ABSTRACT
There has been a close metaphorical relationship between morality, spirituality, truth, and light since earliest historical records. This chapter explores the cultural notions underpinning the resistance towards such moralizing technologies in terms of productive prospects of dirt and pollution. The field of history of ideas offers an interesting point of departure from which to understand sensory politics, with the establishment of sense of hygiene in the global urban population from the end of the eighteenth century and particularly during the nineteenth century. According to Borgmann, this distinction highlights moral significance, where things constitute a commanding reality, in contrast to devices that procure disposable reality. Light has here been normalized as an environmental presence – that is, the way the world appears, and ought to appear, that stirs emotions and shapes social life. Light, lighting, darkness, shadows and glare needs to be acknowledged for its active role in making the world sensible to people and help shape their actions and values.
