The claim that space is permanently a terrain of imperialism and exploitation are too totalizing. They rely on ahistoric readings of agents and actions in the history of space

(Daniel Sage 2008 Department of Civil and Building Engineering Loughborough University ) Book Reviews, Space and Polity, 12:2, 269-279, DOI:

10.1080/13562570802173414) Peter Dickens’ and James Ormrod’s Cosmic Society comprises an important rallying-cry for the social sciences to consider the socio-political significance of outer space. With the help of Marx, Gramsci, Lefebvre and most importantly perhaps David Harvey, the authors seek to uncover the underlying material conditions which explain the dialectic between “universe and society” (p. 5). This vast spatial dialectic is then used to assemble a Marxist critique of hegemonic cosmic-power, which incorporates religion, science-fiction, chaos theory, the Apollo programme, national missile defence, Isaac Newton, ‘the war on terror’, social Darwinism, satellite television, space tourism, military strategy and nationalistic hubris. The clarity of theoretical expression and selection of empirical support are consistent throughout; nevertheless some readers might be left disconcerted by the ease with which this hegemonic cosmos is established and then left remarkably intact. The first two chapters of the book establish the Marxist modus operandi: outer space seems to provide a locus for a range of utopian or dystopian myths (religious or secular) or esoteric scientific knowledges, yet these only serve to distract us from or subjugate us within its increasingly important role as a new arena in which the rich and powerful seek to perpetuate their own social hegemony by warding off various in-built crises of capitalism. These two chapters present the epistemological position: the first positions centuries of cosmic imaginaries, from pre-modern to technoscience, as a superficial accomplice to hegemonic power while the second explains the underlying interests and forces at work beneath the surface. Many readers will be rightly cautious about some of the historical generalisations made in chapter 1 to set up the explanatory concepts in chapter 2. For example, surely the ‘ontological’ shift from an organic (divinely ordered) cosmos to a mechanical cosmos (human controlled) is overstated. It is easy to cite examples where both of these religious (imaginative and speculative) and technoscientific (material and visible) views co-existed and interacted, including Newton’s own cosmology or even George W. Bush’s ‘new vision’ for space exploration. Alongside the ontological distinctions drawn between gods/ humans, imagined/real cosmos are other dualisms established in these early chapters between culture/nature and humans/non-humans. These make it impossible to admit cosmologies (or ontologies) that cannot be explained within the structure–agency dialectic of historical materialism. We might consider, for example, John Law’s (2006) aboriginal stories, where multiple universes are enacted through assemblages of humans, imaginations, animal, spirits, landscapes and tools. Such dualisms are evident within much Marxist thought, but their presence is even more consequential and problematic when studying a topic—cosmos and space exploration—that has involved so many subtle interactions between humans, gods, technologies, imaginations, animals and other non-humans whose becoming is not reducible to either deep structure, human intent or cause–effect relations. Instead of addressing the way such diverse cosmologies are assembled through humans and non-humans, we are given the solutions up-front in chapter 2: historical materialism, spatial fixes of capital, contradictions of accumulation, hegemony, power and class interest. The authors create a seamless web of social relations that explains away all the paradoxes and uncertainties that characterise ‘reality’. Non-humans are treated with a particular disdain. All spin-off technologies surrounding NASA, including CAT scanners, are deemed to be creating “false needs amongst the public” (p. 57) to encourage more capitalistic exploitation. The uncertain work of technologists in constructing and developing these technologies or the multiple uses they might create for their customers are ignored in favour of dystopian power conspiracies. Similar treatment is reserved for satellites as they become props for rival strategies of capitalistic accumulation by dispossession on Earth (chapter 4)—they survey land and enable communication and missile guidance—and the authors consider warfare in space an inevitable conclusion (p. 64). Of course, occasionally a glimmer of hope shines through this dystopian vision—the recognition that satellites (p. 93) are more or less useless in winning ‘the war on terror’ points to the potentiality of objects to act outside structure–agency—yet this insight is quickly subsumed under a conceptual wave of other underlying ideologies and hegemonies. The later chapters continue with similar dystopian pronouncements on the threat of space militarisation (chapter 3), satellite power (chapter 4), space tourism (chapter 5) and space-industry (chapter 6). Here pro-space narratives of progress, spiritual fulfilment, nationalism and utopia are treated as retrospective justifications that obscure imperialistically exploitative forays into outer space. If it is true that such mythical entities possess such power, then surely we deserve to know where, how and when? How are they enacted, what relations, desires, affects/emotions, imaginations and realities might they assemble, how might we interpret them differently and, crucially, can they transform government policies or technocratic thought? Although the book admits differentiated audience reactions (notably in chapters 1, 4 and 6), too often the utopias and motivations of individuals (and objects) are discounted as false ideologies that are not worthy of further attention. And yet, these unearthly spirits have frequently found themselves implicated in the desire for conflicts, such as ‘the war on terror’, at least as much as the Marxist spectres of capital and imperialism (see p. 100). Ultimately, the difficulty that spans this book is, to paraphrase Bruno Latour, that it explains the social through the social and in so doing conflates through the dialectic of the cosmos two entirely different things: the name of an already cohesive collective (society) and the non-social forces required to assemble that collective. The cosmos hosts a breadth of more-than-human hybrids, formed out of hetegeneous actors, including gods, technologies, animals and scientists; these offer possilbities for a range of agencies and subjectivities to form. Some of these mythical entities have been channelled into particular power-effects, often with unpredictable consequences. The fact that these transformative associations remain largely invisible within historical materialism perhaps explains why the authors end up retreating to a counter-hegemonic human subject; a subject that echoes capitals’ capacity for thought-action defined strictly in terms of underlying structure/intentional agency. Unfortunately, this tactic only ends up doubly obscuring many of the fragile relations through which power-effects and multiple societies, capitalisms and cosmologies are enacted. Hence, the concluding statement—that “any [space] project is going to be ‘human or ‘anthropocentric’’” (p. 190)—appears simultaneously as both an affirmation of the narcissistic capitalistic subject so derided throughout the book, and a death knell for the Deleuzian (or Latourian) cosmic-subject capable of becoming-other.