gether the parliamentarians, on the organization of the rows, on the
form of the amphitheater, on the position of the president, on the po-
dium where the speaker presides. Political ecology is seeking not to
choose a place within the old Constitution, but to convene a collective
in a different assembly, a different arena, a different forum. Left and
right will no longer reproduce the old divisions. No prewrapped pack-
age will permit the forces of Progress and the forces of Reaction to
confront each other any longer, as if there were a single front of mod-
ernization that would make the Enlightenment, secularization, the lib-
eration of morals, the market, the universal all walk in step. The divi-
sions within the parties have been superior to what unites them for a
long time now.
What is to be done with the left and the right if progress consists in
going, as we have seen, from the tangled to the more tangled, from a
mix of facts and values to an even more inextricable mix? What if
freedom consists in finding oneself not free of a greater number of be-
ings but attached to an ever-increasing number of contradictory prop-
ositions? What if fraternity resides not in a front of civilization that
would send the others back to barbarity but in the obligation to work
with all the others to build a single common world? What if equality
asks us to take responsibility for nonhumans without knowing in ad-
vance what belongs to the category of simple means and what belongs
to the kingdom of ends? What if the Republic* becomes at once a very
old and very new form of the Parliament of things?
For the triage of possible worlds, the left-right difference appears
very awkward indeed. At the same time, it is unthinkable to come to
an agreement by outstripping that opposition through a unanimous
power, since nature is no longer there to unite us without lifting a
finger. I am not too worried about this difficulty. Once assembled with
its own furnishings, political ecology will quickly be able to identify
the new rifts, the new enemies, the new fronts. There will be time
enough then to find labels for them. Most are already right here in
front of us. Surprising in the eyes of the Old Regime, these regroup-
ings will appear banal for the new one. Let us not hurry, in any case, to
inherit old divisions.
Are there really any solutions, moreover, besides political ecology?
Ultimately, what do you want? Can you really say, without blushing,
still believing it, that the future of the planet consists in a melting
CONCLUSION
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