2. Vital Materialism: Jane Bennett and the Vibrancy of Things

Abstract

I discuss Jane Bennett’s vitalist materialism, which differs significantly from OOO’s understanding of matter. It puts forward the idea of a comprehensive vitality that undermines traditional ontological and normative divisions and runs through both human and nonhuman matter. Bennett’s account of “thing-power” provides important elements for designing a posthumanist political theory and goes beyond many conceptual limitations of OOO. However, I argue that her “vital materialism” fails to account for the negative and destructive processes that obstruct and hinder the progressive politics she envisions. She tends to displace political questions by the appeal for a new ethical sensibility. Unfortunately, Bennett offers no convincing argument as to how the “energetics of ethics” is coupled with political dynamics or how the vital politics she advocates translates into a radical change in the contemporary structures of production and consumption.