{"id":1379,"date":"2010-11-29T07:36:38","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T12:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/29\/those-potent-french-narcotics\/"},"modified":"2010-11-29T07:36:38","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T12:36:38","slug":"those-potent-french-narcotics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/29\/those-potent-french-narcotics\/","title":{"rendered":"those potent French narcotics…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Himanshu at Doxic Shock<\/a> shares a couple of great Latourisms… The details may be past their expiry dates (the generalities less so), but they’re still pretty funny.*<\/p>\n

\n

For a French person, saying that facts are constructed is a banality. Relativism is like an infantile disease: for us, who contract it in our high school philosophy class when we are 18, it is harmless. Yet, when it is transferred to the US, it can infect entire departments of philosophy and literature.<\/em><\/p>\n

[France is a] new Columbia, a land of dealers producing hard drugs (‘derridium’, ‘lacanium’) to which graduate students on American campuses cannot resist any better than crack.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(The first is apparently a quote from Nathalie Levisalles, “Le Canular du Profesor Sokal,” Liberation<\/em>, December 3, 1996; the second from Latour’s “Y a-t-il une Science apres la Guerre Froide?”)<\/p>\n

Now if only actor-network theory had spread as quickly as the others… But it’s a Franco-Anglo hybrid – do they reproduce? And what happens when its pushers keep changing its street name and the color of the pill? (Latour keeps modifying his; John Law has completely shed ANT<\/a> in favor of heterogeneities<\/a> and other such things; and now this transmogrification by Harman<\/a>…) Ah, but then it’s that much harder to resist!<\/p>\n

(For the record, I’m a user… Been one for a long time<\/a> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

*Originally this post was titled “those good French drugs,” then “those sweet French drugs.” They are more like potions, love potions… Potent potions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Himanshu at Doxic Shock shares a couple of great Latourisms… The details may be past their expiry dates (the generalities less so), but they’re still pretty funny.* For a French person, saying that facts are constructed is a banality. Relativism is like an infantile disease: for us, who contract it in our high school philosophy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[203],"tags":[16937,16938,16788],"class_list":["post-1379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academe","tag-actor-network-theory","tag-francophobia","tag-latour"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-mf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1329,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/09\/01\/delanda-peirce-etc\/","url_meta":{"origin":1379,"position":0},"title":"DeLanda, Peirce, etc.","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Larval Subjects and several other blogs have begun their reading group of Manuel Delanda's small but ambitious book A New Philosophy of Society. It's not my favorite of his books -- that remains the brilliant A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, followed by the drier, but useful, Intensive Science and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4151,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/05\/25\/the-beatnik-brotherhood\/","url_meta":{"origin":1379,"position":1},"title":"The beatnik brotherhood","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Graham Harman's note reiterating his position that Whitehead, Latour, Deleuze, Bergson, and Simondon (among others) do not make up a coherent philosophical \"lump\" -- \"pack\" or \"tribe\" might be more colorful terms here (if philosophers were cats, how herdable would they be?) -- makes me want to clarify my own\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/05\/tumblr_ljsf0kvMnF1qgjltdo1_500-275x248.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2668,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/02\/27\/sspeculative-rrealism-philosophy-as-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":1379,"position":2},"title":"s(S)peculative r(R)ealism & philosophy-as-life","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It's nice to see Speculative Realism capturing the attention of SF writer and all-round idea impresario Bruce Sterling - see his Speculative Realism as \"philosophy fiction.\" As a long-time SF lover, the idea of \"philosophy fiction\" has always appealed to me. Some of the best writing in the genre has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1350,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/09\/30\/post-continental-voices-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":1379,"position":3},"title":"post-Continental voices out","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Ennis's book of interviews with seven \"post-Continental\" philosophical \"voices\" is out now and orderable on Amazon. (The hard copy will be available in late October.) The seven are Graham Harman, Jeffrey Malpas, Lee Braver, Stuart Elden, Ian Bogost, Levi Bryant, and (gasp) myself. As (U of San Diego's) Peter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4103,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/05\/23\/thinking-with-whitehead\/","url_meta":{"origin":1379,"position":4},"title":"Thinking with Whitehead","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Isabelle Stengers's Thinking With Whitehead arrived in the mail today. The publication of the English translation of this tome, a long nine years after the French original, is a genuine Event in the world of process-relational philosophy (or whatever you'd like to name the \"beatnik brotherhood,\" as Harman calls it,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/05\/9780674048034-180x275.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1056,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/04\/12\/deleuze-whitehead-bergson\/","url_meta":{"origin":1379,"position":5},"title":"Deleuze, Whitehead, Bergson","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Keith Robinson's introduction to the collection Deleuze, Whitehead, Bergson: Rhizomatic Connections, just published by Palgrave Macmillan, provides an excellent and much needed overview of the reception histories of these three thinkers. Robinson's contextualization of them within the analytical and continental philosophical traditions makes clear why each has been marginalized or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}