Summary: Traditional societies see the non-human world, that is their environment, in social and thus moral terms. Amazonian Indians see animals as persons under animal masks, living things are, at root, subjects. In contrast, most Europeans think of humans as biology under cultural masks, living things are, at root, objects. Modernism is then primarily the introduction of the nature/culture distinction, separating the world of objects and the world of meanings. Nature is understood as being just material, without symbolic or social or moral relations. The meaningless, but knowable material object is an invention of modernity. This perspective allows for a freer manipulation of nature, which is important for capitalist modernity. But everyone is born pre-modern, we are all capable of relatedness, and children constantly form social bonds with inanimate objects. Our detached, objectifying Cartesianism is learned, but it is also a reflection of disembeddedness, alienation, and commodification as social conditions. We are all still able to relate, but only for a limited time in specific contexts: Professionals are trained to act detached in their profession, in order to freely manipulate objects, but in private, our remaining relatedness to favourite objects acts as an anchor for our identity. But modernity has not just taken our embeddedness and relation, we all experience reflexive uncertainty, we are unsure about our own knowledge. In post-modern thinking this chronic skepticism finally leads to resigned gullibility: Any pretense is as good as all others. Instead, we need to take a clear look at our epistemological options. Cartesian objectivism sees knowledge as decontextualised, disinterested, detached, as pure representation of the object. Relativism is the post-modern mirror of this, instead focusing on the construction of knowledge by the subject. But we do have a third option: We can see knowledge as a relation influencing both knower and the known, and acknowledge this relations and the resulting responsibility. Curiously, after spending centuries learning that nature lies beyond morality, we have now begun introducing "environmental ethics". But we actually need new metaphors to relate us to the biosphere. Marx saw the phenomenon of social relations, relations between people, being understood as and treated as relations between things. He called this ideological illusion "fetishism". In this sense, fetishism is another inversion of objectivism: Objectivism subtracts agency and subjectivity from life, fetishism adds them to non-life. Animism then becomes the mid-point on this scale: All living things are subjects, they have at least some perception, communication, and agency. Finding or defining the boundary between persons and things is a universal human problem. Animism, fetishism, and objectivism are three solutions to this problem. With all this in mind, we can now look at technology once again: Technology is quite obviously a tool for a rich minority to appropriate resources from the rest of the world. But at the same time, it is depicted as a gift of the wealthier regions to the rest of the world. Technology is presented as the innocent combination of human creativity and pure nature. Technology as object can not be politically critiqued; its power is the result of objective natural laws. All these claims make sense only because we have internalised the nature/culture and object/subject distinctions. If these distinctions were to collapse, technology would no longer be purely object, it would acquire agency. Productive forces are transformations of human agency. Machines are really machinations. By becoming animists for a moment, we can ask: "What manner of creatures are these things, part mineral, part mind, that serve the few to enslave the many, while fouling the land, the water, and the air?" Revisiting our pre-modern attitudes may be a revolutionary act.

Source: Alf Hornborg (2006) Animism, Fetishism, and Objectivism as Strategies for Knowing (or not Knowing) the World. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 71:1, March 2006.

(Full text at scribd.com, English) 

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Detailed Summary

Modern people are interested in animism.

Modernism is based on a boundary between the categories of nature, the world of objects, and society, the world of meanings.

Nature is understood as being just material, without symbolic or social relations. This allows for a freer manipulation of nature.

The antithesis to this objectification can be seen in animism.

The relational stance to the environment, seeing plants and inanimate matter as subjects, is still alive in contemporary peoples.

Latour: A symmetric anthropology can use cultural analysis to look at both pre-modern and modern life.

Do modern people in the West animate objects?

Does the objectifying stance come from personal experiences, from education, from social organisation?

What are the results of the objectifying stance?

Why do we ask these questions now?

Latour: We have never been modern. The object/subject separation was always an illusion. 

We attribute agency and personhood to our favourite cars and the like.

Latour: Modernity creates quasi-objects (ozone hole, GMOs) that are both objects and subjects, that are both culture and nature.

We are learning that half of nature and technology is politicaly constructed.

Latour: We should take the agency of objects seriously, but understand its political nature.

Both Latour and Ingold problematise and culturalise the culture/nature and person/object distinctions.

In some spaces, we are all animists in practice: We engage with and relate to the objects.

Buber and Merleau-Ponty want us to continue to relate to things.

The modern phenomena of social disembeddedness and alienation hinder our ability to relate.

All of us are born pre-modern. 

Our modernist objectification is learned and it is contextual: Professionals are detached in their profession to freely manipulate objects, but they keep some relatedness in private.

Modern society in total has no moral concern, but each individual has.

de Castro: Europeans think of humans as biology under cultural masks, living things are, at root, objects. Amazonian Indians see animals as persons under animal masks, living things are, at root, subjects.

The cartesian perspective on nature is counterintuitive: We need to cut the relation to things before we can treat them as objects.

Latour/Descola: Traditional societies see their environment in moral terms.

Descola: Animism is seeing the non-human world in social and thus moral terms.

Europe, having cast off this constraint, created the nature/culture distinction, liberating capitalist modernity.

We have spent centuries to argue that nature lies beyond morality, only to now introduce "environmental ethics".

The moral concerns over nature are not invalid, but irrelevant to modernity.

Uexküll: All organisms with sensory abilities live in their own subjective world. Ecosystems are not just energy or material flows, but also communicative flows of signs.

Bateson: Organisms are shaped by their communicative relations. The crisis of the environment is a crisis of communication.

Western science views their ideas as interesting and quirky, but with little potential for application.

We can hardly imagine modern societies re-learning "subject-subject relatedness".

New age spirituality is a post-modern symptom of collapse, not a way forward.

We need to analytically look at our epistemological options.

The meaningless, but knowable material object is an invention of modernity.

The pre-moderns did not need to worry about epistemology. Their methods of interpretation had immutable authority. Only modern people have reflexive uncertainty, being unsure about their own knowledge.

In post-modern thinking chronic skepticism finally leads to resigned gullibility: Any pretence is as good as all others, and signs regain their status as identity index.

Objectivism understands knowledge as decontextualised, disinterested, and detached representation, as not being part of a relation. 

However, objectivism serves instrumental rationality, and thus the powerful.

Relativism is the post-modern mirror of objectivism, equally resting on the subject/object distinction.

Whereas realism focuses on the represented object, constructivism on the subject, but neither acknowledges their recursive relation.

Animism sees knowledge as a relation influencing both knower and the known, and acknowledges this relations and the resulting responsibility.

Objectivism and relativism are both contrasted with relationism.

We need new metaphors to relate us to the biosphere.

We are born pre-modern, capable of relatedness. We only become detached, objectifying Cartesians by suppressing childhood experiences and learning to disembed ourselves. We are all still able to relate, if only for a limited time in specific contexts.

Objectivism is based on recursivity between "individual existence and socio-technical power structures".

Through and in Descartes emerged alienation as a social condition.

Through ever increasing alienation and commodification, anxieties over the person/thing distinction amplify. The self is dissociated from the non-self.

Our remaining relatedness to favourite objects acts as an anchor for our identity. Relatedness still comes about through long-time immersion in and experience of a place. Relational ontologies may emerge from here.

Marxian fetishism, as ideological illusion, understands relations between people as relations between things.

Animism, as phenomenological experience, understands relations to things as relations to people.

Narrowly-defined animism animates living things, fetishism animates non-living things.

Thus fetishism is an inversion of objectivism: Objectivism subtracts agency and subjectivity from life, fetishism adds it to non-life. 

Animism then becomes the mid-point: All living things are subjects, they have at least some perception, communication, and agency.

Finding or defining the boundary between persons and things is a universal human problem. Animism, fetishism, and objectivism are three solutions to this problem.

Boundaries can be drawn either analytically or ontologically.

Latour's remark invalidate ontological Cartesianism.

However, the analytic distinction of pre-symbolic nature and symbolic society is the basis for understanding and disentangling the hybrid quasi-objects of technology.

We can not analyse thermodynamics and oil prices using the same tools.

I have the intuition that "there is something mysterious about technology", something we can't quite grasp.

Technology is obviously a tool for a rich minority to appropriate resources from the rest of the world.

At the same time it is seen as the innocent combination of human creativity and pure nature.

Technology is depicted as a gift of the wealthier regions to the rest of the world.  

Only through the nature/society and object/subject distinctions can these two views be kept apart.

Technology as object can not be politically critiqued; its power is the result of objective natural laws.

Latour: Economic rationality, scientific truth, and technological efficiency are seen as outside the social.

If these distinctions were to collapse, technology would no longer be purely object, it would acquire agency. 

Productive forces are transformations of human agency. Machines are really machinations. The technical is not neutral, it is at least potentially moral. 

We have to ask as animists: "What manner of creatures are these things, part mineral, part mind, that serve the few to enslave the many, while fouling the land, the water, and the air?"

Animism and relationism open up possibilities of rage and horror.

Our cartesian suppression of relatedness is ideologically useful for industrial capitalism. 

Thus, revisiting our pre-modern attitudes may be a revolutionary act.