Died on the night of October 8 to 9 at the age of 75, the French philosopher, sociologist and anthropologist was respected around the world, adored even in the United States. the New York Times called him a “most famous thinker of his time”, whereas, in France, we have taken much longer to understand the importance of his work, the questions he put on the table and which resonate with the century. Throughout his life, Bruno Latour asked the essential questions: what is progress? What is it to be modern? What is science for? What do we do with it? And, above all, what are our limits? Because there are and the strength of Bruno Latour is to have designated them.
The philosopher explains that societies, leaders in particular, deceive themselves to plan, legislate, organize life without taking into consideration everything that makes it possible: water, air, Earth in general. He reminds us that we are not above the lot on this planet. We are part of the lot, we cannot exist anywhere but on Earth. And here is the limit: we won’t have a second, less polluted, spare one.
With this intellectual journey, Bruno Latour has often been presented as the thinker of ecology. In reality, his subject of study is the thought of existence in general, he who asked the question of knowing who we are, where we are and what we decide to do there together. To tackle the subject, it had multiplied in recent years with all audiences and in all forms – conferences, theatrical performances, exhibitions. Each time, the same questions: what do we do with all that we know? What do we actually do when we know about global warming, when we know that a practice here is causing deforestation elsewhere, soil pollution, inequalities or even the proliferation of viruses?
The answer lies in politics but, for Latour, it begins with a personal questioning: what do we really care about? What do we depend on to live? Breathable air, drinking water, a hospital, a school, an internet connection, 5G, an individual swimming pool, a private jet? What are we holding on to? To know how to move forward, how to invent something else, these are the questions that must be answered. This is the challenge left to us by fifty years of thought by Bruno Latour.