Latour’s Où suis-je?: Summary of Chapter 1

In recent weeks I have been tweeting chapter-by-chapter summaries of Latour’s new book, Où suis-je? Leçons du confinement à l’usage des terrestres. This book is important, I think, because it provides a summary and expansion of a number of articles Latour has recently posted on the pandemic and lockdown, continuing the work of applying the philosophy of “the new climactic regime” to our global political situation (his two most recent long works, including Down to Earth as well as this book, can increasingly be seen as an application to politics and society of his 2015 Face à Gaïa).

A number of people have asked me to post these unwieldy twitter threads here on my blog. In doing so, I have done not much more than fill in some of the original tweets, providing (I hope) readable summaries. In each case, I will not necessarily offer commentary or analysis. I hope this series serves as an introduction to this wonderful book, perhaps for those who do not yet read the French.

The first chapter, Un Devenir-Termite, sets the scene for the novel analysis of the lockdown that Latour will go on to provide.

Lockdown

We come back outside, as if after a long confinement, searching for our bearings.

We cannot bear to cast our eyes towards natural phenomena, the sun, the trees or the landscape in front of us. Not merely because our eyes have become unaccustomed to the outside world during lockdown, but rather because we sense the damage we have inflicted upon it through our own activities in the Anthropocene.

But it seems that we do feel comfortable looking at the moon. Why? Because, perhaps only symbolically, its movement is beyond the reach of our activities: “au moins, il ne se sent pas du tout responsible” (10); “de son mouvement, enfin, tu te sais innocent” (10). That is to say, the moon remains the closest object that is far enough away not to be changed by human activity: “elle est le seul être proche qui soit extérieur à ses soucis” (14). The moon therefore retains an innocence that has been squandered with regard to our own planet.

Kafka’s metamorphosis

To come out of lockdown (itself, as we have seen, a metaphor for coming-to-our-senses with regard to our environmental impact) is to awake from slumber like Gregor Samsa, becoming grimly aware of the monstrous form we now inhabit, and sensing the difficulty of inhabiting the world outside in the same way we did before: “c’est comme si j’avais subi, moi aussi, une vraie metamorphose” (11).

How does this analogy work?

Previously, like Gregor, we might have through we could occupy our own bodies innocently: “je pouvais me déplacer innocement en emportant mon corps avec moi” (11). But now, our bodies have become outward and visible signs of a monstrous metamorphosis.

In the same way, we are beginning to awake to the metamorphosis we have imposed on the world out-there:

• Our bodies have become “monstrous” in the sense that we have carried behind us a trail of our own atmospheric emissions and pollutants, a disgusting sight for those who had “eyes to see”.
• And now, in a more obvious sense, we also carry behind us the trail of the virus, threatening to infect others in a more palpable but no lless devastating way.

We emit our “sillages de virus et de gaz” (12); “derrière comme d’avant, c’est comme une carapace de conséquences chaque jour plus affreuses que je dois apprendre à trainer” (11).

And yet, rather than just passing away, we must learn to adapt, as falteringly as necessary, to this new existence, accepting that we are “dans un autre temps, quelqu’un d’autre, membre d’un autre peuple” (12).

Termites

Kafka’s insect image points us to the idea of termites whose termitaries are described as super-organisms because the termites form part of a self-regulating entity: the colony itself. The termites are restricted to the space of the termitary, but can extend themselves further in tht tthat they build outwards; the termitary thus becomes a type of exoskeleton or “corps étendu, en quelque sorte” (13).

Termitary

Part of the burden of this book is to describe and explain and explain the “termite-being” that we must acknowledge and own if we are to face the devastating and urgent challenge of the Anthropocene:

• Humans too are those who construct and extend outwards the interior of their habitable space: “tu en as fait ton milieu intérieur, ta termitière, ta ville” (14).
• Of course, we feel ill-at-ease with this idea, as described in the feelings of the one exiting lockdown above (14).
• But we should not! We are like Gregor and should not feel we cannot exit our room in shame and horror at our modus operandi: “avec tes antennes, tes articulations, tes émanations, tes déchets, tes mandibules, tes prostheses, tu deviens peut- être enfin un humain!” (14). It is the other characters in the story (the parents, the sister, the awful manager who drops in to find out why Gregor is late) who have refused to become human; they should opine who they are and what they have become (15). Thus, we must read the story the other way around: “remis sur ses six pattes velues, Gregor, enfin, marcherait droit et pourrait nous apprendre à nous extraire du confinement” (15).

This self-regulating construction of a habitable space (which Latour calls “ce devenir-insecte, ce devenir-termite”, 14) is the antidote to those who feel their only resort these days is to gaze at the moon in despair at the climate crisis down-here. He is “ce Gregor don’t le devenir-insecte préfigure le nôtre” (27).      

In other words, Latour has presented us once again with his appeal to “retour à la terre” (15).