ducks & daemons or: momo, pomo, nomo/: latour

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 "modern, postmodern, nonmodern, premodern: loose terms which take on a more 
 exact meaning as soon as the corresponding concepts of science are 
 considered. through the agreement of 'modernism' politics are created in which 
 political activity is legitimated mostly by a recourse to 'nature'. each 
 conception of the future, in which science or reason will play a greater role 
 for the political order is thus modernist. 'postmodernism' is the continuation 
 of modernism, only that here the trust into the spreading of reason has been 
 lost. in contrary to this, the 'non-modern' refuses to short-circuit the 
 regular political process by using the notion of 'nature', and replaces the  
 modern and postmodern dichotomy of nature and society with the term of the 
 collective [of human and non-human beings; see the stuff i posted the day 
 before yesterday, kfl]. 'premodern' is an exotism which emerges from the 
 invention of 'belief' [opposed to the modernist's 'knowledge']; the one who 
 doesn't salute modernity with enthusiasm is accused of living only in one 
 culture, having only imaginations of belief, but no knowledge about the world." 
 
 --- bruno latour: pandora's hope, (glossary), quoted in re-translation from the 
                    german edition, pp. 377f. ---

 
 with his anti-elitist critique of 'modernist' science and politics, as well as 
 with his special interest into technology's non-human "actants" 
 (symetrically networking with human "actors"), latour is, in my opinion, rather 
 close to pynchon's artistic modelling of modern "socio-technicity". ducks & 
 daemons, so to speak ... 

kfl  //:: ps: isn't it refreshing to see someone questioning the           
          momo/pomo-alternative in such a radical way?!