afterthoughts on a talk of Latour in Cornell

Latour talked to geologists in Cornell

http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/150-CORNELL-2016-.pdf

Reading the talk left me with the following thought:

“Is he perhaps  deluding himself?  This is not how people behave.”

The crashing on Gaia is not like a new common danger that makes all of us unite for the simple reason that if there were less of us in the world  the problem would be smaller. Even more, as Latour himself points, the kind of “solution” he has in mind goes through the elaborate science (and its support system) of Critical Zones and through complicated projects of design and performance. How many people in earth are possible contributors in such an effort (have the necessary training to offer in such an effort)?  How many societies are “the real contributors”? And since there is going to be a distribution of hardships how is this going to be when few are supposed to be the “real contributors” (and perhaps these “real contributors” consider many many others as “part of the problem”)?

Latour says: “What Anna Tsing calls “living among the ruins” is what is going to unite us all in the same way.”  But people in the ruins make  gangs.

Yet it is a beautiful image, this image of turning around and seeing for the first time a new Earth. An image and a message though directed toward the wrong audience.  The audience Latour is talking to are going to be mobilized for the shake of what?  The virtues he wants to rekindle are most probably not virtues of this audience any more.  (Actually we do not know. They are so well fed and comfortably living that it is difficult to fathom  what is in their hearts, what they are willing and capable to stand for under hardship)

Moreover this is perhaps not the right message to this audience. It would be much more fitting to preach that Universities should take ownership of their grand responsibility in the mess we have all ended in.  That would be a new base  for scientists’ relation to the general public and their participation in politics.

Then I think that people,  when it comes to new acquaintances, they  make projections. We will project on this new Earth the gold or filth of our hearts

So I think that his message should be preached to communities of faith.  “If you knew the gift of God” (I speak for the monotheists that I can better empathize with). Earth as a gift that we can appreciate once more,  looking at it with new eyes.  Eyes perhaps provided in Critical Zones as well, by scientists who are valued for their important mundane work. Preached to people who care about the clearness of their hearts and not just the richness of their experiences and the exciting life they are living or the momentus importance of their work.