Fossil fuels propelled mankind into modernity. To be modern is to depend on the capacities and abilities generated by energy. We are citizens and subjects of fossil fuels. The question I pose myself is the following: why is this crucial commodity, and the encounters and processes through which it is extracted and distributed, so absent from popular culture? In other words, how has oil managed to hide in plain sight?
One answer that I propose is that oil smells bad. It stinks of overseas entanglements, exploitation, dependency on foreign resources, and, increasingly importantly in recent times, of global warming and environmental degradation. This is where it differs from the Silk Road (another great transnational network of trade), which has received huge cultural attention. The Silk Road can be romanticised; it can become a setting for a novel, a framework for a journey, an enticing adventure. Oil wells on the Arabian peninsula offer less attractive artistic material. I would argue that most people would relegate fossil fuels to a necessary commodity on which they depend to maintain their leisurely lives, a dependency which they would rather not be reminded of. Oil is embarrassingly, scarily pervasive. We are its subjects, most of our achievements since the industrial revolution can be accredited to the energy it provides, and our helpless entanglement with it is set to go on.
Another reason for the cultural silence surrounding fossil fuels might be the nature of the places where they are extracted. Oil wells do not have a strong, definable identity; they are non-spaces, intrinsically displaced and heterogenous. This is reflected in their multilingual nature, since workers are often migrants from poorer countries, transitory migrants whose presence is solely justified by the the need for cheap labour. Such multilingual milieus are difficult to translate into cultural forms such as literature, which are most commonly monolingual. It can therefore be argued that fossil fuel production is unsuited to current popular cultural forms, and that new forms may have to be developed to help bring this topic to the public eye via artistic means.
It is impossible to talk about fossil fuels without discussing the power dynamics that have shaped their turbulent history. American companies exploiting the resources of the Persian Gulf (a one-sided relationship symbolically reflected by the ruthless thrust of their oil drills) exemplifies wider trends of the North’s progress and development happening at the expense of the global South in recent history. The messy wars waged by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan to secure its foothold on oil-rich soil is a case in point. Energy politics have provided unequal benefits, and, at their worst, have been steeped in hypocrisy and corruption. Not the most cheerful content for an evening of light reading…
And yet we must face up to modern society’s relationship with fossil fuels. It isn’t enough to abstractly acknowledge it, or to take it for granted, or even to moan about its destructive effects on the environment while continuing to use it. Oil, crude and smelly as it is, must be stared dead in the face. Our entanglement with it must be untangled, and artists of all kind must rise to the task.