Abstract
In continuation of his previous work—notably, Fossil Capital (2016)— historian and human geographer Andreas Malm (Lund University, Sweden) pens his latest book, The Progress of This Storm (2018), from a deep concern with the disastrous consequences of capitalist society’s insatiable consumption of coal, gas, and oil that keeps the global economic system chugging. His book will appeal to a cross section of critical scholars interested in the sociology and politics of climate change. Written with a palpable feeling of frustration, Malm directs his brimming displeasure toward cultural theorists whom he identifies as nothing more than self-important stopgaps for radical opposition. The political implications of contemporary scholarship do require critical review in an era of climate inaction and fomenting rightwing power, but Malm’s biting critique of the “cultural turn” reads as more arbitrary than pointed. With no clear logic behind the scholars he chooses to throw under the historical materialist bus, Malm confuses more than clarifies the direction environmental theory and politics should be taking.
Malm structures his book into eight chapters with the first three explaining why he is “Against Constructionism” (Chapter One), “Against Hybridism” (Chapter Two), and “Against New Materialism” (Chapter Three). Right from the get-go, Malm’s sweeping style of critique can be gleaned. He is less interested in a full and detailed engagement with the nuances of each field of thought—of which he lumps together as part of an amorphous “cultural turn”—than with demonstrating why he is steadfastly “against” each. Malm’s wholesale dismissal of cultural scholarship stems from his fundamental unease with what he identifies as its preoccupation with proving false the binary between “humanity” and “nature.”
In the first chapter, Malm begins his overarching critique with an appraisal of discourse theory or what he calls, “Constructionism.” Malm laments the blurring of distinctions that poststructuralism and postmodernism encourage and, in particular, the distinction between the “social” and the “material.” He argues that a clear separation between “humanity” and “nature” is essential for mobilizing radical opposition to “save nature.” Without this separation, Malm contends, the ability to mobilize collective action against the destruction of the environment is impossible. In reference to theories of discourse, Malm laments: “It seems unable to inspire the kind of theory we need. Temperatures are not rising because people have thought about coal or made mental images of highways: that is not how environmental degradation happens” (p. 27).
Malm clarifies and extends this point of critique in Chapter Two. In his discussion of “Hybridism,” Malm reveals the motivating foe at the heart of his project: Bruno Latour. In analysis of Latour’s work, Malm reproves: Exactly contrary to the message of hybridism, it follows that the more problems of environmental degradation we confront, the more imperative it is to pick the unities apart in their poles. Far from abolishing it, ecological crises render the distinction between the social and the material more essential than ever. (p. 61, emphasis in original text)
Or put differently, “the distinction between the social and the material [is] more essential than ever” (p. 61), according to Malm, because large-scale radical opposition will not occur otherwise.
This underlying assumption that radical mobilization and collective action are only possible if an “analytical distinction” (p. 61) is made between “humanity” and “nature” is a shaky claim—especially when socialist revolution failed to take hold in times pre-dating the “cultural turn.” Indeed, cultural studies emerged in trying to make sense of the failure of radical politics asking: Why did revolution fail to happen in places like the United Kingdom? Studies of discourse and a concern with binaries emerged not from a denial of material reality, but rather, from a recognition that “mental images of highways” (p. 61), or ideas of progress and growth and imagined hierarchies of culture over nature, White over Black, man over woman contribute to and perpetuate violent structures of exploitation.
Paradoxically, Malm admits this much. His entire argument against cultural theory stems from deep qualms over the material implications of melding the categories of human and nature together. He recognizes that the discourse of “hybridity” poses an ideological impediment to revolutionary action and does not “inspire the kind of theory we need” (p. 27). But by sidestepping a more nuanced engagement with the theories he rejects with a few broad strokes, Malm fails to recognize the irony of his own logic. Indeed, Malm identifies the “storm” (p. 172) of climate change as a catalyst for breaking the contradictory hold of capital on the lives and livelihoods of workers, but he does so without adequate consideration of the role of ideology in keeping—and eventually breaking—this contradictory hold. In extending his critique to “New Materialism” in Chapter Three, Malm solidifies his ardent position that any and all theory which denies the separation of humans and nature should be rejected—without consideration of how such theory could be useful for understanding the tenor of capitalist ideology and climate change.
Instead of being totally “against” cultural scholarship full stop, Malm could have more generously engaged with theories of discourse, hybridity, and new materialism to more rigorously develop environmental thought. But by failing to do so, the scholarly interventions Malm proposes in the second half of his book falter. Malm’s interventions are twofold: (1) “property dualism” and (2) “socialist climate realism.”
Malm describes “property dualism” as the interaction of the “social” and the “material” via emergent relations between the two. These emergent relations are definitively influenced via intentional action put into motion by conscious human agents—action that hybrid theorists such as Latour, Malm contends, denies (note: this is a key source of critique for Latour’s work posed and discussed at length across cultural theory. Malm is not unique in this critique). Intentionality is key here—and this, according to Malm, is a fundamental distinction which separates the “social” (humanity as an agent with intentionality) from the “material” (nature as an agent without intentionality) and which prompts him to call for “less of Latour and more of Lenin” (p. 149).
Following this call, Malm proposes a theory of “socialist climate realism” to guide future environmental scholarship. The three tenants of a socialist climate realism include: 1.) social relations have real causal primacy in the development of fossil energy and technologies based on it; 2.) by recursive loops of reinforcement, these relations have been cemented in the obdurate structure of the fossil economy; 3.) that totality has in its turn fired up the totality of the earth system, so that (some) humans have real reasons to be afraid. (p. 149)
In short, Malm adapts traditional historical materialism to include a central focus on “fossil energy and technologies based on it” (p. 149) or, of “fossil capitalism”—an idea first proposed in his book unsurprisingly titled, Fossil Capitalism (2016). Malm therefore underscores the emergent social/material relations (explained via property dualism) as intentionally forged by capitalists in the former imperial empires (Malm focuses heavily on the British) and now perpetuated by entrenched societal structures to the detriment of the planet.
Malm insists that socialist climate realism and an understanding of emergent relations via the theory of property dualisms is the only way to adequately “stud[y] the social dynamics of a warming world, a fortiori, to intervening in it” (p. 149). Malm contends that radical opposition to fossil capitalism is dependent on a separation of human as intentional agent and nature as passive victim—a notion riddled with problematic logics of imperialism and patriarchy (i.e., White man as active savior and female as passive victim). This is ironic because Malm repeatedly celebrates Carolyn Merchant—a renowned eco-feminist—and her seminal work, The Death of Nature (1989) throughout his book. The arbitrariness of who Malm critiques and why is unclear and demonstrative of his sweeping style of argumentation.
Although Malm’s book tends to read as polemic more than a careful study of environmental and cultural thought, he does offer a necessary pause by asking: What good is theory anyway? He concludes by stating: “As for theory, it can only ever play a very limited part in such a project [the climate movement]. But at least it should not be a drag on it” (p. 231). This is a paradoxical conclusion to a paradoxical book. Although Malm’s intentions are honorable and important, his book is by and large one of theory and not one of strategy or practical designs for action. And yet despite his focus on theory, Malm misses a more generative engagement with the wide array of works he selects for analysis. Malm could have carefully woven together writings on ideology and culture with his past work on fossil capitalism and historical materialism to offer key insights into the contours of and potential for radical environmental politics. But instead, Malm falls short of the task and spurns quite a few cultural scholars on the way.
