Reflexão sobre o culto moderno dos deuses fe(i)tiches.

Science and Cultural Theory

by Bruno Latour

On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods continues the project that the influential anthropologist, philosopher, and science studies theorist Bruno Latour advanced in his book We Have Never Been Modern. There he redescribed the Enlightenment idea of universal scientific truth, arguing that there are no facts separable from their fabrication. In this concise work, Latour delves into the “belief in naive belief,” the suggestion that fetishes—objects invested with mythical powers—are fabricated and that facts are not. Mobilizing his work in the anthropology of science, he uses the notion of “factishes” to explore a way of respecting the objectivity of facts and the power of fetishes without forgetting that both are fabricated. While the fetish-worshipper knows perfectly well that fetishes are man-made, the Modern icon-breaker inevitably erects new icons. Yet Moderns sense no contradiction at the core of their work. Latour pursues his critique of critique, or the possibility of mediating between subject and object, or the fabricated and the real, through the notion of “iconoclash,” making productive comparisons between scientific practice and the worship of visual images and religious icons.

Genres: Philosophy, Anthropology, Religion, Science, Sociology, Academic, Nonfiction

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Bruno Latour, a philosopher and anthropologist, is the author of Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Our Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, and many other books. He curated the ZKM exhibits ICONOCLASH and Making Things Public and coedited the accompanying catalogs, both published by the MIT Press.

Reviews

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic collection of three connected essays by Latour.

The first is a rehash of We Have Never Been Modern, although with more anthropological anecdotes and examples, and with the alleged modern condition being marked by a lamentable belief in belief (vs. knowledge).

The second is about iconoclasm, and how there are multiple descriptions of what one could be doing when destroying an image - is it the destruction of all images, of a freeze-frame image in order to force access to a living one, the targeting of an opponent's image specifically, or inadvertent description? As he nicely puts it (with capital letters standing in for various iconoclastic gestures listed above):

Through sound as well as image, I want to restore this sense of ambiguity: who is screaming against destruction and why? Are these the lamentations of the eternal philistines shocked to be forced out of their boring and narrow circle of habits? Hear, hear! are these the wailings of humble worshippers deprived of their only source of virtue and attachment—the sacred relics, the precious fetishes, the fragile factishes — that used to keep them alive, and which are now broken by some blind and arrogant reformer?" Hear, hear! the weeping sound made by the As realizing that they will never attain the gentle violence of the prophetic Bs, and that they have simply emptied the world and made it even more terrifying. Hear again, behind the cacophonic laments, the sardonic laugh of the blasphemous Es, so healthy, so happy to deploy their juvenile charivari. And behind it all, what is it, this other sound? Hear, hear! the prophetic trumpet waking us out of our deadly attachment to resuscitate a new sense of the beauty, truth, and sanctity of images. But who makes this horrible raucous noise? Hear, hear! what a racket, the blaring sound of the provocateurs, looking for new prey.

Yes, it is a pandemonium: our daily world.

But the most interesting part of the book is the third essay, where he puts forward an argument for the separation of religion (the Christian religion at least) from science, using his own work. He argues that science is in the business of grasping the world through its use of multiple translations, while he understands religion as similar to love, in that it is concerned with "speaking[ing] from a new state that it generates by its ways of talking." This lets him produce one of the most interesting takes on religion, and religion vs. science I've ever read:

Religion does not even attempt to race for knowledge of the beyond, but attempts to break all habits of thought that direct our attention to the far away—to the absent, to the over-world— in order to bring attention back to the incarnate, to the renewed presence of what was previously mis-understood, distorted, and deadly—of what was, what is, what will be—toward those words that carry salvation. Science does not directly grasp anything accurately, but slowly gains its accuracy, its validity, its condition of truth by the long, risky, and painful detour through mediations: of experiments, not experience; laboratories, not common sense; theories, not visibility. If it obtains truth, it is at the price of mind-boggling transformations from one media into the next.

...What a comedy of errors! When the debate between science and religion is staged, adjectives are almost exactly reversed: it is science that reaches the invisible world of beyond, that she is spiritual, miraculous, soul-fulfilling, and uplifting;' it is religion which should be qualified as being local, objective, visible, mundane, un-miraculous, repetitive, obstinate, and sturdy.

...Thus, even to assemble a stage, in which the deep and serious problem of "the relation between science and religion" could unfold, is already an imposture—not to say a farce—that distorts science and religion beyond all recognition.

[Maddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I dont hate the ideas presented, and it started out really good.

But this is a pain to read, maybe its just me but it feels very rushed, especially because that most of the book is tacked on introductions to other books.
The first essay should have been out as an essay in a journal, this is not a work that stands on its own as a complete frame of thought

[Daniel Seifert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Icons without process or “Thou Shall Not Freeze-Frame” or How Not to Misunderstand the Science and Religion Debate, Bruno Latour (Chap 2) is also in Science, Religion, and the Human Experience, James D. Proctor, Ed. Oxford, 2005. Applied to science and “sacred text”, e.g. sola scriptura--text becomes magic, corny and detached. Latour names humankinds attachment to an icon or text without full 'process', potentia as creativity (Whitehead). This largescale ailment results in biases, and adversity to following a stream of consciousness fully to genuine progress. Latour challenges the reader to consider using skillful means to obtain a knowing of the complexity that only comes with the journey via e.g. dialectic. Hence the lack of integration at the most basic levels of human existence plagues our society. The universality of yin and yang polarity, e.g., is unreflected or a movement toward integration of the way via process (flux) and reality; hence we may miss the mark in our practical walk and duties of and with self and other. The mind may well be gravitating to more of a single-hemispheric mentally, submerged in a one-sided mind worshiping the givenness of something without following it out to its value, abundance, life itself.

Examples of Latour's corrective: religion becomes love as a performative (versus merely referential) manner of speech that brings immediacy, not the distant God as is generally assumed and science is an unending process of cascading chains of transformation by which matter becomes form.

Note to the religious, western Christian: Church without interpretive community and competency to converse with the broader world/society and to live in harmony with nature [religious affiliation, predominance in American Christianity, esp. evangelicalism] and to reason in flux [process & reality] [Also, Tradition without progressive revelation (again “process”) the apocalyptic—unveiling of time (future)]

[Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorite part about this book is the title. Such a slam, and I'm here for it.

As for what Latour was trying to say, well, if you're familiar with his writing then you know he doesn't speak plainly, and it never seems like he has the intention to be understood.

I gather he was trying to say that, in the same way that religious people hold their gods and talismans to be a sacred, even scientists and philosophers have things which they hold to be sacred. If he had said it like that, then maybe it could have been a constructive conversation about what separates the "sacredness" of a scientist's trust in the scientific method, and a religious person's belief in their god.

As it was, all I really got from this was a few interesting anecdotes, and the product of my own thinking as my mind wandered due to the incoherence of the writing.

1.9

[Mariam Rawwas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Latour attempts to point out the hypocrisy in critiquing the fetish-object (worshipping as divine that which you have yourself created) while simultaneously relying on the fact-object (worshipping as truth that which you have yourself created), in a continuation of his argument from We Have Never Been Modern which seeks to install a continuity between "modernity" and its predecessor, but this flattening out of the epistemological break seems a bit reductive, even if I appreciate the attempt at reflexive sociology.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is slightly better than We Have Never Been Modern, perhaps because as a series of essays, Latour has to get into his argument and get back out without pages of superfluity. The essays themselves range from impenetrable to interesting. Latour likes to invent new vocabularies, then sprinkle them around his work so that you have to keep working to remember what the words mean in this new context. Not my favorite way to read a book.

[Luciana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Latour tem uma escrita bem divertida para um teórico tão relevante. Terminamos o livro com a impressão de que tudo que foi lido é óbvio demais, tamanha sua capacidade de articular sua teoria com o cotidiano. Recomendo fortemente para quem quer se aprofundar nos estudos de viés cognitivo em novas tecnologias e críticas à quantificação do mundo.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

All religions have fetishes? .....Something like that.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t understand why this book received raves by some academics

[Theresa MacPhail · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've read - and enjoyed - We've Never Been Modern, then you should probably check this book out. It's a more recent update on the themes explored there and Latour's definition of "factish" and his deployment of the term to further trouble our notions of modernity are worthwhile. If you happen to be into exploring representations then you'll also enjoy his second "chapter" on iconoclash - wherein he puts images in religion, science, and art into a productive juxtaposition to look at the relationship and understanding we have of things that are "man-made." As an aside, the last bit on The Word was less compelling, at least for me. It might be skipped without losing any of the import of the book as a whole.

[Mert · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 Stars (%62/100)

Bruno Latour's On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods critiques the modern scientific worldview and its reliance on "facts" as the foundation of knowledge. Latour argues that modern society, by treating facts as sacred and unquestionable, creates a false separation between science and religion, failing to acknowledge the hybrid nature of knowledge systems. While the essay is intellectually stimulating and provocative, its dense philosophical language and abstract ideas may be challenging for casual readers, making it more suitable for those already familiar with Latour's theories.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a short one but a good one. It doesn't break as much ground as I thought it would but like all of his work, it's super helpful in thinking about "representation" as the underlying dominant relational framework in so much of Western thought. Easy to think alongside, but hard to think past.

[Kim Lacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

/Factish Gods/ is a great complement to /We Have Never Been Modern/. Not only does it extend /Modern/'s argument, but it's very clearly written (one of my favorite qualities of Latour). I will be using this argument for more ideas about visual rhetoric.

[Brigi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only found the first chapter of the book online(I think that would have been the only useful essay anyway), so my rating is for that one alone. It was really clear and easy to understand at the beginning, but then it just confused me. I have a feeling this is not actually for lit students.

[Ben Toth]

interesting, great title

[Laçin Tutalar]

back to the core of anthropology.