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

"Okay, next, the actors change size--fine. If you take the troubleto figure out who's talking, whether it's the director, or his stockholders,or some underling's underling, or the janitor, you can still make it out."The actors' goals change-fine. All you have to do is connecteach definition of a target with the starting point, tj, and with thedestination, tl . It's complicated, but it's doable."If, in addition, it's not the actors themselves who define whothey are or what they want but the other actors, and if you thus haveto follow Matra-in- 1982-for-the-RATP-in-1 984, which is of course notthe same thing as Matra-in- 1985-for-the-RATP-in- 1 984, and of coursenot at all the same thing as Matra-in-1 985-for-Bus-Division-of-the­RATP-in-1985, but not the same thing either as Matra-in- 1985-for-the­Budget-of- 1988 . . ., then it's already considerably less clear. We hadstructure before ; now we suddenly have nothing but lumps."But if, in addition, people start mutating as the story unfolds, ifthere's no longer anything but the proper name that allows us to spotthem, and if they go so far as to change the way they change-and allthis without counting the fact that they mix up their 'ontologies,' asyou put it, trusting to luck- in that case, there aren't even any morelumps; there's just mush. I knew that sociology was a soft science, butthis is hypersoft, and don't try to claim that the reference mollusk ishvpersoft as well, because the phvsics of relativity, in the last analysis,J .I '" ..lands on its feet.""Yes, but you understand perfectly well that they can't have anystrategy because they have no interests . . . ""Obviously, no strategy is possible any longer in such a muddle.You've completely dissolved the interests; there are neither strategists,nor uniforms, nor Ordnance Survey maps, nor drums, nor bugles.""And that's where we land on our feet, just as surely as Einstein.That's exactly why military types have learned to draw up strategiesand hierarchies, why they've invented uniforms and epaulets, whythey've created the maps, why Gribeauval perfected the general staff,why military orchestras were signed up quite purposefully-preciselyso a strategy could become possible no matter what. You're always going__ __________________ _ __________ __ _ __ ______ _T_r_F __1 9 84 DECISION