Open AccessTimothy Morton, Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People. London and New York: Verso, 2019, 224 pp., ISBN 9781788731003
Author(s) -
Xiaoli Yang
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
interconnections
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2564-260X
DOI - 10.26522/posthumanismjournal.v1i1.2428
Subject(s) - anthropocentrism , solidarity , politics , environmental ethics , sociology , epistemology , ecological crisis , ecology , philosophy , political science , law , biology
What makes humans and nonhumans ecological beings in the wake of the Anthropocene? Timothy Morton’s Humankind invites us to consider this philosophical issue as intrinsically aesthetic, ethical, and political. Through his illuminating terminology, Morton argues that becoming human is to understand that we are in fact embedded in the network of solidarity and kindness with nonhumans. Being ecological, for Morton, means being spectral and capable of appreciating the spectrality, pleasure, and beauty of nonhuman beings. In our relationship with nonhuman beings, we are the actants who should overcome our troubled anthropocentrism and mull over what makes us humans, physically and experientially. By putting Marxism, object-oriented ontology, and political ecology into dialogue, Morton revisits the implicit inclusion of nonhuman beings in Marxism, revealing that Marxism can still serve as a critical resource of thinking through a kind of communist existence shared by all ecological beings.