Latour

I'm a bit out of the loop on last week's discussions, but thought that since everyone has been addressing the 3rd & 4th questions (after talking through 1 & 2 in class), that I'd have a brief stab at the first 2 instead. My apologies if I'm reiterating what you've already done!

Through his writing on critique, Latour airs his concerns about the direction that critique will take in future. The article has been motivated by reaction and his "worry," for the future of critique, in light of the discovery that his own work has been used to support claims that not reflect the intent that drove his original writing. He is worried, because this very act has problematised an identification of the distinction between ways of thinking that formerly appeared as opposing forces; "what's the difference between deconstruction and constructivism?" (232) What is the future of critique if reappropriation can be performed to such an extent that one theory can serve to argue its counterpart?

In this sense, Latour's concerns seem to align themselves with the ideas of innovation in the arts, exploring the idea that 'it's all been done before' and within the constraints of the medium, can work to justify or deliver an outcome that assumes a plethora of existing approaches. If you think about pop music, it seems more and more to be about taking riffs, bass lines, melodies that work and giving them new definition to create a completely different meaning from the one that originally sold it. It's a kind of manipulation, but if it works, and Latour admits that in his case it did, what comes next? What is the consequence of exploiting critique to spin notions of fact?


See you soon!