Ocean or Oubliette?

There is now enough plastic in the world to wrap the entire planet. Plastic is now so pervasive scientists are saying that it is a new geological marker. And no part of the planet has been more affected by the spread of plastic waste than the ocean. Eventually the things we dispose of will dispose of us. We are suffocating the planet in our toxic waste. The ocean, as vast as it is, has somehow slipped from view-it is used as a dumping ground for all kinds of waste, and it is steadily dying, but no-one seems able to raise a hand to help it. In part this is a problem of sovereignty. All nations claim their piece of the ocean, but none own it outright. And now that it is in trouble we must ask who is responsible for fixing it? Global warming is a problem of rubbish-it is caused by the by-products of what we do in our daily lives. We generally expect others to change so we can stay the same, but what would get us to change everything, including ourselves? In critical theory there are essentially only two answers to this question: we either do what we know we must (Kant's categorical imperative is the sine qua non of this position); or we do what we feel we must (Bennett's vital materialism is in many ways the sine qua non of this position). Adherents to the latter view of things describe it as either embodied or material and they castigate adherents of the categorical view for being either disembodied or immaterial. The limits of the former are that it is idealist and, in being so, implicitly tyrannical because the set of things we must do are not defined or decided upon by ourselves. They are instead imposed from the outside and often without any awareness of or interest in history or indeed culture.

關鍵字

assemblage ； ocean ； matter ； plastic ； waste ； pollution

並列摘要

當今世界上的塑膠已多到足以纏繞全球。塑膠的氾濫程度到了科學家聲稱塑膠已成為新的地質標誌，而海洋又是地球遭受塑膠廢棄物危害最嚴重的地方。我們所遺棄的終究也會毀滅我們。我們用有毒廢棄物使地球窒息。儘管海洋遼闊，我們卻視而不見。海洋被當作各種廢棄物傾倒場，海洋正逐步走向死亡，卻似乎無人能阻止悲劇發生。一部份原因是主權的問題。所有國家都宣稱海洋的某部分是該國領土之一，但沒有任何國家擁有海洋的全部。現在海洋出問題了，我們必須追問：誰又該負起解決問題的責任？垃圾問題導致全球暖化，也就是我們日常生活的所作所為而造成的副產品。我們都期待別人能做出改變，這樣自己就可以保持不變，但是什麼才能促使真正的改變發生，包括我們自己？批判理論面對此問題時基本上只有兩種回應：我們不是去做那些我們知道自己必須做的（此立場的前提是康德的絕對命令），要不就是我們去做那些我們覺得自己必須做的（在許多方面此立場的前提是班尼特的生命物質論）。班尼特觀點的擁護者視事物為具體化或物質性的，嚴厲批評了康德觀點脫離實體或非物質性。康德觀點的侷限在其唯心、過於理想，又因我們必須做的事並非由我們自行決定而顯得略為專制。必須做的事便是由外部強加在我們身上，並且時常忽略了歷史或文化的重要性。