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

their irreversibility, their inhumanity. Everything we 're doing in ourresearch center runs counter to that idea. We might just as well saythat Aramis has an inherent flaw. ""Well, why not?""I've told you a hundred times: because perfe ction is never inherent;it always comes at the end of the line. Talking about inherent flawsis the easy way out-it's a retrospective accusation. 'The thing doesn'twork because it couldn't have worked.' It's a tautology. It's immoral;it's kicking a thing when it's down . It's the only crime our sociologycan't forgive .""Well, forgive me, but what if Aramis were in contradiction withyour theories?"" Impossible."I felt like laughing, but when I saw that my mentor was serious,I bit my tongue and began to have doubts about his ability to solve theriddle of Aramis' death .[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]In an urban research bureau run by the lIe-dFronce Region, Mssrs.Grinevald and Levy, ore delighted to talk about Aramis."I'd like to reopen the question of technological feasibility, in relation to thequestion of profitability. "M. Grinevald:"A simplified Aramis, downgraded, a little bigger, if it's significantly downgradedwith five missions-it might have worked. Intellectually, it's not inconceivable,but we would have overinvested in supply because of the lack offlexibility and, in any event, it was very expensive."That's our president's pOint of view: it works, but it's expensive. He'sconvinced that it's a question of profitability, that it's like the Concorde. In myopinion, however, it's not because Aramis isn't profitable that it isn't in operationtoday; it's like an unprofitable Concorde, that's true, but one that also functionsat subsonic speeds!"Aramis is intellectually conceivable in a downgraded phase, but the nominalAramis is not intellectually conceivable unless it is really outsized andSHlllY SHAllYINTHE SEVENTIES