December 3, 2014 - 16:47
3 main ideas:
- Like Bower said, we have no option of objectivity (Latour argues that we thought we did, and Bower, too, says that it was a "mythical" autonomy.) Latour quotes Serres, who wrote that there was objectivity at one point... but it was when humans weren't around. To be "objective" nowadays is to be ignorant of your own involvement in the crisis.
- It is not enough to simply observe the effect of something (ie, the weather or that the earth is moving). Rather, we must look into what caused it in the first place (the climate or how the earth is moved but humans). It sort of reminds me of writing a thesis. Galileo needs to work on his thesis writing, apparently.
- Things can't be simplified down to a human vs nature debate. Doing so would be ignoring so many other players in the transaction (most of them being geologic processes or specific human-designated professions that deal with such matters).
& Maybe not so much a question, but I saw at one part where Latour basically denounced the idea of harmony & symbiosis, which I wrote about as an answer to the problem. Instead he thinks that all that there is left to do is just protect ourselves against the repercussions. I had figured that little gives and takes from both parties (human society & the environment) would be the best course of action, but according to Latour, that isn't actually possible. In its place—if I'm reading this correctly—there are only large takes. No gives. We forcibly exploit the environment, and at some point it will take revenge and... exploit us? Somehow? Does he believe that there's going to be some apocalypse and there's nothing we can do about it?
*note to myself to remember: about that part with the army corps of engineers controlling the spread of the Mississippi, we literally were just talking about consequences of trying to control rivers in geology!!! ohhh geology geology geology