Neo-materialism explores the meaning of the world’s commodities and reintroduces various notions of dialectical materialism. “Where the focus of labour has moved from production to consumption, the commodity has become the historical subject and symbols now behave like materials” – Joshua Simon.

Over the weekend I went to a feminist writer conference, which discussed issues of fictional, female protagonists’ ‘likability’ and the questions and answers of the publishing world to date. One of the issues which came up was a feminist’s role regarding capitalism and how ultimately, no feminists should subscribe to the capitalist agenda as it’s roots are based off the exploitation of workers for the obtainable success of the unobtainable 1%. This got me thinking about neo-materialism, feminism, object-orientated ontology, which ultimately lead to the last and final stage of nihilism.

Ultimately, (in my understanding) the nature of a philosophy (whether it be speculative realism, or scientific naturalism, or social relativism) all depend on one another to essentially create their own existence. Thus, one philosophy does not prove ‘more correct’ then another but is simply a reaction to an action.

However, the deeper I go into my Bogost reading and essay, exploring his ideas of ‘ready to hand, ‘present at hand’ and neo-materialism correlationism the more I see a link yet devision between all three.

Lets take my group’s decision to pick ‘a garden’ for our soundscape. In attempt to encompass OOO’s primary principle of objects not relating merely though human use but through any use, including relations between one object and any other, our decision to pick a location that wasn’t orientated only for human benefit was intentional. The garden’s nature, although constructed initially for the enjoyment and pleasure of human interaction, benefits numerous agencies, especially those who are of a living entity. However, although simply perceived the present at hand function of the garden is to serve as a home and an eco-system for living nature (possums, trees, grass, worms etc), OOO’s philosophy requires us to think deeper about the agency of all it’s beings.

This includes the agency of the playground, the concrete, the left over-not picked up rubbish. These are all in essence consequences and traits of neo-materialism, with the production of these items becoming a symbol for what they mean in our society. (How do we know we put the recycling in one bin and food scraps in the other). Thus, neo-materialism’s / Joshua Simon’s emphasis on the symbolism of our materials must be rejected in order to achieve OOO.

But how does one achieve OOO without being accidentally applying our own intersubjectivity. In the same way that how does a feminist apply a notion for equal rights / pay when that pay is made off the exploitation of someone else’s lesser circumstance and obtainability of power?

It’s the links between and seperations opposing each philosophy that makes me think that maybe I am getting somewhere in this course, and that hopefully soon it will all come together in an corresponding understanding, similar to OOO’s equality of existences.

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.