Review of Corine Pelluchon's Das Zeitalter des Lebendigen

Lucidly argued and touching in its appeal, Corine Pelluchon’s latest book Les Lumières à l’âge du vivant will be a theoretical source both for ‘green’ and ‘red’ movements alike. Instead of promoting either a ‘socialism’ forgetful of the environment, or an ‘environmentalism’ of the rich, she consistently resists splitting the ecological from the social-political question. Along similar lines – and equally against hegemonic wisdom – Pelluchon shows why the care for nature and the rationalism of the Enlightenment can only be defended together, since there is no responsibility without rationality, and no rationality without its embodiment on earth. This two-fledged defence is articulated through a universalism based not on what differentiates us from other animals, but on what unites us with them. The result may be called a universalism of vulnerability, that is, a universalism enabling us to resist, fight and overcome capitalist forms of irrationalism, particularism and domination without, in turn, suppressing our internal and/or external ‘others’.