A slim volume and perhaps Latour's most prescient work,
We Have Never Been Modern examines what Latour terms the "modernist settlement" and the relationships of nature and culture and our own western culture to that of the "others" who exist in contrast to it. Latour's argument rests on the position that modernism as generally defined remains largely misinterpreted and that a thorough examination breaks down the supposed differences between our present and past, and the West with other "less advanced" cultures. In essence modernism rests on the twin movements of purification - that nature and culture become more separable from each other as we move towards a more perfect modernity - and of translation - that we simultaneously create hybrids of nature and culture that extend our networks of influence. This double movement is crucial for, as Latour sees it, it allows moderns to at once claim unique access to knowledge of the world "as it really is" while also mobilizing this knowledge in ways that transcend normal politics and social measure.
As the title suggests, Latour argues that there is no distinction of
kind between western culture and others, rather one of scope, scale and pretension. Latour coherently crafts an argument for why such is the case - his theoretical work on networks and events, if nothing else, can provide interesting brain fodder for numerous disciplines - and how our actual mediation as a part of the world opens avenues for new analysis and potentialities for new politics. By suggesting a new nature-culture "Constitution" Latour attempts to provide an at once commonsensical - once you understand his logic - and novel understanding for the ways that phenomena, whether they be humans or non-humans, technologies, sciences, concepts or locations, are connected and circulate among one another. Though seemingly complex and dense at first,
We Have Never Been Modern provides a wonderful introduction to a powerful mind and one of the major movements of the modern philosophies of science and technology.
