about attachments end up with the definition of essences whose
boundaries are finally fixed. The entities are now endowed with indis-
putable properties. The distribution among beings is finally basedon
law and not on fact.We can even allow ourselves the luxury, if neces-
sary, of distinguishing between humans and things, between beings
endowed with speech and those which are mute, between beings that
need protection and those which can be dominated and possessed, be-
tween the realm of the social and that of nature; yes, everything that
we had previously forbidden ourselves is now possible, because we
know that such decisions, which can be revised in the next iteration,
are in fact the end result of an explicit procedure that took place, if the
lower house did its work well, according to due process. We can even
have—without risk of confusion, now—subjects and objects, so long
as they are not located at the beginning of the analysis but at its provi-
sional end.Reality now has its representation.
This time, the cortege has entered the city, the foreigners have been
assimilated, the enemies accompanied back to the borders, the gates
of the city closed to curious onlookers. The officials can now release
the auxiliaries of the epistemology police without risk: if they add the
qualifier “rational” or “irrational” to the decisions made, it will now be
merely a matter of benediction or curse: equally superfluous, equally
harmless. Just as the lower house could do its work only provided that
the upper house had done its, the upper house can take up its meticu-
lous watch again the next day only if the lower house has fulfilled its
functions scrupulously. If it has eliminated propositions for no reason
and integrated others without motivation, the upper house will find it
exceedingly difficult in the next iteration to detect rapidly the dangers
created by the excluded parties. These latter will have been rendered
invisible and insignificant for good. They will have become irrecuper-
able. The matters of concern* will have become riskless matters of
fact. We will have lost the chance to become civilized.
The Common Dwelling, theOikos
Night has fallen, the parade is over, the City has been built, the Sover-
eign has made its entry, the collective is inhabited: political ecology
finally has its institutions. To close this chapter, let us recapitulate the
four types of investigations that form the new competencies we prom-
ised to deploy (Box 4.2).
POLITICS OF NATURE
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