into account, a society that believes itself to be universal from the out-
set, a society that sees itself as one with nature. Examples of barbarian
collectives abound. On this account, as we can see quite clearly, the
moderns have never demonstrated a very high level of civilization, for
they have always viewed themselves as the ones who were pulling
away from the barbarianism of the past, the ones who were resisting
the return of archaism, the ones who were supposed to bring progress
to those who lacked it. By shifting from modernism to political ecol-
ogy, we can say that the moderns areclosing the parenthesisthat had set
them apart from the others for a time. Or rather, after modernism’s
trial by fire, we might enter into a new era in which no collective could
any longer, without further ado, use the label “barbarian” to character-
ize what it is rejecting. All the same, we are not going to wallow in
multiculturalism and abstain from making any value judgments; in-
stead, we are going to start talking to one another again, as people
should have done at the beginning of the age of the so-called great dis-
coveries. The collective has to replay the primitive scene of empire
building, but those who disembark when they encounter civilized be-
ings are this time civilized themselves. After centuries of misunder-
standings, we are now replaying the tragic scene of the “first contacts.”
As I have pointed out several times, the use of the word “collective”
in the singular does not mean that there is just one of them, but that
its function is to bring together a collection of some sort, in order to
make its members capable of saying “us.”^29 The discipline of anthro-
pology has served as chief of protocol to teach the moderns to enter
into contact with others. Still, the rules of its etiquette hide a lack of
tact that political ecology has to correct at the outset. Physical anthro-
pology in effect defines “the” universal nature of man by relying on
Science, while cultural anthropology records the variety of cultures in
the plural—obsessive scientism on the one hand, condescending re-
spect on the other. From the viewpoint of the new Constitution, we
cannot imagine anything worse, since those who are defining unity are
the object of no counterforce, while cultures can accede to no reality
other than that of “social representations.” If it wants to become civil,
anthropology can no longer allow itself to meet those who surround it
by asking the traditional question of modernism: “Thanks to nature, I
know in advance, without needing to hear what you have to say, who
you are; but tell me anyway what representations you have made of
POLITICS OF NATURE
210