The Philosopher Who Believes in Living Things

‘Stuff has agency. Inanimate matter is not inert. Everything is always doing something. According to Bennett, hoarders are highly attuned to these truths, which many of us ignore. Non-hoarders can disregard the inherent vibrancy of matter because we live in a modern world in which the categories of matter and life are kept separate. “The quarantines of matter and life encourage us to ignore the vitality of matter and the lively powers of material formations, such as the way omega-3 fatty acids can alter human moods or the way our trash is not ‘away’ in landfills but generating lively streams of chemicals and volatile winds as we speak,” she writes. Hoarders suffer at the hands of their hoards. But the rest of us do, too: that’s why a modern guru like Marie Kondo can become famous by helping us gain control over our material possessions. Bennett describes herself as something of a minimalist—but her minimalism is driven by a sense of the agency of things. “I don’t want to have such a clamor around,” she told me….’

—via The New Yorker