A fox

Tonight, as we drove back into town, we saw a fox run across one of the major streets. Actually, the fox was running across from the police station toward a couple of bars. We were shocked. A fox in Geneva? Paul saw a dead rat the size of a baby in the street this morning, about half a block from the hospital. He was campaigning for the Dems. There are quite a few abandoned buildings. As IT writes (infinite thØught)

Already animals are seeping back into colonised spaces

Of course, she's discussing London in a dystopic future. I'm describing the town where I live in a dystopic present. Nature is retaking the city. Some plants--a kind of tree-vine combination--are breaking through walls in my basement. Squirrels chewed through the wires of my garage door opener--I gave up on that. I won last year's battle against the bats. But they might return.

We were so taken by the fox that we went to a local bar to tell the tale. The owner is 85, runs the bar on an honor system, and open and clothes we he pleases. He also has a great trick that uses liquor and fire and creates a rocket that shoots a little stick with a message into his ceiling. At any rate, Cosi, the owner, was not so impressed with the fox. He said lots of animals live in the abandoned buildings and in fact roam all over the place--racoons, woodchucks, coyotes (?! in upstate NY?). Others joined in--bears. They migrate through town from the Adirondacks to Pennsylvania. Small black ones. Ok, not exactly through town, but near by, a mile or two outside of town. Animals are seeping back into colonized spaces. If people don't bother with the town, they will.

Comments

[Anthony Paul Smith]

This is what always drew me to the work of Deleuze and Guattari over and above, say, Badiou. For Badiou there can only be eco-systems, but no Nature (no Earth as such) due to some law of set theory that has, literally, nothing to do with that eco-system. Nature, as such, has always been a part of the city, always has been breaking in through cracks. In Chicago, a city built on top of a prairie, you can still find 'native' aspects of the ecosystem in cracks. You can see the animals of the city finding ways to dwell as urban animals. Badiou was almost right, but it isn't Nature that doesn't exist, it's wilderness along with the idea that animals and humans are opposed. Not opposed, but different and a difference that is very little, almost nothing. Now, to me, it seems that cities have always been a placement of limits, such that most other meat-eating animals are kept outside so that our experience of the everyday is easier and our difference is covered over through distance. But, we should know, especially with increasing environmental pressure, such stratifications will not hold. My advice, follow St. Francis, we all will either by choice or necessity.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

In a less apocalyptic tone I could say that any political revolution will have to deal with the animal problem. Some more rationally inclined heads than mine (i.e. Bill Martin, member of the RCPUSA) have said as much within the party system of Communism.

[Adam Kotsko]

I like this post, not only for its manifest content, but also because of some small details -- for instance, the way I initially read it, the dead rat was campaigning for the Democrats. I also like "open and clothes," as though this guy gets a free pass on nudity, perhaps due to his age.

(I hope that doesn't come off as making fun -- it just ties in well with my post on entertaining misspellings.)

http://www.adamkotsko.com/weblog/2006/10/best-misspellings.html

[John Reeve]

""I hope that doesn't come off as making fun -- it just ties in well with my post on entertaining misspellings.""

I liked the post for the same reason; it is listening for the little deatails of what actually is written that calls for reading.

I've been out and about here in Lubbock Tx and seen a lot of wildlife.

I think the neatest was running across (not over) a little grey fox in the middle of downtown Lubbock at about 2 AM. We followed him from a distance, and he dissappeared around some building or other.

My friend who studies rhetoric and ecology, claims that when Anglos were first colonizing this part of the world they would kill off as much of the indiginous population of wildlife as they could; I wonder if this practice has changed over the years, and that people have less of a sense of embattlement with the environment now that they have forgotten that the oldest standing structures (here, at least) are less than 100 years old.

[Jodi]

APS--I like your gesture to limiting the spaces occupied by meat-eating animals.

Fun-makers John and Adam--if ya'll are happy and entertained, then I'm happy and entertained. I notice that the 'we' after clothes above is a product of misplaced fingers on the keyboard--'a' and 's' for as are below and to the left one key...

[Sinthome]

"For Badiou there can only be eco-systems, but no Nature (no Earth as such) due to some law of set theory that has, literally, nothing to do with that eco-system... Badiou was almost right, but it isn't Nature that doesn't exist, it's wilderness along with the idea that animals and humans are opposed."

This is really a rather odd interpretation of Badiou. By "nature doesn't exist" he only means that there's no one set of laws that sums up nature as a closed totality. Deleuze makes precisely the same point when he claims that the whole is neither given nor giveable. I take it this thesis is quite compatable with the situated topologies of ecological thought that function according to their own immanent organization. I see no opposition between Deleuze and Badiou on this specific point; it's just that the analysis of these ecosystems isn't Badiou's particular point of focus.

[Sinthome]

"Ecology would have a problem with this, actually, as they do posit a global eco-system."

Once again, nothing Badiou says contradicts this possibility. A global ecological system is, for Badiou, just a situation. What Badiou is objecting to is *a* universe or the thesis that *all* of being forms a totality. There's no reason we can't have relative totalities or wholes under this thesis. What Badiou calls a situation just is such a relative totality.

Moreover, I take the issue as far from being clear-cut even in ecological theory. Insofar as all systems, in ecological thought, function according to operational closure, it's not clear that we can speak of a "global system" even in the context of ecological thought. Rather, we have a series of ecological situations coupled with one another and often at odds with one another. That is, there are ecological thinkers that have a strong antipathy towards the Gaia hypothesis. Indeed, I would go so far as to claim that holism is actually inconsistent with ecological thought insofar as ecological systems necessarily function by drawing a boundary between themselves and their outside, which entails that we can't have a system of all systems as in the case of Hegel as there would no longer be an operative distinction between system and environment.

"It's not quite the same point, for Deleuze allows 'the Open' to name the whole 'whose nature is to endure'. Further the whole defined is precisely relation. Badiou's point is similar, but by making all ontological statements subordinate to the laws of set theory he can't conceive of a Whole in duration, for there is no everything. Deleuze's Bergsonism, which I know you dislike, allows for the virtual to name the whole as duration (cf. Ansell-Pearson's work on the Virtual in Bergson in Deleuze - don't have the title handy)."

Again, the issue is far from being clear-cut in Deleuze and he vascillates quite a bit from one text to another. For instance, in _The Logic of Sense_ he uses set-theoretical reasoning very close to Badiou's to demonstrate that there's always a remainder when speaking of sense preventing us from forming a totality (chapter 5). Given that being is sense for Deleuze, this entails that there is no whole of being. His account of the "chaosmos" composed of divergent series tends to undermine the thesis of the whole, as does his ontologized account of perspective in the book on Leibniz. Moreover, in his beautiful little book on Proust he speaks of the whole as a *part* constructed alongside all the other parts. None of this comes as a surprise given that the death of God, which Deleuze endorses, is also a death of any totalities such as "nature", or "society", or the "universe". I thus take it that "everything" and "whole" are not synonyms for Deleuze.

Finally, you critize Badiou by saying his set theoretical approach prevents us from conceiving the whole as duration. You assert this as if it's obvious that we *need* to conceive the whole in this way or that we even need the concept of a whole. Perhaps we do, but you really need an argument here, not simply a bald assertion. It's also unclear that set theory prevents us from conceiving duration. Deleuze himself levels a substantial critique against Bergson on precisely this point, arguing that quantitative difference precedes qualitative difference, i.e., that duration can be mathematized, contrary to Bergson's protestations to the contrary (Deleuze argues that Bergson's qualitative approach dooms him to fall back into the logic of the negative).

At any rate, my basic point was that there's nothing in Badiou that prevents one from thinking ecologically. You seemed to be suggesting that one can't *both* be a supporter of Badiou *and* a supporter of ecological thought. But that just doesn't follow as Badiou's thesis that "the One is not" only indicates that there is no global totality or whole, not that there can't be a plurality of different organized situations. There are plenty of reasons to criticize Badiou, but this, I take it, is not one of them.

I'm not sure where I asked for citations in my initial post.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

"By "nature doesn't exist" he only means that there's no one set of laws that sums up nature as a closed totality."

Shame on me for taking him at his word. Which, in Being and Event, suggests that there is literally no Nature (and he differentiates this from nature, though the capitalization doesn't appear consistent in the translation). Obviously Nature is the whole, he says as much, but his understanding of 'natural beings' is that they must be 'represented by an ordinal'. Since Nature, in his view, must then be understood as the 'multiple which is composed of all the ordinals' it cannot exist because 'auto-belonging is forbidden.' Ontologically Nature has no existence. Ecology would have a problem with this, actually, as they do posit a global eco-system. It tends to name an unknown (and is thus very Spinozist), but it still names it.

Do you always demand citations in comment boxes?

"Deleuze makes precisely the same point when he claims that the whole is neither given nor giveable."

It's not quite the same point, for Deleuze allows 'the Open' to name the whole 'whose nature is to endure'. Further the whole defined is precisely relation. Badiou's point is similar, but by making all ontological statements subordinate to the laws of set theory he can't conceive of a Whole in duration, for there is no everything. Deleuze's Bergsonism, which I know you dislike, allows for the virtual to name the whole as duration (cf. Ansell-Pearson's work on the Virtual in Bergson in Deleuze - don't have the title handy).

It may be an odd reading of Badiou and Deleuze on this point, but I’m reading them through concepts borrowed from the science of ecology, not popular conceptions of environmental consciousness.

[Sinthome]

Odd, somehow my response to your post got posted before your post.

One final point. You write: "Shame on me for taking him at his word. Which, in Being and Event, suggests that there is literally no Nature (and he differentiates this from nature, though the capitalization doesn't appear consistent in the translation)."

A careful reading of the text (something you often emphasize), suggests that he "literally" implies nothing of the sort. As Badiou says quite clearly: "If it is clear that a natural being is that which possesses, as its ontological schema of presentation, an ordinal, what then is *Nature*, that Nature which Galileo declared to be written in 'mathematical language'? Graspect in its pure multiple-being, nature should be *natural-being-in-totality*; that is, the multiple which is composed of *all* ordinals, thus of all the pure multiples which are proposed as foundations of possible being for every presented or presentable natural multiplicity. The set of all ordinals-- of all the same name-numbers --defines, in the framework of the Ideas of the multiple, the ontological substructure of nature" (140).

Nature is thus being referred to as totality. Badiou goes on to say,

"The ontological doctrine of natural multiplicities thus results, on the one hand, in the recognition of their universal intrication, and on the other hand, in the inexistence of their Whole. One could say: everything (which is natural) is (belongs) in everything, save that there is no everything" (140-1).

In short, there are plenty of natural things, just no nature-as-totality to which they belong. All said, Badiou isn't really two far afield from Kant's antinomies in making these claims, with the major difference being that this is an ontological thesis for Badiou, not an epistemological thesis as to what we can and cannot know.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

I really, really don't want to get pulled into a huge comment debate. Suffice it to say that this is a comment box, a safe place to make bald assertions that hint at arguments. Which is why I'm not going to ask for any arguments for the bald assertions you make above. I'll forward any papers I write to you if that will make you feel better.

But, I want to point out that the whole and a totality are not the same thing, again for the reasons I've already stated. Not sure where you're getting the Deleuze critique of Bergson or that Bergson said that duration wasn't able to be mathematized.

"Deleuze himself levels a substantial critique against Bergson on precisely this point, arguing that quantitative difference precedes qualitative difference, i.e., that duration can be mathematized, contrary to Bergson's protestations to the contrary (Deleuze argues that Bergson's qualitative approach dooms him to fall back into the logic of the negative)."

Huh? Precisely this point? Where I say that set theory can't get us duration? Deleuze criticized Bergson for that? Well that's interesting, since Cantor had doubts about his own system with regard to similar questions, though not precisely this question.

Some people in ecology don't like Gaia and some people in math don't like infinite maths. Yep. However, for the most part ecologists accept something like earth system science, which is what Gaia goes by in white-coated circles. And nothing is clear cut, including my position. I'm not suggesting that one can't be a supporter of Badiou and also deeply ecological, but I am saying that his philosophy isn't friendly to such developments. For instance, he says Nature doesn't exist, and he presents this in a way that only considers it from the role of set theory. Now, maybe his thought can be modified for this as you've attempted to do above, but his position is not self-presented in such a way.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

You got me on the literal thing. I should have said, 'Ontologically there is no Nature.' However, to argue that Nature, conceptually, is a totality of the sort he is trying to argue against is not so 'clear-cut' as you like to say. For instance, the equation of the Whole with totality seems to be misguided and poorly thought out historically.

[Sinthome]

You'll find Deleuze's critique of Bergson on page 239 of _Difference and Repetition_. There's been a tendency to overlook Deleuze's critique of Bergson in the secondary literature.

Earth systems science and the Gaia hypothesis are not the same thing, though they are related, the former being far more modest in its claims than the latter. All eco-theorists, including myself, adopt the systems perspective, but very few adopt the Gaia hypothesis. Adopting an ecological perspective does not require one to adopt the Gaia hypothesis. I would argue that Badiou's fragmented world is far more consistent with ecological thought than this particular approach. I would also argue that this sort of holism is based on a severe distortion of Deleuze's thought, which emphasized the contentious and strife ridden nature of difference and the eternal return, not the tendencies towards harmonious self-stabilization and homeostasis described by this particular brand of new-age ecology.

I tend to approach ecology from the Maturana/Varela, Luhmannian perspective, all of whom I see as advocating variations of the thesis that "nature doesn't exist" in their emphasis on difference and their critique of representation, so I find myself baffled as to where you're seeing the contradiction. I admire Badiou's particular formulation, because of its abstraction and precision that tends to cut through the muck of the Imaginary (in Lacan's sense) in our yearning for wholeness or completeness, so readily discernable among some eco-theorists. As I remarked in an earlier post, the central ecological thesis that systems produce a boundary between system and environment precludes the possibility of *a* nature, totality, or whole, but instead fragments the world, because there cannot be a system without boundaries. Moreover, Badiou's recent work, Logiques des mondes, is designed to account for organized systems, moving from set theory which emphasizes parts, to category theory that emphasizes irreducible relations, so I see this criticism as a non-starter as well.

I've written quite a bit on this, actually, as I share many of the ecological concerns you share (I would go so far as to say that it's my central philosophical commitment), while nonetheless finding any thesis of the One to be ontologically unsound. You might find my post "World In Fragments" interesting in this connection.

http://larval-subjects.blogspot.com/
2006/09/worlds-in-fragments.html

Anyway, my point was simply that there is nothing incongruent between Badiou and ecological thought. Two of the central claims of ecological thought are that 1) systems function according to their own organization or topos that must be studied immanently (this is exactly what Badiou means by a situation or the local), and 2) that systems constitute their own elements or that elements do not pre-exist the systems into which they enter (again, one of Badiou's central claims). While it's certainly true that Badiou doesn't engage in a deep meditation on various ecological systems, this is because his focus is on what escapes systems or what is not governed by systems, not on how systems "police" their elements. This doesn't preclude the latter sort of analysis.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

"All eco-theorists, including myself, adopt the systems perspective, but very few adopt the Gaia hypothesis."

That's great for theorists, neat even, but I'm talking about ecologists. Now, you still seem to think that I'm advocating Gaia. I'm not. But there is something called the Earth and there is a general consistency to it such that what happens in one eco-system effects another. This relation is what I'm calling a global eco-system. It looks a lot like what I take Deleuze to be calling a Whole, and if it's not what he means, fine, doesn't change the fact that there is a global eco-system.

"I would argue that Badiou's fragmented world is far more consistent with ecological thought than this particular approach."

Fine, but I'm still not convinced you really quite get what a global eco-system would mean. The world is fragmented, but that doesn't mean the fragments are connected even in relation with one another. The concept of rhizospheres (in ecology) tells us this.

Which brings me to my next point. You do eco-theory and you seem to be confused on the difference between that and ecology when you write. For instance when you say, "I would also argue that this sort of holism is based on a severe distortion of Deleuze's thought, which emphasized the contentious and strife ridden nature of difference and the eternal return, not the tendencies towards harmonious self-stabilization and homeostasis described by this particular brand of new-age ecology", you aren't describing anything an ecologist would recognize. Positing a global eco-system, even as Gaia (and Lovelock's new book is completely contrary to what you're suggesting), says nothing about harmonious self-stabilization and homeostasis. You're non-scientifically grounded brand of eco-theory is closer to this new age stuff than what I'm suggesting. You can't even account for feedback loops that are actually occurring now if you're going to try and say that there is no global eco-system (which I don't think you are, but you seem to want to just to disagree).

And your view of Deleuze is far more violent than I think it need be. Let's remember his conception of consistency. And, fine, Badiou loves nature. He agrees with systems theory.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

I missed the Bergson criticism and I had read D&R before reading Bergson so it didn't really click the first time anyway. I was going off of his other commentaries on Bergson, like Bergsonisme and the Cinema books. The closeness of Bergson is really downplayed in your reading, though you're right that often times people equate them too much.

[Sinthome]

I have no objection to the thesis that systems can be structurally coupled with one another and that there are relations of feedback among these distinct systems; this seems to be what you're getting at and the claim you're attributing to me.

"But there is something called the Earth and there is a general consistency to it such that what happens in one eco-system effects another. This relation is what I'm calling a global eco-system. It looks a lot like what I take Deleuze to be calling a Whole, and if it's not what he means, fine, doesn't change the fact that there is a global eco-system."

I'm more than happy to draw distinctions between THE Whole and wholes. For both Deleuze and Badiou, plenty of the latter exist. For both Badiou and Deleuze the former does not exist. In Badiou-speak, the world or planet earth is a situation that also contains a number of other situations. In traditional metaphysics, this world would belong to a broader totality or whole, as described in Lovejoy's _Great Chain of Being_. In Deleuze-speak the earth is a continuously individuating individual. You're not suggesting that being and earth mean one and the same thing, are you? Certainly there are beings that extend beyond the boundaries of this planet. Both Badiou and Deleuze are denying that all of being forms a total system and both are more than happy to argue that there are all sorts of unities to be found within being. Admittedly I've invited some confusion here as "world" can be used as a synonym for "earth" (the planet), but also as a synonym for "universe". I intended the latter. You took Badiou to be claiming otherwise?

"Which brings me to my next point. You do eco-theory and you seem to be confused on the difference between that and ecology when you write. For instance when you say, "I would also argue that this sort of holism is based on a severe distortion of Deleuze's thought, which emphasized the contentious and strife ridden nature of difference and the eternal return, not the tendencies towards harmonious self-stabilization and homeostasis described by this particular brand of new-age ecology", you aren't describing anything an ecologist would recognize. Positing a global eco-system, even as Gaia (and Lovelock's new book is completely contrary to what you're suggesting), says nothing about harmonious self-stabilization and homeostasis. You're non-scientifically grounded brand of eco-theory is closer to this new age stuff than what I'm suggesting. You can't even account for feedback loops that are actually occurring now if you're going to try and say that there is no global eco-system (which I don't think you are, but you seem to want to just to disagree)."

I said nothing about feedback loops one way or another and you know nothing about what body of literature I ground my views in. Shall I start citing scientific literature in these comments?

A common thesis among ecologists, heavily drawn from cybernetics, is the self-regulation of systems, or their tendency towards homeostasis. I'm not sure why you would suggest this is unrecognizable. In the environmental movement, this thesis manifests itself with the claim that human involvement with the environment is pushing things to the point where the ecosystem can no longer maintain its organization or regulate itself in a non-erratic fashion (a thesis with which I agree). The introduction of the Cane Toad into Australia is often cited as an example where the homeostasis of an eco-system was set off balance by the introduction of a foreign factor, generating runaway positive feedback. Similarly, social groups can be understood in homeostatic terms, managing disruptions and returning group organizations to their prior equalibrium. In each of these cases, feedback strives to return the system to a prior equalibrium, or positive feedback ensues and the equalibrium of the system is destroyed. I'm not sure why you'd suggest this wasn't a central theme of systems theory. My objections are only to new age, spiritualized versions of ecological thought, positing a cosmic oneness where "everything is interconnected", not to these specific examples or claims.

I'm not sure what you're asking me to think about with regard to Deleuze's account of consistency. Nor am I clear as to what you see as being peaceful in Deleuze's account of nomads, the war machine, or the eternal return.

[Sinthome]

"You're non-scientifically grounded brand of eco-theory is closer to this new age stuff than what I'm suggesting."

Oh, and generally you don't do much to advance discussion by dismissing your interlocutor's body of research and hurling insults like this. I have approached you in good faith, have attempted to make myself clear, have sought to provide textual evidence for my claims. Nor have I anywhere insulted you. Apparently I'm horribly guilty of suggesting that you were being a bit unfair to Badiou and that perhaps he doesn't mean what you claimed he meant. You're extremely unpleasant person to discuss things with.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

"You're extremely unpleasant person to discuss things with." Sorry, I don't react well to pedantic comments.

"I have approached you in good faith"

Not quite. You compared what I was saying, a thesis that basically agreed with you, to new-age thought. You did so without knowing anything about the kind of research I'm grounded in. Without knowing anything other than a throw away comment about Badiou's philosophy that you couldn't let pass by. Had I made that a post, I'd expect you to correct it, but it's a comment. Two sentences. And I didn't make such a claim blindly, you listed your eco-theorists of note. I think they've done interesting work, but none of them are ecologists as such.

"You took Badiou to be claiming otherwise?"

I take Badiou to have a generally underdetermined understanding of Nature. I think you've emended my understanding, but I still don't think Badiou's ontology is helpful ecologically. Perhaps that will change as I read him more.

But, your comment above, when you're not being policing, is much clearer and I think we basically agree.

[Sinthome]

I'm sorry I gave you the impression that I was comparing *you* to new age Gaia theorists. It was not my intention. I quite agree that Badiou doesn't have a whole lot to say about ecology. For me, Badiou is of interest for the questions he allows the ecologist to pose. In particular, I'm fascinated with questions of emergence. In beginning with the thesis that the One is not, but that there is Oneness, or with being as multiplicity qua multiplicity without any other predicate it becomes possible to rigorously pose questions as to how systems emerge, pass away, and constitute their elements.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Time to lay my cards on the table: I never did finish Being and Event. What you're saying suggests I should go read the whole thing now, but, to be completely honest, I can't stand his tone and the tone of many 'Badiouians'. [N.B. Not all, many of them I am quite fond of and genuinely pose a challenge to thought.] This extreme arrogance is very off-putting to a nice Midwestern boy like myself (you should have seen me in France with the conservative host family, shocked that they wanted to argue at dinner every night).

Regarding questions of emergence - I'm not so certain that systems constitute elements in the environment. I understand the work done in restoration ecology to suggest that elements constitute systems, from below if you will. But it is an interesting question and we may be working with different understandings of the terminology.

Apologizes for the tone, I was still a bit sore for being psychoanalysed.

[bibliochef]

on a less scholarly note, which I am beginning to think of as my trademark, I have seen a fox on Main Street in Geneva. Not for a few years but. . . And, there are definitely fox in the backs of row houses.

[landscaping trees]

There are many plants that can be grown in these wetlands like: red maple, silver maple, carpinus carolianiana, quercus phellos etc. No matter which plant you grow, they will definitely serve the purpose of enriching the natural environment and maintaining the ecological balance. The only thing to be kept in mind is that, you must take the proper guidance and also see with what is your aim of doing the plantation.