To All the Earthborn(e): A Dialogue with Anne Norton

On entanglementEBD: What we call "the mythless myth of modernity" denies the truth of entanglement; it is instead predicated on human dominance and mastery of the nonhuman world.This mythless myth of modernity is an accomplice to both capitalism and liberal democracy in the modern era; both appeal to scientific authority and progress to justify their hegemony and domination.Entanglement implies that "political" or "democratic" activity is not exclusive to the human species.In Earthborn Democracy, we describe entanglement as pointing to how human flourishing depends on cooperation.Our bodies themselves are examples of this cooperation, as recent research on the microbiome has revealed.The example of the body also points to how entanglement is the precondition but not the guarantee of flourishing-entangled life is also ridden with conflicts, distortions, pathologies, and tensions.One formative interlocutor in the thinking that became Earthborn Democracy was Anne Norton.Her recent work, Wild Democracy: Anarchy, Courage, and Ruling the Law advances a powerful argument about democracy's unpredictable and episodic nature.It also touches on themes of the uncontrollable demos, the deficiencies of institutions, and the expansive possibilities of political theorizing.To close this special issue on Earthborn Democracy, we invited Anne Norton to a dialogue about wildness, entanglement, and democracy.Our first question stemmed from a comment by Norton in response to one of the essays in this special issue.There, she suggested she had a theory of materiality to accompany what we would call a political theory of entanglement.We asked her to say more about her theory of materiality.AN: My approach to entanglement is very simple.Human beings are material, fleshly things.The world is not outside us.We are always taking it in, letting it flow through our bodies, letting it out again.All the senses bring the world within us, and in all our acts, we move through and in and upon the surrounding world.Is this a binding?That suggests capture and constraint, but there is so much sustenance, sensuality, power, and pleasure in this entanglement, I cannot see it as a binding.One could see