Patrick Jones Approximately 150 words
INTD 105-19: Science Writing
We Have Never Been Modern
We as a collective find it necessary to separate and classify everything around us. In Bruno Latour’s writing, We Have Never Been Modern, he addresses this necessity of ours and explains how it hinders our ability to be a “modern” world. Using a newspaper, Latour explains how problems like the diminishing ozone layer cannot be separated into distinct categories because, “A single thread links the most esoteric sciences and the most sordid politics…” For us to become a modern world we will either have to stop our need to categorize all aspects of society and nature or redefine what it means to be modern.
My view on the parking curb behind Milne Library acting as a division between nature and civilization contradicts Latour main argument in We Have Never Been Modern. My clear division ignores the multitudinous connections Latour argues exists between everything and stops humanity for entering a modern age.