Levi Bryant on Object-Oriented Philosophy and Speculative Realism Onto-Cartography: On Towards a Borromean Critical Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=bUxVKTg0RtI SR: speculative realism CT: critical theory BCT: Borromean critical theory ANT: actor-network theory OOO: object-oriented ontology D&G: Deleuze & Guattari Speculative Realism: against social constructivism a form of realism or materialism, bringing it back to the world of theory. Bryant comes from Deleuze, Lacan, Guattari lots of poststructuralisms and social constructivist frameworks. Wants to maintain these elements of theory as well as the linguistic with a robust materialism thats Borromean. Correlationism is that we can only speak as a correlate of the subject and never the world a subject apart from another. The critique of correlationism diverges between speculative realism and object-oriented ontology. Bryant coined the term object-oriented ontology (OOO). It is commited to the claim that all of being or existence is composed of objects or substances that exist independently of the relations of one another and never directly touch or encounter one another. Many theorists are commited to the existence of agents or substances without Harmans philosophy OOO gives us: Harman (Object-Oriented Philosophy), Levi Bryant (machine-oriented ontology, from Deleuze the machine metaphor draws our attention from the qualities/properties but what things do to respond to the environment around them a plant, body, semiotic entities and incorporeal entities are machines even an institution like a university they have inputs that they respond to and they produce inputs themselves), Jane Bennet (world composed of different things), and Alfred Whitehead (OOOist that believes the world is composed of actual occasions or events)

The debates between people have defaulted to forums outside strictly philosophy critical studies, feminism, race, media theory, etc. Since this is an epistemologically technical issue in philosophy. Why has it created such debate in the politically-oriented humanities? Questions about the nature of materiality involve the social and political. Critical theory (CT) tests the naturalness of human identities and relations, demonstrates the artificiality and contingency of history that social formations can be otherwise. Quality can not be subtracted from its object, no more than weight from stone, heat from fire, wetness from water. (Lucretius?) How do we relate to things, like slavery: its not an intrinsic property of a person, but we are made into slaves by other people (those in power or have an interest in it stand to benefit). Ordering society in these natural ways (sexuality is naturally structured in certain ways, certain groups are inferior naturally etc), but CT reveals how these things are constructed and historical. Marx: The commodity is nothing but the definite social relations between men themselves which assumes for them the fantastic relations between things. ... treat the value as an intrinsic thing itself. Value arises from the labor that produced the commodity: a) exchange relations are not just between a person and a thing but also the broader network of social relations by virtue of the productive relations that go into producing the commodity, b) that value is not an intrinsic feature of things but arises out of a particular system of production, and c) that value arises out of laborers, not workers or capital so they usurp from workers what is rightfully theirs. Accompanying this, Marx presents a history of production: that in the past, there have been other systems of production, and suggests new modes of production. Marxs analysis here of commodity fetishism came to guide CT: the working system that was deemed natural wasnt. Heterosexism and racism justifies themselves because of intrinsic inferiority (often theyll say theyre doing them a favor because the alternative is chaos,) but the critical theorist shows how these things have been and can be otherwise. They show how capitalism arose under particular historical conditions and that another world is possible. Lacan illustrates this: two doors, identical to another, but one door has the signifer Mensand the other Womens. They are materially and physically identical no difference apart from their position in space-time. But, although there is nothing about the referent of the signifier womens or mens that makes the door different. It is instead the signifier itself (the cultural and social component) that introduces the difference between the doors.

Sign: 3 elements in a triangle. Interpretent (signified) Sign-Vehicle (signifier) Referent.

Sign-Vehicle = tree. Interpretent = the thought bubble of a tree in your mind. Referent = the tree itself out there in the world.

In essentialist discourses like racism, those properties that make a thing the type of thing that it is are found in the referent: the tree itself. Connected properties: the essentialist argues that things themselves have these properties within them, regardless of how we speak about them. In contrast, CT goes to show that what we took to be a property of the referent is instead an effect of the signifier carving up or sorting the world in particular ways. Like Lacans Doors, there is nothing in the referent themselves, but rather it is language, discourse, and practice that carves up the world in a particular way. If its true that signs are arbitrary (no natural or memetic link with what they signifiy), and if how things are sorted up are an effect of the signifier-signified relation rather than the things properties themselves, then justifications for inequality based on natural or intrinsicness fall apart because language and practices actually carve up the world, rather than the world itself being organized in that way. There is no one way the world must be carved: those doors might as well be called workers and owners. History dictated the binary gender/sex divide. The critique of fetishism shows that social formations are the effect of our significations, which means that claims that things must be this way fall apart. These things are socially constructed, and we are the ones that made things this way. Zizek: Being a king is the effect of a network of social relations between a king and his subjects. But the relationship appears inverse: the subjects think that the King is outside of a social relationship and is naturally or intrinsically regal or royal. Obedience to the king is thus just or mandated by nature, rather than historically contingent based on these social relations. The legitimacy of the kings sovereignty now falls into question, and we can organize society in a different ways. Now the enemies are racism, patriarchy, heterosexism. D&G called state-thinking: defending the privilege of a view that is capable of being others.

Dangers of Speculative Realism (SR) in CT: in light of the foregoing, we can see why the concerns of SR have generated controversy, because its critique of correlationism (like fetishism) risks saying that the King really is the King! Critiques of correlationism arent just technical philosophical issues, theyre political: in arguing that language/social practices carve up the world, CT is correlationist as it treats categories or types as resulting from our discourse about the world. Its anti-realist because it says that these identities are only the result of constructions, and therefore not natural kinds: blanket condemnations of correlationism might undermine decades of battling for justice and equality. BUT its more complex than that! Both CT and SR can show that certain social organizations are socially constructed and rest on false claims about our biology. For example, male/female binary

is performative or construcive according to Butler she argues that biology doesnt support this (thats realist). Biology similarly doesnt support the claims of racists (another realist/materialist argument). Its not clear that these are mutally exclusive camps: its possible to be correlationist about some things and realist about others. CT has largely been concerned with social critiques, mostly identities and social organization and construction. We must distinguish between interactive kinds with non-interactive kinds. Interactive kinds have a capacity to change the thing it represents for Butler, female is interactive, performative, it constitutes the referent of women what ought people be to be woman normative, attitudes, practices! Interactive kinds change the social status of things: mental illness, femininity, blackness. By contrast, non-interactive kinds such as being-hydrogen changes nothing about hydrogen atoms. Being-depressed performs symptoms of depression, but hydrogen atoms dont change their behavior or properties. Interactive kinds are reflexive, they change what they refer to, while non-interactive kinds are not reflexive. Thus, we need to be more precise about these issues: whether or not some types of weather or natural or constructed, for example. CT makes it hard to address some political questions bracketing the referent to reveal the fetishism at the heart of social organizations (like patriarchy, capitalism, heteronormativity). This has led to treat all inequalities as discursive or semiotic, but not all are problems of discursivity. Under this, its about unmasking the underlying system on which relations are based. Critical unmasking can be powerful for emancipatory struggles for equality and freedom, but sometimes problematic.

Two reasons. First, its not clear that the power relation is solely discursive. Infrastructure is arranged materially the number of calories you get the channels on TV how many hours there are to work: these all contribute to the organization of power and social relations. You might say these geographical and material conditions suck, but that cant change them. Its not just about revealing the un-truth of these truths, and while ideology is important, power is organised still. Second, global warmings political questions. CTs debunking of semiotic misrecognitions and lies but climate change has to do with the properties of particular objects, numbers of calories, properties of petrol and oil, units of energy to produce calories and so on. These cant be addressed by responding to signification: the referent, the thing itself, is important. To eschew the referent is to make it difficult to find materiality as the site of the political.

Political opportunity of SR: not a rejection of CTs criticism of constructivism, but a framework that expands our understanding of what exercises power in social assemblages and what are sites

of the political. Defenses of realism doesnt reject social constructivism, but changes what sites those techniques are appropriate in the political. From this vantage, CT isnt bad because identities are correlated, its that it overstates correlationism it tries to see all beings as closing the role that non-signifying entities play in social relations. By contrast, some SR (materialist feminisms, ANT, D&G) suggest broader political theory that can be modeled on Lacans Borromean Knot.

(Google the borromean Knot: its like three rings in the Olympics logo, or a three-circle Venn Diagram: the imaginary, symoblic, and real. If you cut one of the rings, the other two fall apart)

Real (Material)Symbolic (what we just talked about)Imaginary (not fantasized, but the world of images phenomenology the world not in terms of materiality, but in terms of how we experience it). Lacan flattens these, saying they are on equal footing without any overcoding of one by any other. In his earlier work, the Imaginary was dominant, then it was the Real. In his last writings, it was that they are flattened. SR, new materialisms, and ANT are sympathetic to these ideas: the Symbolic as the realm of CT, the Imaginary as human and alien phenomenology (lived experiences of humans and non-humans [animals, institutions, objects]), and then the Real as the properties that do really belong to things. This Borromean Critical Theory (BCT) lets us have new forms of CT: semiotics is just one part of the story regarding power relations. Under the Symbolic, semio-politics focuses on ideology, rhetoric, narratives, and debunking hegemonic ideologies, rhetorics, and narratives. But all sorts of non-signifying agencies contribute to the Real as well. BCT would add four more: geo-politics under the Real (not inter-national politics, but literally features of geographies like weather and river patterns and forests, and how they limit social possibilitis). Another domain of the Real would be infra-politics (politics that examines the features of infrastructures: power lines, highways, satellite technology accessibility for different kinds of people, and how relations [and non-relations] to features of infrastructure relate here too). Between the Real and the Symbolic falls the chrono-politics, which is how the structuration of time (working day, responsibilities, fatigues) limit the ability to engage in certain activities and become political factors and issues. Therma-politics runs from the premise that energy is required through calories and fuels to allow people to live and thus interact, relate, organize and all that stuff. Waste of course is the by-product: the impact of consumption and waste implicates power-over-life in particular ways.

BCT thus invents new strategies for critical politics. We need new frameworks and political theories so that politics can examine not just how things are signified, but how they are and how they are configured. D&Gs question: why do people tolerate their positoin? CT says that people are doofs, they just tolerate their issues. Some might be issues of time though, that they have to get up, take their school, go to work for 10 hours, and have no energy afterward to only watch a bad reality TV show and drink some wine and fall asleep in their chair no time to even think about something else. BCT unmasks new sites of political struggle and intervention here. The possibility of OWS or the Arab Spring without Twitter and Facebook and the Internet would be none: these really existing material systems and infrastructures allowed the dissemination of communication and information and thus the resultant social organisation. Recognizing the material media of communication (speed is a big factor!) might lead us to see the proliferation of such infrastructures as integral to political emancipation. The idea that people are duped by signifying regimes fail to recognize that they themselves give power to these structures its important to make the emancipatory gesture, but at the level of energy people might collectively recognize injustice while simultaneously tolerating it because what else is there to do? The system of signification doesnt dupe them, but their time has been structured so they only can enjoy themselves in mundane and banal fashions. Time and energy as sites of political structure matter and can bring about emancipatory change, not by signification but the lives of people and their literal abilities to act.ANTs new materialisms can open new and creative ways of responding to the repression of power.