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.