{"id":13546,"date":"2021-09-07T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-07T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/?p=13546"},"modified":"2021-10-15T01:06:06","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T09:06:06","slug":"is-modernity-a-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/07\/is-modernity-a-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Modernity a Myth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The biggest sin a book can commit is to be boring. A wrong book that makes you think is still worth the journey. With this in mind, I read French philosopher Bruno Latour\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/We_Have_Never_Been_Modern\">We Have Never Been Modern<\/a> during a recent vacation (you know, for some light summer reading). I found the book fascinating, even if I\u2019m not quite sure I agree with it.<\/p>\n<p>In this book, Latour grapples with our very conception of modernity.<\/p>\n<p>What does it mean to live in a modern society? How are we different from our ancestors and all the supposedly \u201cpre-modern\u201d people around the world today?<\/p>\n<p>Despite being published thirty years ago, <em>We Have Never Been Modern<\/em> feels timely. Media is fractured, information is exploding, and we\u2019re cajoled to \u201cfollow the science\u201d even though few have the skills to figure out what the science actually says. Are we living in a hypermodern time our tribal brains can\u2019t comprehend? Or are we in a post-modern, post-truth society where everything is relative and anything is permitted?<\/p>\n<p>Latour argues that our self-conception is a myth. We\u2019re not living in a post-modern age, he argues, because modernity has never begun.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Does It Mean to Be Modern?<\/h2>\n<div class=\"inline-podcast\">\n<small>Listen to this article<\/small><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"20\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1139833762%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-yVCJBF4qPUP&#038;color=%23219895&#038;inverse=false&#038;auto_play=false&#038;show_user=true\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>One way to argue that we\u2019re modern is to simply look outside. We fly in planes, splice genes, and talk to people on the other side of the planet instantaneously. In this sense, we\u2019re definitely different from medieval peasants or hunter-gatherers.<\/p>\n<p>But modernity has often implied more than just technology. Pre-modern cultures have beliefs; we moderns have science. Those other cultures freely blend objective facts with socially useful superstitions. We moderns aren\u2019t so confused.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Latour argues that we never actually left the kind of society studied by anthropologists. An analysis of modern culture should be, in principle, just as possible with modern society as it is for tribes in the jungle. The reason we find it difficult, he argues, is that modernity is based on a paradoxical self-understanding, which he calls the modern constitution.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Modern Constitution<\/h2>\n<p>A constitution sets the framework for how a government functions. Likewise, we can imagine our own culture\u2019s unwritten constitution as defining the separation of powers, obligations and tacit requirements needed to make our world work.<\/p>\n<p>This modern constitution, Latour argues, is based on a series of self-supporting (and self-contradicting) principles.<\/p>\n<p>The first principle is the presumed separation between Nature and Society. Science allows us to separate the facts which exist independently of what people think of them. In contrast, democracy and liberalism allow us to construct the interpersonal order however we wish.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-1-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13547\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-1-copy.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-1-copy-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-1-copy-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Latour traces this division to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_Boyle\">Robert Boyle<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thomas_Hobbes\">Thomas Hobbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Boyle created an air pump that became a model for scientific investigation. For the first time, instruments witnessed by bystanders could create incontestable facts. This created a foundation for an \u201cobjective\u201d reality separate from human subjectivity.<\/p>\n<p>Hobbes, in contrast, imagined a purely constructed social order. In his <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)\">Leviathan<\/a>, he argued that citizens would bestow all authority to a single ruler to escape anarchy. Fealty to a king was hardly novel. But what was different was the <em>reason<\/em> for fealty. Hobbes imagined a political order that was grounded in a social contract, not appeals to God or nature.<\/p>\n<p>Support for absolutist monarchy may have waned, but the idea that society is whatever we agree it should be is an assumption deeply rooted in the modern psyche. <\/p>\n<p>Modernity, Latour asserts, is the product of their stalemated debate. Boyle wanted facts that would speak for themselves. Hobbes imagined a self-generated society independent from material circumstance. Nature and Society get pulled apart.<\/p>\n<p>This first distinction leads to others. Nature is transcendent\u2014we do not create it, only discover it. The air pump speaks the truth about the world we cannot argue over. Ignoring, of course, the technical difficulties needed to get it to work, the observers needed to interpret it, and the network of scientific communications to disseminate its universal findings.<\/p>\n<p>Society, in contrast is immanent, it is a phenomenon inherent to humanity and independent of nature. Following Hobbes\u2019 model, Latour argues, we design our political life entirely from scratch. If Nature is wholly outside our grasp, Society is entirely within it. Indeed, for something to be social, it is defined as something we construct by shared agreement.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-2-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13548\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-2-copy.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-2-copy-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-2-copy-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Of course, these distinctions aren\u2019t stable. Nature is transcendent, but we increasingly gain the power to modify, control and shape it to our desires. Society is immanent, but we increasingly discover iron laws of politics and economics that seem to prevent us from freely choosing its shape.<\/p>\n<p>Latour argues that this absolute separation of transcendent Nature and immanent Society is self-contradictory. It can only be maintained because of an additional, harder-to-see separation in modern society.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Purification and Mediation<\/h2>\n<p>Latour argues that our entire modern constitution is propped up by a further distinction between purification and mediation.<\/p>\n<p>The world is full of quasi-objects\u2014stubborn phenomena that are neither purely \u201cobjective\u201d nor purely \u201cconventional\u201d but awkwardly straddle the line. <\/p>\n<p>Consider a scientific journal article. Nearly everyone recognizes that social processes as well as natural ones constrain its creation\u2014a paper might get ignored because it goes against the favored view of the most eminent theorist in the field. Is that a matter of scientific fact or social process? Neither\u2014it\u2019s somewhere in-between.<\/p>\n<p>Purification is the process of separating nature from society. Separating \u201cscience\u201d from the social world of the scientists needed to create it, as well as \u201cdemocracy\u201d from the various material factors that constrain it.<\/p>\n<p>Mediation is the glue that holds the poles of Nature and Society together. Its the voting machine that tabulates the public will, the journal article that summarizes scientific fact. These factors tend to be ignored in modern discourse, or when they are focused on, it is merely on their ability to transmit objective facts or social agreement, rather than acting as complex agents in their own right.<\/p>\n<p>Consider Boyle\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencehistory.org\/distillations\/pumped-up\">air pump<\/a>: it can create a vacuum, something Aristotle thought logically impossible. But it also leaks occasionally. And it\u2019s hard to interpret. How do we <em>know<\/em> that there\u2019s nothing in the empty chamber? Indeed, mercury, which Boyle used in the experiment, has an associated vapor pressure, so in this case the \u201cpurely objective fact\u201d of the vacuum is actually false!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13549\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-3.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-3-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-3-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>The social process of purification is to tidy up all of this messy work of imperfect instrumentation, theoretical nitpicking, and arguments between experts to leave us with a pure product: a scientific fact. A fact is an entity that erases its own construction and thus is no longer up for debate.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13550\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-4.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-4-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-4-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Likewise, Society has similar processes we use to squeeze the ambiguity out of the material considerations needed in democracy\u2014such as enforcing human rights or ensuring fair elections.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, because our \u201cmodern constitution\u201d can only deal with pure processes, these hybrid, quasi-objects belonging to neither Nature nor Society must be ignored or treated as empty intermediaries, i.e., they channel a pure essence without contributing anything to the end result.<\/p>\n<p>Latour argues that the dirty work performed by these unacknowledged hybrids is what runs our societies. But because of our commitments to the constitution, we rarely recognize it as such.<\/p>\n<p>When we reunite the work of purification and mediation, we see that the principle difference between our society and earlier ones is scale, not kind. We have created a vastly more complicated network linking all the elements of our science and culture. Still, we have not created a distinct kind of culture that can see \u201cobjective reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13551\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-5.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-5-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/MM-5-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Should We Make of This?<\/h2>\n<p>As I said from the outset, I find Latour\u2019s arguments interesting, even if I\u2019m not entirely persuaded.<\/p>\n<p>I had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/14\/recent-reading\/\">similar difficulty<\/a> with Latour\u2019s take on science in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Laboratory_Life\">Laboratory Life<\/a>. On the one hand, he did a good job explaining how all the sociological factors that affect any human endeavor also impact science: Researchers fight for credit. Scientists accept or ignore evidence based on tacit considerations of others\u2019 work. What \u201ccounts\u201d as a finding is itself a negotiated stance, with different researchers pushing for different levels of evidence or methodological rigor. All of which is pretty banal and obvious.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, it seemed that Latour extended this argument to say that the fact that sociological factors influence science implies that science is arbitrary. That, with a different set of starting assumptions and political dynamics, we might end up with a totally different kind of science.<\/p>\n<p>This seems crazy to me. Whatever reality is, it certainly constrains the outcomes of our theories and facts at least as much as sociological explanations do.<\/p>\n<p>But maybe Latour isn\u2019t actually saying that? Again, I find it hard to interpret his views here on a continuum from \u201cscience is shaped by human concerns in the boring and obvious ways you expect\u201d to \u201cscience is totally arbitrary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps I\u2019m finding it difficult to understand Latour\u2019s views here, in part because I\u2019m still committed to the dualism between Nature and Society he argues against. I think the only two options are \u201cscience is real\u201d and \u201cscience is made up\u201d because I\u2019m still trying to see things only in terms of pure products of Nature or Society, and pretending all the hybrid elements needed to get both to work don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of whether Latour is right or crazy wrong, I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll keep thinking about it. By that standard, <em>We Have Never Been Modern<\/em> is an excellent book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The biggest sin a book can commit is to be boring. A wrong book that makes you think is still worth the journey. With this in mind, I read French philosopher Bruno Latour\u2019s We Have Never Been Modern during a recent vacation (you know, for some light summer reading). I found the book fascinating, even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-personal-development","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is Modernity a Myth? - Scott H Young<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Do we live in a post-modern age? 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