Purification and Translation

Title

Purification and Translation

Description

The hypothesis of this essay is that the word 'modern' designates two sets of entirely different practices which must remain distinct if they are to remain effective, but have recently begun to be confused. The first set of practices, by 'translation', creates mixtures between entirely new types of beings, hybrids of nature and culture. The second, by 'purification', creates two entirely distinct ontological zones: that of human beings on the one hand; that of nonhumans on the other. Without the first set, the practices of purification would be fruitless or pointless. Without the second, the work of translation would be slowed down, limited, or even ruled out. The first set corresponds to what I have called networks; the second to what I shall call the modern critical stance. ...
So long as we consider these two practices of translation and purification separately, we are truly modern - that is, we willingly subscribe to the critical project, even though that project is developed only through the proliferation of hybrids down below. As soon as we direct our attention simultaneously to the work of purification and the work of hybridization, we immediately stop being wholly modern, and our future begins to change. At the same time we stop having been modern, because we become retrospectively aware that the two sets of practices have always already been at work in the historical period that is ending. Our past begins to change.

Designer

Latour, Bruno

Date

1991

Source

We Have Never Been Modern

Bibliographic Citation

Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Harvard University Press. Figure 1.1. Pages 10-12.

Latour, Bruno. 1991. Nous n'avons jamais ete modernes: Essais d'anthropologie symmetrique. La Decouverte.

is composed of

Circle

has attribute

Solid Line

Angled Line

depict things of type

Typological or Classification

Coverage

cognition