the role of unifier of the respective ranks of all beings out of the dual
arena of nature and politics and intothe single arenaof the collective.
That is at least what it doesin practice,when it jointly forbids both the
natural order and the social order to categorize in a definitive and sep-
arate way what counts and what does not, what is connected and what
must remain detached, what is inside and what is outside. Multiplica-
tion of objects that put the classic constitutional order in crisis: such is
the means that political ecology has found, with all the astuteness of a
burgeoning practice, to simultaneously confuse the political tradition
and what has to be called the natural tradition,Naturpolitik*.
The philosophy of ecology, however, takes great pains not to do in
theory what it does in practice (what I propose to say that it does).
Even when it challenges nature, it never calls the unity of nature into
question.^35 The reason for the gap ought to be clearer now, even
though we shall need the entire length of this book for it to bear fruit.
As long as (political) epistemology is taken seriously, that is, as long as
the practice of the sciences and the practice of politics are not treated
with equal interest, nature appears preciselynotas a power of assem-
bling equal or superior to that of politics. At least not yet. But then
how does it appear? How can it justify the use of the singular “nature
in general”? Why does it not present itself as multiplicity? Why does
it put off measuring itself against politics and thus letting us see quite
clearly that we are dealing with two powers that can be criticized in a
single thrust? Because of a fabulous invention that political ecology
has already dismantled in practice but cannot dismantle in theory
without a slow and painful supplementary effort. Because ofthe dis-
tinction between facts and valuesthat we shall have to sort out in Chap-
ter 3. One could readily grant that there indeed exists a strong unifying
power in nature, but this power concernsonlyfacts. Everyone also
agrees, of course, that there is also a power of assembling, ranking,
and ordering in politics as well, but this power concerns values, and
values alone. The two orders are not only different, they are incom-
mensurable. Will we be reminded that that is just what the pope’s sup-
porters and the emperor’s claimed in the Middle Ages? Yes, but we see
them now as two commensurable powers, simply enemies, because
we have converted them both into secular figures. This is precisely my
hypothesis:we have not yet secularized the two conjoined powers of nature
POLITICS OF NATURE
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