The Becoming of Possibility V: Ecology — The World That Was Never Outside Us

Modern thought often begins with a familiar image.

Here are humans.

There is nature.

One acts.

The other is acted upon.

The distinction appears obvious.

People inhabit environments.

Organisms occupy ecosystems.

Societies exist within landscapes.

The world becomes divided:

observer and observed

organism and environment

humanity and nature

The divisions feel natural.

Yet a peculiar question begins emerging:

Where exactly does the boundary lie?

The object trap

Object-thinking reaches for a familiar solution.

Perhaps organisms and environments simply exist as separate things interacting with one another.

Individuals appear here.

Nature appears there.

Relations occur afterward.

The image feels intuitive.

Yet difficulties appear almost immediately.

Because organisms continuously exchange matter and energy with surroundings.

Breathing alters environments.

Environments alter breathing.

Bodies depend upon microorganisms.

Forests alter climates.

Climates alter forests.

Rivers shape landscapes.

Landscapes shape rivers.

The supposedly separate entities begin becoming strangely difficult to isolate.

The boundaries start moving.

The strange appearance

Ecological systems behave curiously.

Effects travel in unexpected directions.

Small changes sometimes produce enormous consequences.

Things appearing separate begin behaving as though they belong to larger patterns.

The world starts looking less like a collection of independent objects and more like ongoing organisation.

The monster quietly returns.

Not because ecology behaves irrationally.

Because the expectation of separation begins becoming unstable.

The relational turn

Suppose the problem does not begin with ecosystems.

Suppose it begins with assuming that relations connect already-complete things.

Then something changes.

Ecology no longer appears merely as interaction among separate entities.

Instead relations become primary.

Organisms.

Environments.

Species.

Landscapes.

Atmospheres.

Technologies.

Human practices.

None exist as isolated realities later entering relations.

They emerge within ongoing organisation.

The question therefore shifts.

Not:

How do separate things affect one another?

But:

How do ongoing relations generate relatively stable forms?

The revelation

And now something curious becomes visible.

Ecology does not merely tell us something about forests or oceans.

It tells us something about ourselves.

Because the old image quietly assumed:

here are humans

there is the world

But perhaps this was always a strange way of dividing reality.

Perhaps the environment was never outside us.

Perhaps we were never outside it.

And perhaps another question now begins appearing at the horizon:

What possibilities become available when we stop imagining ourselves as standing apart from the worlds that sustain us?