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

The rationality of technologies writes like divine Providence, straightacross curved lines, crossbars, forks in the road. The geometry of thefeasible and the infeasible, the complex and the simple, the real and theunreal, is as miraculous in technology as in theology. In fact, the trajectoryof a project depends not on the context but on the people who do the workof contextualizing. Araval, a small-sized VA L, stems from a sociotechnologicalcompromise that would simplify the Aramis project. Yes, but it wouldno longer interest the company head. Aramis for the World's Fair is arevolutionary transportation system that everybody is excited about. Yes,but the technologists are "traitors" and say "you have to have materialcouplings" in order to make the eighth wonder of the world feasible. "Notfeasible," "not interesting," "not lovable." All these terms are negotiable.The result is a hybrid? Yes, an Aramis that is complicated enough to pleasethe company head, who is interested in it because it's complicated and notvery feasible, but also because it gets people used to automation, becauseit "nips line extension projects in the bud," because it offers a good imageof high-tech research-and in any case it's already too late to decide,because the project has become promising. There's no stopping a modernizingpolitical slogan.As for the manufacturer, he loved Aramis. But he said he had madea mistake-still another past conditional, another "I should have." For hishybrid he invented a word that is itself a hybrid, based on the rival words"Aramis" and "Val," which the company head wanted to keep as distinctas possible. Ah! If only he had put "Porthos" on his rack! Our manufacturerwas not a good Scrabble player. What's more, he didn't dare bypass thehierarchy to speak about his projects directly with the RATP president, theonly one who could have overruled his company head.Still another twist in the road? Yes, another short cut-a shorter, moremeandering, more undulating route. Moreover, when his president tookhim aside in private, he said, trembling a bit: "It's doable." What beautiful,admirable symmetry! While the RATP technicians were rewriting the projectof the complicated Aramis, which they deemed infeasible, so as to makeit more presentable, the manufacturer was declaring to his CEO that Aramiswas feasible, even though it was a bit complicated for his taste. While thecompany head is blaming himself-retrospectively-for having lackedcourage and saying that he "ought to have" killed Aramis, on the otherside the manufacturer is accusing himself-also retrospectively-of thesame sin. He "should have" had the courage to stop the project. With_O --.:I.c.. N-'-'T-=C'-"-R P I I A 5:...:_t----1::'---______ ______ _________