The Container: Difference between revisions

“In this chapter I have two goals. The first is easier than the second: I retell a couple of worm stories, first heard from Charles Darwin and Bruno Latour, to show how worms are ‹like› us. Here, as elsewhere in the book, I find in a non· or not-quite·human body evidence of the vitality of matter. Worms, or electricity, or various gadgets, or fats, or metals, or stem cells are actants, or what Darwin calls ‹small agencies›, that, when in the right confederation with other physical and physiological bodies, can make big things happen. The second goal is to confront the hard question of the political capacity of actants. Even if a convincing case is made for worms as active members of, say, the ecosystem of a rainforest, can worms be considered members of a public? What is the difference between an ecosystem and a political system? Are they analogs? Two names for the same system at different scales? What is the difference between an actant and a political actor? Is there a clear difference? Does an action count as political by virtue of its having taken place ‹in› a public? Are there nonhuman members of a public? What, in sum, are the implications of a (meta)physics of vibrant materiality for political theory?”