Friday, June 1, 2012

Analysis of Bruno Latour’s "Where are the Missing Masses?”


As humans, we like to perceive ourselves as in control of our environment. We have free will and can make use of technology at our own discretion to help alleviate our problems and issues. However, some would argue that technology plays such a major role in our lives, that it is in control of us. Bruno Latour’s "Where are the Missing Masses?” argues that we must consider “nonhumans” when analyzing the social structure of society. Technologies contain the ideas and morals of their creator, and these ideas are passed on to us as we attempt to learn how to make technology a part of our lives.

The idea that technology is in control of us may seem counter-intuitive at first. Technology is built by humans to serve a purpose, in a way that asserts our control of physics, natural resources and engineering. However, technologies are only effective when used in the proper manner. Latour cites doors as an example of these ideas; doors serve the purpose of a temporary wall, however they will not function correctly if one walks straight into a door. Through conditioning, we to twist the door nob then push before passing through a doorway. Technologies “teach” us through our attempts to use them, and this develops in to parts of our personality. Nobody tries to push doors that have knobs, the doors have trained us not to. Some personality traits are more subtle than turning a door knob, such as frequently checking a cell phone for new text messages or emails. Whether good or bad, it is hard to miss the fact that much of our lives are controlled by the technology around us.

One of Latour’s main claims in his paper is that technology should be analyzed in a similar fashion to humans when developing a social theory. When a person interacts with a second person, we can describe this as “using” that person. They may be using the other person for advise and assistance, or simply entertainment and social interaction. However, people are more likely to interact with those who they know personally, this can be described as interacting with those that they know how to use. This relationship is very similar to a human interacting with technology. Just as a person would be uncomfortable talking to a stranger that they don’t know how to “use”, people approach new technological devices with caution. They slowly gain comfort and develop a relationship with that object until they can easily use that object. In fact, a recent study shows that being shown one’s cell phone causes similar brain activity to being shown a close friend or family member (Lindstrom). We are all familiar with basic social guidelines, such as people will respond better to communication if it is in a kind and friendly manner. Technologies all have similar guidelines that we learn to follow as well, such as a cell phone will respond better to attempts to communicate if it is near a window or outside. When looking at the social frameworks that hold our society together, it is important that we look at the relationships between humans and technology as well as the relationships between humans.

Latour’s view of technology revolves around the idea of displacing our actions on to technology. When an engineer builds or designs a product, they have a set of ideas about how this new product should work, what it should do, and how people should use it. This new product now contains those ideas within it, people will forever have to learn the ideas of this engineer in order to extract the benefit of using his product. The advantage is, of course, that this product also displaces the work required to preform a task. For example, someone attempting to use a power drill is looking to displace the work required to create a hole in an object. However, the engineer of this drill has given it some new requirements, such as providing electrical power to the drill, holding the pistol grip of it, and squeezing the trigger. To someone accustomed to using a hand drill, this new drill removes the problem of strenuous cranking to drill a hole. However, the operator of the drill must become comfortable with the requirements imposed by the drill’s engineer such as finding a source of electricity and holding the drill correctly. Every problem solved by technology creates new problems associated with using that technology.

With the large amount of control that technology has on our lives, we can wonder whether we can consider these devices as having human characteristics. Latour points three reasons why we can characterize some technologies as anthropomorphic. First, technologies are the product of human designers and are made up of the ideas of their creator. Second, these products replace humans at preforming a task so that humans are no longer required. Third, these technologies shape our mind and relationships with the world around us. Latour lists those characteristics while referring to a door closer, however they an be applied to any type of object or technology. Latour continues by comparing technologies to written text. While writing is not a living being, it expresses ideas, opinions and the characteristics of the author. Just as a book can convince you to act in a different way, technology expresses the ideas of it’s creator, teaching you to act in a different way. If we can accept writing as anthropomorphic, than the same principle can be applied to technology.

Unlike earlier philosophers, Latour’s goal is not to express the benefits or problems with technology or our relationship with it. “Where Are The Missing Masses?” is intended to present the reader with a new way of understanding social relationships and accounting for the different aspects that play a role in our lives. Technologies are the product of men, and Latour shows us that these technologies contains the ideas and attributes of the men who made them. Only when we accept the way technologies can affect us can we fully understand how our society functions.

Works Cited
Lindstrom, Martin. "You Love Your IPhone. Literally." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 30 Sept. 2011. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/opinion/you-love-your-iphone-literally.html>.

5 comments:

  1. Hey David, thanks a lot for this summary! Have a short quiz about it tm and am so stuck in other work that I wouldn't have been able to read the 30 pages of Latour. Hope that will do but it looks great! :)

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  3. Beautifully summarized, appreciate it!

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