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

we are often the first to see, in any case the first to bring together asa whole. What's more, every time someone up above asks somebodydown below for an opinion . . .""The person up above gets an opinion that's more positive thanthe one the person down below really holds, because the people downbelow revise their opinions so they 11 jibe with what they think thepeople up above really want . . .""Exactly.""Because, between the top and the bottom," I added, making myown head reel with sociological analyses, "there must be people,intermediaries, who do the translation, who transform the technologists'doubts into near-certainties. So the decisionmakers think the thingis technologically feasible in addition to being politically opportune;and the same intermediaries transform the decisionmakers' fears intoncar-certainties, into orders given to the technologists. So the technologiststhink Aramis has political support.""Ah! So it's the technocrats, is it? They'd be good villains ""Or else it's just what I was trying to tell you, Norbert: they allgot carried away. If I were a journalist, I'd go tell the whole story tothe Canard enchalnl? *. They kept on going with a proj ect that defiescommon sense.""No, you're wrong about that-it's a perfectly normal project.The Canard would have nothing to sink its teeth into. And that's justwhat's bothering mc. It's a muddle, but it's not unusual enough toexplain Aramis' survival or, later on, its death. The technocrats are inthe same place, doing the same job of translation-betrayal in all thesuccessful cases: VAL, Ariane, the Airbus, the Poma-2000, the tramwav.JNo, they could have brought it off. In any case," Norbert addedthreateningly, "you're not to say a word to a living soul about thiswithout my permission; you've signed on the dotted line.""I was just kidding . . . Still, the fact remains that there are onlytwo solutions. Either they're all incompetent, or else there's someonewho has a clear strategy and who's pocketing the cash. If you rule outthe first solution, you have to look into the second. It didn't happen by* A satirical weekly that specializes in uncm-ering secret scandals.__ --'T--'-Hc-=t=- 1984 DECISION