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Response to "Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene"

Marina's picture

Within Agency at the Time of Anthropocene, by Bruno Latour, I believe there are more than three main ideas presented. Three main ideas that did stand out to me, however, were:

  1. The concept of “agencies” being categorized as either “subject” or “object” and further allowing the roles of humans as an object and Earth as a subject to be reversed in the minds of modern society.
  2. The concept that all “science” originates as fiction and becomes “fact” when humans have determined a certain level of “understanding.”
  3. The “impossibility” of political action due to “absorption by The Economy.”

My remaining question about Latour’s argument is, if resolution can only be found by “living through the epoch of the Anthropocene,” are we expected to give up on current efforts towards human survival as a whole, or is Latour prompting us to focus only on apocalyptic survival measures instead of prevention?