What Does it Mean to Be a Latour? ‘Work of Translation’ and Modernity

I decided to take a more comprehensive approach to the Blog this week, as I struggle with Latour’s concept of what it means to be modern. I will compare Latour’s point on Actor Network Theory to his critique of modernity.

Latour introduces the article by listing off apparent modern difficulties, discoveries in sciences and decisions of what to make public. These instances lend themselves to setting the scene for Latour’s definition of modern life-or modernity. Latour is listing off daily occurances that are published in newspapers and on the News, this serves as a segue into modern living: “ if reading the daily paper is modern man’s form of prayer, then it is a very strange man indeed who is doing the praying today while reading about these mixed-up affairs” 2.

Latour suggests that analysts, journalists and thinkers compartmentalize or mix up these affairs that are meant to ‘weave our world together’ as a sort of Actor Network Theory. Latour attempts to ‘retie the Gordian Knot’ by reconnecting or recreating a network that reconnects culture and nature. Latour’s example of mixed up affairs in the news or journalist’s compartmentalization of nature and culture all help display the problematic nature of the word ‘modern’. The adjective of modern suggests that there is a ‘revolution in time’ and the word modern designates a break in the regular passage of time or a conflict between Ancient and Modern.

The confusion of the word modern is based in the idea that modern “designates two sets of entirely different practices which must remain distinct if they are to remain effective” pg. 10. ‘Work of Translation’ is a set of practices that mixes hybrids of nature and culture into new ‘beings’. This practice lends itself most to Actor Network Theory as it defines the interrelationship between nature and culture.

However, contradictorily the second practice is purification, which creates distinct zones of information like human and nonhuman. Latour suggests that the ‘Work of Purification’ best lends itself to the ‘modern man’s daily paper’ as it creates a separation between the natural world and a current society. These practices are interrelated because without both a person could not be modern. They must consider that the present world is separate from, but informed by the natural world in a network.