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The anti-fetishist bias of the deontology of the social sci­ences (Latour 1999)

The anti-fetishist bias of the deontology of the social sci­ences (Latour 1999)

“When the sage points at the Moon,” says the Chinese proverb, “the fool looks at his fingertip.” Well, we [social scientists] have all educated ourselves to be fools! This is our deontology. This is what a social scientist learns at school, mocking the unwashed who naively believe in the Moon. We know that when actors speak about the Virgin Mary, divinities, saligrams, UFOs, black holes, viruses, genes, sexuality, and so forth we should not look at the things thus designated – who could be so naive nowadays? – but should look instead at the finger, and from there, following down the arm along the nerve fibers, to the mind of the believer, and from there down the spinal cord to the social structures, the cultural systems, the discursive formations, or the evolutionary bases that make such beliefs possible. […] Could we not say, quite simply, that people are tired of being ac­cused of believing in nonexistent things, Allah, jinns, angels, Mary, Gaia, gluons, retroviruses, rock ‘n’ roll, television, laws, and so on? (LATOUR, Bruno. 1999. Pandora’s hope: essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp.286-7)

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