Wow, the Latour piece was certainly thought-provoking. As I read his opening, especially the problems of critique I was actually drawn towards a very different solution. Latour talks about the way conspiracy theorists have taken the notion of critique and begun what he calls ‘instant revisionism.’ Latour says he finds ‘something troublingly similar… in the first movement of disbelief, and then, in the wheeling of causal explanations coming out of the deep dark below’ (229). In other words, naïve academic critique is all too similar to conspiracy theory – or rather, conspiracy theory has made it so traditional critique is no longer avant-garde. However, I would point to one fundamental difference between scientific critique and conspiracy theory that Latour does not touch upon and that, I think, is key (and as in last week’s post, I am going to be talking about idealized science). This difference is that the scientific critique is itself critiqued. It is not enough for a scientific critique to attack the status quo, it must withstand a barrage of countercritique during which, if it survives, it becomes the new status quo and must withstand a whole new host of critiques. Moon-landing conspiracy theorists don’t pay attention to the critiques leveled against their point of view. Their agenda is to create a critique, but not to defend that critique. [Idealized] science is willing to take critique, and modify its worldview if appropriate. In fact, it provides that critique. Science is (to use Latour’s terms) type ‘B’ iconoclasm – it is always attempting to destroy its old images, since that is how we gain knowledge, move through the onion, as it were, or along the cascade of images. If science defends its images it is because it has not yet found the next image in the cascade, or at least not yet accepted that it is, indeed, the next image. Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, are type ‘C’ iconoclasts that think they are type ‘A’. They seek to destroy the established images without realizing that they are creating new ones (or at least, this is the attitude of the one moon-landing conspirorist I have met and creationist ‘teach the controversy’ advocates).
‘Teach the controversy’ relates to the other problem Latour cites with critique, although he cites the global warming rather than creationism. The constant questioning within science and its ever-present lack of complete certainty (all-to-necessary in order to remain type ‘B’ and not slip into type ‘C’), often creates an aura of complete uncertainty in the mind of the general public. Science is a movement towards a certainty that it can never reach while holding on to its integrity (this is Latour’s cascade again, certainty is akin to freeze-framing). This movement is accomplished through a kind of critique that already DOES “add reality to matters of fact and not subtract reality” (232). A scientific critic, by necessity, “is not the one who debunks, but the one who assembles” (246); if a scientific critic does not offer an alternative (which itself can be critiqued) for what s/he is critiquing then the critique carries much less weight than if a viable alternative is presented (type ‘A’ are not tolerated. They disrupt movement).
I feel that the most durable solution to the problem of [mis]use of critique in everyday society is not creating a new ‘avant-garde’ form of critique that deals with ‘Things’ and ‘matters of concern’ but education. This is not to say that Things and matters of concern could not play an important part in the future of critical inquiry, but the foundation of the problem seems to me to be a lack of understanding of the scientific process. I have done a lot of work with Frontiers of Science, a class that is meant to teach the basic principles of science. Whether or not it is effective aside, the class is badly needed. The number of students who come into this, Ivy League, institution who do not understand the basic process of science is astounding, and frankly, appalling. I imagine the situation in the population as a whole is even worse. If people understood that critique and debate (type ‘B’ iconoclasm) are so essential to scientific progress (movement through the cascade/onion), they would not be so quick to be fooled by the “artificially maintained scientific controversy” (226) created to favor a political agenda. It would also help expose the difference between the type ‘A’ conspirorists and the type ‘B’ scientists.
I apologize for how long this is, but I want to make one final remark. This paper, as a critique of critique, is unassailable; at least in some part, it is one massive contercritique aimed at any critique leveled against it. It is also, though, paradoxically, a critique of itself for the same reason. In this way, it is almost the ultimate type ‘B’ iconoclasm. But it needs to be critiqued, not just once, but many times, and the critique also needs to be critiqued. It is not critique but the constant critique of critiques that is the scientific process and what defines scientific critique.
• Latour’s quote of Whitehead on 244, “For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon” seems really important for considering idolism and iconoclash. What I take from this is that it is important not to look too critically at something like an idol, to consider that it is just as important that someone sees a god in an idol as that we ourselves see only wood or marble or some other non-powerful material object. For me at least it is always difficult to suspend my disbelief and take the fact that an idol is worshipped and given power as seriously as I take the critique of the idol…It is in this act of considering the entire object and all that it entails (maybe seeing the object as a “matter of concern” rather than a “matter of fact”?) that “iconoclash” happens and we are unsure how to respond to the object, thinking simultaneously that we have some rational insight into its nature (i.e. thinking that it is not, in fact, a god) and also not being able to discount the fact that someone else sees it very differently.
Latour is always a fun and wild read. Grazie Like Molly, I found the reference to Whitehead to be quite compelling; "For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon" (244) This really highlights the pitfalls of 'objectivity.' What we really need to consider is another form of double consciousness- where we can conceptualize the many particles without dismissing the beauty. Similarly, we must acknowledge the awe that comes with the idol as legitimate while still being critical of the structures that give or facilitate its power... I like the way he framed the argument that critique is inadequate as opposed to just wrong. When we critique, we are losing something- something important. When we strip something down to so-called objectivity, we are demeaning the beauty of its complicated thing-ness. We are dismissing entire realms of experience that can be facilitated by a double consciousness. We must not only recognize our double consciousness but embrace it. As for science, we must recognize that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." What else can we bring into the equation that will not undermine science but increase the thingness of critique itself. Can we embrace things like emotion, experience, and the sensory in our considerations of the so-called objective?
Latour's argument urging us to use our critical minds once again was a work that covered so many topics, I felt a little dizzy afterwards. Although his argument as a whole was not very cohesive for me, his discussion of the metamorphosis of an object into a thing was interesting (albiet, still confusing). In his example of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, Latour claims that when the shuttle broke into pieces of debris, it became a thing as opposed to an object. The thing was of great concern, while the object had been taken for granted. When the object was unmade, it held special value that was different than the value proscribed when it was made. This could be applicable to the destruction of icons, as the act of destruction has as much meaning, if not more, as the object before destruction. I wish Latour would have discussed his use of the different words objects and things to show how the two are different in his eyes.
When Latour poses the question "what's the difference between deconstruction and constructivism?" (232) he is asking about critical thinking, but also pointing directly to the matter of iconoclash. As we have talked about in class, it is very difficult to tell when something is being destroyed, protected or improved. We have so far contained this discussion within the realm of idols such as religious paintings or artistic icons. I think that Latour very nicely transitions this argument into the matter of critique. It is very difficult in "matters of concern" to distinguish between a theory posing as fact and a fact posing as theory. As with iconoclasm one can never truly know what is a proven fact (or proven destruction of an image). It is also difficult to distinguish simply between a matter of fact and a matter of concern. As Latour pushes the idea of critique so strongly, it seems reasonable that for him nothing is a matter of fact. It seems reasonable as well that there is no such thing as an object but only such thing as a thing. Although he believes that there is a lack of critical thinking, it would be impossible to go through life as he suggests with an overly critical mind.
One of the statements from this article that stood out to me was when Latour writes, "An, yet, I know full well that this is not enough because, no matter what we do, when we try to reconnect scientific objects with their aura, their crown, their web of associations, when we accompany them back to their gathering, we always appear to weaken them, not to strengthen their claim to reality" (237). Although not explicitly linked, this statement made me think of a misplaced or appropriated idol and the repatriation of it back to its origins, in that displacement and subsequent weakening of its inherent powers. Perhaps it also can relate to the treatment of idols in that when someone tries to explain their meaning in some kind of scientific or logical explanation, their spiritual meaning might become stronger.
The Latour pieces makes one thing clear (or at least, it's somewhat clear...): critique is a form of iconoclasm. I believe what he is getting at, though, is that there are multiple realities, multiple truths, and multiple experiences. There are different perspectives in the world, which archaeologist Christopher Tilley (Materiality of Stone, Phenomenology) would agree with. Latour would state that objects really do have a power over us, or at least, this is one reality. Changing these things (for they are actually matters of concern) into inane objects, incapable of affecting others (this is the critique way), is in itself a form of iconoclasm. However, what goes around must come around. The critiquers must be critiqued; each person has their 'fetish', whether it's science, conspiracy theory, or art. The iconoclast has to open up to being iconoclassed. To move beyond this iconoclasm, we must not critique to destroy, but critique to create. People will believe what they want and will have their own perspective on the world. A little side note, which I'd like to add: I find that critiquing could be in itself, a form of idol, a fetish, if you will. A critic gives it a belief, it acts back; it's not just a tool, but a way of life. This line of thinking is similar to the idea that iconoclasm is also a form of idol or fetish.
Latour is fun to read, but I have to admit I do not grasp everything that he is saying in this essay. What I do understand him to be doing is to be critiquing critique...or deconstructing deconstruction in order to create a new form of constructivism, one that is less cheapened, less in line with conspiracy theories, one that allows us to move "not away but toward the gather, the Thing" (246). As an anthropology student taking a class for which I just finished writing a paper about the production of truths in ethnographic writing, quoting Paul Rabinow, "Facts are made" the word comes from the Latin factum, "made" "and the facts we interpret are made and remade" and echoing Foucault's fascination with the historical context in which power structures are constructed, Latour's proposal for a "realist attitude," rather than an antifestishistic or positivistic one is freeing, if at the same time troubling. Our TA for that class told the story of a history professor who spent his whole life in search of "truth" and began to cry when a Foucaldian scholar pointed out to him that there is in fact no truth as such, rendering meaningless the historian's career. The form of critique which Latour is critiquing is so engrained in my academic training and in the world around me, in journalism, in politics.
I am unclear as to what exactly Latour's "realist attitude" is, how it would work. But I think that there is some of Appadurai's concept of adopting a position of "methodological fetishism" so that there can be a crossover between what Latour calls the Fact position and the Fairy position. In theory this sounds useful, and a way to revive critical theory, but I have a hard time when I try it in practice.
Latour makes a distinction between an “object” and a “thing” and, furthermore, explains the transition from one to the other, from a matter of fact to a matter of concern. The terms “fact” and “concern” convey that while an object is taken for granted, a thing is problematic—it provokes worry, concern, and will not just sit still. The “gathering” of things is also a sort of useful way of describing them, in that they are in themselves collections of many elements and similarly gather people and institutions around them. When past facts are “revised” they are made things; new worries and questions gather around them, in a way, giving them that more unwieldy quality which makes them more difficult to contain conceptually, or in critique. Critique has evidently denied thingness to objects, weakened them, through means that are both reductionist and cyclical; the critic triumphs over the object and over the people who engage with it uncritically.
This gathering quality seems to be the reason and the way in which that objects act, the way that they “resist” despite critique. Perhaps when Latour says they are made “weaker” it is not so much a weakness of the object itself but of its usefulness or relevance to the people who have discredited it in a narrow way. Latour says that not only objects of science resist, but all others as well; so perhaps if critics have the impression of gaining control over the “weak” objects, it is because they have actually only considered only some part of the thing.
This is the reduction of objects (and people) to the subjects of other abstract but pervasive forces, the result of a drive to get to that core which so many of our other readings have questioned. When Latour suggests at the end that critique could engage in multiplication, in the generation of ideas rather than reduction, he offers it as a way to go “beyond iconoclasm.” It seems like a rather certain, optimistic prescription for future critical thought, but I wonder about the uncertainties of iconoclash. Are the issues of proliferation evident in iconoclash just part of this new critical project of expansion?
I was surprised to find that this reading by Latour was what I have always been questioning about. He argues that science, matter of fact, can also be criticized as matter of concern because “matters of fact are only very partial and,. . . very polemical, very political renderings of matters of concern. (Latour2004:232)” Yes, I totally agree with him, because science is also a by-product of human fabrication, and believing in science without critic may lead people to the naïve belief, so to speak, the idolatry. Therefore, it seems true that critique is essential even for the matters of fact. However, how do scholars expand their research without assuming that the primary resource may be suspected? His argument seems to be too idealistic in a sense of real world of study. He cites that “all subsequent philosophers have done exactly the opposite: they have picked and chosen, and, worse, they have remained content with that limited choice. (Latour2004:244)” Do the philosophers really content with that limited choice? In my opinion, they are, of course, not content, but they just have no choice but to settle down where they are now with limited resources. At this moment of time, only the limited resources are available with the limited tools for their study. If they stop studying further and only stick to the critique for their basic resources, there may be no progress at all. For example, even though the blind touches the elephant’s leg and concludes that elephant shapes like a trunk, it is still a good start for him to know about elephant without the appropriate tools like vision, because he eventually finds what the truth is. In addition, especially in a contemporary society in which inter-disciplinary study is prevalent, scholars have to count on other scholar’s knowledge. In doing so, some naïve beliefs are necessary for scholars in order to develop their own theory and pursue the ultimate truth.
Latour’s article seems to focus on the difference between the object and the thing, but even after reading it, I am not sure that I understand what the difference is. In fact, I am not sure if I can draw any conclusions at all because it seems as if Latour’s article questions existence itself. I am also struggling to use other words besides “thing” but it is very hard not to use this term, which is now quite loaded. It seems to me that Latour’s definition of these two terms (object and thing) is entirely subjective, and based on his own opinions. If Latour perceives something to be interesting, to be a gathering of disparate parts, then he calls this a thing. But if Latour finds something to be boring, cold and mass produced, then it is an object. I imagine Latour’s “things” to have many layers, similar to Gell’s “onion.” But if the difference between the two terms is based only on what Latour would deem interesting and multilayered, then how does his definitions of thing and object help his readers? Do Latour’s definitions really help readers to transcend “matters of fact” that “are a poor proxy of experience and of experimentation”? Is this problem not getting at the question of what is reality and truth? In a certain sense, no one can see the world in the same way as anyone else, not even through the use of machines (which, as Latour pointed out in the other article we read, only add to the filters through which information is mediated before reaching the humans who want to discover the ‘truth’). So there is no reality, only gatherings of thoughts and observations made by people about their own personal view of the world. I suppose that what we make out to be reality is composed of those observations of the world that people can agree on, which is generally mediated by machines in the modern world. For example, scientific instruments collect the ‘hard facts’ many people will agree accurately describe the reality of the world. But suppose that mere humans cannot come close to a true understanding of reality. In this case, then, everything is a thing, going on Latour’s definition of a thing. If there is no concrete reality, then everything ever known in the history of man becomes “things, mediating, assembling, gathering many more folds than the ‘united four’.” I think that this view of the universe, as nothing but things that can never be truly explained, requires a large dose of Mitchell’s double consciousness. If we went around always thinking of our inability to actually know or see anything in the world then life would not only be quite confusing but also very depressing. Knowing concrete facts is comforting to us humans, and I think that our use of idols to attach immaterial ideas to the material world underscores our need for things. But after reading Latour’s article, it is hard to use that term, “thing,” for anything, since its status as something corcrete that I can actually talk about as something has been completely destroyed by Latour’s definition of the things as “a gathering.” So we must hold Latour’s erudite ideas in the backs of our minds, while simultaneously sticking to our old beliefs about the world. We can go about saying that seeing is believing, that observations back up facts, that facts exist, but we must keep in the back of our minds Latour’s definition of a thing.
When Latour says that scientific beliefs "fit neither in the list of plausible fetishes - because everyone, including us, does believe very strongly in them - nor in the list of undisputable facts because we are witnessing their birth" (242) I think he is reaching a little - not everyone believes in all scientific facts and just because you believe in them does not make them incapable of being fetishized. I think in this case, and others (such as his example of Whitehead's sunset), he could have considered the concept of double consciousness - i.e. the tendency to hold two beliefs at the same time or to be aware of and consider two sides of the same object, idea, etc.
I felt like Latour made a lot of really important points, but I'm left not knowing where to turn or what to say. It's as though anything I might try to do would just be deconstructed by any number of the arguments he makes in this essay. I agree with him about the many views of the critics that he is against, but I'm left not really knowing how to criticize anything in a way that is 'beyond iconoclasm' or agree with something without abandoning my ability to critique altogether.
While this response is certainly, mainly directed towards Jeff’s verbose, but eloquently argued blog, I observed (hopefully correctly) my topic of concern also within Bruno Latour’s essay on “Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” I would certainly agree with Jeff on the structure he’s built, explaining the scientific method utilizing Latour’s “types of iconoclasts” categories. The one issue I cannot fully accept, which is a personal obstruction I’ve experienced within my major, is that this progressive, “Type B,” non-freeze-framing approach to understanding and critically-shaping this world has not been applied to the social sciences. Certainly the images created from the discovery of the atom, or, to rehash last week’s blog entry, from all matter and great bodies of matter within our universe, as detected by and translated through the Hubble Telescope, have been incessantly modified as experimentation and “critique” have demonstrated the “illusion of reality” of the image and, as a result, forced the scientific image-makers to revise their creations, as they ever strive towards more realistic representations. Does this method similarly occur within the social sciences? I would have to argue no.
Unless I read Latour’s essay in an entirely skewed and sleepy haze, I believe it is when the social—society and all its little minions of “gathering experiences”—and the scientific construction of our world collide that “matters of fact” must become “matters of concern.” When testing a theory within the field of the social sciences, no real experimentation (no constructive critique of the social critique) occurs. Based on evidence, gathered and interpreted by the scientist (whose analysis and its conclusive findings are either implicitly or explicitly influenced by the culture within which the scientist has been educated and thus has shaped the way he/she neurologically forges connections for understanding interior—one’s “stream of consciousness” so to speak—and exterior reality), the “social critique” is produced. Someone may later come along—another social scientist with a Foucault instead of Marxian education—and state the critique was highly fabricated, and either present new “data” backing-up the current critique of the old critique, or “test” the old data within the context of the phenomenon the old critique was examining. This enters the muddled realm of “objectivity” versus “subjectivity”—an issue I think the social sciences will, and has had for quite some time, have difficultly resolving.
This Latourian concept of critical modification from “matters of fact” to “matters of concern” is certainly an interesting notion, but how exactly (as an outside scientist looking in on some phenomenon) can all “experiences," ”folds,” “gatherings,” and “state of affairs” be clearly observed by the scientist unfamiliar with the terrain of the phenomenon? Until we are somehow able to fully see “through the eyes” and “stand in the shoes”—to surface some horrible clichés at this hour—of those we are observing, how can we ever generate an accurate image of the “matters of concern” for that particular phenomenon?
Something, which I believe is what Jeff also stated in his blog—please, correct me if I’m wrong—that makes the scientific method so “Type B” iconoclastic is the fact that every result, every “matter of fact,” must be replicable. If, through experimentation, the result produces a different conclusion, than a new critique, a new image is easily applied to the phenomenon of study (whether it is atoms, sexual dimorphism of skeletons, or the gravitational pull of a black hole). Once you throw agents (human beings constructing their world around “matters of concern”) into that test tube, the results come out a brown mess of unreplicable information.
I realize none of this really makes sense for the moment, so I’ll stop while I’m ahead of myself. I guess, for now, my main issue is the problem of “objectivity” vs. “subjectivity” within the social sciences. It appears Latour’s newly-constructed “matters of concern” is an attempt at appeasing and merging these opposing poles, but I’m not quite sure if this successfully achieves such a union.
So it seems that Latour is idol-smashing criticism in our society. He claims that we no longer need to worry about false information, rather fake false information utilized to obscure good information. Being a historian, I was particularly interested in his commentary on revisionism. He explains that nowadays we have instant revisionism, which revises fact before facts have settled. Historical revisionism normally occurs in long cycles. First the commonly known facts on a certain act or period in history are settled years after they have occurred. Then, some historians look at these facts and tell a different story utilizing said facts. Eventually this becomes the common narrative of this history until someone else revises it in a different way. However, this process occurs dozens to hundreds of years after the events took place. The example Latour puts forth is that of Jean Baudrillard who published a best-selling book on the attacks of September 11th only one year after they took place. He revised the facts, claiming that the twin towers collapsed on to themselves, and the planes were drawn in to the black hole of Capitalism.
In a way, this sort of immediate or instant revisionism complicates iconoclash. If iconoclastic events are immediately revised, so the facts or goals of the icon-smashers are immediately obscured, how can we read iconoclash? If there are so many immediate, and fact-less images of the iconoclastic event, how can we read or interpret it? I do not know the answers to these questions, but they do interest me. This revisionism also complicates historical writing. If fact is already thrown off of the table one year after an event, how can historians, years later, come back and clarify what actually happened in the past?
Wow, I almost feel like Latour said so much and asked so many compelling questions that if I reread it a few more times I could write a book in reply. So, instead of picking out key insights, references, or examples that I found most pertinent I will just give my overall reaction to his theory. I feel like he has touched on a possible answer or at least way of looking at the world in our, what some people call post modern, culture. I often feel like in todays world any one who thinks about the state of the world or the human condition the first question is after looking at all past theories, "Ok, so what now?" How do we work through all these new iconoclasms among other theoretical problems we face? The answer? Dive in! Acknowledge the wonderful rainbow of colors and contexts that surround us. Instead of boiling everything down to its bare minimum of black and white, protons and neutrons we should put it all back together and blow it up to see its deep complexity. When people boil things down and try to separate them to get at some inner truth they create binaries and contradictions that lead to iconoclasms. Truth is found in the many inseparable layers of "Things" everything by nature is complex and full of "gatherings" and "folds." So to try and separate them and boil them down we lose many subtleties and nuggets of truth. I have this very romantic image in my head of going from some black and white image like static on a tv to a fabulously colored 3d scene full of hues and tints and layers upon layers of truth. Looking at all these "folds" might seem like a lot of work as a theory to approach all facts and "Things" but to avoid it is to stay in the past and not reach the next level of knowledge. This article is definitely interesting and even though it is relatively thick his compelling questions and ideas really pull the reader in and don't let go. And on a small side note I love his diagrams, use of the word "thingy" (one of my favorites), and how he describes the coffee problem of philosophers on pages 233 to 234.
Al Ghazali was constantly in my mind while reading this article. He found that by pursuing things to a logical end he fell into a trap where he couldn't believe in anything. Al Ghazali's solution to this was to accept certain things as truth arbitrarily (well, I think the phrase he used was letting the light of God's truth shine into his heart). Latour seems to reach a similar place, but he decides to do both. Megatron mentioned the double-consciousness involved, which does seem a clear use of the Whitehead inclusion. I wonder if this really avoids Al Ghazali's trap. I think it is worth trying to keep both the sunset and the electrons in mind, but it seems difficult to maintain discourse without accepting some assumptions.
One thing that I think Latour didn't address is the weightiness of some of these arguments. The appeal of questioning the scientific debate is greatly enhanced by the benefit it gives of not having to critically sift through the scientific debate. I think that there should be an imperative to develop clear, concise, and pragmatic criticism as much as simply new criticism.
What I loved in this article was the reminder that "all objects are born things (247)". Cargo cults are a great reminder of this, where everyday objects become idols when viewed through a different prism. There's a lot more to be discussed on this topic, but I basically find Latour's criticism spot on here.
At the start of his article, Latour asks whether or not the "technique of criticism" has gone too far, treading on "cherished" territories of concern in ways (e.g. Baudrillad's claim about the Twin Towers) that is marking Critique's loss of momentum and respectability.
Believing that the answer is a resounding "Yes", Latour requests a shift in gears to "retest the linkages" (his devotion towards "linkages" proves his persistent anti-purism), in order to restore critical theory [that] died away long ago" (Latour 2004: 231, 248).
In trying to "protect and to care" for rather than "to debunk" matters of concern, Latour proposes that thinkers begin to think more about categorizing objects as Heidegger's Thing, which possesses "rich and complicated qualities" (Latour 2004: 233).
Bringing this back to class, I think it's clear that anthropologists can use Latour's text to argue for halting the ongoing critique of the idol. Critique as it currently stands is Iconoclastic because it is destructive rather than constructive. The thing that I find most difficult to handle here is the moralistic tone which Latour seems to take on when naming that which is "cherished". I don't see a clear definition of how an issue or Heidegger-ian Thing becomes "cherished"; and given that it seems to concern an emotional element, deconstructing the "cherished" would probably be important to explore.
20 comments:
Wow, the Latour piece was certainly thought-provoking. As I read his opening, especially the problems of critique I was actually drawn towards a very different solution. Latour talks about the way conspiracy theorists have taken the notion of critique and begun what he calls ‘instant revisionism.’ Latour says he finds ‘something troublingly similar… in the first movement of disbelief, and then, in the wheeling of causal explanations coming out of the deep dark below’ (229). In other words, naïve academic critique is all too similar to conspiracy theory – or rather, conspiracy theory has made it so traditional critique is no longer avant-garde. However, I would point to one fundamental difference between scientific critique and conspiracy theory that Latour does not touch upon and that, I think, is key (and as in last week’s post, I am going to be talking about idealized science). This difference is that the scientific critique is itself critiqued. It is not enough for a scientific critique to attack the status quo, it must withstand a barrage of countercritique during which, if it survives, it becomes the new status quo and must withstand a whole new host of critiques. Moon-landing conspiracy theorists don’t pay attention to the critiques leveled against their point of view. Their agenda is to create a critique, but not to defend that critique. [Idealized] science is willing to take critique, and modify its worldview if appropriate. In fact, it provides that critique. Science is (to use Latour’s terms) type ‘B’ iconoclasm – it is always attempting to destroy its old images, since that is how we gain knowledge, move through the onion, as it were, or along the cascade of images. If science defends its images it is because it has not yet found the next image in the cascade, or at least not yet accepted that it is, indeed, the next image. Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, are type ‘C’ iconoclasts that think they are type ‘A’. They seek to destroy the established images without realizing that they are creating new ones (or at least, this is the attitude of the one moon-landing conspirorist I have met and creationist ‘teach the controversy’ advocates).
‘Teach the controversy’ relates to the other problem Latour cites with critique, although he cites the global warming rather than creationism. The constant questioning within science and its ever-present lack of complete certainty (all-to-necessary in order to remain type ‘B’ and not slip into type ‘C’), often creates an aura of complete uncertainty in the mind of the general public. Science is a movement towards a certainty that it can never reach while holding on to its integrity (this is Latour’s cascade again, certainty is akin to freeze-framing). This movement is accomplished through a kind of critique that already DOES “add reality to matters of fact and not subtract reality” (232). A scientific critic, by necessity, “is not the one who debunks, but the one who assembles” (246); if a scientific critic does not offer an alternative (which itself can be critiqued) for what s/he is critiquing then the critique carries much less weight than if a viable alternative is presented (type ‘A’ are not tolerated. They disrupt movement).
I feel that the most durable solution to the problem of [mis]use of critique in everyday society is not creating a new ‘avant-garde’ form of critique that deals with ‘Things’ and ‘matters of concern’ but education. This is not to say that Things and matters of concern could not play an important part in the future of critical inquiry, but the foundation of the problem seems to me to be a lack of understanding of the scientific process. I have done a lot of work with Frontiers of Science, a class that is meant to teach the basic principles of science. Whether or not it is effective aside, the class is badly needed. The number of students who come into this, Ivy League, institution who do not understand the basic process of science is astounding, and frankly, appalling. I imagine the situation in the population as a whole is even worse. If people understood that critique and debate (type ‘B’ iconoclasm) are so essential to scientific progress (movement through the cascade/onion), they would not be so quick to be fooled by the “artificially maintained scientific controversy” (226) created to favor a political agenda. It would also help expose the difference between the type ‘A’ conspirorists and the type ‘B’ scientists.
I apologize for how long this is, but I want to make one final remark. This paper, as a critique of critique, is unassailable; at least in some part, it is one massive contercritique aimed at any critique leveled against it. It is also, though, paradoxically, a critique of itself for the same reason. In this way, it is almost the ultimate type ‘B’ iconoclasm. But it needs to be critiqued, not just once, but many times, and the critique also needs to be critiqued. It is not critique but the constant critique of critiques that is the scientific process and what defines scientific critique.
• Latour’s quote of Whitehead on 244, “For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon” seems really important for considering idolism and iconoclash. What I take from this is that it is important not to look too critically at something like an idol, to consider that it is just as important that someone sees a god in an idol as that we ourselves see only wood or marble or some other non-powerful material object. For me at least it is always difficult to suspend my disbelief and take the fact that an idol is worshipped and given power as seriously as I take the critique of the idol…It is in this act of considering the entire object and all that it entails (maybe seeing the object as a “matter of concern” rather than a “matter of fact”?) that “iconoclash” happens and we are unsure how to respond to the object, thinking simultaneously that we have some rational insight into its nature (i.e. thinking that it is not, in fact, a god) and also not being able to discount the fact that someone else sees it very differently.
Latour is always a fun and wild read. Grazie
Like Molly, I found the reference to Whitehead to be quite compelling;
"For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon" (244)
This really highlights the pitfalls of 'objectivity.' What we really need to consider is another form of double consciousness- where we can conceptualize the many particles without dismissing the beauty. Similarly, we must acknowledge the awe that comes with the idol as legitimate while still being critical of the structures that give or facilitate its power...
I like the way he framed the argument that critique is inadequate as opposed to just wrong. When we critique, we are losing something- something important. When we strip something down to so-called objectivity, we are demeaning the beauty of its complicated thing-ness. We are dismissing entire realms of experience that can be facilitated by a double consciousness. We must not only recognize our double consciousness but embrace it.
As for science, we must recognize that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." What else can we bring into the equation that will not undermine science but increase the thingness of critique itself. Can we embrace things like emotion, experience, and the sensory in our considerations of the so-called objective?
Latour's argument urging us to use our critical minds once again was a work that covered so many topics, I felt a little dizzy afterwards. Although his argument as a whole was not very cohesive for me, his discussion of the metamorphosis of an object into a thing was interesting (albiet, still confusing). In his example of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, Latour claims that when the shuttle broke into pieces of debris, it became a thing as opposed to an object. The thing was of great concern, while the object had been taken for granted. When the object was unmade, it held special value that was different than the value proscribed when it was made. This could be applicable to the destruction of icons, as the act of destruction has as much meaning, if not more, as the object before destruction. I wish Latour would have discussed his use of the different words objects and things to show how the two are different in his eyes.
When Latour poses the question "what's the difference between deconstruction and constructivism?" (232) he is asking about critical thinking, but also pointing directly to the matter of iconoclash. As we have talked about in class, it is very difficult to tell when something is being destroyed, protected or improved. We have so far contained this discussion within the realm of idols such as religious paintings or artistic icons. I think that Latour very nicely transitions this argument into the matter of critique. It is very difficult in "matters of concern" to distinguish between a theory posing as fact and a fact posing as theory. As with iconoclasm one can never truly know what is a proven fact (or proven destruction of an image). It is also difficult to distinguish simply between a matter of fact and a matter of concern. As Latour pushes the idea of critique so strongly, it seems reasonable that for him nothing is a matter of fact. It seems reasonable as well that there is no such thing as an object but only such thing as a thing. Although he believes that there is a lack of critical thinking, it would be impossible to go through life as he suggests with an overly critical mind.
Sarah E
One of the statements from this article that stood out to me was when Latour writes, "An, yet, I know full well that this is not enough because, no matter what we do, when we try to reconnect scientific objects with their aura, their crown, their web of associations, when we accompany them back to their gathering, we always appear to weaken them, not to strengthen their claim to reality" (237). Although not explicitly linked, this statement made me think of a misplaced or appropriated idol and the repatriation of it back to its origins, in that displacement and subsequent weakening of its inherent powers. Perhaps it also can relate to the treatment of idols in that when someone tries to explain their meaning in some kind of scientific or logical explanation, their spiritual meaning might become stronger.
The Latour pieces makes one thing clear (or at least, it's somewhat clear...): critique is a form of iconoclasm. I believe what he is getting at, though, is that there are multiple realities, multiple truths, and multiple experiences. There are different perspectives in the world, which archaeologist Christopher Tilley (Materiality of Stone, Phenomenology) would agree with. Latour would state that objects really do have a power over us, or at least, this is one reality. Changing these things (for they are actually matters of concern) into inane objects, incapable of affecting others (this is the critique way), is in itself a form of iconoclasm. However, what goes around must come around. The critiquers must be critiqued; each person has their 'fetish', whether it's science, conspiracy theory, or art. The iconoclast has to open up to being iconoclassed. To move beyond this iconoclasm, we must not critique to destroy, but critique to create. People will believe what they want and will have their own perspective on the world. A little side note, which I'd like to add: I find that critiquing could be in itself, a form of idol, a fetish, if you will. A critic gives it a belief, it acts back; it's not just a tool, but a way of life. This line of thinking is similar to the idea that iconoclasm is also a form of idol or fetish.
This from Sara R:
Latour is fun to read, but I have to admit I do not grasp everything that he is saying in this essay. What I do understand him to be doing is to be critiquing critique...or deconstructing deconstruction in order to create a new form of constructivism, one that is less cheapened, less in line with conspiracy theories, one that allows us to move "not away but toward the gather, the Thing" (246). As an anthropology student taking a class for which I just finished writing a paper about the production of truths in ethnographic writing, quoting Paul Rabinow, "Facts are made" the word comes from the Latin factum, "made" "and the facts we interpret are made and remade" and echoing Foucault's fascination with the historical context in which power structures are constructed, Latour's proposal for a "realist attitude," rather than an antifestishistic or positivistic one is freeing, if at the same time troubling. Our TA for that class told the story of a history professor who spent his whole life in search of "truth" and began to cry when a Foucaldian scholar pointed out to him that there is in fact no truth as such, rendering meaningless the historian's career. The form of critique which Latour is critiquing is so engrained in my academic training and in the world around me, in journalism, in politics.
I am unclear as to what exactly Latour's "realist attitude" is, how it would work. But I think that there is some of Appadurai's concept of adopting a position of "methodological fetishism" so that there can be a crossover between what Latour calls the Fact position and the Fairy position. In theory this sounds useful, and a way to revive critical theory, but I have a hard time when I try it in practice.
Latour makes a distinction between an “object” and a “thing” and, furthermore, explains the transition from one to the other, from a matter of fact to a matter of concern. The terms “fact” and “concern” convey that while an object is taken for granted, a thing is problematic—it provokes worry, concern, and will not just sit still. The “gathering” of things is also a sort of useful way of describing them, in that they are in themselves collections of many elements and similarly gather people and institutions around them. When past facts are “revised” they are made things; new worries and questions gather around them, in a way, giving them that more unwieldy quality which makes them more difficult to contain conceptually, or in critique. Critique has evidently denied thingness to objects, weakened them, through means that are both reductionist and cyclical; the critic triumphs over the object and over the people who engage with it uncritically.
This gathering quality seems to be the reason and the way in which that objects act, the way that they “resist” despite critique. Perhaps when Latour says they are made “weaker” it is not so much a weakness of the object itself but of its usefulness or relevance to the people who have discredited it in a narrow way. Latour says that not only objects of science resist, but all others as well; so perhaps if critics have the impression of gaining control over the “weak” objects, it is because they have actually only considered only some part of the thing.
This is the reduction of objects (and people) to the subjects of other abstract but pervasive forces, the result of a drive to get to that core which so many of our other readings have questioned. When Latour suggests at the end that critique could engage in multiplication, in the generation of ideas rather than reduction, he offers it as a way to go “beyond iconoclasm.” It seems like a rather certain, optimistic prescription for future critical thought, but I wonder about the uncertainties of iconoclash. Are the issues of proliferation evident in iconoclash just part of this new critical project of expansion?
I was surprised to find that this reading by Latour was what I have always been questioning about. He argues that science, matter of fact, can also be criticized as matter of concern because “matters of fact are only very partial and,. . . very polemical, very political renderings of matters of concern. (Latour2004:232)” Yes, I totally agree with him, because science is also a by-product of human fabrication, and believing in science without critic may lead people to the naïve belief, so to speak, the idolatry. Therefore, it seems true that critique is essential even for the matters of fact. However, how do scholars expand their research without assuming that the primary resource may be suspected? His argument seems to be too idealistic in a sense of real world of study. He cites that “all subsequent philosophers have done exactly the opposite: they have picked and chosen, and, worse, they have remained content with that limited choice. (Latour2004:244)” Do the philosophers really content with that limited choice? In my opinion, they are, of course, not content, but they just have no choice but to settle down where they are now with limited resources. At this moment of time, only the limited resources are available with the limited tools for their study. If they stop studying further and only stick to the critique for their basic resources, there may be no progress at all. For example, even though the blind touches the elephant’s leg and concludes that elephant shapes like a trunk, it is still a good start for him to know about elephant without the appropriate tools like vision, because he eventually finds what the truth is. In addition, especially in a contemporary society in which inter-disciplinary study is prevalent, scholars have to count on other scholar’s knowledge. In doing so, some naïve beliefs are necessary for scholars in order to develop their own theory and pursue the ultimate truth.
Latour’s article seems to focus on the difference between the object and the thing, but even after reading it, I am not sure that I understand what the difference is. In fact, I am not sure if I can draw any conclusions at all because it seems as if Latour’s article questions existence itself. I am also struggling to use other words besides “thing” but it is very hard not to use this term, which is now quite loaded.
It seems to me that Latour’s definition of these two terms (object and thing) is entirely subjective, and based on his own opinions. If Latour perceives something to be interesting, to be a gathering of disparate parts, then he calls this a thing. But if Latour finds something to be boring, cold and mass produced, then it is an object. I imagine Latour’s “things” to have many layers, similar to Gell’s “onion.” But if the difference between the two terms is based only on what Latour would deem interesting and multilayered, then how does his definitions of thing and object help his readers? Do Latour’s definitions really help readers to transcend “matters of fact” that “are a poor proxy of experience and of experimentation”? Is this problem not getting at the question of what is reality and truth? In a certain sense, no one can see the world in the same way as anyone else, not even through the use of machines (which, as Latour pointed out in the other article we read, only add to the filters through which information is mediated before reaching the humans who want to discover the ‘truth’). So there is no reality, only gatherings of thoughts and observations made by people about their own personal view of the world. I suppose that what we make out to be reality is composed of those observations of the world that people can agree on, which is generally mediated by machines in the modern world. For example, scientific instruments collect the ‘hard facts’ many people will agree accurately describe the reality of the world. But suppose that mere humans cannot come close to a true understanding of reality. In this case, then, everything is a thing, going on Latour’s definition of a thing. If there is no concrete reality, then everything ever known in the history of man becomes “things, mediating, assembling, gathering many more folds than the ‘united four’.”
I think that this view of the universe, as nothing but things that can never be truly explained, requires a large dose of Mitchell’s double consciousness. If we went around always thinking of our inability to actually know or see anything in the world then life would not only be quite confusing but also very depressing. Knowing concrete facts is comforting to us humans, and I think that our use of idols to attach immaterial ideas to the material world underscores our need for things. But after reading Latour’s article, it is hard to use that term, “thing,” for anything, since its status as something corcrete that I can actually talk about as something has been completely destroyed by Latour’s definition of the things as “a gathering.” So we must hold Latour’s erudite ideas in the backs of our minds, while simultaneously sticking to our old beliefs about the world. We can go about saying that seeing is believing, that observations back up facts, that facts exist, but we must keep in the back of our minds Latour’s definition of a thing.
When Latour says that scientific beliefs "fit neither in the list of plausible fetishes - because everyone, including us, does believe very strongly in them - nor in the list of undisputable facts because we are witnessing their birth" (242) I think he is reaching a little - not everyone believes in all scientific facts and just because you believe in them does not make them incapable of being fetishized. I think in this case, and others (such as his example of Whitehead's sunset), he could have considered the concept of double consciousness - i.e. the tendency to hold two beliefs at the same time or to be aware of and consider two sides of the same object, idea, etc.
I felt like Latour made a lot of really important points, but I'm left not knowing where to turn or what to say. It's as though anything I might try to do would just be deconstructed by any number of the arguments he makes in this essay. I agree with him about the many views of the critics that he is against, but I'm left not really knowing how to criticize anything in a way that is 'beyond iconoclasm' or agree with something without abandoning my ability to critique altogether.
While this response is certainly, mainly directed towards Jeff’s verbose, but eloquently argued blog, I observed (hopefully correctly) my topic of concern also within Bruno Latour’s essay on “Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” I would certainly agree with Jeff on the structure he’s built, explaining the scientific method utilizing Latour’s “types of iconoclasts” categories. The one issue I cannot fully accept, which is a personal obstruction I’ve experienced within my major, is that this progressive, “Type B,” non-freeze-framing approach to understanding and critically-shaping this world has not been applied to the social sciences. Certainly the images created from the discovery of the atom, or, to rehash last week’s blog entry, from all matter and great bodies of matter within our universe, as detected by and translated through the Hubble Telescope, have been incessantly modified as experimentation and “critique” have demonstrated the “illusion of reality” of the image and, as a result, forced the scientific image-makers to revise their creations, as they ever strive towards more realistic representations. Does this method similarly occur within the social sciences? I would have to argue no.
Unless I read Latour’s essay in an entirely skewed and sleepy haze, I believe it is when the social—society and all its little minions of “gathering experiences”—and the scientific construction of our world collide that “matters of fact” must become “matters of concern.” When testing a theory within the field of the social sciences, no real experimentation (no constructive critique of the social critique) occurs. Based on evidence, gathered and interpreted by the scientist (whose analysis and its conclusive findings are either implicitly or explicitly influenced by the culture within which the scientist has been educated and thus has shaped the way he/she neurologically forges connections for understanding interior—one’s “stream of consciousness” so to speak—and exterior reality), the “social critique” is produced. Someone may later come along—another social scientist with a Foucault instead of Marxian education—and state the critique was highly fabricated, and either present new “data” backing-up the current critique of the old critique, or “test” the old data within the context of the phenomenon the old critique was examining. This enters the muddled realm of “objectivity” versus “subjectivity”—an issue I think the social sciences will, and has had for quite some time, have difficultly resolving.
This Latourian concept of critical modification from “matters of fact” to “matters of concern” is certainly an interesting notion, but how exactly (as an outside scientist looking in on some phenomenon) can all “experiences," ”folds,” “gatherings,” and “state of affairs” be clearly observed by the scientist unfamiliar with the terrain of the phenomenon? Until we are somehow able to fully see “through the eyes” and “stand in the shoes”—to surface some horrible clichés at this hour—of those we are observing, how can we ever generate an accurate image of the “matters of concern” for that particular phenomenon?
Something, which I believe is what Jeff also stated in his blog—please, correct me if I’m wrong—that makes the scientific method so “Type B” iconoclastic is the fact that every result, every “matter of fact,” must be replicable. If, through experimentation, the result produces a different conclusion, than a new critique, a new image is easily applied to the phenomenon of study (whether it is atoms, sexual dimorphism of skeletons, or the gravitational pull of a black hole). Once you throw agents (human beings constructing their world around “matters of concern”) into that test tube, the results come out a brown mess of unreplicable information.
I realize none of this really makes sense for the moment, so I’ll stop while I’m ahead of myself. I guess, for now, my main issue is the problem of “objectivity” vs. “subjectivity” within the social sciences. It appears Latour’s newly-constructed “matters of concern” is an attempt at appeasing and merging these opposing poles, but I’m not quite sure if this successfully achieves such a union.
So it seems that Latour is idol-smashing criticism in our society. He claims that we no longer need to worry about false information, rather fake false information utilized to obscure good information. Being a historian, I was particularly interested in his commentary on revisionism. He explains that nowadays we have instant revisionism, which revises fact before facts have settled. Historical revisionism normally occurs in long cycles. First the commonly known facts on a certain act or period in history are settled years after they have occurred. Then, some historians look at these facts and tell a different story utilizing said facts. Eventually this becomes the common narrative of this history until someone else revises it in a different way. However, this process occurs dozens to hundreds of years after the events took place. The example Latour puts forth is that of Jean Baudrillard who published a best-selling book on the attacks of September 11th only one year after they took place. He revised the facts, claiming that the twin towers collapsed on to themselves, and the planes were drawn in to the black hole of Capitalism.
In a way, this sort of immediate or instant revisionism complicates iconoclash. If iconoclastic events are immediately revised, so the facts or goals of the icon-smashers are immediately obscured, how can we read iconoclash? If there are so many immediate, and fact-less images of the iconoclastic event, how can we read or interpret it? I do not know the answers to these questions, but they do interest me. This revisionism also complicates historical writing. If fact is already thrown off of the table one year after an event, how can historians, years later, come back and clarify what actually happened in the past?
Wow, I almost feel like Latour said so much and asked so many compelling questions that if I reread it a few more times I could write a book in reply. So, instead of picking out key insights, references, or examples that I found most pertinent I will just give my overall reaction to his theory. I feel like he has touched on a possible answer or at least way of looking at the world in our, what some people call post modern, culture. I often feel like in todays world any one who thinks about the state of the world or the human condition the first question is after looking at all past theories, "Ok, so what now?" How do we work through all these new iconoclasms among other theoretical problems we face? The answer? Dive in! Acknowledge the wonderful rainbow of colors and contexts that surround us. Instead of boiling everything down to its bare minimum of black and white, protons and neutrons we should put it all back together and blow it up to see its deep complexity. When people boil things down and try to separate them to get at some inner truth they create binaries and contradictions that lead to iconoclasms. Truth is found in the many inseparable layers of "Things" everything by nature is complex and full of "gatherings" and "folds." So to try and separate them and boil them down we lose many subtleties and nuggets of truth. I have this very romantic image in my head of going from some black and white image like static on a tv to a fabulously colored 3d scene full of hues and tints and layers upon layers of truth. Looking at all these "folds" might seem like a lot of work as a theory to approach all facts and "Things" but to avoid it is to stay in the past and not reach the next level of knowledge. This article is definitely interesting and even though it is relatively thick his compelling questions and ideas really pull the reader in and don't let go. And on a small side note I love his diagrams, use of the word "thingy" (one of my favorites), and how he describes the coffee problem of philosophers on pages 233 to 234.
This from Todd:
Al Ghazali was constantly in my mind while reading this article. He found that by pursuing things to a logical end he fell into a trap where he couldn't believe in anything. Al Ghazali's solution to this was to accept certain things as truth arbitrarily (well, I think the phrase he used was letting the light of God's truth shine into his heart). Latour seems to reach a similar place, but he decides to do both. Megatron mentioned the double-consciousness involved, which does seem a clear use of the Whitehead inclusion. I wonder if this really avoids Al Ghazali's trap. I think it is worth trying to keep both the sunset and the electrons in mind, but it seems difficult to maintain discourse without accepting some assumptions.
One thing that I think Latour didn't address is the weightiness of some of these arguments. The appeal of questioning the scientific debate is greatly enhanced by the benefit it gives of not having to critically sift through the scientific debate. I think that there should be an imperative to develop clear, concise, and pragmatic criticism as much as simply new criticism.
What I loved in this article was the reminder that "all objects are born things (247)". Cargo cults are a great reminder of this, where everyday objects become idols when viewed through a different prism. There's a lot more to be discussed on this topic, but I basically find Latour's criticism spot on here.
At the start of his article, Latour asks whether or not the "technique of criticism" has gone too far, treading on "cherished" territories of concern in ways (e.g. Baudrillad's claim about the Twin Towers) that is marking Critique's loss of momentum and respectability.
Believing that the answer is a resounding "Yes", Latour requests a shift in gears to "retest the linkages" (his devotion towards "linkages" proves his persistent anti-purism), in order to restore critical theory [that] died away long ago" (Latour 2004: 231, 248).
In trying to "protect and to care" for rather than "to debunk" matters of concern, Latour proposes that thinkers begin to think more about categorizing objects as Heidegger's Thing, which possesses "rich and complicated qualities" (Latour 2004: 233).
Bringing this back to class, I think it's clear that anthropologists can use Latour's text to argue for halting the ongoing critique of the idol. Critique as it currently stands is Iconoclastic because it is destructive rather than constructive. The thing that I find most difficult to handle here is the moralistic tone which Latour seems to take on when naming that which is "cherished". I don't see a clear definition of how an issue or Heidegger-ian Thing becomes "cherished"; and given that it seems to concern an emotional element, deconstructing the "cherished" would probably be important to explore.
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