Bruno Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology, PDF - Dss-edit.com

"I embrace my rival-so I can crush him." In order to solve the problem ofdoubling the tracks without giving up stations on sidings, let's increase thedistance between stations from 300 meters to one kilometer. Impossible,for Closely-Spaced-Service is furious and pulls out: How can you makepassengers walk half a kilometer, when you're asking them to use Aramisthe way they use their cars? Too bad, we'll just get along without Closely­Spaced-Service; let's increase the size. But if we abandon Small-Size,Aramis starts looking like nothing so much as an automated metro. All theRATP drivers, under the heading "Project Aramis," will read "wholesaleautomation of the Paris metro" as an entirely different project, "conquestof Paris by profit-hungry Matra, through an already-obsolete mode oftransportation," and they'll all be furious to be treated as incompetents orunderdeveloped types. After all, up to now haven't they been the best metrobuilders, the only ones?But wait a minute, some will object, we're dealing with technologies,not passions; with drawings, not plots; with logic, not sociology; witheconomic calculus, not Machiavellian calculations. Ah, but they're wrong !The two sets come together in research rooms and administrative councilrooms. The pertinent question is not whether it's a matter of technology orsociety, but only what is the best sociotechnological compromise. Neitherthe RATP nor Matra can agree at the time on a mini-VAL inside Paris, * butthey can agree on an Aramis that must be neither too simple (or it willinfuriate the RATP) nor too complex (or it will cost a fortune). It must beneither too far from Paris (or it will infuriate Matra and run in the red) nortoo close (or it will have too many passengers and be burdened with toomany tedious regulations). This is illogical? No, socio-Iogical. Aramis insideParis is an alliance, a compromise. The "best possible alliance," said ourinterlocutor, M. Lievin, a modern-day Pangloss. Let's say instead that thereare as many possible Aramises as there are possible compromises amongall those-humans and non humans-who have made themselves necessaryto its gradual realization. The only impossible solution is an Aramis thatwould accept no compromises; that would suspend the work of recruiting,of generating interest, of translating; that would expect the Orly Aramis tocome into being all by itself, on its own power, from the feasible prototype*Even though the Meteor project today constitutes a new compromise betweenMatTa, VAL, and the classic Paris metro, since it is automated like VAL but with thevolume of a metro. As we shall see, some observers credit Aramis for this compromise,whieh it finally made acceptahle .SHILlY SHAllYING IN THE SEVENTieS