Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter 2004)

2004 by The University of Chicago. 0093–1896/04/3002–0020$10.00. All rights reserved.
225
For GrahamHarman. This text was written for the Stanford presidential lecture held at the
humanities center, 7 Apr. 2003. I warmly thankHarvard history of science doctoral students for
many ideas exchanged on those topics during this semester.
Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From
Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern
Bruno Latour
Wars. Somanywars.Wars outside andwars inside.Culturalwars, science
wars, and wars against terrorism. Wars against poverty and wars against the
poor. Wars against ignorance and wars out of ignorance. My question is
simple: Should we be at war, too, we, the scholars, the intellectuals? Is it
really our duty to add fresh ruins to fields of ruins? Is it really the task of
the humanities to add deconstruction to destruction? More iconoclasm to
iconoclasm? What has become of the critical spirit? Has it run out of steam?
Quite simply, my worry is that it might not be aiming at the right target.
To remain in the metaphorical atmosphere of the time, military experts
constantly revise their strategic doctrines, their contingency plans, the size,
direction, and technology of their projectiles, their smart bombs, theirmis-
siles; I wonder why we, we alone, would be saved from those sorts of revi-
sions. It does not seem to me that we have been as quick, in academia, to
prepare ourselves for new threats, new dangers, new tasks, new targets. Are
wenot like thosemechanical toys that endlesslymake the samegesturewhen
everything else has changed around them? Would it not be rather terrible
if we were still training young kids—yes, young recruits, young cadets—for
wars that are no longer possible, fighting enemies long gone, conquering
territories that no longer exist, leaving them ill-equipped in the face of
threats we had not anticipated, for which we are so thoroughlyunprepared?
Generals have always been accused of being on the ready one war late—
especially French generals, especially these days. Would it be so surprising,

226 Bruno Latour / Matters of Fact, Matters of Concern
1. On what happened to the avant-garde and critique generally, see Iconoclash: Beyond the Image
Wars in Science, Religion, and Art, ed. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (Cambridge, Mass., 2002).
This article is very much an exploration of what could happen beyond the image wars.
2. “EnvironmentalWord Games,”New York Times, 15 Mar. 2003, p. A16. Luntz seems to have
been very successful; I read later in an editorial in theWall Street Journal:
There is a better way [than passing a law that restricts business], which is to keep fighting on
the merits. There is no scientific consensus that greenhouse gases cause the world’s modest
global warming trend, much less whether that warming will do more harm than good, or
whether we can even do anything about it.
Once Republicans concede that greenhouse gases must be controlled, it will only be a
matter of time before they end up endorsing more economically damaging regulation. They
could always stand on principle and attempt to educate the public instead. [“A Republican
Kyoto,”Wall Street Journal, 8 Apr. 2003, p. A14.]
And the same publication complains about the “pathological relation” of the “Arab street” with
truth!
3. Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich, Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental
Rhetoric ThreatensOur Future (Washington, D.C., 1997), p. 1.
after all, if intellectuals were also one war late, one critique late—especially
French intellectuals, especially now? It has been a long time, after all, since
intellectuals were in the vanguard. Indeed, it has been a long time since the
very notion of the avant-garde—the proletariat, the artistic—passed away,
pushed aside by other forces, moved to the rear guard, or maybe lumped
with the baggage train.
1
We are still able to go through the motions of a
critical avant-garde, but is not the spirit gone?
In these most depressing of times, these are some of the issues I want to
press, not to depress the reader but to press ahead, to redirect our meager
capacities as fast as possible. To prove my point, I have, not exactly facts,
but rather tiny cues, nagging doubts, disturbing telltale signs. What has be-
come of critique, I wonder, when an editorial in the New York Times con-
tains the following quote?
Most scientists believe that [global] warming is caused largely by man-
made pollutants that require strict regulation. Mr. Luntz [a Republican
strategist] seems to acknowledge as much when he says that “the scien-
tific debate is closing against us.” His advice, however, is to emphasize
that the evidence is not complete.
“Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are set-
tled,” he writes, “their views about global warming will change accord-
ingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific
certainty a primary issue.”
2
Fancy that? An artificially maintained scientific controversy to favor a
“brownlash,” as Paul and Anne Ehrlich would say.
3
Bruno Latour teaches sociology at the E
´
cole des Mines in Paris.