LATOUR, Bruno. On techinical mediation.pdf

FaIl1991+

V3 N2

COMMON

KNOWLEDGE

CoruuNs

The RecruitingofJarka,

Code Name Hammer,

As Voluntary PoliceInformer:

A Patho-Biography l)87

J usef

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Anartya Sen

i Lr,tre&l

Translated by Kâèa Polâëkovâ-Henley

l4)

Self-Subversion

Albert O. Hirschttun

A Future f-or Philosophy

Lzc Ferrl'

Translatedby Franklin Philip

r6)

Potentially Every Culture

Is All Cultures

Paul Feyerabend

FrcloN/Poprny

The Blancmange

Kathryn Dartis

lj0

Anrrclts

Snowball

Jeanne Heut,ing

r12

Paul Feyerabend,Humanist

lan Hatking

IUediarion-

Philosophy,Sociology,Genealogy

Brxn0LJt1ilr

On Technical

Rsvrews

Chomsky and Derrida

ChristopherNorris

r19

)L)

Cultural Change-

The Thought-Styles of

Mannheimand Kuhn

Barry Barnes

Little Reviews

Ric/:ard Rotl

Kathl Eden

Jake A1.lYtien

Char/esBernsTein

trIarjarie PerloJJ'

Hanna Sega/

Pat/ Felerabenr,l

TheEditors

lt0

Modernismand the

Rejectionof Ornament:

The RevolutionThat Never Happened

Janes Tri//ing

Doubtrng Thomasand the

Senscs

of Knowing

E/lenSpo/tk1

1 i 1

NorEs oN CoNTRTBUToRS

182

ON TpcHNICAL MsotartoN

GENEALoGY

PHIrosoPHY, SoctorocY,

BrunoLatour

fter Daedalus'escape fiom rhe labyrinth, accordingto Apollodorus, Minos used

one of Daedalus'own subterfuges to find his hiding place and take fevenge.

lv{inos,in disguise, heralded near and far his offer of a reward to anyonewho couid

thread the convolr-rted

shelloia snail.Daedalus, hiddenar the court of King Cocalus

and unaware that the offer was a rrap, managed the trick by replicating Ariadne's

cunning: he attacheda thread to an ancand, afterallowing it to penetrate the shell

through a hole at its apex,he induced the ant to weave its way through this tiny

labyrinth. Triumphant, Daedalusclaimed his reward,but King Minos,equally trium-

phant, askedfor Daedalus' exrradition ro crete. cocalus abandonedDaedalr-rs;

strli, rhe

artful doclger managed, with the help of Minos' daughters, to divert the hot water

from pipes l.rehad insralled in rhepalace, sochatit fell, as if by accident.on Minos in

his bath. (The king died, boiledlike an egg')Only for a brief while did Minos outwit

his masterengineer-Daedalus was ,rlwaysone fuse, one machination,beyond his

rivals.

In the myth of Daedalus, all things deviare from the straight line.The direct path oi

reason and scientilic knowledge-episteme-is not the Path of every Greek. The

clevercechnicalknorv-how of Daedalus is an instance of nntis,of strategy, of the sort

of intelligence for which O<Jysseus

it ' a bag of

tricks) is ntostlarmecl.' No unmediated action is possibleoncewe enter tlre realmof

engineersand crafismen. A ,/aeda/ion,

(of whom tl'teI/iad si;ysthat he is pal1'trcr

in Greek, is son-rethingcttrved, veering tion-r

rhe straisht line, artful but [ake,beautiful and contrived. Daedalusis an inventoro[

to rhank Cprnell Uriversiry. and rspeciallv Sltei{aJasanofiand Trevor Pinch' ior che

opportunin.ro presenrrrnearll,rersion ofthis mirterial as thc April l!!l

The aurhor rvislrcs

Lectures.The ideas

.leuelnp.d h... ".. pu., oian ongoing project with Sliirley Strum on rhe link betu'een Primatology, technol-

ogv. and soc irl theorl.

lv{essenger

I am hcrc firllorving tlte rtmarkable book by FrançoiseFronrisi-Dtrcrotrx.

Dy'dale..\I1tholotgttdt/'trtittnttGti.eiilLienilr

'For the mvth of Dâeclalus,

(Paris:Maspéro-LaDécoLrverte'1975)'

]O COMMONKNO\(/LEDGE

robots that watch over Crete, an

contraptions: statues that seem to be alive, military

ancient version ofgenetic engineering that enables Poseidon's bull to impregnate Pasi-

phae with ths À{jne13u1-for

whom he builds the labyrinth, from which, via another

set of machines, he manages to escape,losing his son Icarus on the way. . . despised,

indispensable, criminal, ever ar war with the three kings who draw their power from

his machinations. Daedalus is our best eponym for techniqae-and

the concept of dae-

dalion our best tool to penetrare the evolution of civilization.

His path leads through

three disciplines: philosophy, sociology, genealogy.

Pnrlosopny

To understandtechniques-technical msxn5-and their placein society,we haveto

be asdevrousasthe ant to which Daedalusattachedhis thread.The straightlinesof

philosophyareof no usewhen it is the crookedlabyrinth of machineryand machina-

tions, of artifactsand daulalia. we haveto explore.That Heidegger'sinterpretation of

technologypassesâsthe deepestofinterpretationsI lind surprising.rTo cut a holeat

the apex of the shell and weavemy tl-rread,

I need to dehne, in opposition to Heidegger,

what nrcdiationmeansin the realm of techniques.

For Heidegger,a technology is neveran instrument, a mere tool. Does that mean

that technologiesmediateactioni'No, because

rvehaveourselvesbecomeinstruments

for no otherendthan instrumentalityitself.Man-no \Woman in Heidegger-is pos-

sessedby technology,and it isa completeillusionto believethat we canmasterit. \We

are, on tlre contrary, Framed by this Gutell. which is in itself one way in which Being

is unveiled.. . . Is technologyinferiorto scienceandpureknowledge?No, because,

for

Heidegger, far from serving as applied science,technology dominates all, even rhe

purely theoreticalsciences.By rationalizingand stockpilingnature,science playsinto

the hands of tecl-rnology,

whose soleend is to rationaiizeand stockpile naturewithout

end. Our modern destiny-technology-appears to Heidegger radically different

frompoesis.

the kind of"making" that ancient craftsmen knew how to obtain.Technol-

ogy is entirely unique, insuperable,omnipresent,superior,a monster born rn our

midsr.

But Heidegger is mistaken.I will try to show how and in what way he is wrong

abouttechnicalmediationby usinga simple,well-known example.

"Guns kill people"is a sloganof thosewl-ro try to control the unrestricted saleoF

guns. To which the National Rille Associationreplieswith anotherslogan, "People

rN{artin Heitleggt.'l'/:t Qrettitt Cnttrnirg'ftthrol,trt

t*lOther E.'.w1t.rrans.\Villiam Lovitt (Nerv York

Harper ftrch Books,197r).

L)N TFCHNI( AL NlEDIATION tI

kill people; norguns."The firsrsloganis materialist:the gun actsby virtue of material

components irreducible to the socialqualities of the gunman' On accountof the gun'

agoodguy, the law-abiding citizen,becomes dangerous The NRA' on the orherhand'

offers (amusinglyenough, giventheir politicalviews) a sociologicalversion moreoltten

associated wirl-rthe Left: for rhe NRA, the gun does nothing in itselfor by virtue of

its material componenrs. The gun is a tool, a medium, a neutralcarrier of will lf the

gunmanisagoodguy,thegunwillbeusedwiselyandwillkillonlyapropos.Ifthe

gunman is a crookor a lunatic,ther.r, with no change in the gun itself, a killing that

would in any caseoccur will be (simply) carriedout moreefÊciently. what does the

gun add to thesh()oringl In rhe marerialist account' everything:an innocrnt citizen

becomes a criminal by virtue ofthe gun in her hand. The gun enables oFcourse, but

alsoinstructs, directs, evenpulls tl-re trigger-and who, witl-ra knife in her l-rand, has

noc wantedar some time to stab someoneor somethingl'Each artifact hasits script'

its,,affordance,"

its potentialto take hold o[passersby and fbrcethem to play rolesin

its srory. By contrast, the sociological version of the NRA renders the gun a neutral

carrier of will rl-rar addsnotl-ring t()the action, playing the roleof anelectrical conduc-

tor, good and evil tlowing through it effortlessly'

The rwo poslrrons areabsurdly contradictory. No materialist claimsthat guns kill

by themselves. 1ù7har

the marerialist claims is that the good citizen is rransformed by

carrying the gun. A good citizen wl.ro,without a gun' might simply be angry may

becomea crininal if he is holtling a gun-as if the gun had the powerto change Dr.

Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. Materialists thus make the intriguing suggestion tl-rarour qual-

ity assubjects,our competences, our personalities' dependon what we hold in our

hands.Reversing the dogma of moralism, tlre materialistsinsist that we are what we

[2v6-e,'[x1 we havein our l'rands,

irt least'

AstotheNRA,thel.cannotmaintainthatthegunissoneutralanobjecttlratit

l.rasno parr in the act of killing. They have to acknowledge that the gun adds some-

thing, though not to the moral stateof the personholding the gun For the NRA'

one'smoralstate isa Platonic essence:

one is born a goodcirizen or a criminal' Period'

As such,the NRA accounr is moralist-wltzrt mattersis what you areJnot what you

have.The solecontribution of rhe gun is to speedthe act. Killing bv {ists or knrves

is slower,dirtier, messrer. vith a Éaun, one kills better,but at no point does it mo-

difyone'sgoal.Thus,NRAsociologistsaremakingthetroublingSugsestionthat

\\,ecanmascer

rhat techniciues arenochingmore than pliableand diligent

technrques,

slaves.

for rhe act of killingi' Is the gun no more than a pieceoi

mediating technologyi, The answer to thesequestions dependsupon what nediation

metrns. A first senseof tttet/iation

\ùrho or whar rs responsrble

(I will offer four) is rl'reprogran rtf action' the seriesof

goals and srepsand intentions,rhar an agentcandescribe in a story like my vignettc

12 COMMON KNOWLEDGE

INTERRUPTION

AGENT I

fâ

DETOTJR

)

r r a-?GoAL3

AGENT2

Fig. 1. First Meaning of Mediation: Translation

of the gun (fig. 1). If the agent is human, is angry wanrs ro take revenge,and if the

accomplishment of the agent'sgoal is interrupted, for whatever reason (perhaps the

agent is not strong enough), rhen the agent makesa detour, a deviation: as we have

alreadyseen, one cannot speakof rechniqueswirhout speaking of daedalia.Agent I

fallsbackon Agent 2,here agun. Agent 1 enliststhe gun or is enlistedby it-it

does

not mâtter which-and a rhird agent emergesfrom a fi:sion of the other two.

The question now becomeswhich goal the new composite agent will pursue.If it

returns, after its detour, to Goal 1, chen rhe NRA story obtains. The gun is a tool,

merely an intermediary.If Agent 3 drifts from Goal I to Goal 2, then the materialists'

storyobtains.The gun'sintent, the gun's will, the gun's script havesuperseded

rhose

of Agent 1;it is human actionthat is no morerhan an inrermediary. Note thar in rhe

diagram it makesno diflferenceif Agent I and Agent 2 are reversed. The myth of the

Neutral Tool under completehuman control and rhe myth of the Autonomous Destiny

that no human canmasreraresymmetrical.But a third possibiliryis morecommonly

realized: the creacionof a new goal that correspondsto neither agent'sprogram of

action. (You hadwantedonly ro hurc but, with a gun now in hand,you want to kill.)

I call this uncertainty about goalsrranslarion.I haveusedthis term a number of times

and encountereachtime the samemisunderstandings.rTranslationdoesnor meana

shift from one vocabularyto another,from one French word ro one English word, for

instance, asif the two languagesexistedindependently.Like Michel Serres,I ùsetrans-

/atianto mean displacement,drift, invention, mediation,the creationof a iink that

did not ex.istbeforeand that to somedegreemodifiestwo elemenrsor agenrs.

\ù/ho, then, is the actor in my vignette? Soraeone

else (a citizen-gun, a gun-citizen).

If we try to understandtechniqueswhile assumingrhar the psychologicalcapacityof

humans is forever6xed, we will not succeedin understandinghow techniquesare

creatednor even how they are used.You are a diftèrent person rvith the gun in your

'ln

atd Engircn Tbrotgh Sorietl,

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, t!)8r). My use oi rhe word trant/atiot comes from N{ichel Serres

through Ir{ichel Callon's sociokrgical usage: Some Elemenrs of a Sociology of Translation: Domesrrcarron

ofthe Scallopsand the Fishermen ofSt. Brieuc Bay," inPouer. Atton. dndBelitf: A Nru Socio/ogy

particular, in Bruno Latour, Sdra,z in Action: Hou to Follou Scienti.rt:

ofKnou'ledge?

ed. John Law (London: Rourledge & Kegan Paul, 1986). 196,)29.

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