Book review, Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence, by Timothy Morton

Review of: Morton, Timothy, 2016: Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence. New York: Columbia University Press [First paragraph] The notion of Dark Ecology has been a consistent theme in Timothy Morton's writings since at least 2007s ‘Ecology without Nature’. The present treatise presents a culmination of Morton's ecological writings in many ways. Not only is this Morton's most comprehensive statement so far of his understanding of ecological awareness as ‘ecognosis’, it is also his boldest statement of programmatic ambition in relation to this ecognosis: to redress the imbalances that have been weighing on us since the Neolithic Revolution. On this world-historical scale, Morton is concerned with agriculture as much as with religion, with industry as much as with ontology, philosophy and politics. If much of contemporary posthumanist writing in social theory and philosophy has been in the business of besting Bruno Latour, Dark Ecology now puts the word out that not only have we never been modern – we have never been Neolithic (63). Morton's ecognosis challenges us not as moderns or industrialists but as a species (34–37) – and as farmers. Since we settled into our ways 12 millennia ago, we have been dominated by what Morton calls ‘agrilogistics’ (38–59): a kind of generalised weed-killer approach to everything from farming to ethics, politics, religion, industry and critical thinking. If we are to overcome agrilogistics through ecognosis, this cannot be through cleaning up our farms or carbon footprints since that would merely reinstate the quintessential agrilogistical manoeuvre. Instead Morton wants to take us into the darkness of agrilogistics to embrace it and thus overcome the depression it has brought us (153–155).