I have a confession to make. I never was interested in learning what Bruno Latour had to say, in social science or specifically on ecology, because I was prejudiced against him because of the "Sokal Hoax". For those of you too young to remember 👇👇👇
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Coming from a family of physicists, with no time for idiocy, we were all incredibly gleeful about this showing up of the postmodern nonsense. When I read the subsequent book of Sokal and Bricmont, I thought their treatment of Latour was devastating. I know better now.
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Since Bruno Latour's passing, I have been trying to educate myself, as usual via talks. These two are particularly good. If you only have time for 1, watch the 2nd. But it helps to watch both.
1. Why Gaia is not the Globe
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2. On not joining the dots
youtube.com/watch?v=wTvbK1
I realise now that Latour is a careful & precise cultivator of that rarest of all cultural and academic qualities: imagination. And we need it so very badly right now.
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This is particularly clear, sadly, in the discussion part of the 2nd talk, where the others fall back into old patterns of thought. I envy those of you like who knew him and read him earlier. I'm catching up ... too late, as usual.
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Ce matin nous avons perdu un très grand, Bruno Latour.
Nous ferons le bilan intellectuel plus tard.
Pour l’instant je pense à son immense générosité intellectuelle, à sa malice, et à tout ce que je lui dois - avec tant d’autres.
Merci pour tout Bruno.
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I am wondering if he ever got around to commenting on Graeber & 's Dawn of Everything, or Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, or 's Great Derangement. Because somehow, among these ideas, I am persuaded, is the imagination we desperately need.
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