Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 09:06:16 -0400
From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <bradmcc-AT-cloud9.net>
Subject: Re: Bruno Latour's _Pandora's Hope_ -- Some thoughts.... (long)


"steve.devos" wrote:
[snip]
> The problem I have with Latour's work generally,
[snip]
> is that I find the
> disentangling of the theoretical and position statements from the
> narrative and story lines difficult. It may be that my general dislike and
> suspicion of narrative and story telling as a way of disseminating theory
> and knowledge
[snip]
> Like
> the white space that computer manual designers are addicted to the use of
> anecdote, story and narrative is irritating and obscuranterist....

It *looks* like we disagree here.

(1) It seems to me that all theory is grounded in narrative (emotionally
grounded in attachment to an imaginative model, e.g., believing that
it is important to examine unreflected social customs and to live
the life of a rigorous scientist), and that, while narrative can be
thematized, whatever persons do, including theorizing, can proceed
only on the basis of an "I want [whatever]".  Surely this has some 
connection to what I wrote in my posting about _Pandora's Hope_,
about reason (episteme), reasonableness (phronesis) and [what
Husserl so pointedly called:] "naivete" (doxa).  Our rational
activity needs to be kept in perspective by reasonableness,
and "perspective" seems to me to always have as one of its 
aspects narrativity.

(2) What's wrong with *white space* in computer manuals?  I think
each "point" the manual is trying to make should be surrounded
by white space.  Why?  One reason is that it seems to give
the point "closure" and suggests a natural unit of "digestion"
and also a place to rest.  Also, the white space provides 
a place to write notes.  Maybe the way paintings are hung
in museums with "wall space" (unlike the victorian
way of filling the entire wall with pictures packed
frame-to-frame) is an analogy?  

> 
> The area of the work I found most potentially interesting is in the
> postmodern, the construction of the human and the nonhuman. There is a
> direct sense in which Latour places the nonhuman as being part of the
> critical matrix which works towards making 'law,politics and soon I
> suspect, morality...' Artifacts, nonhumans are proposed as being
> 'full-fledged social actors...'  Democracy becomes insufficient because
> the nonhuman cannot vote, and as such the constraints to be placed on our
> liberal human democracies
[snip]

In _Pandora's Hope_, I do not think Latour is advocating 
"our liberal human democracies", i.e., democracy
based on *voting* as his ideal/model.  I think he writes
about the classical Greek polis because it was a model [albeit
a very restricted model!] for participatory / conversational
democracy.

As for artifacts being "full-fledged social actors", *my*
position is that artifacts (Latour's nonhumans?) are 
not and cannot be *citizens* (Latour's humans?).  How
the community decides to live can be negotiated
only in the conversation of the citizens.  But (obviously?)
artifacts increasingly determine what actually happens,
as opposed to what the citizens may decide they
want to have happen (did anybody really want Chernobyl
or for the recent national forest "controlled burn" in
New Mexico to get out of control, etc.?).

Taking such things into consideration (and trying to
be succinct...), it seems to me that the citizens
need to speak up not only for their own interests,
but also as proxies for all the factors that cannot
speak for themselves, including future generations
and artifacts (although I don't think it is
appropriate to anthropomorphize the artifacts; the
voice we need to give to artfacts is more like: "This
nonhuman system will do this to you if you do
such-and-such", or: "No matter what you do, this
artifactual system is going to have this impact"...).       

> 
> Remember our previous discussion about animal rights...
[snip]

Sorry, I forget.  I don't recall that Latour deals with this
issue in _Pandora's Hope_, but, trying to be a bit humorous,
surely animal rights is an issue that's much more than
a can of worms!

Your thoughts?

"Yours in [ongoing...] discourse...."

+\brad mccormick

-- 
   Let your light so shine before men, 
               that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)

   Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)

Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / bradmcc-AT-cloud9.net
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
-------------------------------------------------------
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