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Abstract
The term "fragility" that appears in the title of William Connolly's book The Fragility of Things refers to many things, but one of them is the fragility of our planet, and the ecosystem of its surface. This fragility has been made manifest by the fact that humanity itself has now become a natural force as potentially destructive as any earthquake or meteor strike, as any tsunami or fire. One of Connolly's theses is that the Earth is no longer simply the stage upon which human politics is played out, but that it itself has become an active player in our politics. Our thinking about politics must take on a cosmic dimension; we need a "cosmo-politics," to use Stengers' term. It is primarily Connolly's new manner of thinking this polis-cosmos relation that I explore in this paper.
Like all of William Connolly's works, The Fragility of Things presents its readers with a rich and multi-layered text, and as longtime admirer of Connolly's writings, I found my own thinking stretched in various unforeseen directions as I read the book.1 I realized, in reading the text, that my mind is far less plastic and supple than Connolly's, far more simplistic, and I say this with regret as well as admiration, for Connolly's gifts for synthesis and insight are extraordinary. As a result, I have focused my comments on a single theme in Connolly's book, but it is the theme that my simple mind found most intriguing and original. It is not simply the idea that, in our political thinking, we must take into account the Earth and its fragility, but rather, more broadly-and more difficultly-the idea that our political sensibilities must be extended to include a truly cosmic dimension. In other words, we need to think the polis through the cosmos, and we must do this, not in terms of the old micro-macrocosmic relation, but in an entirely new manner. It is Connolly's new way of thinking this relation that I would like to explore in the seven mini-reflections that follow.
1. Gods, Humans, and the Earth
The Fragility of Things begins with a poignant description of a disastrous event: the destruction of Lisbon, Portugal, on All Saints Day in 1751 by an earthquake, a tsunami,...