{"id":12994,"date":"2022-10-19T11:38:05","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T16:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=12994"},"modified":"2022-10-19T11:44:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T16:44:30","slug":"more-or-less-than-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/10\/19\/more-or-less-than-human\/","title":{"rendered":"More-or-less-(than)-human"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The term “more-than-human” has become a popular way of designating the “nonhuman” within the environmental humanities. Other terms used include “other-than-human,” and much less frequently “unhuman” and “inhuman,” with the latter’s negative connotations upended (successfully or not) to read positively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“More-than-human” was, to my knowledge, first used by David Abram in his 1996 ecophilosophical bestseller (inasmuch as ecophilosophy has bestsellers) The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World<\/a><\/em>. This was a beautifully written book, more convincing in its phenomenological analysis of perception (the book’s first part) than of language (the second), but a provocative and rewarding read nonetheless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abram referred in the book to a “more-than-human world” and to “more-than-human worlds,” and also to a more-than-human “realm,” “matrix,” and “ecology,” but, notably, not to individual entities as “more-than-humans.” (He also used “nonhuman” a lot more often than any of those.) Yet the idea of “more-than-humans,” in the plural, took off, as its suggestion that such entities — everything that isn’t human — is somehow more<\/em> or qualitatively better <\/em>than humans was something that many in the ecohumanities liked, if only for its value as provocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Language is just language — the “house of being<\/a>,” pace<\/em> Heidegger, but also a prison-house<\/a> — and any terms we choose will have their better and worse uses and a limited shelf life. Twenty-five years after its introduction, the limitations of the “more-than-human” might be a little easier to see. “More-than-humans” suggests that these entities are human and then some, <\/em>but the point is really that they are not human at all and that we haven’t quite grasped what that might mean. They are certainly other-than-human. They may be under<\/em>-than and over<\/em>-than human (earthworms and birds, for instance, respectively). But why should more<\/em> be a point of pride as opposed to less<\/em> — for instance, less harmful, less arrogant, and so on? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More to the point, all of these terms use the human as their central reference point and defining factor. Without the human to define them and measure them by, it appears, they are nothing, or nothing at least can be said about them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, in the world of cultural theory “after the ontological turn” (to those who have taken that turn), it’s become clear that there are as many ways of talking about the human as there are about the other-than-human. There are multiple worlds, multiple carvings-up of the ontological territory of relational existence. This makes it more of an effort to speak without assuming a single ontological register, but eco-humanists are precisely the people who should be making that effort. Many of them are. Over-relying<\/a> on terms like “more-than-human” to designate entities, beings, or individuals who aren’t human<\/em> seems to me a little lazy, perhaps even a little “all too human.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the use of the word remains appropriate is as a sign of human entanglement<\/a> within the meshwork of human-and-nonhuman stuff — the “more-than-human agencies” of the human body, for instance, with their bacterial and fungal biomes, or the multispecies life of a place that’s nevertheless still defined by its human terms (as such and such a place, bioregion, eco-community, et al.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, instead, it’s the world of Science\/Speculative Fiction that’s gotten things right all along, with authors like Theodore Sturgeon using the term (minus the hyphens) as far back as 1953 to designate a humanity expanded by telepathy and by what one reviewer called a “poetic, panchromatic individuality<\/a>.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To recognize the other-than-humanity of our fellow beings, you might say, we need to expand the definitions of our own humanity, to become more-than-human ourselves. (Not trans-human, at least not that<\/em> kind<\/a> of transhuman; but let’s leave all possibilities open.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means to be anthropomorphically, and morphogenetically, active, dynamic, and open-ended, to pursue the becomings that are available to us, not for their own sake (like some neoliberal Beat philosophers) but for the sake of being better humans. More relational<\/em> humans. More-than-but-also-still-ever-becoming-humans. (And perhaps that’s what artists like Tomas Saraceno have in mind in exhibitions like this<\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

End of sermon. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"More<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The term “more-than-human” has become a popular way of designating the “nonhuman” within the environmental humanities. Other terms used include “other-than-human,” and much less frequently “unhuman” and “inhuman,” with the latter’s negative connotations upended (successfully or not) to read positively. “More-than-human” was, to my knowledge, first used by David Abram in his 1996 ecophilosophical bestseller […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4415],"tags":[710380,711042,48865,711038,711039,711040,711043],"class_list":["post-12994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecophilosophy","tag-david-abram","tag-entanglement","tag-language","tag-more-than-human","tag-more-than-humans","tag-nonhuman","tag-theodore-sturgeon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-3nA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1240,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/04\/13\/the-remainder\/","url_meta":{"origin":12994,"position":0},"title":"the remainder…","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"For an indication of why I'm interested in the \u201cmore\u201d that object-oriented philosophers grapple with, the \u201cremainder\u201d beyond what can be accounted for of an object or phenomenon through relational accounts, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few paragraphs from my 2001 book Claiming Sacred Ground. 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Dawn Prince's experience with bonobo Kanzi: \" I fell into the gorilla language I knew, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5820,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/05\/04\/nt-3-grusin-why-nonhuman-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":12994,"position":3},"title":"NT3: Grusin “Why nonhuman now?”","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Day 2 at The Nonhuman Turn. Richard Grusin: Why Nonhuman? Why Now? The CFP for this conference elicited lively comments and concerns on Facebook walls (Ken Wark's and Alex Galloway's): expression of \"turn fatigue\" (:-) [ai: my first proposal was about just that], and a concern that this would ipso\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5864,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/05\/05\/nt9-hansen-against-clairvoyance\/","url_meta":{"origin":12994,"position":4},"title":"NT9: Hansen against clairvoyance","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Mark Hansen, \"Against Clairvoyance: The Future of 21st Century Media\" Both the future of and the future according to... The status of the future in relation to media. 21st century media. Book on Whitehead's philosophy as resource for thinking about 21st century media. Offering a different entry into Whitehead than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media ecology"","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5586,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/02\/28\/process-objects-at-the-nonhuman-turn\/","url_meta":{"origin":12994,"position":5},"title":"Process-objects at The Nonhuman Turn","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The preliminary schedule is out for The Nonhuman Turn in 21st Century Studies. The list of speakers reads like a \"who's who\" of the neo-ontological, speculative-realist crowd in cultural and media theory: Steven Shaviro, Jane Bennett, Brian Massumi, Erin Manning, Mark Hansen, Ian Bogost, and Tim Morton are among the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12994"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13043,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12994\/revisions\/13043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}