter which “Stop, you’re killing everything!” should be obeyed scientific principles. However, the in an infinite universe), the Anthropocene demands a new scientific vocation that rests on the common needs of an inescapably terrestrial species, which carries a particular responsibility for the threats it now faces (Hamilton, 2017).
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the loss that accompanies the cry. it, as ontologically and poliFrom an Arendtian The Anthropocene tically decisive. Epistemic perspective, the crucial demands a new and political authority is quality of the Anthropocene, scientific vocation therefore rooted in ideas which brings science and that rests on the of care and rescue, in such politics back into closer common needs of an inescapably terrestrial a way that is mindful of relation to each other, is species, which carries a the fact that we don’t have that notions of ‘universality’ particular responsibility endless time. In renouncing and ‘eternity’ lose their a for the threats it now the turn towards ‘eternity’, priori epistemological and faces. that Arendt saw as the antipolitical status. Meanwhile, political quality of modern the human imprint on the science, experts can side with ‘the earth system will now last until the end of people’ and their habitat, recognising the the planet’s existence (longer even than the shifting relation between the two, and the planet has existed for to date), meaning that irreversibility of the (sometimes traumatic) any idea of what is ‘permanent’ or ‘natural’ loss that is felt in this unfolding dynamic. about earthly existence is now coloured by The physical demise and death of the objects contingent historical actions, including by of knowledge can no longer be external to scientists of the past four hundred years. As the vocation of modern science, and the Hamilton argues: over-arching, unifying telos of saving the “The globe is no longer the “disenchanted” common terrestrial world provides ethical Earth given to us by the scientific revolution. content to the scientific project, of the sort But nor is it “re-enchanted”; it is no magic that Weber refused (Hamilton, 2017: 48). pervades it but willed activity.” (Hamilton, The political and practical dimensions of 2017: 37) expertise are therefore confronted head-on, Not only is the practice of science and granted the rationale of humanitarian politically invested in the construction and and ecological relief. Forms of emergency transformation of nature (as science studies intervention are sanctioned on the basis has argued), but the erstwhile objectivity of that they pursue a policy of ‘non-violence’ science has acquired a mortality of its own. within the common world of humans and Human and non-human worlds acquire a non-humans, that otherwise threatens to common existential condition of finitude, tip into a constant war between the two and each are shaped by the often violent (albeit one that was initiated by humanity). collisions between the two. On this basis, the practices, political A challenge of a democratic and inclusive authority and privileges of ‘green populism’ is of how experts connects with some to construct a common A challenge of a idea of the popular ‘general political world, in which the democratic and will’, not via liberal forms of lives, actions and deaths of inclusive ‘green representation but through humans and non-humans populism’ is of how to a recognition of the material are granted recognition construct a common conditions of life itself. This and meaning, qua life, political world, in and never as territoriallywhich the lives, actions is apparent in contemporary forms of climate action, limited identities. This and deaths of humans such as Rising Tide, Climate does not mean subsuming and non-humans are Extinction them under general laws of granted recognition and Mobilisation, Rebellion and School Strike statistics and mathematics, meaning, qua life, and for Climate,which specifically by way of pure technocratic never as territoriallybreach or circumvent legal administration. Rather, it limited identities. and institutional norms means re-imagining centres of democratic representation (Jacobsen, of techno-scientific expertise in ways that 2018). These forms of social mobilisation are attuned to the constantly shifting have elements in common with non-violent conditions of human and non-human life, protest and wartime mobilisation, in that that recognises the passage of time and 14
they seek specifically to move a mass of imaginative testimony.” (Nixon, 2011: 14) human bodies, in solidarity with one another Rendering long-distance, slow processes and with the non-humans that need rescuing. ‘apprehensible’ means finding ways to bring Mass mobilisation, which historically has them into the sphere of human action and arisen in the context of nations at war, creates mutual visibility, that Arendt considered a ‘people’ in a populist sense, the only possible domain of but needn’t only be organised politics. A Cartesian episteIn Arendt’s account, around nationality or exclumological ideal of neutral political inter-action, sionary identities. What it does representation, which disgenerating common require, however, is the sense of avows the embodiment and feeling, is the only urgency that action is needed mortality of the mind, is ultimate assurance we now, and a recognition of the therefore replaced with an all inhabit the same unique status of the present imaginative pragmatism world at all: “the opportunity. This is what the that is also a commitment presence of others modern scientific vocation is to a common political world who see what we see definitively unable to achieve. of appearances, as its own and hear what we Embedded in such mode of knowing. Science is hear assures us of the reality of the world and no longer revealed ‘in action’ movements, expertise does ourselves”. not purport to be neutral in some illicit sense, but on the question of its own presents itself as such from political and cultural preconditions, nor on the outset. In Arendt’s account, political the lived consequences of its interventions. inter-action, generating common feeling, is The scientist no longer absents themselves— the only ultimate assurance we all inhabit ethically, bodily, culturally and politically— the same world at all: “the presence of from the process of knowledge production, others who see what we see and hear what and methods and credentials of knowledge we hear assures us of the reality of the world no longer perform the same distancing role and ourselves” (Arendt, 1958: 50). The between the expert and society, metropole humanities are indispensable in this realityand rural life. As part of a ‘green populism’, formation. By contrast, the philosopher epistemic-political authority does not rest on and the rationalist are not fundamentally a withdrawal from the flux of change and loss, concerned with achieving a shared public but on a capacity to pacify, temper, slow and idea of truth, only a certain one. Is it any remember. Social and natural science have surprise if such an ascetic tradition, running equal weighting in this regard, as they trace from Plato via Descartes, ultimately proves the passage of time through the movements incapable of persuading ‘the people’ of its and changes in the human and non-human validity, when that was never its concern in world (Elliott, 2018). The cry of “Stop, you’re the first place? killing us!” applies to the fast and ‘slow’ Conclusion: tracing movement violence that afflicts social ecology. This analysis leaves plenty of questions Meanwhile, literary, artistic and qualitative unanswered. What does science policy forms of knowledge acquire a new priority, look like, once oriented towards a ‘green in narrating and mourning the unique and populism’? How does science communifinite experiences of ‘slow violence’, that will cation change? What implications does destroy irreplaceable human and non-human it have for disciplines, interdisciplinarity phenomena and ways of life (Nixon, 2011; and resourcing of expert institutions? Ghosh, 2016). As Nixon argues: What forms of governance are required to “Apprehension is a critical word here, a mediate the inevitable conflicts that arise crossover term that draws together the domains between scientific consensus and popular of perception, emotion, and action. To engage dissent? These are problems that far exceed slow violence is to confront layered predicaments the scope of the argument here, which is of apprehension: to apprehend—to arrest, or focused on the type of Weberian vocation at least mitigate—often imperceptible threat that is needed to attend to ‘nature’, once it requires rendering them apprehensible to is brought back within the uncertain, mortal the senses through the work of scientific and 15
Finally, there is the slow (and not so realms of action, rather than of eternal truth. slow) movement in the physical world. If we distil the Arendtian orientation The ‘rare deeds’ of non-human actors, that defended here,what it privileges is movement were triggered originally by unwitting ‘rare of various kinds. The first is of social deeds’ by human actors over the modern era. movement, the mobilisations that construct These movements are all ways of tracking a ‘people’ through granting it visibility and temporality and finitude in various ways: of bio-political form in public space. This apprehending that which is lost, being lost, element of populism and of activism is, to a or could be lost in the future. That political greater or lesser extent, a critique or refusal action occurs against the shadow of death, of representative democracy in its standard as Arendt argued, becomes more apparent liberal form. Rather than have the people in the age of the Anthropocene, hence represented, and then spoken for, the movements such as ‘Extinction Rebellion’. people physically present themselves. The And yet, the climate crisis in crowd on the street not only particular has also brought symbolises the lives that The crowd on the street the question of youth and are threatened by violence not only symbolises future generations into and the ‘slow violence’ of the lives that are politics, most arrestingly ecological break-down; it threatened by violence where children take to the consists of those lives. That and the ‘slow violence’ streets in protests such as scientists and experts now of ecological breakSchool Strike for Climate. join such mobilisations, as down; it consists of For Arendt, political hope in the ‘March for Science’ those lives... Political consisted in the fact that of April 2017, represents action occurs against an important statement the shadow of death, as action always brings a new world into being, giving of shared biology and Arendt argued. birth to something: “Since humanity, offering a nonaction is the political activity representational mode of par excellence, natality, and not mortality, politics that is prior to the representational may be the central category of political, as functions of modern expertise. distinguished from metaphysical, thought” Secondly, there are the affective (Arendt, 1958: 9). The hope of such a movements, or emotions, that are integral democracy would not only lie in a cry such to how populism and mass mobilisation as “stop, you’re killing us!”, but of new lives works. Birth, death and loss register their entering the world. reality affectively, and not wholly logically as facts or numbers. The truth of affective *** impacts needs recognising, where the common world of humans and non-humans References is recognised—as per Arendt’s argument— to be one of mortal beings (including nonAgamben, G. (2005). State of Exception: human ones), appearing before one another. Chicago, Il: Chicago University Press The affective impact of epistemic practices Arendt, H. (1970). On Violence. Houghton on experts themselves needs to be voiced Mifflin Harcourt. and heard. Equally, to the extent that a Arendt, H. (1993). ‘Truth and Politics. In vigorous populism may require something to Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in angrily mobilise against, it is worth mulling Political Thought. Penguin Books. Arendt’s observation that ‘hypocrisy’ is Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. more enraging than ‘injustice. In what pp. vi. 332. University of Chicago Press: sense might the purveyors of ‘slow violence’ Chicago, 1958. be guilty of ‘hypocrisy’? Reputational Arnoff, K. (2019). The European Far insurgencies, which expose companies for Right’s Environmental Turn. Dissent, 31st ‘green-washing’, concealment and lies, May 2019 effectively work on this frontier, subverting Callon, M., Lascoumes, P. & Barthe, the game of image-management in a Y. (2011) Acting in an Uncertain World. powerful, obstructive way (Feher, 2018). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. 16
Chakrabarty, D. (2009). The Climate of History: Four Theses. Critical Enquiry. 35: 2. 197-222 Cramer, K. J. (2016). The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. University of Chicago Press. D’Ancona, M. (2017). Post-Truth: the new war on truth and how to fight back. London: Ebury Desrosieres, A. (1998) The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press Dobson, A. & Bell, D. (eds.) (2006) Environmental Citizenship. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press D’Eramo, M. (2013) ‘Populism and the New Oligarchy’, New Left Review, 82, Jul-Aug Edwards, P. (2011). A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press Elliott, R. (2018). The Sociology of Climate Change as a Sociology of Loss. European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 59(3), 301–337. Feher, M, (2018) Rated Agency: Investee Politics in a Speculative Age. Cambridge, Mass: Zone Books Fischer, F. (1990) Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise. Newbury Park: Sage Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making Social Science Matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Foucault, M. (1984) ‘An Answer to the question ‘What is Enlightenment?’’ in Foucault, M. (1984) The Foucault Reader. Pantheon Books Frase, P. (2016) Four Futures: Life after capitalism. London: Verso Funk, C. & Kennedy, B. (2019) ‘Public confidence in science and scientists has remained stable since the 1970s’. Pew Research Center, 22nd March 2019. pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/22/publicconfidence-in-scientists-has-remained-stablefor-decades/ (accessed 3rd April 2019) Gallup (2018) Honesty/Ethics in Professions news.gallup.com/poll/1654/honesty-ethicsprofessions.aspx (accessed 3rd April, 2018) Ghosh, A. (2016). The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. University of Chicago Press. Goodwin, M. & Eatwell, R. (2018).
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About the Author
Will Davies is a Co-Investigator in CUSP, where he is Editor the ‘Meaning and Moral Framing of Sustainable Prosperity’ essay series. He is a Reader in Political Economy at Goldsmiths, and author of three books, most recently Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World. He is also Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Centre at Goldsmiths. His writing is available at www. williamdavies.blog.
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Š 2019 A prosperous society is concerned not only with income and financial wealth, but also with the health and wellbeing of its citizens, with their access to good quality education, and with their prospects for decent and rewarding work. Prosperity enables basic individual rights and freedoms. But it must also deliver the ability for people to participate meaningfully in common projects. Ultimately, prosperity must offer society a credible and inclusive vision of social progress. The over-arching goal of CUSP is to contribute to that essential task.
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