“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Saturday, March 5, 2011

ET Reviewed by Kate Soper



More evidence that I was heading in a post-critique direction from this review in Radical Philosophy. Not surprisingly Soper wasn't too keen.

In particular, I'm bad for suggesting Tibetans would make good space pilots. You can't win against this sort of attitude: if I had said something about how perfectly embedded they were in their lifeworld, and should never be disturbed, I would also be accused of imperialistic designs.

Mind you I'm honored Soper read it at all.

2 comments:

Henry Warwick said...

It's behind a pay wall. The irony of a journal called "Radical Philosophy" preventing people from reading their material unless they have the do-re-mi to pay for it is disheartening.

How radical could it be?

Timothy Morton said...

I think it might be one of those products whose purpose is that we assume an infinite distance towards reality.