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

opinion of the capitalists had "performed" reality in a more durable matterthan the flighty history of France required.In July 1984 the minister has not yet reached the stone house, buthe thinks he's gotten past the paper one. The "good reasons" to supportAramis strike him as solid. And they must be solid indeed, since they havescarcely changed since Bardet's and Petit's time. Even if the Communistminister raises the level of debate still higher, right up to the "right totransportation," a new human right, it's still a question of competing withprivate cars thanks to "on-demand service" and the absence of "transfers"-whereasthe line projected for the Petite Ceinture has been transformedinto an omnibus with three or four forks! It's still a question ofdeveloping research at a propitious moment-even though the goal of theCET is an industrial goal of qualification and homologation presupposingthat the research as such has already been completed. Finally, it's aquestion of helping companies to export by offering them an internalmarket-even though no commitment at all has been made regarding theindustrial orders that will follow the CEl Each of these good reasons tosign on to Aramis at last, three and a half years after the project was startedup once again, cuts through doubts that appear in the solemn discourse,even if the powers that be "are fully aware" of those doubts and "accept"them. From relative absolutism to absolute relativism, there is no more thana nuance, a partition of paper, wood, or stone. Let's hurry to inscribe inthe nature of things the interpretation we have produced of the nature ofthings. Time is short. Especially if the Communists are in a shaky positionand are going to withdraw a few days later into the refuge of theirworking-class fortress. Let's sign fast, or all is lost. Let's at least get ourselvesthe shelter of a sheet of paper. It's better than nothing. A few days more,and it really would have been all over for Aramis.[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS)M. Gontran, technical adviser to the cabinet, is once again explaining howpeople at the ministry felt when the agreement was signed:"Nobody took responsibilily for stopping ."The problem , in France, is that the operating agencies combine the commercialfunction with the R&D function They're both judge and interested porly.and they lack the means for radical criticism of a prolect "THE 1 9 84 D[CISION