The Three Attractors
Latour maps modern politics into three gravitational pulls (or "attractors") that draw human allegiance.
Attractor 1: The Local (The Nation/Tradition)
- This pole is focused on attachment to the land, maintaining local traditions, and national identity.
- In Latour’s framework, retreating solely to this pole often leads to a defensive denial of climate change and aggressive forms of nationalism.
Attractor 2: The Global (Modernization/Globalization)
- This pole is driven by progress, deregulation, and a borderless, extractivist economy (globalization).
- Latour argued this pole creates a "globe" with no corresponding "Earth"—it represents an idealized, abstract market that ignores the biophysical limits of our planet.
Attractor 3: The Earth / The Terrestrial (The Third Pole)
- This pole acts as a powerful new magnet pulling us "down to earth".
- It forces humanity to acknowledge that we are permanently embedded in, and dependent on, the Earth’s delicate ecosystems (or Gaia).
"Landing on Earth"
Latour argued that the first two poles are utopias with no sustainable soil or land to support them. The third pole, the Terrestrial, requires humanity to abandon the modern dream of infinite growth and limitless exploitation. It demands that we:
- Redistribute political power by making the habitability of the planet the absolute center of all political conflict.
- Integrate the needs of non-human entities (oceans, forests, climate systems) into our political processes, as they actively dictate our survival