Bruno Latour ( We Have Never Been Modern 
“In works produced by anthropologists abroad, you wil l not find a single trait that is not simultaneously real, social and narrated. If the analyst is subtle, she wil l retrace networks that look exactly like the sociotechnical imbroglios that we outline when we pursue microbes, missiles or fuel cells in our own Western societies. We too are afraid that the sky is falling. We too associate the tiny gesture of releasing an aerosol spray with taboos pertaining to the heavens. We too have to take laws, power and morality into account in order to understand what our sciences are telling us about the chemistry of the upper atmosphere. Yes, but we are not savages; no anthropologist studies us that way, and it is impossible to do with our own culture — or should I say natureculture? — what can be done elsewhere, with others. Why? Because we are modern. Our fabric is no longer seamless. Analytic continuity has become impossible. For traditional anthropologists, there is not -there cannot be, there should not be — an anthropology of the modern world.”
Our modernity – our non-undifferentiatedness – makes us impervious to anthropological analysis.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Ethics of Rhetoric in Times of War
What we say matters. And the way we say it matters. This is especially true in times…
How the State Failed Noelia Castillo
On March 26, Noelia Castillo, a twenty-five-year-old Spanish woman, was killed by her doctors at her own…
The Mind’s Profane and Sacred Loves
The teachers you have make all the difference in your life. That they happened to come into…
