We Have Never Been Modern

About “We Have Never Been Modern”

With the rise of science, modern people believe the world changed forever, separating them from their premodern ancestors. Bruno Latour questions this belief in his book, an anthropology of science. He argues that much of modernity is based on faith. He explores what it means to be modern and how the scientific method makes a difference. Latour explains that modernity relies on clear distinctions between nature and society, human and thing—distinctions that premodern people did not make. However, there is another practice in modernity that mixes politics, science, technology, and nature. Latour uses the ozone debate, global warming, and deforestation as examples of these hybrids. As these hybrids grow, keeping nature and culture separate becomes difficult. Instead of trying to maintain these divisions, Latour suggests rethinking modernity itself. His book offers a new view of science that recognizes the connections between nature and culture, and between different cultures past and present.