The force, the subject and the object in History

Historians and social scientists in general think of human/nature relationship through the images of subjects and objects or, as in environmental history or in many branches of philosophical thinking, they critique and problematize the positing of a subject−object relationship between humans and nature. Besides, historical writing in the last several decades has been profoundly propelled by human ideas about intra−human justice that some now even wish to extend to non−human entities such as plants, animals, rocks, and water−bodies and so on. All this is to some extent based on a critique of the human (subject)/nature (object) division on which so much of European political thought depends. But to say that humans have become a “geophysical force” on this planet is to get out of the subject/object dichotomy altogether. A force is neither a subject nor an object. It is simply the capacity to do things. And force is blind to questions of justice, either between humans or between humans and non−humans.

CHAKRABARTY, Dipesh. Brute Force (2010).

Super-typhoon Hayan (Yolanda) – 2013. Source: http://www.theatlantic.com