All Art is Ecological by Timothy Morton

All Art is Ecological Reviews

• 
  Libby

  Honestly not sure what half of this was about??? A lot of waffling and jibbering and very hard to follow. Longest 104 pages of my life.
• 
  Steve

  Something a little different in thinking about climate change, the climate crisis, the anthropocene, ... a philosophical and popular music (and not just Talking Heads ...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSp... ) and ... yes, ... art-based ... mash-up of ideas and rubrics and constructs and tools for understanding (nah, it's inexplicable) and discussing how we think and talk about and address (or fail to address) the elephant in the room.
  
  Reviewer's Quirky Observation/Distraction:The author, a professor at Rice University (in Houston), specializes in broad range of topics, from Ecological Cultural and Literary Criticism, Environmental Humanities, Gender & Sexuality, Literary Theory, and Animal Studies to Posthumanism, and more.... Alas, he arrived at Rice long after I'd graduated, but it did remind me that, despite multiple tries, I never found inspiration in the Rice's Philosophy Department (although, again, as noted above, Morton doesn't self-style as a philosopher, even if philosophy and philosophers animate and dominate much of this book).
  
  This pocket/bite-sized essay (originally published in 2018) is volume 3 in the Penguin Green Ideas collection, which, apparently, is not available for sale (in the slipcase collection) in the U.S. (but it's not that difficult to order it from a UK supplier).
• 
  Catullus2

  No. 3 in Penguin’s Green Ideas series. Pseudo philosophical garbage.
• 
  Eva

  I found it quite hard to finish, Personally, I found it much harder to finish this booklet then, say, Mark Fisher or Franco Berardi (or even Sigmind Freud). I don't vibe with this author at all...even though I am interested in the topic.
  There were a few original thoughts or ideas in-between, like the concept of hyperobejcts for example, or that we are beyond listing factoids about ecological collapse.
  
  Mostly though, I had the impression that Morton is an edgelord. And that he fancies himself a bit too much.(And of course he has to drop that he knows Björk, personally.)
  
  Generally, this whole text seems to be a justification for privileged Boomers ( and yes, Morton has to mention that he is Gen X). It's mental gymnastics to justify why "not caring is caring".
  Many times I noted "word salad" or "male logic" in the margins cause it didnt make sense, he didnt argue in anyway clearly or precisely, and he didnt follow through with this thoughts. Like, you criticize mind/body duality but at the same time, call yourself nonbinary? Make it make sense.
  And he looves his silly little word creations like truthiness; Yodaness... I mean, good for you mate, but calm down.
  
  I also wondered what kind of art he was talking about when he writes about..many eyes..looking at you..challenging you..merging with you. (I am paraphrasing here)..when after a while, I realized he porobably just has one of these fractal/psychedelic posters at home that become super trippy when your high. That's the art he is talking about, that and "My bloody Valentine".
  
  
  
  
• 
  Curtis

  I unfortunately couldn’t finish this. This was just a philosophical ego trip guised as a critique on the state of our current ecological warfare. The first half was bloated with self indulgent digressions and was frankly unenjoyable.
• 
  Hanka Jirovská

  I failed to find any interesting insights even after getting halfway through the book, so I'm abandoning this one for now.
• 
  Leanne

  And You May Find Yourself Living in an Age of Mass Extinction…. So begins Timothy Morton’s latest book, All Art is Ecological.
  
  Published as part of Penguin’s new Green Ideas Series, this slim paperback sits alongside nineteen other works of environmental writing. From farmers and biologists to artists and philosophers, spanning decades, the books offer a wide range of perspectives, which Chloe Currens, the editor of the series, says serves to present an evolving ecosystem of environmental writing.
  
  Along with classics like Masanobu Fukuoka’s The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah and Rachel Carson’s The Silent Spring; there is the work of many contemporary thinkers, such as Greta Thunberg’s No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, Amitav Ghosh’s Uncanny and Improbable Events, and George Monbiot’s This can’t be happening.
  
  I wanted to read them all—but I started with Timothy Morton, who has been called “the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene.” A big fan of his writing, I think Timothy Morton is pretty much the most exciting thinker alive. I was, therefore, not surprised to find myself challenged from the very first sentence.
  
  What does this mean exactly: You MIGHT find yourself living in an age of mass extinction?
  
  Why the subjunctive?
  
  And what do you think about his choice of “age of mass extinction” over climate change and global warming?
  
  Morton says that climate change is too weak, and so he prefers global warming– since it is focused on the actual effect of climate change. But he then suggests that the ultimate result is the mass extinction event that we are, in fact, experiencing.
  
  That a massive animal and plant extinction is now unfolding is irrefutable, but what is so crucial about this sixth such event is that the asteroid causing the die-off is us.
  
  We could do something.
  
  But then, why the subjunctive? Shouldn’t the opening sentence of his book be something more like, “You ARE living through an age of mass extinction?”
  
  His argument goes something like this: By turning the issue into a definitive yes or no (verbally voting: I believe or I don’t believe), we lose the actual experience of being in the uncanny. In the middle of a catastrophe.
  
  What happened to all the flies? Were there always this many wildfires in Southern California?
  
  Things look the same, but something is off…
  
  It’s not unlike the experience of a car accident or a natural disaster. Time slows down and there is an undeniable feeling unreality.
  
  Morton is concerned with the way we are talking about the issues and how the conversation is dominated by a type of person who is endlessly “concerned” –and worse takes to telling other people what they should be doing.
  
  He says,
  
  “Let’s think about the delivery mode of ecological advice– drive less, shop locally, save energy, all the usual “should” that we hear again and again. Either we are being preached to as individuals, being made to feel bad and encouraged to change our habits, so that maybe we will feel better, because we think others think of us differently –or we are being lectured at, made to feel powerless, because the thought of revolution or other kinds of political change are very inspiring, but also bring up thoughts of how they might be resisted or constrained: the powers that be are too great, revolutions are always co-opted.”
  
  In Morton’s terms that means thinking along the lines of agricultural religion—Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and so on, thinking characterized by hierarchal views, utilizing the unambiguous language of good and bad, us and them.
  
  But the sky is falling –and we cannot look away; not in denials, nor worse, in smug blame-gaming (just before we head out to load up at Costco or vent on carbon heavy social media). One of Morton’s interesting points is how global warming inspires in us a petrifying hypocrisy, lameness, and weakness. The topic of climate is too mind-bogglingly big and new. There are no “right” answers, and all conversations break down since any one approach will trivialize the problem and inevitably be wrong.
  
  So what can we do?
  Rest of this review up at
  3 Quarks Daily
• 
  Jon Zellweger

  Another quick read….hot on the heels of reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Borne books, with ants in pants, I awaited the arrival of this recent release to re-up my dosage: these are excerpts from his 2018 book “Being Ecological” which I highly recommend. The nice thing about “All Art…” is that is inexpensive and short, minimal commitment necessary and you can still feel so accomplished!: If you like the temperature when you jump in, stay in longer by grabbing a copy of the larger book. Given where my headspace has been with reading “Dead Astronauts” recently, this excerpt (from the excerpts) seems appropriate for it’s similar flavor profile:
  .
  “Per-ver-sion. En-vir-onment. These terms come from the verb *to veer*. To veer, to swerve towards: am I choosing to do it? Or am I being pulled? Free will is overrated. I do no make decisions outside the universe and then plunge in, like an Olympic diver. I am already in. I am like a mermaid, constantly pulled and pulling, pushed and pushing, flicked and flicking, turned and opened, moving with the current, pursing away with the force I can muster. An environment is not a neutral empty box, but an ocean filled with currents and surges. It environs. It veers around, making me giddy. An aesthetic wormhole, bending the terrestrial and ecological into the cosmological. The torsion of deep space, beaming into the cold water of this stream like bent light, the stream where I was caught by the fish I was catching a few pages ago.”
• 
  🌶 peppersocks 🧦

  Reflections and lessons learned:
  “Everything emits time, not just humans. So when we talk about sustainability, what we’re talking about mostly is maintaining some kind of human-scaled temporality frame, and this is necessarily at the expense of those other beings, and it’s very likely we didn’t factor them in at all”
  
  Given that I’d not previously enjoyed the fellow series titles that I’d read, I nearly returned this library loan without reading. I thought that I’d try one last attempt though and wow - such a clever interpretation and commentary on the philosophical side of the topic. One of the difficulties that I often find with ecology is the ego from some humans thinking that it can only be things that are actions from human hands and control. Not to say that we shouldn’t take responsibility for the choices that we make, and any resulting negative impact, but this takes that wider view of human vs non human sharing of the planet. Some properly jaw dropping concepts put across, and definitely an author that I’d be interested in. Any book to accurately and contextually reference Talking Heads on several pages is just genius - ceci n’est pas une pipe y’know
• 
  Virga

  Lyginant su kitom Mortono knygom čia jau atsiradę nemažai pamokymų ir patarimų, tokio pamoralizavimo ekologinės gyvensenos klausimais. Ypač keista buvo skaityti apie jo išrastą meno kriterijų - kad jeigu tikras menas, tai jau ne iš žmogaus perspektyvos "byloja", o iš kitos gyvybės perspektyvos, o jeigu antropocentrinis, tai - kičas. Bet iš tikrųjų aišku, kad Mortonui nelabai rūpi, kas tas tikras, kas netikras menas, daug labiau jis nori pasakyti, kad menas jau seniausiai yra išmokęs mus pagauti tą, ko niekad nepatyrėm ir nepatirsim, pajusti tą, kam žmogaus kūno galios per mažos/ per didelės/ per grubios, etc. Ir šiaip, knygoj yra labai gerų filosofijos klasikų perinterpretavimų, ir šiaip įdomių vietų. Tai nepikta galiausiai už tą mokslinio nešališkumo neišlaikymą, gal kaip tik smagu, kad senstanti žvaigždė nekartoja savęs paties kaip papūga, o juda nenuspėjama kryptim.
• 
  Joanna Ward

  kind of crazy kind of nice ???
• 
  Jennifer Westermann-Guild

  Although a very short book, it still felt too long. Honestly had no idea what the point of this book was and finished it feeling more confused than when I started.
• 
  Grace Richards

  Some parts of this were really interesting and had some great ideas/fun facts about things that tied in nicely. However, I felt like the main points got lost in a lot of the text, which seemed unnecessary and didn't really flow to form coherent points. There was a lot of waffle in between and at parts I was confused at what the author wanted to really say/if they were actually saying anything? Confusing with some good bits.
• 
  Jake Paterson

  A lot of interesting ideas on what it means to be a part of an ecological world and human art's place within it, but mixed in with a lot of dense philosophy that seemly dragged the message further away from any sort of coherence. 100 pages could have and should have been shortened to a 10 page manifesto of new ideas.
• 
  Martin Keith

  This book rambled a long way through Kant, Heidegger and object-oriented ontology to come to some surprisingly milquetoast conclusions. The last sentence is literally "You don't have to be ecological. Because you are ecological." Which sounds like the end of a L'Oréal Paris advert.
  
  There's insights to be sure: Morton touches on our (aesthetic?) experience of ecology, the Anthropocene and "truthiness"—which he dubs "truthfeel". He usefully relates this to our understanding of "individual" and "collective" scale, and how this shapes our grasp on responsibility for the climate crisis.
  
  I think Morton's final line that I mentioned above might be necessary for some people to hear. Maybe we should end our focus on human agency (and blaming ourselves as individuals). Maybe we should reimagine our impact from nature's perspective. But Morton doesn't leave us an actionable thread to follow from there.
• 
  Amber Rhodes

  Although I did find this essay truly fascinating and thought provoking at parts- especially the information regarding the ‘Ice Watch’ exhibit, I do have to admit a lot of it went over my head.
  
  As somebody only versed in Philosophy through the likes of Contrapoints and Philosophy Tube, this was a big jump. However, it was still a funny and irreverent as well as gripping look into art and ecology.
  
  I would still recommend, definitely if you know more on philosophy than I do.
• 
  Sadie Wiese

  ecological ambiguity, why art is a “transparent bag of eyes,” and the “beauty soup isn’t for eating,” and how that uncanny not-me quality might save us from mass extinction….and why i continue to preach environmental humanities to my friends
• 
  Rayn

  okay I need to read this again to really get some parts of the book
  but I don't know if I really like his conclusion? Don't think to hard about being ecological, because you are already ecological? just chill? ???
• 
  Ruby S

  I love the way Timothy Morton writes. With a poetics that is beyond the academic, I can feel their word words as much as understand them.
• 
  Jennifer Irving

  A little snack - hopefully read bigger, meatier one soon
• 
  Stef Rozitis

  The mention of Deleuze on p16 is....interesting. I think he's gambling on the fact that most readers won't have read Deleuze either and he will get away with faking it. Maybe I am jaded by marking too many undergrad papers.
  
  I really wouldn't bother with this one
• 
  Jane Wilkinson

  Some interesting ideas which challenge the main stream thinking on 'climate change' (one of which is that we should stop using this term, for good reasons). Also coming under severe scrutiny is the whole concept of anthropocentrism. However, so much of this little book was waffle which went over my head. It is either highly intellectual stuff, or nonsense à la Emperor's New Clothes (designed to make the average person feel too dim to admit they don't understand it!)
• 
  Dave Tilley

  TM is consistantly a good read. His approach to seeing things from a new slant and relate to ecology in a soft manner make me think and relax at the same time. More consideration and less widespread panic about ecologistics.
• 
  T

  100+ pages of non-sense. take a writing course, sir.
• 
  Lisette

  understood about 1/3 of it but appreciate it nonetheless
• 
  Ana_Belpor

  100 pages
  Around 106 quotes
  100 or more of men, 5 of women.
• 
  Cobi

  quick and nice. timothy morton feels like someone i would like to hang out with
  
  (the overwhelming majority is pop philosophy, not in a bad way, just in a way that’s a little tepid to me, but the last like ten pages are a really wonderful and imagistic enunciation of the deconstructive impulse, and it makes me think of all the professors i’ve had and co-students i’ve worked with (both now and in undergrad) who mock this selfsame impulse, as if the playfulness intrinsic to the multiplicity of meaning that’s created by reading the sum-of-the-parts as more than the whole is a nihilistic erasure as opposed to a joyous meta-construction)
  
  nice images. nice reflections on art. all around nice. gets the nice stamp of approval from me. and soon i will read the morrissey autobiography and give that five stars
• 
  Lucinda

  A very long winded argument that ultimately scoffs at those who are trying to plead that we need to do something about climate change, urgently, "no-ifs-no-buts".
  Because Timothy Morton has a lot of ifs and buts. It's the global poor who will suffer when sea levels rise and storms and wildfires rip through our planet, and the Global South becomes unbearably hot. But Timothy Morton doesn't care. He wants to sell books that make us feel good, and make him feel clever.
  I honestly think this only goes unnoticed and unchallenged because it's so pretentious and difficult to read.
  Also a very macho book with all its fancy language and endless quotes by men (as one goodreads reader has noticed, 100 quotes by men, 5 by women). The fact that Morton now identifies as non-binary does not let him off this hook.
• 
  Kitty

  I thought that Timothy Morton shared some really interesting insights, and I thought that his writing style was clever and colloquial enough that the book was easy to read whilst also making me really think about the content. However, I think that either his argument was flawed in practicality or he failed to explain it fully. "You don't have to be ecological. Because you are ecological." is the closing statement of the entire essay, and to be honest if this was true then the climate crisis would not exist, so unless Morton is just talking about the way that society tries to persuade us, to change our lives, through telling us what we have to do and what we have done and only using factoids, then I agree. Morton I feel failed to explain this.