We Have Never Been Modern

A book stunning in its analytical reach, We Have Never Been Modern shows the futility/centrality of Nature/Culture debates. On the one hand, modernity signifies the need to purify nature from culture. On the other hand, Latour shows us the ways in which we have never been modern. Particularly important are the tools he provides for thinking about science anthropologically: his critique of objectivity, his fascination with things because they elude the neat binary between nature and culture, and his understanding of how deconstruction ironically maintains this purity between nature and culture because it understands language as cut off from both looking subjects and objects of analysis. I would rate this book as one of the top 50 books of cultural analysis.

"We Have Never Been Modern" by Bruno Latour is a brilliant interdisciplinary work that profoundly challenges our assumptions about the world we live in. Mr. Latour views the Enlightenment from an anthropological perspective to reveal how its multiple and contradictory ideals have conspired to lead humanity towards ever greater social and environmental crises. Mr. Latour's breakthrough analysis provides a philosophical road map towards a sustainable 'nonmodern' world wherein nature and society are more harmoniously joined together for the greater good. Mr. Latour traces our modern confusion to a series of debates between Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle in the seventeenth century which led to divergences in the study of nature or ideologies on the one hand and science or facts on the other; modernity became defined by the knowing of what was previously unknown. Mr. Latour contends that the 'purification' or incontestability of scientific facts and ideologies has failed to account for the 'hybrid' ways in which society and nature actually respond to change. Indeed, the interjection of science into the real world has created a multiplicity of what Mr. Latour calls 'quasi-objects', or phenomena that are located in the midpoint between science and nature; examples of quasi-objects include global warming, genetic engineering, the AIDS epidemic, and so on. Mr. Latour believes that we are ill-equipped to address these problems inasmuch as the institutions built around Enlightenment ideals have failed to account for the nonseparation of social practices from nature. In this light, Mr. Latour rejects the idea that humanity has ever really broken away from its premodern past. To begin with, Mr. Latour suggests that the premoderns' assignment of transcendence to inanimate objects is similar in kind to the transcendent powers assigned by moderns to sciences and ideologies. Mr. Latour goes on to contend that the modern experience is simply larger in scale than the premodern, with ever-more sophisticated but conflicting explanations about the meaning of the extended networks that bind our lived experiences undergoing constant flux. Mr. Latour states that 'morphism' better explains the nonmodern world we inhabit in which humans must continuously adapt themselves to changing sociological and natural conditions. Mr. Latour argues that once we refute the idea that we have ever been modern, we can reclaim our sense of being ordinary and thereby express our solidarity with all peoples and the planet; at that point, we will be able to focus on the collective challenge of addressing the critical problems that confront us. Crucially, this task requires that our conception of politics enlarges; the discourse must encompass the multitude of human and non-human subjects or 'things' alike if we wish to solve the problems that the quasi-objects present to us. For example, Mr. Latour suggests that in the case of ozone depletion such a debate might be enjoined by repres

For those readers familiar with Science in Action, Bruno Latour may not at first strike one as the ideal candidate to sort out the most pressing philosophical issues about human cultures. But that is exactly what this slim, easy to follow volume does: it sorts them out. Latour posits that our "modern" society (and this is taken as Western and/or industrialized society) is based upon a series of paradoxes whereby both nature and society are "constructed" (by humans) and at the same time "transcendent." This contradiction enables us to, among other things, appropriate huge chunks of the natural into the social without giving it so much as a thought because the "modern constitution" of our thought effectively prevents it. Nature can both intervene in society (e.g. by being transformed into manufactured items) and remain distinct, pristinely "natural." Through a series of carefully argued comparisons and contrasts between the "modern consistution," the "non-modern constitution," and (of course) the "postmodern constitution" Latour offers a way for Western society to achieve a responsible relationship to nature and society through a reconsideration of the affects of, for example, the implementation of a new technology on both the natural and the social. The many graphic illustrations and charts serve to provide visual explanations for his argument. I never would have ventured into this text without them. Regardless of your background or ideological leanings, be prepared to be challenged by We Have Never Been Modern in two areas. First, Latour is not shy about employing specific terms where he deems necessary, and that is absolutely everywhere. Many of the neologisms I have found quite helpful, but the reader's attention must never waver when they are trotted out. Furthermore, you should be prepared to follow Latour wherever he may list, in particular into the history of the vacuum pump. The second major area of challenge is in the nature of his solution to the modern quandary, what he terms "The parliament of things." This arrangement of otherwise distinct and dispersed voices from and about the same "quasi-object" will require major compromises all around. It is hard enough to give a voice to indigenous populations, Latour wishes to enlist others (even scientists!) to speak on behalf of the trees. The price is hefty, but well worth the money, the wait and the effort of what, in the main, is an exhilirating read.

i loved this book: it questions the idea of repeatability, which means that it questions the religion of science (as practiced by amateurs)and it shows you how language has served the impulse towards duplicity. the book also has a certain tongue-in-cheek wit about it, and that makes the ideas more interesting to read.i can see where latour would make people nervous if they were fully invested in a point of view not fully understood. but, until the government takes down the bill of rights, diversity in thinking is still allowed and maybe even encouraged.enjoy this book. it is fun.