Home>(Re)Defining Class: In Conversation with Bruno Latour and Nikolaj Schultz
03.03.2022
(Re)Defining Class: In Conversation with Bruno Latour and Nikolaj Schultz
On the 10th of February 2022, Bruno Latour, anthropologist, scientific philosopher, professor emeritus at Sciences Po and Nikolaj Schultz, PhD student at the University of Copenhague and co-author of his most recent book, Mémo sur la nouvelle classe écologique, came to Sciences Po to discuss art, Marxism, class, and questions of ecology, in the context of an event hosted by the School of Public Affairs. Throughout the course of this event “Why talk about Geo-Social Classes?”, they delved into what a new social class based on environmental concerns could look like and how it could shift our political landscape toward a more sustainable future.
This event, moderated by historian of science and researcher at the CNRS and Scientific Director of the Master en Arts Politiques – SPEAP at Sciences Po's School of Public Affairs, Frédérique Aït-Touati, was designed to intermingle questions of art, politics, and social science to meet a new era that is unfolding—an era in which the environmental crisis is centered in the political discourse.
As President of Sciences Po Mathias Vicherat noted in his opening remarks: “socio-economic criteria are not the be-all end-all”. By inverting Richelieu’s phrase “politics is the art of making that which is necessary possible” with the following: “art is the politics of making that which is necessary possible”, he highlighted the link between art and politics—an essential part of the Master en Arts Politiques - SPEAP, designed by Bruno Latour himself.
A New Environmental Regime
In his opening remarks, Bruno Latour noted that, although the environment has become a mainstream issue, it is still one which has not entered the political realm in its own right. The intention of his memorandum, written in collaboration with Nikolaj Schultz, is thus to conceptualise ecology as a politically organizing force in order to establish a new geo-social class capable of enacting concrete social change.
Indeed, in the opening chapter of their memorandum, they ask the following: “Under what conditions could ecology organize a political movement around itself, rather than remaining a set of social movements among others? Can it aspire to define the political horizon as did, in other periods, liberalism, then various socialist movements, neo-liberalism, and finally, more recently, illiberal or neo-fascist parties whose influence continues to grow?”
Establishing a social movement on par in influence with liberalism and neo-liberalism is no easy task. Yet the intentions of the memorandum are clear, articulated as they are in the book’s subtitle ("How to establish an environmental class that is self-aware and proud”)—namely, to communicate their ideas to members of environmentalist parties and their constituents. Whether or not this new environmental regime succeeds, according to Latour, is dependent on the role of authority in our society. In his view, this authority should operate “on a planetary level” and “at the most official geopolitical level” in order ensure that societies meet the goal of remaining below the 2 degree limit stipulated by the COP21.
(Re)Defining Class
In order to develop their ideas and encourage the development of this new class based on environmental concerns, there must be, as Nikolaj Schultz noted, an acceptance that political ecology “brings along divisions” and that it must therefore “provide a convincing cartography” to would-be members of this new social class. Indeed, Schultz’s discussion drew upon the history of definitions of class, starting with Marx and moving throughout the shifts in class conceptions since the industrial revolution. As he noted, “class is not one thing”, rather, “it is a battlefield that has never been fully stabilized”.
In this “battlefield” of class definitions, Schultz and Latour’s struggle lies within the establishment of common ideological ties beyond traditional conceptions of class. The reasons for this, as Schultz argues, lie largely in the fact that our contemporary means of production have drastically changed since Marx’s time, bringing with it changes in the material infrastructure in which we operate. As he notes, the pandemic had a significant role in accelerating the “reformatting of the ecological material infrastructure of society” because the pandemic brought our systems of production to a halt. Thus, it provided us with the opportunity to “reconsider how societies survive”.
From these ashes, therefore, the new seeds of an environmental social class have been planted and are already growing. As Schultz notes, the “class landscape is undergoing a recomposition” that makes class interests and traditional class hierarchies more “territorialised” and more closely linked with our earthly means of existence (soil, land, air, energy, etc.).
Establishing a New “Political Imagination”
In their conception, because this new class is organized outside traditional conceptions of production, it can no longer be defined along Marxist lines. Rather, it is “fighting against the horzion of production”, returning to smaller forms of subsistence such as permo agriculture and creating new social networks that are, in Schultz’s words, “bound to the earth”. The next step therefore, in his conception, is to find a common narrative within which people can identify and find points of common ground.
Although there are challenges in establishing this new social class as a coherent political movement, the “political imagination”, as Schultz calls it, of previously divided groups will help lead toward unity. As Bruno Latour noted in response to a student question referring to those from different social groups as “strange bedfellows”, the diversity of backgrounds of those joining the social movement, and thus its intersectionality, work to the advantage of the movement “because it is a question of “reclassification”. A “strange bedfellow” can become a friend.”
According to Latour, there has been a shift in the political vision in recent years—from one of “infinite” development to an acknowledgement of “planetary limits” according to which we are “confined”. According to him, not only has the political vision of the world and our place in it changed.
As Bruno Latour noted, by way of conclusion, “We, as ecologists, you, as ecologists, don’t have time, but we still have to take it.”
The Sciences Po Editorial Team
