Latour Litany
Bruno Latour hier op het weblog van Critical Inquiry. Hij stelt dat de coronacrisis heeft geleid tot "... the sudden and painful realization that the classical definition of society – humans among themselves – makes no sense. The state of society depends at every moment on the associations between many actors, most of whom do not have human forms."
En hij vervolgt met wat Ian Bogost (o.a. hier) een "Latour Litany" noemt. En het is een mooie:
"This is true of microbes – as we have known since Pasteur – but also of the internet, the law, the organization of hospitals, the logistics of the state, as well as the climate. And of course, in spite of the noise surrounding a “state of war” against the virus, it is only one link in a chain where the management of stocks of masks or tests, the regulation of property rights, civic habits, gestures of solidarity, count exactly as much in defining the degree of virulence of the infectious agent. Once the entire network of which it is only one link is taken into account, the same virus does not act in the same way in Taiwan, Singapore, New York, or Paris. The pandemic is no more a “natural” phenomenon than the famines of the past or the current climate crisis. Society has long since moved beyond the narrow confines of the social sphere."
Latour vervolgt dat de huidige situatie een karikatuur lijkt van de biopolitieke situatie die Foucault beschrijft, maar voegt daaraan toe: "But this caricature is precisely the caricature of a time that is no longer ours."
En hij vervolgt met wat Ian Bogost (o.a. hier) een "Latour Litany" noemt. En het is een mooie:
"This is true of microbes – as we have known since Pasteur – but also of the internet, the law, the organization of hospitals, the logistics of the state, as well as the climate. And of course, in spite of the noise surrounding a “state of war” against the virus, it is only one link in a chain where the management of stocks of masks or tests, the regulation of property rights, civic habits, gestures of solidarity, count exactly as much in defining the degree of virulence of the infectious agent. Once the entire network of which it is only one link is taken into account, the same virus does not act in the same way in Taiwan, Singapore, New York, or Paris. The pandemic is no more a “natural” phenomenon than the famines of the past or the current climate crisis. Society has long since moved beyond the narrow confines of the social sphere."
Latour vervolgt dat de huidige situatie een karikatuur lijkt van de biopolitieke situatie die Foucault beschrijft, maar voegt daaraan toe: "But this caricature is precisely the caricature of a time that is no longer ours."
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