On November 29th, I had the opportunity to listen to Keith Peterson, who discussed in length about Bruno Latour’s highly controversial philosophies, the major one being whether we have actually been revolutionary at all. Bruno Latour argues that we have never been revolutionary, asserting the fact that we actually have never been modern. While this is an interesting approach to defining revolutions, I believe that it is not comprehensive. Firstly, I think that it is highly subjective. How would person A define modernity? How would person B define modernity? Will they find any parallels?

Bruno Latour also finds faults in society’s current system of distinguishing everything between nature and society. He believes that this is something our ancestors never did. For instance, take a look at alchemy, or even astrology. To strengthen his argument, he identifies certain aspects where the distinction between nature and society simply becomes overwhelming. Think about ozone depletion. This is a classic case where nature, science, politics all converge. So, what about the distinction?

While I attempted to follow Bruno Latour’s line of thought in that span of one hour, I was left wondering about the arguments presented. The audience was presented with a whole lot of new concepts beforehand without any background context whatsoever, such as anti-modernism, postmodernism and others. His is a refreshing approach questioning how humans have differentiated between nature and society; however at times I was puzzled at his methodology. While I do approach philosophical subjects with curiosity, the technicality of the discussed sometimes got the better of me. So while I believe that Bruno Latour must have very strong reasons to suggest that we have never been revolutionary, I do not think he was successful in convincing me, which of course says nothing about his arguments.