Weakening Science Through Discourse

"And, yet, I know full well that this is not enough because, no matter what

we do, when we try to reconnect scientific objects with their aura, their

crown, their web of associations, when we accompany them back to their

gathering, we always appear to weaken them, not to strengthen their claim

to reality. I know, I know, we are acting with the best intentions in the world,

we want to add reality to scientific objects, but, inevitably, through a sort

of tragic bias, we seem always to be subtracting some bit from it." (237)

Throughout our coursework this semester we have been navigating the intricate "web of associations" to which Latour refers. Science is used to explain what we already know is, and uses language to do so. Let's use ADD as an example. Concerned parents begin to notice that their children are having a hard time concentrating for extended periods of time. A psychological condition is named and enters into circulation as language. If I had to explain the work we've done this semester to Mom, I would point out that a culture that would seek to label, diagnose and medicate an inattentive child might offer the best explanation for the very need to do so. We live in the age of speed, and science/technology is our best friend. Where there once were books, now there are videos. Where there once were slide-rules, now there are graphing calculators. Hell, even Kraft Mac-n-Cheese got faster in my lifetime. As science and technology expedite productivity in the industrialized world, we have come to expect more of people (both young and old) in less time. We have produced so much stuff - in the broadest sense of the word - that we now have to give our children amphetamines so they can keep up. Yet science lets us name a disorder rather than saying "your daydreaming kid isn't producing enough work during an 8-hour day of 4th grade (structured and regimented like a day at the office...) so lets just give him powerful medication that will speed his brain up."

Science is, essentially, the ordering and naming of things - less an act of discovery, but rather of explanation. By naming we end up with inevitable associations that come with language. In this course we have literally mapped these associations. We need the language of science but the real stuff of science doesn't need us and never has.

Fear of Reality

I was fascinated with Latour's article, and found myself responding to it in a very sporadic way. Below is my critical engagement with Latour and some of his ideas... be it gullible or intellectual, it's a critique nonetheless...

I believe that human beings have evolved in to species that live by and through metaphor. We identify to more visceral forms of media provocation, and respond less excitedly than audiences... well, humans, of the past. We are constantly searching for meaning (I'm writing that quite literally as my roommate sings the lyrics, "I never know what I'm searching for, but it's always on my mind") Well, you're searching and you're not finding anything. Or maybe you do, but the laws of... evolution?,say, or, call it what you will, press you further down the road of critique and desired advancements. We are beings of progress, and progress is made greatly through scientific means... but to what extent? The text from Latour's article has already been drawn in our blog community, and I'd like to redraw upon it now:

“And, yet, I know full well that this is not enough because, no matter what we do, when we try to reconnect scientific objects with their aura, their crown, their web of associations, when we accompany them back to their gathering, we always appear to weaken them, not to strengthen their claim to reality. I know, I know, we are acting with the best intentions in the world, we want to add reality to scientific objects, but, inevitably, through a sort of tragic bias, we seem always to be subtracting some bit from it.” (237)

I guess I wouldn't completely agree with everything being said about science here. Medicine is the most incredible advancement of man and, when not abused or being scandalized, helps to save and maintain many lives. Our compassion toward humanity is far greater in fueling the positive scientific advancements of the future. But of course with so many people, personalities, and the inevitable duality of life, comes conflict, hate, and deceit. That we can love means also that we can hate. 

It becomes difficult to know truth in a reality based in multiple realities. There's an overwhelming amount of information, and it's relevance becomes less and less as we are constantly responding to different stimuli. I feel less impassioned due to this trend of life. What do you do when you lose the passion for something and then are drowning in a bunch of books?...

Latour suggests we should maybe fight criticism with criticism...

We create controversy in any case ("artificially maintained controversy" (227)) And why do we cling to controversy, even in cases where the scientific evidence is extremely faulty? It's DRAMA! We looove drama. If we lived in a world without conflict or opposing viewpoints or tension... there would be nothing to live for. Therefore we've created reality through often times a dualistic lens and find refuge in the extremes, sometimes the neutral, but always a place where one can lie on a scale and be identified. It's all about identity, sometimes it's hard for people to admit that they're more the same than different. We love being able to identify with people, ideas, or things, but love even more the ways in which we can be different.

"What's the difference between deconstruction and constructivism?" (232). I would say there isn't a difference. That all creation comes from destruction, and that we must always be caught in this cycle if any progress is to be made. I suppose it is when true destruction does not occur, or true creation, that the "destruction" is then useless. How would you define destruction and creation? Are they the same as deconstruction and constructivism... I think so, I think those are just more polite ways of saying the same thing.

"For natural philosophy everything perceived is in nature. We may not pick up and choose. For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon" (244).

In other words, our perceptions of nature are just as keen and insightful as the tedious scientific explanations of natural phenomenon. In fact, we should be more apt at exploring nature in the former way. We limit ourselves by making a choice, instead of allowing the forces of nature to act upon us and to allow that choice to come naturally.

"The solution or, rather, the adventure, according to Whitehead, is to dig much 

further into the realist attitude and to realize that matters of fact are totally 

implausible, unrealistic, unjustified definitions of what it is to deal with 

thing" (244).

I find both statements to be incredible in that they're beginning the deconstruction of what many people might believe, which is that facts are definers of reality. They can even go as far as distorting reality, and missing the mark on why Things are to be critically engaged with in the first place. I agree with Latour that the word "critique" needs to be revisited, reinvestigated.  

De-Re-CONSTRUCT

 "Can we devise another powerful descriptive tool that deals this time with
matters of concern and whose import then will no longer be to debunk but
to protect and to care, as Donna Haraway would put it? Is it really possible
to transform the critical urge in the ethos of someone who adds reality to
matters of fact and not subtract reality? To put it another way, what’s the
difference between deconstruction and constructivism?"


   Language and the ability to create new ideas and beliefs or proof of something as matter of fact is something that is one of the most exciting things to tackle and I could write a whole book on the matter, no pun intended. Not necessarily that my opinion and matters would be correct or accurate but they would be based on what I think, know, have created etc.


 I think that the cycle in which creation and construction happens really can relate to this idea that Latour is talking about in this passage. WHAT is the difference between deconstruction and constructivism??


I truly believe that what this is getting at is that through destruction, a new creation is formed and vise versa with all construction deconstruction is inevitable when change comes, It seems that although we would like to believe our world, society, culture is always growing, I think that that when you look at it in a different unique way we can establish the circular form just as culture and science and the tie or connection.


What we believe it is important to dissect, as always we like to trace it back as culture studies through nature or nurture, and also follow it up with science and other forms of 'evidence'. I found this article to be extremely moving in the way that it really hits it on target for the reasons of why we even want to know where fact and why fact and validation simply for anything we know. 


That brings me into this passage again. The tool of concern and why? To protect and to care... where do all of these ideas come from in the first place, who decided what reality is? I don't know whether this is an answer to any of these or if the answer like it always is is the question of whether or why you believe it in the first place. I don't really know how to place what my major idea behind how I feel about this. Is it weird that one little passage could make me question myself over and over and over? I don't know what is true or what is false, and yet are true and false opposites or are they created to make up for the lake of something else?


The battle, we will never be able to figure it out. This struggle of science and culture. How they create each other and form each other and which one really adds to the other one or takes away from the opposite. Our beliefs and actions and facts of matter or concern are all made up from ideas in which we can't decide where they came from. Why does science, and experiment make anything accurate? Why can't someone idea without any evidence simple be enough? And how is a book such as a bible something that so many people will surround themselves around and believe in and look up and worship higher than something that was written by someone else and why do we believe that it isn't just bs as we do with others. There are so many questions I could keep posing such as this that I feel really tie in Latour and the article. I don't know how to answer any of them.. and ALL I can do is create more questions and have feelings based off of those. Construction or deconstruction or reconstruction or reinforcement or destruction or anything.. it's a cycle and that's all I can really confirm.

The War on Words

When I originally read this prompt I had to laugh a little bit because I am the "Mom" that needs Latour, and most of what else we've covered, explained to me in the most simplistic of terms. After reading this article I'm still not quite sure I understand what Latour is going on about. The one thing I did understand is that there are constantly intellectual wars going on that simply cannot be ignored. It's easy to look at the world and say there are wars like gay marriage/equal rights going on. These sorts of wars are generally pretty open and can get heated quickly.

However, I believe that wars like these go on in every field all the time. I don't particularly want to touch on the war on reality just because I think it is ridiculous and don't have much to say about it. The war that I focus on is a little different due to my being an English Major and not having any relation to the science. The war or words and the war on the author is something that have been going on for quite some time. Depending on who you ask somebody might tell you that projects like Teju Cole's "Small Fates" on twitter, A Story as Told through Twitter, is ruining the formulaic view on literature and that literature itself is taking a slow decline into the nonexistent. 

While I hope I'm not as melodramatic as that, it is very hard to ignore what I see happening with literacy and the written word. I don't particularly care for Teju Cole, but although his project is something exceedingly new and progressive, I don't hate it for the simple sake that it is not a novel or an essay. There is no sane way to remark that literature does not evolve along with the human race and therefore I don't believe that we can stop how it changes. I think that this particular war should be shifted to focus on preserving what we have had in the past as well as making room for the new.

Matters of Fact and Concern: 9-11 Truthers, Corn, Feeding the World

 Sorry for the long, rambling, disorganized, and sometimes off-point post, guys - it's hard to get my thoughts out accurately on these issues.

"Remember the good old days when revisionism arrived very late, after the facts had been thoroughly established, decades after bodies of evidence had accumulated? Now we have the benefit of what I call instant revisionism. The smoke of the event has not yet finished settling before dozens of conspiracy theories begin revising the official account, adding even more ruins to the ruins, adding even more smoke to the smoke" (228).

In this passage, Latour describes the current situation that he fears critique and science studies have had a hand in creating, in which conspiracy theorists and Republican strategists use the terms of critique to justify their rejection of well-supported understandings and accounts of an event.  He suggests that in this age, in which continual doubt has become a more hegemonic social force than fact, it is time for critical theory switch its object of critique from matters of fact to matters of concern. 

Specifically, he writes of the large 9-11 truth movement, whose followers use moves from critical theory to reject the official account of the September 11th attacks, believing (in the US) that the attacks were an inside job, or (in France) that they did not occur at all.  Seeing these movements using concepts and terms from critical theory to justify their crazy view of the world upsets Latour, prompting him to call for a rethinking and re-inventing critical theory as a tool for understanding and social change.  In his words:

"What has become of critique when my neighbour in the little Bournabbais village where I live looks down on me as someone hopelessly naïve because I believe the United States had been attacked by terrorists? Remember the good old days when University professors could look down on unsophisticated folks because those hillbillies naïvely believed in church, motherhood, and apple pie? Things have changed a lot, at least in my village. I am now the one who naively believes in some facts because I am educated, while the other guys are too unsophisticated to be gullible…."

One thing I have thought about over the course of this semester is the wide range of opinions and experiences that we each brought to this class when it started.  Far from all entering the classroom in a general state of agreement on the facts surrounding Global Warming and GMOs, we each had various levels of understanding and differing opinions on what sorts of claims could be considered "facts" in each of these cases.  Our understandings and opinions were mediated by identity.  To put it bluntly, some of us may identify more with "church, motherhood, and apple pie" than with Latour's self-conscious intellectualism, while some of us may be far from either of these positions.  Or: if I were a 9-11 truther (and I know some people who are), how would taking this class affect me?  I believe I would have been alienated by the characterization of my views as bullshit without any careful examination of the evidence on which I based my beliefs.  We spent some time, in our mostly failed Bourdieu blog posts, trying to explain why others who we disagreed with believed what they believed -- perhaps it would have been fruitful to identify a relatively baseless belief of our own and try to explain why it is that we believe it.

Something we have lacked in this class a lot of the time is in-depth clarification of available evidence, both on the issues we were examining and the concepts we were supposed to be using to conceptualize them.  By skipping from issue to issue without getting information from experts on any of the subjects, discussions were often left at the level of "well, this is just my personal opinion, and you're entitled to your own totally opposing personal opinion, we can all believe whatever we believe."  Perhaps this is a move that people must make to get along with each other in any social setting?  Nevertheless, it seems like there were too many issues to address, too fast, without in-depth examination of the physical facts of any of them.  Citations were often left unchecked, and incorrect or uncritical statements (my own included) were frequently allowed to just sort of float by (despite Ben and Robin's interventions to catch us and make us think critically at times). 

This sort of lack of depth opens the door to the sort of "two objects-two subjects" critical theory that Latour criticizes in this article.  For instance, in discussing our position in food and agricultural systems, we alternated between the idea that we could "vote with our dollar" to change systems and the idea that our actions are helplessly determined by our position in historical, social, political, and economic networks.  Additionally, we wavered between the view of today's corn plant as an acted-upon product of human ingenuity or of corn as its own actor that through its material form and force determines human actions. On the other hand, we did a good job at times of interrogating matters of concern rather than matters of fact.  Overall, it seems like we succeeded in treating corn as a Thing rather than an object.  Did we succeed in understanding that "matters of fact are a poor proxy of experience and of experimentation... a confusing bundle of polemics, of epistemology, of modernist politics that in no way claim to represent what is requested by a realist attitude"?  Maybe not.  Or not yet. 

One question that popped up in two or three class discussions was the question of whether or not small-scale, local agriculture could "feed the world" today.  This question can be approached from multiple perspectives, each with innumerable complex variables.  First, it could be taken as a sort of theoretical exercise, perhaps something that could be mathematically modeled to test hypotheses numerically.  In this sort of exercise, you would need to think about crop output/acre of various farming systems, global acres of arable land, ecological impacts of cultivating land in various ways, calorie and nutrient output of various crops, and so on, and construct a model.  You would test this model against current situations to see if it correctly predicted peoples' level of nutrition/malnutrition when current variables are inserted.  Then you would use it to predict nutrition outcomes in a planned future scenario.  This is essentially how climate modeling is done, which is how we arrive at our current understanding of the likelihood of global warming's future progression, its causes, and its consequences.  Secondly, this question could be taken as a practical question of whether or not it would be politically and economically possible to transition all food production to the control of small-scale local networks, regardless of whether or not those networks could produce "enough" food.  Within this framing lie questions of what sorts of economic, political, and social interests would fight for or against this move, and which of those have the power to prevail, and whether certain actions could be taken to change that balance of power if desired.  Third, this question could be seen as a red herring distracting from the currently important issue of how to create food systems that are just, healthy, and ecologically sustainable in "the long term."  In this perspective, the purported unproductiveness of small-scale agriculture is used as justification of unsustainable and unjust industrial agricultural practices today.  

Rather than treating the question of which farming system can or cannot feed the world as a question of fact (i.e. small-scale agriculture either can or cannot feed the world), I wish we had made a clearer move to interrogate this kind of broad theoretical question and break it down into more personal, practical, political, and yet actively challenging matters of concern, the kind of questions for which we could extensive and carefully-considered scientific evidence and perspectives from outside our own classroom to produce useful new understandings.  We started to get there, but for some reason it feels like we didn't make it all the way.

The antifetishist, the unrepentant positivist, and the sturdy realist: pick one!

"We explain the objects we don't approve of by treating them as fetishes; we account for behaviors we don't like by discipline whose makeup we don't examine; and we concentrate our passionate interest on only those things that are for us worthwhile matters of concern." (241)

 As a CSCL/English major, I have been studying lots of different theory and writing over the past four years and have encountered lots of this sort of "academic elitism" that Latour alludes to. I'll start by saying how much especially the middle to back part of Latour's essay really struck a chord for me, and how much I really found myself agreeing with him. This sentence above was the best summary of what I wanted to talk about, but like Jesse said, there were SO many parts of this essay that I would have liked to address. 

The first point in the quote is that of fetishes. I understood this as seeing some thing or idea in somebody else that you don't particularly like or agree with, and in turn, you accuse this person of being "brainwashed" or that they have turned something into an obsession or a fetish. This puts you on a sort of pedestal, where you can "humiliate all believers by showing that it is nothing but their own projections that you, yes you alone, can see"( 239).  As Latour says, and I would agree, a good example of this is religion. A lot of time, the ideas of religious people are written off solely because of their belief in some sort of higher power, and this belief being seen as radical or a fetish. This has very often been the case for me, and I am sure that I am not the only one.

Secondly, Latour talks about behavior, which is linked to the first point. We try to explain certain behaviors in others by blaming them on vague and unseen forces or "powerful causalities." This reminds me again of the idea of religion and things I have been told in the past: "you act/think that way because that is what your pastor/church/community says and you don't even realize it!" Again, this takes the power away from the person, and almost writes off their behaviors as something vague and "out there", and not something present and "in here".  I think it often comes across as extremely arrogant point of view, and Latour would agree. ( as a critic, "you will always be right"). 

I think that the last part of the quote is the most interesting, because it describes the idea of "picking and choosing", which comes up elsewhere in Latour's essay. We choose to be concerned about what we deem is worthy of concern, without realizing that our priorities are very often not going to be the same as someone else's. (I also wonder if what we view as "matters of concern" could be seen as a fetish in the eyes of someone else.) Everyone has these  ideas that they hold dear and try to protect against the barbarity of critique, because as Latour has made clear, critique tends to deconstruct and rip these once "sacred" things apart. I have noticed this sort of panic to protect your own beliefs in some of my other philosophy based classes; people get truly upset when certain beliefs they have are challenged/rocked/picked apart by the likes of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, etc. To be honest,  I find myself feeling indignant on occasion, too.

The problems and dangers of being a "cynical hipster" or "theory/critique elitist" is that instead of building and growing, it tears down and polarizes. Instead of encouraging further learning and questioning (which was the point of critique to start with), it tries to box people/ideas/beliefs into categories. Critique and theory need to be pushing people forward to thinking new thoughts and having better ideas, not pushing them back into corners and with old philosophies and dusty cliches.

From objects to things

It is interesting to note that every time a philosopher gets closer to an object of science that is at once historical and interesting, his or her philosophy changes, and the specifications for a realist attitude become, at once, more stringent and completely different from the so-called realist philosophy of science concerned with routine or boring objects. (p. 234)

This passage really resonated with me because it reinforced how the history surrounding a scientific object can be melded with that object to form something new: a sort of super object that only exists alongside its historical context. This new creation is what Heidegger refers to as a “thing.” We’ve already seen this in Pandora’s Hope with Pasteur and his lactic ferments. Although Pasteur and the bacteria that cause lactic acid fermentation might be seen as two individual objects, those two objects granted historical context to each other and thus became inseparable. They became one thing.

A similar phenomena has occurred more recently with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Before the tsunami/earthquake combo that hit Japan a year ago, the power plant, just like any other nuclear power plant, was a routine and relatively boring object, supplying power to the surrounding people. It was analyzed through the lens of generic scientific realism, e.g., how the power plant showed our knowledge of the atom was real and how we could harness that knowledge. Criticizing these matters of fact/science associated with Fukushima Daiichi does not lead to anything fruitful since there is little deeper meaning beneath the generic scientific realism.

However, everything changed on March 11, 2011. The once ordinary object was granted historical context. This included not only the tsunami/earthquake that triggered the disaster, but also how the disaster was handled by the Japanese government in the following days, weeks, and months. Fukushima Daiichi was no longer just a power plant; the object was wed with historical events into a thing. Once a matter of fact, the disaster turned Fukushima Daiichi into a matter of concern. Fukushima Daiichi became synonymous with the disaster and people began analyze the government’s response to the disaster instead of the generic scientific realism that used to be associated with the object of Fukushima Daiichi. The Japanese government was criticized for not having an independent board of scientific advisors. TEPCO was accused of not sharing enough information about the true scope of the disaster. However, these criticisms, based on matters of concern rather than on matters of fact, have served to gather the thoughts of numerous people and to organize them into discussions on improving preparedness. And that is what we should be aiming for.

Am I or Are We All Dangerous to the Public?

"Should I reassure myself by simply saying that bad guys can use any weapon at hand, naturalized facts when it suits them and social construction when it suits them? Should we apologize for having been wrong all along? Or should we rather bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself and do a bit of soul-searching here: what were we really after when we were so intent on showing the social construction of scientific facts? Nothing guarantees, after all, that we should be right all the time. There is no sure ground even for criticism." (227) 

When I first saw the first question above about bad guys holding weapons, I immediately thought of Robin mentioning in class once about when different guys hold a gun, the gun becomes a different gun. I would suggest that when different guys learn new things, information that being absorbed and expressed opinion can vary by that person's personalities, culture and a lot of different things. Bruno Latour talks about how criticism is no longer progressive in this essay and that the action of critique is getting us nowhere. In order for myself to write this blogpost, I looked up criticism on Dictionary.com and here is what I found: 

Criticism: a critical comment; any of various methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, analyzing their content or style, etc. 

Throughout this course of CSCL 3331, Science and Nature, I am not sure if what we have been doing is for the purpose of dating or reconstructing or evaluating, I feel like we are more likely commenting on different issues throughout the course. And please correct me if I am wrong, the time that I feel like we are actually critiquing something is when, after the debate of if Michael Crichton and State of Fear are dangerous to the public, we had a discussion whether or not State of Fear is fiction, and whether or not it's us reader responsibilities to look up every single footnote Michael Crichton provided. Furthermore, I couldn't agree with Latour more on his idea of criticism nowadays are getting us nowhere. It is not just that are we only critiquing with one-side information and are we arguing on the same topic over and over again, e.g. climate change/global warming, people don't take action due to several reasons, as I have briefly talked about in my last blogpost. I feel like people these days, especially normal, ordinary, smart-but-not-science-studies-oriented person like Robin mentioned, are only looking at a issue with only one side of information is provided, and then they think they know the truth and the big picture. If they think what they are doing is right, there won't be anymore debate on climate change/climate change denial. 

From what I have read in other people's blogposts that they talk about how they were raised to think critically and to question, I am unlike the majority, I was raised not to think critically but to take/absorb as much knowledge/information as I can as a student. From my perspectives and my experience studying in Hong Kong, China, the idea of critiquing is not as important as "remembering" a lot of stuffs, and it was awful hard and sad that we had to memorize a lot of stuffs, to the point like we were being stuffed. And this explains why I like to just sit and listen to you all discussing on interesting topics. 

I can answer Latour's questions: should we apologize for having been wrong all along? I myself don't think that we should apologize for having been wrong all along because genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration, but we should probably apologize for the time we have taken so far, which is long. Should we bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself? Yes, I think we should critique how we critique before we critique again, otherwise it will still lead us to nowhere and etc. And this has a lot to do with the issue of global warming/climate change that we have been working on. In my opinion, in order to figure out whether or not if global warming does exist, one that with high credibility should really dig deep into this issue, although you may argue someone has already done that. But if that's the case, why is there still debate going on? Or are we after something else? 

Last but not least, I just feel like we as student do have responsibilities to know both side when we are to discuss a particular issue. If what we have in our hands are only one-sided information and we are to express our opinions, I would propose that we are dangerous to the public as well. And before we say it's listeners's responsibilities to look up what we expressed, it's also our responsibilities to know both side of information before we express. 

I am sorry if what I have been discussing in this blogpost is confusing people, it makes more sense in my head. 

Latour, Science, and GMOs

"And, yet, I know full well that this is not enough because, no matter what
we do, when we try to reconnect scientific objects with their aura, their
crown, their web of associations, when we accompany them back to their
gathering, we always appear to weaken them, not to strengthen their claim
to reality. I know, I know, we are acting with the best intentions in the world,
we want to add reality to scientific objects, but, inevitably, through a sort
of tragic bias, we seem always to be subtracting some bit from it." (237).

This passage of Latour's article definitely struck me as something important. He makes such a good point, that the point of doing science studies is to figure out what makes science "real", but we end up obscuring that reality in some way. I sort of feel this does a good job of summing up what we are doing in class. Throughout the semester, we have really looked at certain issues in the contemporary science debates, and have tried to sift through them and find out who is really telling the "truth". In a way, at least for me, it has done exactly what Latour is talking about here. Science has gotten weaker for me because now I always think about the complexity behind an issue that led to the results that I am looking at. And we do have good intentions! Maybe we are a little bit biased towards exposing bullshit but at the same time I think we are trying to understand how this science gets made and what the consequences are.

GMOs are catching a lot of flak in our class. The Monsanto issue is definitely a problem, and like everything else in this world GMOs are not perfect. However, sometimes I think we get caught up in how GMOs are bad and forget all of the good things they can do. I understand not wanting to eat something a guy in a lab coat came up with. Totally fine. This is why I liked Seven Deadly Sins poster project quite a bit. It really laid out the ways GMOs are helping with this increasing complex world we live in. I think it went to the reality of the issue. The bottom line is that there probably are not going to be any more perfect little farming communities that can sustain themselves. There are too many people in the world and our society just isn't set up that way. For all of the bad surrounding GMOs, there is a ton of good as well.

There is a connection to Latour here. For all of our class work on GMOs, it is hard to sift through the information and make a decision. We always get the bad a whole lot more than we get the good. This is the critique that Latour is discussing, and also the way we obscure the very thing we are trying to study : science. Some how with more information on the subject, things become less clear.

The Fear of Latour

 Latour describes to us the conflict that has arisen between current  Deconstructionist (post structuralism-esque) thought/critique and empiricism. This form of critique takes experience away where one approaches things as matters of concern. Critique that often involves sensitive or hard to discuss issues, the rhetoric behind the arguments, as well as the critiques, often loses confidence and the ability to create new ideas. 

Why Latour is worried strikes me personally, in two ways, both relating to the two fields I study; English and Journalism. First, with English, my education in epistemology. The point that we are instead renewing empiricism - where objects create their own meaning, conceptually, and that humans, in an anti-Nietzsche-esque way, can access the true meanings of reality by interacting with nature - is truly frightening. As a post-structuralist theory student I've wanted to get away from empiricism (though, undoubtedly, it affects us all and we constantly use it in daily life - there's really no escaping it, as Latour points out) and instead, understand that we can't really access "fact" entirely (one side of the culture v. science wars).  

The other way this affects me is in Journalism. I've just started a job as an editor and have worked as an editor for two publications now. The "critique" that Latour explains sounds all too applicable to my work and the nature of my relationship with my writers and the written word. I've always thought that I was taking in to consideration my writers' and my own point of view, not matter how conflicting or complex they were. 

I understand why Latour is worried, and I find myself worried at a theoretically standpoint as well, especially when I've spent so much time invested in coursework,  in the CSCL department, with ideas and concepts that may conflict or, perhaps even worse, now coincide, in my understanding, with what the "critique" - what Latour describes - is. Critique is no longer the creation of something new, and can even work in the opposite way, by reducing concepts and original ideas. These are ideas that have been ingrained in to our brains since children, culturalized and conditioned in our education and our educators. Often these ideas are left unquestioned and misunderstood, if even interpreted. As much as it may be impossible, if we understand their ideas, lives, points of view(s), etc. to “become again things, mediating, assembling, gathering many more folds” we are able to see fundamental real change. 

Eric Best

Check Please

Honestly, this was probably the most difficult post for me to write. Why? Because I want to explain so many of the things I saw in Latour's article! From the passage on 229 that enthralled me and made me think of critique as doubt. Or on page 232 where we try to show our opinions in a matter-of-concerned way. Or the passage on page 237 that subtracts from science. (If you really want to know what passages I'm referring to I put them at the end.) But I finally settled on this:

I simply want to do what every good military officer, at regular periods, would do: retest the linkages between the new threats he or she has to face and the equipment and training he or she should have in order to meet them—and, if necessary, to revise from scratch the whole paraphernalia. (231)

I have a few ideas as to why I am drawn to this sentence. First of all it addresses one of the concepts I was taught from a young age, test, test, then re-test. Or check, check, and re-check. Before I go on trips I check, check, recheck. It's a habit after this long, just like doubt is a habit. Perhaps I subconsciously do these 'things,' 1) check, check, recheck, 2) doubt, because I was raised by a military man, or maybe because I've read Crichton my whole life (or had it read to me). But, whatever the reason this particular sentence pulled my attention.

Is Latour suggesting that we need to check, check and recheck the methods we use for scientific critique? Yes. He pointed out several times throughout this article that the method of critique that we use, put simply, is not working. On 237 he says that this very critique is subtracting from scientific objects rather than adding to it. Why in the world would we continue with an outdated system that contributes nothing to knowledge or experience? Would the military use 50 year old data on nuclear weapons to build new nuclear weapons? No! So why in the world would scientific thoughts, object, and critique continue on an outdated, obsolete path? Perhaps it because we have learned "to become suspicious of everything people say" (229) and this antiquated method of evaluating social science is the only thing familiar and unquestionable. Perhaps. But, the main reason I selected this sentence is because it summarizes exactly what Latour is doing in this article; he is attempting to "revise from scratch the whole paraphernalia." Which is exactly what we were doing in our class.

We examined the ways apotemnophilia currently work. In that sense we discussed (extensively) how gay used to be a disorder in the DMS and now it is not. But the problem with these was this: "Does this work? Or do we need to completely revise our way of thinking about it?" In my opinion, this doubt and uncertainty is perfectly reasonable. When writing a paper if I have a paragraph that I am trying to revise and polish I don't work it to death, over and over and over again until it's something I can work with, I throw it out. I start from scratch, analyzing what exactly I want to say, and how I want it to work. I "retest the linkages." If one is weak and it won't hold up, it's gone. So why can't this be the same for science? Because science, unlike my measly paper, was founded on hundreds of years of research, of debate, and of efforts to prove something. Apetomophilia... what is it? Is it physical or is it psychological? Why can't it be both? Why does this one thing have to be manifest in the brain alone, or in the body? Isn't that a problem? We discussed how there is a "us" versus "them" in rhetoric about FGM. I'm right, you're wrong dualism sort of thing. But why?

"...retest the linkages between the new threats he or she has to face and the equipment and training he or she should have in order to meet them..." If we simply look at one issue from one standpoint, aren't we missing something critical? Aren't we missing the big picture? Like apotemophilia and FGM this rhetoric of us vs. them, this constant dueling dualism subtracts from the issue at hand. That's the problem. Now to fix it. Then check, check, and recheck to make sure it works.

Those other quotes I liked:


In both cases, you have to learn to become suspicious of everything people say because of course we all know that they live in the thralls of a complete illusio of their real motives. Then, after disbelief has struck and an explanation is requested for what is really going on, in both cases again it is the same appeal to powerful agents hidden in the dark acting always consistently, continuously, relentlessly. Of course, we in the academy like to use more elevated causes—society, discourse, knowledge-slash-power, fields of forces, empires, capitalism—while conspiracists like to portray a miserable bunch of greedy people with dark intents, but I find something troublingly similar in the structure of the explanation, in the first movement of disbelief and, then, in the wheeling of causal explanations coming out of the deep dark below. (229)


Is it really impossible to solve the question, to write not matter-of-factually but, how should I say it, in a matter-of-concern way? (232)

And, yet, I know full well that this is not enough because, no matter what we do, when we try to reconnect scientific objects with their aura, their crown, their web of associations, when we accompany them back to their gathering, we always appear to weaken them, not to strengthen their claim to reality. I know, I know, we are acting with the best intentions in the world, we want to add reality to scientific objects, but, inevitably, through a sort of tragic bias, we seem always to be subtracting some bit from it.  (237)

The Critical Spirit

"My argument is that a certain form of critical spirit has sent us down the wrong path, encouraging us to fight the wrong enemies and, worst of all, to be considered as friends by the wrong sort of allies because of a little mistake in the definition of its main target. The question was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting empiricism but, on the contrary, renewing empiricism." (231)

It is easy to see in our class that we defiantly have this critical spirit on us.  Throughout the semester the class has been filled with its fair share of snarky comments.  We have been taught since we were young to question and criticize as a way of discovering the truth, but it seems that this has also hurt us because now we have problems believing in anything.  The danger is that now we are too afraid to state what we believe because the idea will be cast down by someone else to get the upper hand because as Latour so accurately states "the critic is always right!".  

Latour is trying to encourage people to go and experiment, to go and get evidence to find truth.  Not saying that being critical is all bad, but there needs to be a balance, and there is a way for critiques to build instead of cast down.  When there is too much doubt cast on different ideas and discoveries then we will not know what to believe in.  Where will that leave our reality?  

The main example my mind keeps coming back to of where criticism has taken over is with global warming, climate change, whatever you want to call it.  I have no idea who to trust or what facts to believe or even form my own opinion on what is actually good for our earth.  This is a topic I always try to avoid because I feel that I don't know enough about what statistics you should actually believe.  What part of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth should I trust and what is a stretch from the truth?  Would it really solve everything if everyone went out and bought a Prius? Because I was quick to overhear someone say but did you know that the battery in a Prius is actually really bad for the environment. etc.  I am all for trying to reduce the amount of waste and carbon footprint I leave on this earth but should we really be in a state of emergency? (or State of Fear)

I wish that in this example especially we would get back to finding the facts and working together instead of against in order to solve this problem.  That people could work together to find a solution and build with criticism instead of subtract and doubt.  It seems to me that we are fighting the wrong enemies.  With all of the criticism surrounding the issue I find that it is very hard to find something to believe in.  I do not want the critic to always be right I want the truth to be right, I am all for empiricism.   

Reality and Trans

"Reality is not defined as matters of fact.  Matters of fact are not all that is given in experience.  Matters of fact are only very partial and, I would argue, very polemical, very political renderings of matters of concern and only a subset of what could also be called state of affairs.  It is this second empiricism, this return to the realist attitude, that I'd like to offer as the next task for the critically minded (232)."

In Bruno Latour's article; Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?  From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern, he proposes that critique has a problem with approaching reality.  Current critique approaches a subject matter or topic with a deconstructionist, subtraction-minded view only to provide a narrow answer.  This form of critique takes experience away where one approaches things as matters of concern.  With a critique focusing on matters of concern one will approach things as fragile, where you need to take caution and care.  Matters of fact give a potentially polemic, politically driven answers that are simplified and specific yet have hidden agendas, motivations, and selfish needs.  Overall, this quote from Latour's article provides significant meaning to this paper by pointing out our current critique structure that subtracts and takes away from matter instead of a critique that aims to build, to expand matter.

When I reflect on our recent poster presentation I think about the process.  Of gathering information, formulating our ideas and concepts, creating an aesthetically pleasing visual, synthesizing interview interesting interview questions, then seeing other groups and their final product I question the process.  I wonder, 'how much if it was a matter of fact?'  'A matter of concern?'  Looking back at my intentions I believe that I wanted to build a presentation that gave insight to the experience of trans.  We used multiple forms of presentation with videos, text, pictures, and data while attempting to build and critique using a matter of concern.

It is difficult to know exactly whether or not it was seen as being critiqued as matter of concern when an audience looked at our presentation.  I wondered if everyone, if anyone saw this as an eclectic presentation that built onto knowledge, that created a cumulative experience, that was a journey with additions along the way as well as potential for more.  It had intentions to be critiqued as a matter of concern with an approach giving the audience multiple perspectives and overview without having hidden desires, goals or agendas.

Latour's article has given me a mode of criticism that has made me reflect and reexamine my core beliefs, identity, and truths.  I can view issues, subjects and problems not as a deconstructionist who narrows it down into something I idealized, but I can add value and layers to my perspective.  Matter of concern should be considered a form of critique  that could create a substantial paradigm shift in our mode of criticism.

Thank You for Helping Me See Why You Are Worried

“And, yet, I know full well that this is not enough because, no matter what we do, when we try to reconnect scientific objects with their aura, their crown, their web of associations, when we accompany them back to their gathering, we always appear to weaken them, not to strengthen their claim to reality. I know, I know, we are acting with the best intentions in the world, we want to add reality to scientific objects, but, inevitably, through a sort of tragic bias, we seem always to be subtracting some bit from it.” (237)

Constructive criticism is encouraged in academia, but do we know what it actually means? We usually associate criticism with our right to free speech, but where does it get us? In the science world, peer reviews are a crucial component of the final publication. Despite their good intentions, they were born and designed to make the author second-guess their claims. And in the end, they are careful to mention that “future studies are needed,” or emphasize the fact that their findings are too interconnected in a complex mechanism to be set in stone as “real.” The whole world, in fact, has so embraced the “critical eye” that nothing is every set in stone and that everything is relative. One idea, theory, solution, novel finding propelling one step towards reality is critiqued down, intentionally or unintentionally, back to where they left off. Why is this so? One problem Latour analyzes, and which I will attempt at explaining, is that critique proceeds via a dual set of “gotchas,” referring to his two critical gesture moves.

I will try to explain Latour’s critical gesture moves through the topic of global warming.

Critical Gesture Move One:

a.      Believers accept that concepts do things: global warming is a natural flux in temperature observed since the birth of Earth

b.      The critic unmasks the belief by saying that these concepts are merely projecting the believer’s wishes: climate crisis advocates blaming global warming on human causes

c.       The  believer realizes that it is themselves (the people) who are causing things and then further project other causes: people join Al Gore and the climate crisis advocates, people believe that they have “power” through “free will” to prevent global warming

Critical Gesture Move Two:

a.      The believer feels empowered by the first gesture’s exposure to “free will”: people start the “green movement” and try to change governmental policy

b.      The critic unmasks the belief by saying that they cannot do anything of their own accord because, in fact, society, capital, and other complex things are at work: global warming skeptics (Michael Crichton) assert that global warming is an interest-driven hoax

c.       The believer realizes that these other complex factors are unwillingly determining their actions, and they are stuck in a situation in which true “free will” is unachievable: the term global warming crisis is dying; today it is renamed as the more neutral and ambiguous topic of global climate change    

Conclusion: Who wins? Nobody; there is no new concept, no new things; just critique upon critique. This is what Turing refers to as the “sub-critical mind.” Our thought process is sub-critical, and this is why Latour believes that criticism is proving harmful to society by perpetuating and forever maintaining the status quo.

As I read this article, I couldn’t help to think that this sort of harmful criticism is exactly what happens in our CSCL 3331 class. In fact, when Robin asked us to apply the concept to a real problem, I was wondering if he wanted us to reflect on the potential dangers of what goes on in our seemingly productive and compelling discussions every Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

In our first unit, we discussed how medical disorders are a result of taking something in nature (S. cerevisiae) or controlled by God (Mother Teresa) and realizing and creating a “cause” (yeast fermentation/uncategorized bleeding disorder). In class, we critiqued articles attempting to explain why this came about, and what implications this has. In the second unit, we focused on the problem of sex categorization. Once again, we started from the biology, the belief in nature of hormones and gonads and built up to the people’s creation of what constitutes a male and a female. We critiqued the works of Oggaddam and Fausto-Sterling and their attempts at defining reality. In the third unit, food consumerism was analyzed again from our belief in natural concepts (unami, the 5^th sense) leading into the influences of subsidies, economics, and society on appetites. We critiqued Pollan’s attempt at solving the “national eating disorder.” Do you see a trend here? Our entire semester was a reiteration of critical gesture moves one and two. But did we get anywhere new? Did we actually come up with changes? In response to these ideas presented, did we “give rise to less than one idea in reply?” Yes. We were critiquing sub-critically.

This is a problem. And I see why Latour is worried. Critique is no longer progressive, it doesn’t add or multiply, but subtracts and divide topics away from a real solution. But what worries me more is the fact that I was taught and trained to think this way at school. Constructive criticism had always been encouraged since my first days in the classroom, but it was a concept that was never explained to me. Teachers told me to critique from my point of view, but I am realizing that this may be a part of the problem. Yes, my point of view is important, but to make progress, I need to understand his/her point of view just as well. An example which depicts this is on the topic of abolishing Female Genital Mutilation. Only when we understood their perspectives to “become again things, mediating, assembling, gathering many more folds (248)” were we able to see fundamental real change.

Please do not misunderstand me; I am not saying that this entire class was pointless. Just mere knowledge of this fact, exposure to these topics, and awareness establishes the fundamental base towards changes in the direction of critical attitude. And for this, I am grateful for just being able to attempt at answering your blog question. Thank you for helping me see why you are worried.         

Blog Post #9 (Due Sunday 29 April 11:59 PM): 'Do you see why I am worried?'

'Clearer?  Did Robin say this article ("Has critique run out of steam?") was Latour being CLEARER?  Get real.  What about Heidegger, Serres, Wittgenstein, Whitehead and all those other dudes I've never read?...'

Be cool, as Jules tells us in Pulp fiction; nobody will get hurt.  You don't need to know Heidegger (but if you do, you can use him.)  The argument is clear without the references.

Ethics.  Protection.  Care.  

Remember this, from our syllabus?

We all know that the carbon-cycle geophysicists at East Anglia University suppressed the data questioning global warming. Well, no they didn't really—but because of the stories circulating in

popular media, a lot of people are sure they did. Questions of how findings are presented, written, circulated and used, are matters of ethics. So are the issues of who pays for scientific work and who profits from it. So are issues of what gets built and used. No science or technology (or any human activity) is 'innocent.'

Well, nothing IS innocent, but that doesn't mean that all beliefs and all actions that follow from them are equivalent.  Not at all.  Nor does it follow that we can't really know or decide.

So near the end of our work, it's good to return to the Big Question of why any of this matters--through the lens of Latour's article.  

Basically, Latour (and Ben and Robin) are worried about how critical work might create a sort of cynical hipsterism in which we decide that it doesn't matter if you 'believe in reality,' because there's no solid reality to believe in.  'Whatever....'  We're also worried that smart political manipulators (like Frank Luntz, the primary architect of the New Right strategy—more central than Grover Norquist, sneakier than Carl Rove) can USE 'critique' to undercut all rational, scientific issues they don't like.  (Note how he does it in The Wall Street journal, p. 226.)

--> Explain it to Mom (or somebody like her who matters to you).  (1) Find a small section of Latour's article—a sentence, a paragraph, a recurring idea, but something that's coherent and tight enough that you can work with it.  (2) Translate it into English.  This is the 'Mom' part. You aren't really writing to Mom, because it's a blog post for all to see, but think about what some specific, normal, ordinary, smart-but-not-science-studies-oriented person would need to get this concept in consciousness / culture / science / philosophy (if your Mom is a philosopher, think of somebody else), and explain it.  Work like Bruno—using Coke cans, gegenstand, C-Span, George W, Heidegger, Twin Towers Truthers—whatever you need to make it make sense. (3) Apply it to a real problem.  Welcome to use our work or yours.  A Poster Project point.  Any of our readings or cases.  Anything you just found (Elissa just sent me an article about a class action lawsuit against Nutella.  Apparently it's not health food, and apparently you can sue if you believed the ads and fattened your kids up on hazelnut chocolate.  'Who knew?'  Precisely the point: what do we know and how?....).  

In sum: extend and clarify the position Latour offers on 'critique' and its problems.  'Do you see why I'm worried?'

Trans Interviews!

Hey All :)
So here are the interviews that we (the Ghosts) did for our poster project...enjoy!

1. Do you consider yourself transgender, transsexual, both, or neither? What does this mean to you?

I consider myself a trans man, but honestly sometimes I forget that I am trans because I feel like I was born a male just a little different from cisgendered males…Until it comes to certain more personal things then I am kind of forced to remember that I am a little different.

 I guess, neither. I consider myself male. I've met many people that enjoy having a stereotype or label but I don't. I'm just me. I'm male. I rarely think about my past or growing up as female.

I consider myself genderqueer.  For me, this identity resides under the "trans" umbrella.  There are many ways of being trans and queer.  Some come with surgical and hormonal body changes, others are signified by fashion and visual presentation choices.  I believe that both gender identity and sex are multiple.  If no two individuals have the same DNA or life experience, the binary is shown to be a social construction.

2. When did you start to identify with the gender you currently identify with?

2007 Fulltime.

I started taking T on December 29th 2007. People would ask me when I wanted them to start referring to me as male...I just told them when I tell you. When my voice starts to change...physical changes start to happen. I didn't want to confuse people if I still looked like a girl, sounded like a girl if my friends started referring to me as a he. I was more worried about other people and their comfort level than my own. After 7-9 months of being on T, a situation happened at work...my friends came in to work to visit me...they had already started to refer me as he...however my co workers had not...we were having a conversation and before you knew it my friends were saying he and my co workers were saying she...I have never been more confused in my life. Lol, neither were they. No one knew who they were talking about and that's when I realized I needed everyone to start the change with me. That's the day I decided to move forward. I had a conversation with Management and they started saying he and it slowly trickled down to my coworkers and before you knew it, there were no "she's" to describe me, only "he's". Of course it took a few months and when they would accidently slip up I would just give them a look and they'd apologize...I wouldn't get mad. I felt bad for making them possibly feel bad or embarrassing them.

About twelve years ago, I began to perform in drag.  Being a drag queen, coupled with writing academically on gender studies, provided me with a constructive outlet from which to explore and define my identity.

3. Is having a sex change something that you want to have done/have done? Is it important to you?

I would like to have chest surgery as soon as possible but unfortunately sexual reassignment surgery is not covered by insurance and it is expensive. It is very important to me to have chest surgery in order for me to feel more comfortable in my body. I don’t know how I feel about having bottom surgery. For one it is very expensive and the results are horrible.

I mentioned above about T...I had a full hysterectomy in January of 2011. That was my first and only major surgery I have ever had. I want more surgeries in the future. I would at the very very least like the top surgery. Bottom surgeries...only if I have enough money and everything "works" normal. If it doesn't, then I'll just have to work with what I have...but DEFINITELY having top surgery in the future.

I have thought about surgery, but have not come to the decision that it is necessary for my emotional and intellectual survival.  I have made the decision that I do not want to take hormones.  If it ever became financially possible for me, I would probably elect to have surgery.  Whether one identifies as trans or not, a person always has parts of their body that they would like to alter.  My idea of an esthetically pleasing body (for myself) would include top surgery.  However, I was lucky to be born as I am and can get by with a more 'androgynous' body type.

4. How do you relate to the GLBT community? Are you part of any sort of groups or organizations?

I don’t feel like I relate to the GLBT community as much as I did when I identified as a lesbian. Mostly I think it is because a lot of people in the community don’t actually know what being trans is all about and honestly I receive more negativity from inside the GLBT community than I do outside of it. I perform as a drag king at the Townhouse in St. Paul. I also do traveling Gender Show and Tell shows at various colleges speaking about myself and how I came to be a performer.

I am not a part of any organization. I do go to Pride every year but that's really it.

I am the "Q" in the LGBTQ community.  There are still some people/groups in our communities that do not respect queer identified people.  They believe that there are only two types of people: gay or straight/ male or female.  When a person situates themselves outside of these boundaries, sometimes others feel threatened or confused.  

5. Have you experienced any sorts of discrimination in housing/employment/in general or do you feel pretty accepted in your community?

For the most part I feel pretty accepted in my community. There is a big trans population here in Minneapolis/St. Paul so I think that helps.

I feel accepted as much as I think I could be. Not everyone knows and I keep it that way. Especially at work and in my neighborhood. I'm not sure what they would do and I'm not about to find out. I suppose you could say I'm "stealth". I have just recently changed my name and sex on my driver’s license so that helps tremendously. Still waiting for my birth certificate so I can legally change it at work. Everyone who does know are very supportive and ask me questions if they have any...I have always welcomed any questions they might have, even if it could possibly be offensive or embarrassing. It's the only way they learn...it's preventing ignorance. I want questions asked.

Every day is a learning and teaching day.  I think that it is very important to fight for social justice and gender equality at every moment- even if it means explaining for the 100th time what being ' a genderqueer boi' means to me.  At times, in the past, I faced discrimination from individuals in the gay and lesbian community- and on a rare occasion from other 'trans' identifies people.  (Mostly the assimilationists.)

6. Do you feel accepted/supported by your friends and family in regards to your current lifestyle?

I feel accepted and supported by my friends. My family is a different story but perhaps one day they will come around.

Friends, yes. Family, kinda, they support me but still have trouble with the pronouns. I don't push the subject. I don't get mad. Cripes, I don't even look at them or react to the "she" when it comes to my family. Why? I guess I just think they've known me for my whole life and 27 of those years I was a girl...I cut them slack. They do know how important it is to me so they do try. They try so hard. The majority of the time they just say my name and not a pronoun. Hey, whatever works!
On a side note, it's not a lifestyle. It's not really even a choice. This would have been the last thing I would have ever chose for myself or my worst enemy...it sucks to be this way. I would give anything to be "normal". Sometimes I do feel like a freak, that there's something wrong with me, I think why would anyone ever love me or be with me? I'm not what I see in the mirror, I'm not what I feel on the inside...how can you explain such things? Why would anyone ever choose to be this way? Whenever a conversation would arise on this topic of lifestyle and choice of being gay, lesbian, bi or trans I always ask them...what's your favorite color, least favorite? What foods do you love/hate? Why do you feel that way? What makes you straight? They answer, then I ask them WHY do YOU FEEL that WAY??? They get confused. What makes you love the color blue and hate orange??? Idk, they say. I tell them that's exactly how I feel...that's how boys feel who like boys...they just feel that way. There's no explanation. It makes you who you are supposed to be. I believe and so does my mom, that you're born this way. Just like anything else...some love spinach, others hate it. Some like rap music, some hate it....just like everything.

YES.  I am lucky to have found a very supportive group colleagues and friends.

7. Looking back at your past relationships, do you find yourself attracted to a particular gender over others? Have you ever been attracted to/dated others in the trans community?

Well before I started transitioning I identified as a lesbian so I only dated women. After I started transitioning I realized that I was queer and that I liked a person for a person not because of their gender. So yes I am attracted to and I have dated other people in the trans community.

I have always been attracted to girls...in school I made myself say I like a boy so no one think otherwise. Kids are cruel. I didn't need more things to be teased about. I have always been drawn to male bodies. Not that I wanted to be "with" them, but more I want to "be" them. I want to have their body. I have never dated or been attracted to anyone being trans. It's only been straight or bi women. I love girls. 

I find myself sexually attracted to liberal social ideologies (or rather, to those who possess these thoughts.)  I do not see the body- out of social context, so i have never just dated someone based on how they look or what their genitalia may or may not be.  :)