antw. Re: MDDM Ch. 76 ..a sort of Shadow ever in the Room [747.27]

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 actually - in case anybody out there gives a fuck - i just published an article 
 on latour. see "luhmann goes latour --- zur soziologie hybrider beziehungen", 
 pp. 101-118, in rammert, werner/ingo schulz-schaeffer (hrsg.) (2002): können   
 maschinen handeln? soziologische beiträge zum verhältnis von mensch und   
 technik, frankfurt a.m./new york: campus. guess it's already in stores. in case 
 you read german and want to check my thoughs, drop me a note offlist and i'll 
 pass you the document along --- 


kfl ..... what? of course this is a p-mail: the question whether machines are   
         able to act is essentially pynchonian. in my opinion, that is.


>
> Dave Monroe schrieb:
>
> > Latour, Bruno.  We Have Never Been Modern.
> >    Trans. Catherine Porter.  Cambridge, MA:
> >    Harvard UP, 1993 [1991].
> >
> > http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/LATWEH.html
> >
> > http://www.hup.harvard.edu/reviews/LATWEH_R.html
> >
> > "Modernity comes in as many versions as there are
> > thinkers or journalists, yet all its definitions
> > point, in one way or another, to the passage of time.
> > The adjective 'modern' designates a new regime, an
> > acceleration, a rupture, a revolution in time. When
> > the word 'modern,' 'modernization,' or 'modernity'
> > appears, we are defining, by contrast, an archaic and
> > stable past. Furthermore, the word is always being
> > thrown into the middle of a fight, in a quarrel where
> > there are winners and losers, Ancients and Moderns.
> > 'Modern' is thus doubly asymmetrical: it designates a
> > break in the regular passage of time, and it
> > designates a combat in which there are victors and
> > vanquished. If so many of our contemporaries are
> > reluctant to use this adjective today, if we qualify
> > it with prepositions, it is because we feel less
> > confident in our ability to maintain that double
> > asymmetry: we can no longer point to time's
> > irreversible arrow, nor can we award a prize to the
> > winners. In the countless quarrels between Ancients
> > and Moderns, the former come out winners as often as
> > the latter now, and nothing allows us to say whether
> > revolutions finish off the old regimes or bring them
> > to fruition. Hence the scepticism that is oddly called
> > postmodern even though it does not know whether or not
> > it is capable of taking over from the Moderns."
> >
> > http://english.ttu.edu/clarke/WeHaveNeverBeenModern,chapter1.htm
> >
> > http://www.ensmp.fr/PagePerso/CSI/Bruno_Latour.html/
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "David Morris" Sent: Sunday, September 22,
> > 2002 6:05 AM
> > Subject: Re: MDDM Ch. 76 ..a sort of Shadow ever in
> > the Room [747.27]
> > > 
> > > What is _NOT_ modern?
> >
>
>
>  + while "pandora's hope" is a milestone of science- & technology-studies,
>  this 
>  one is latour's weakest. if there's one solid result of sociological
>  research  
>  -  read marx, weber, durkheim, parsons or luhmann (btw, 'stanford university
>   
>  press' is closing down their humanities section which implies that important
>   
>  works of luhmann, for example 'die gesellschaft der gesellschaft', will not
>  be 
>  translated into english: even culturally the continents are drifting apart
>  ...) 
>  - it's the theory of modernity. taking off from renaissance, the printing  
>  press, reformation and the colonialization of the american continent, modern
>   
>  society develops, on a more and more global scale, self-referential   
>  sub-spheres (in luhmann's terminology: "funktionssysteme"), like economy,   
>  politics, law, science, art or education which operate with corresponding  
>  communication-media (money, power, 'truth', 'beauty' etc) and which can
>  neither 
>  be integrated with each other properly, nor changed in their basic
>  structures, 
>  nor stopped ... "it is too late" ... we passed the 'point of no return' by
>  the 
>  time of 1850: now culture is, as adorno put it, definitely "misslungen"  
>  (miscarried, failed). henry adams knew that, too.      
>
> kfl *
>
>