"What is New Materialism?" is an introductory essay on the matter by Christopher N Gamble, Joshua S Hanan and Thomas Nash. It deals with a revolutionary new approach in Continental Philosophy. Yes, folks, the French (and their Californian hangers-on) have discovered the existence of an objective mind-independent outside world. And they're not happy? (Thanks for noticing, by the way.)
The authors believe that the term "New Materialism" has become a broad umbrella for several quite distinct currents of thought. There is "speculative realism" and "object-oriented ontology" (a.k.a. OOO) which seems most consistent in actually believing in a purely material world "out there", a world which moreover seems fundamentally alien to human understanding. From this, the former postmodernists have drawn extremely pessimistic conclusions. Essentially, we are all doomed to perish in a "post-human" world we can't even begin to comprehend. So unless we can become everything we like to be just by "constructing" it (the usual postmodern position), we might as well jump into the lake?
Another form of New Materialism is dubbed "vitalist" by the authors. It's associated with the notorious Gilles Deleuze. His philosophy seems to be a postmodern form of Bergson's creative evolution. But while Bergson believed in a kind of teleology, one possible for humans to divine, Deleuze took the position that "anything goes", a more congenial take from the vantage point of postmodern identity politics (and also from that of the current neoliberal-left liberal hybrid status quo). The authors have another criticism of the French thinker, however. They believe that his vitalism is really a form of dualism, that the vital form is an un-constructed "essence", and that somehow Deleuze therefore prioritizes a perspective based on this vital force. For instance, he prioritizes life over death!
The authors want to take a philosophical stance that doesn't prioritize any perspective above any other, in other words a "posthumanism" that sees "agency" everywhere, even in unanimate things. Nor should there be any dualism between life and death. Also, "indigenous ways of knowledge" should be upgraded.
The authors call their alternative "performative New Materialism". At first glance, it looks like an interesting metaphysic. It could perhaps be described as a dynamic form of pantheism in which the dualism between matter and spirit is completely done away with in favor of seeing "matter" (or rather reality-stuff) as inherently active or "alive". Perhaps we could call it animatism? Life, death, brute matter, spirit...everything is "performed" by the reality-stuff. I'm sure a Vajrayana Buddhist might find this interesting.
However, the authors then make a hasty and dramatic retreat. They declare that performative New Materialism is a purely "regional" ontology, and absolutely "not a metaphysic". So what is it, then? I have a guess. It's simply the old postmodernist position dressed up in new clothes. The position that humans can construct whatever identity and reality they feel like, since (at least regionally - in our region of space, presumably) "matter" is whatever we like it to be, is the position the "speculative realists" want to move away from.
It seems postmodernism comes back through the window, if you throw it out through the door!
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