The Answer of the Real

This is a typical response to the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland. Nature is telling us that we're ignoring her. Thanks to Robin Mackay for pointing me this way.

In brief, this is Bruno Latour's idea in action. He argues that nonhuman phenomena are already participating in human democracy, by making “statements” such as this, measureable by scientific instruments (the mode in which they “speak” to us). Lisa Disch spoke very eloquently about this at Johns Hopkins last week.

The trouble is, what counts as a nonhuman phenomenon? The cloud? Global warming that may include the cloud—or not? In a global warming age, where all weather is significant, nothing is significant.

It reminds me of Zizek's brilliant argument about the Lacanian “answer of the Real.” The little boy protagonist sees a plane fly into a huge window while he's fighting with his parents. He immediately says “That's my fault.” The answer of the Real is a phantasmical attribution of one's psychic state to contingent events. One is already in an altered state of consciousness (hysteria for instance), and one explains it by seeing it on the outside.