Zidane, Serres, and the beautiful game

Being a long-time fan, some years ago I bought the film portrait of the French footballer Zinedine Zidane, by many considered one of the best individual players in the history of football. A number of cameras follow his every move on the pitch for a whole 90-minute match, some from a long distance, some focusing on his face, his whole body, or his feet, from various angles.

Watching this film is completely different from watching a TV match. On TV, the cameras follow the ball as it moves around on the pitch. It seems like something is always happening. Not so in this film. Following a single player, you realize how much each of them is not directly involved. Isolated from context, the meaning of the game is lost.

Almost 20 cameras on Zidane alone. They even have a microphone on him. Throughout the game, he doesn't say a single word. He smiles to a joking opponent, pats David Beckham's back after their team scores a goal, points a couple of times to suggest passing options for team mates - and that's it. As some film reviews said, this is the perfect portrait of the (paradoxically) lone athlete: closely observed by cameras and billions of spectators (Zidane's North-African background has made him the main football-idol of that whole region alone), yet speaking with nobody, seeing no one, hearing nothing.

Yet the loneliness only serves to bring out what one might not realize was there - the constituting relationality that carries the beautiful game

In a passage in The Five Senses, Michel Serres describes the intuitive sensations of ball games. While the description deals with hand ball and rugby, it can easily be translated into that of playing football. The fact that footballers aren't allowed to grip the ball at all, and so cannot stall its movement even the slightest (except by using the sole of their foot - a move demanding exceptional abilities, at least on higher levels), only emphasizes Serres's point.

"Usually, when the ball is passed - and it flies so quickly so as not to be intercepted - it moves from one pair of skilful hands to another; acute, vigilant glances are exchanged, often preceded by a call, word, cry, brief interjection, vowel and even a coded hand gesture. The ball runs with them, after these signals, at the same time as they do, along the network of fluctuating channels that they trace out. Suddenly the ball takes their place, all other signals are extinguished. The whole team enters a box, a dim cave, the clamour of the spectators becomes distant like the far-off seashore, the opposing team dances like a group of shadows without strength, ghosts; it is at that moment that my body positions itself at the point where the ball will pass, I throw it into the vacuum that another cherubim will fill, immediately and unquestioningly, we no longer look at each other, no longer hear each other, no longer speak to each other or call out to each other - our eyes are shut, our mouths closed, our ears blocked, we have no language, we are monads - we know, anticipate, love each other; we anticipate each other at lightning speed, we cannot go wrong, it is playing: not me or my partners but the team itself. I move to the right, I know that another player knows that I have done so, that the ball will await me. The ball is traveling so fast that it weaves between us bonds of unassailable certainty; as this certainty is seamless, the ball can travel around even more rapidly, and as it travels more rapidly it weaves...No-one who has not experienced such ecstasy can know what being together means." (p324)

Good players not only move the ball around - they adapt to the movement of the ball, the movement of other players, and the multiple forces that generate and influence all the intermingled movements - from gravity to one's knowledge of the opponent's strengths and weaknesses.

Seen one way, the ball is the most stable centre of the many movements. Its movements - together with an increasing number of restrictions - determine the game. Yet it is also the thing that moves the most itself. It is only still when there is some breach of the rules, or it goes beyond the confines of the pitch, and it must be put back into play. It has the highest speed and farthest reach of anything on the pitch. Every year new  footballs are designed that move faster and further. Even when it goes off the pitch, one has had to invent rules for how to get the ball back on so the game can continue.Every decade or so, the official rules are modified so as to keep or increase the tempo of the game - 'locking' the ball is not allowed, it must move freely; the goalkeeper can only grip the ball in his hands for a limited time; he must never grip the ball with his hands when receiving it from a team mate, etc. The movement of the ball trumps all.

The best players adapt, they give way, they allow themselves to be molded, they give themselves up to the ball's dictation. Does this mean that the worship-like veneration of individual football 'idols' is a mere mass-media phenomenon - an illusion, since any player might be made good or bad by the team as a whole? Relationality and reciprocity is on the contrary fundamental both on macro- and micro levels. The skillful individual dribbler makes use of the ball's trajectory, and feigns intervention, for example by pretending to alter its course from left to right. Yet the body's dance is always adapting to the movement of the ball - or to how its movement is predicted by the opponent player. The strong individual player is the one who kenotically loses himself to the other movements, yet receives himself (as a strong player) from these. The strongest have spent daily hours turning this self-giving into embodied habits.

In many ways, the relational, the paradoxical "in-between", is therefore the central factor in football, that which constitutes all other movements. Following thinkers such as Michel Serres, we could see this as an instant (rather than image) of Reality as such. The game is hence a 'concentrated' rather than altered or 'fake' version of Reality. A dialectic between creativity and boundaries, process and static. A liturgical dance.

You can watch the whole film here

The first-hand knowledge of Michel Serres

How to approach this book on the five senses (that aren't really five after all)? I loved it, but it's so hard to explain why. It's more the ideas it gives birth to than what's in it. But let me try:

Take your index finger and place it on your bottom lip.

Do it! You have to do it, or you wont understand this post. Please do it.

Now, without moving, fix your attention on feeling your lip through your finger (do it, take your time, close your eyes if it helps). OK? Now, shift perspective, and feel your finger through your lip. Isn't that amazing?! One moment you are in your finger, feeling your lip - another moment you are in your lip, feeling your finger! Your consciousness, your self-awareness is somehow shifting place, moving from inside your lip and outside your finger to inside your finger and outside your lip. Yet only one event, one touch, is actually happening. So where are you? In this encounter, this relation, this instance of first-hand knowledge, you are both the knowing subject and the known object. You are outside and  inside.

When your finger touches your lip, that is your body sort of folding back on itself, and your self-awareness emerges from within that folding. Of course, not only from that single folding alone - but from the innumerable foldings immersing your whole body: sounds, touches, smells, visions - the air around you, the particular places where your bottom touches the chair you are sitting on, or where your shirt hangs on your shoulders, or in the muscles that strain your eyebrows as you read of the screen, the way you fold your tongue in your mouth. There is no 'you' apart from these complex processes.

This is familiar stuff to those who read too-much-to-be-healthy 'postmodern' theory: There are no stable essences (there is no essential 'you'), and where there appear to be such essences, these are only constituted through violent differentiations and cutting-offs - which nevertheless always leave a trace of the rejected within themselves - however, there is no alternative and so we might as well 'get on with things'. The essence of the self is in other words constituted by a kind of pretense, an unconscious exclusion of something unwanted. In this sense, whenever we claim to know the essence or nature of anything, we are doing violence to something else by excluding it. Violence is at bottom what makes us able to imagine something stable and peace-like.

Interestingly, Michel Serres rejects this view of violence as fundamental and somehow necessary for things to be what they are. Yet he doesn't believe in stable essences either. In a way, he seeks to portray a Reality that is characterized by difference as something harmonic rather than something violent, a philosophy that is radically inclusive rather than dialectic or exclusive. Serres is completely opposed to any idea that violence is a necessary part of Reality as such. Commenting on this, one otherwise positive reader of him has complained that "there is a hole in Serres' philosophy where negativity should be." (How there can be a 'hole' that isn't in itself negative is another question).

For me, this lack of basic negativity signals not a 'lack' in Serres, but rather a subtle overlap of interests with theologians Serres allegedly has not even read. One reason is, as is mentioned above, that Serres seeks to view difference as harmonic rather than violent, as somehow positive rather than negative. This has been a major (of course contested) theme for metaphysical theology over the last decades. Secondly, Serres describes Reality where everything is always being mediated through something else, always  intermingled, hybrid, mutating, emerging. For him, the constitutive in-between - relation, mediation, communication - is Reality's fundamental characteristic. Anyone who have skimmed an issue of the journal Modern Theology would recognize how this resonates with contemporary concerns in Christology and general theological interests in incarnation, sacramentality, mediation, translation, etc.

Serres himself seems blissfully unaware that the paganism he celebrates is already redeemed and made even-more-itself by Christendom. If he does know, it doesn't trouble him. His style is wandering, suggestive, and at all costs avoids enmity and rejection. His flowing descriptions of mundane experiences are unparalleled as far as I know. Perhaps the best thing I can say about this book is this: reading Serres' poetic philosophy-of-Everything makes me want to stop reading and just go and experience the world in all its infinite, mundane, nitty gritty wonder. And, of course, do a doctorate in theology. And then retire and be a gardener. As planned.

Theory and practice - what's up with THAT?!

Norwegian Marxist Georg Johannesen (1931-2005) was once invited to the Norwegian branch of the international PEN association to participate in a debate on the controversial question “Is There Freedom of Speech in Norway?”. He opened by saying that he could only see four possible answers to that question:

(1) Yes, fortunately there is freedom of speech, as there should be.
(2) No, fortunately there is not freedom of speech, and neither should there be.
(3) No, unfortunately there is not freedom of speech, but there should be.
(4) Yes, unfortunately there is freedom of speech, but there should not be.

He went on to say that people who believed that (2), (3), or (4) was true, would never say so in a public debate. Those who believe (2) that there is no freedom of speech in Norway, and that this is fortunate, would not risk ruining everything by speaking up. Neither would those who agree that there is no freedom of speech in Norway, but that this is unfortunate (3). They might wish there was freedom of speech, but they will not use it if they don’t believe it is there. Likewise, those who regret that there is in fact freedom of speech will also not participate in a debate, because that itself would undermine their interests (4). It seems that we are therefore left with people agreeing that there is freedom of speech, and that this is fortunate (1). In that case, it is impossible know how large the three groups of non-participants are, since they either can or will not make themselves known. We cannot, therefore, have any idea whether there is truly freedom of speech in Norway.

“However”, he added, “I know that there is NOT freedom of speech in the Norwegian PEN association, because here we are being told what questions to debate!”

Hold for applause - nope, nothing.

Now, one thing to draw from this story would be that Johannesen is of course absolutely right. A similar argument could be made for example about something so simple as internet access. The internet is accessed by people who all assume that everyone else are able to access the internet. Thus, when Iranians were 'tweeting' about the late turmoils, 'we' saw this as a sign that the internet allowed free speech for everyone, 'even in Iran' - ignoring that the ones who were 'tweeting' were all located in Western democratic states. The simple fact is that most people in the world have no internet access, whether that is because of being too old (most people over 65 don't use the internet, yet the size of this group is increasing annually in many Western countries) or too young, or because they cannot afford it, or are hindered by social customs, or whatever it is - most of us are simply not there. As Wikileaks-founder Julian Assange states, in general, bloggers are really more concerned about what their peer group thinks of them (us!) than whether their blogging has actual consequences. Internet is great for freedom of speech among the wealthy minority that set it up, and have spare time to use it. How large the concealed majority/minority(?) of the voiceless really is, there is simply no way of knowing from within the system. The same is true of the global market.

But there is another interesting thing about Johannesen's argument, and that is the fact that it is so difficult to accept.

We somehow, for some reason, find it hard to take his argument seriously - it is not like we would end the debate after he had spoken. The show must go on. My view is that this reveals how used we are to separating theory from practice, our thinking from our doing. We find it hard to accept his argument because we don't actually expect anyone - or ourselves - to practice their beliefs. We assume that even if people don't believe in free speech, they would still be speaking. That if people were against it, they would deny that by saying so.

We react to his argument with disbelief because we are so used to separating thinking from doing - we don't expect people's thoughts and actions to match up. Oh, we would like to live consistent lives. Some of us may even consciously be trying to achieve such consistency on a daily or weekly basis, using self-help books, mentors, disciplines. We want to combine the two as much as possible. But then we do assume that the two - our thought and our practice - as a general rule, are separated. We act as if we have one 'self' that performs certain actions, and another 'self' that can discipline the first 'self' into doing the right thing, eventually. There is a deep ironic split between thought and action, and we expect there to be.

We don't conceive of thinking as something we do. But both thinking and doing take time, demand our attention, state certain values. Entertaining a belief is performing that belief - performing an action is entertaining the ideas implicit in that action. In other words - we may say we hold whatever belief, but our actions always give us away. Could it be that we are indeed open letters, to be read by anyone? (2. Cor. 3:2) Actions don't speak louder than words - but they definitely speak truer.

Political views

I am, as many of us are, currently updating my facebook status in response to the 'New Profile' design, and in a sincere attempt to fill in as much as possible I have come up with a fitting term for my political views:

"Cynysis"

Cynysis denotes an subtle cynicism toward political rhetoric, structures, and practices, disguised as penetrating intellectual analysis. It is characterized by substantial self-awareness and an adolescent rejection of practical responsibility. Cynysis is practiced by being quiet for most of the conversation, before - still leaning back in the chair, and with a single string of well-articulated senteces - softly killing every expressed view with an analysis that 'reveals' that they are fundamentally "the same". Cynysis claims to be neither 'Left' nor 'Right' nor 'Centre', since these categories are "all screwed up anyway", yet it can present no plausible alternative. For this, it blames political elites/social structures/culture/ideology/discourse/mass media/modernity/lobbyists/capitalism/secularity/religion/postmodernism/patriarchy, etc.

Christian Tradition, part 2

In part 1, I set out how we must consider 'Christianity'  in all its aspects without reducing it to any one of them. Now it's time to look again at the word tradition. If you have read my rationale behind this blog, you know that the word tradition stems from the latin traditio, which carries several meanings.

For now, we can put it simply this way: Traditio means 'handed over', and its relation to what we have called 'Christianity' can be understood in two different ways.

1) On the one hand, it can be understood to mean that all of these things have been ‘handed over’ to us. On this view Christianity is something that has been ‘handed over’ to us, from our forefathers, from our leaders, from the Lord. Certain stories have been handed over to us for us to tell each other with our own voices and from our perspectives; certain teachings and concepts have been handed over to us so we can (re)think them and make sense of our own circumstances; certain practices have been handed over to us so we can perform them together in our way in the contexts where we are; certain calendars have been handed over to us so we can mark specific moments and days that are important to us in the ways we find best; certain structures have been handed over to us so we can facilitate good and effective leadership and service fitting for our contexts. We shape all of these aspects according to who, where and when we are, and we give them a particular flavour of our talents, our views, and ourselves.

2) On the other hand, traditio can be understood to mean that it is we who have been ‘handed over’ to all of these things. On this view it is we who have been handed over to Christianity. We have been handed over to certain stories that put our lives and identities in perspectives that are not our own; we have been handed over to certain teachings and concepts that will shape our imagination and our reason; we have been handed over to certain practices that will determine our habits and eventually our spine reactions; we have been handed over to certain calendars that determine when we fast and when we feast, that provide and determine our rhythms and set our pace in the world; we have been handed over to structures that are not of our own making, but that we simply must submit and surrender to. All of these aspects shape us according to themselves, no matter who we are, and they give a particular flavour to our talents, our views, and ourselves.

This 'two-sidedness' seems to be the human predicament: It is true that we are all born into a world where everything is set and determined without our consent; where we do not get to choose who will influence us the most during the early, or even late, years of our lives; where all decisions seem to already have been made before we arrive, and where we have no say in any important matter whatsoever. At the same time it is also true that we are born into a world where we cannot avoid changing reality around us no matter what we do or avoid doing; where our decisions to touch or not touch, say or not say, be or not be, have vast consequences even if we cannot tell what is important and what is not; where we shape the lives of ourselves and of others far beyond what we can imagine. 

For the record, both 'sides' of tradition can be legitimized by biblical contexts. (I add this so that no one will say 'but the Bible clearly states...etc'). Consider the following examples:

(1) The ancient Hebrew poems about the origins of the world in the Book of Genesis (ch. 1-2) describe how, after having created everything, God lets the Human (Adam='Man' as in ‘Mankind’) name the animals. It is remarkable that God in this story is portrayed as not putting any limits on Adam regarding which names to choose for which animals. It is not that God has the right answer, and then waits to see if Adam can get it right. It really is Adam who makes the decision; who names the created world. Adam is him/herself part of creation, but somehow this human naming, categorizing, defining, drawing a line, introducing boundaries and divisions, is a legitimate endeavour. Adam is created, but does to a certain degree participate in God's act of creation.

In the book of Esther (9:18-28) we read how the righteous and god-fearing man Mordecai, after having saved the Jews in Persia from an impending holocaust, invents a new feast in the Judaic calendar - a calendar that God himself had established in the time of Moses. Since then, the feast of Purim became a legitimate part of the annual rhythm of the Judaic tradition, even though it was a late addition compared to e.g. Passover. Nowhere is there any hint that this made it a 'less authentic' feast.

The apostle Paul calls himself God’s co-worker (1. Cor. 3:9), and describes his own work as dependent on God’s primary work, but also indispensible. Paul’s contribution in building the church is legitimate, and mixes with God’s work.

Finally, the early church had to figure out what to do with the new gentile Christians who did not share their Judaic background. Jesus had not given specific instructions regarding this. Christianity was to a large degree painted on a Judaic canvas, and many Christian customs loose some of their flavour if separated from the Judaic roots. After a committee meeting with much theological discussion the early apostles and Jewish church leaders in composed a letter to the gentile churches saying what “we and the Holy Spirit have decided” about the matter (Acts 15:28). This might seem a bit arrogant, not to say abusive, as if they were simply adding “and the Holy Spirit” to make their own decisions seem as if they were God’s decisions. But I believe this is a matter of the early church leaders understanding that in spite of human limitations and fallibility, human creativity and co-operation with God - even in the area of church leadership - is legitimate (if not necessarily always final – Paul later deviates from the Jerusalem council’s decisions in these matters. Renegotiation is thus an important part of the picture).

From this perspective it seems the God portrayed in the biblical canon invites and encourages human co-creation and co-operation with Godself, and that God hands over to us a huge repertoire of teachings, practices, stories, structures, and calendars that we can then take an active part in shaping. In a way we are always already doing this, and the canonical view is that this is in fact pleasing to God. We cannot avoid renegotiating and reshaping what has been handed down to us through the ages, and this is legitimate and good. We need not pretend that we are not contributing, as if that would contaminate 'eternal truths'. Our creativity is in itself participation in God’s sustaining and creative act.

On this view, commitment to Christ is a constant and intentional working-out of what it means to be a Christian in the present unprecedented circumstances.

(2) At the same time, the biblical canon seems to take seriously the notion that everything seems to be set without our conscious involvement or consent; That there is a (God-)given way that things actually are.

In the Genesis poem mentioned above, God sets limits to how far the ocean is allowed to go, separates light from darkness, etc. The ancient confidence in God as justly upholding the ultimate and final framework of His creation, constitutes the foundation of any hope. For Christianity these things are given, but not in the watered-out common sense of the word – where it really means ‘just so’. For Christianity they are given by a Giver, they are granted, provided, bestowed in love from Godself.
The boundaries and milestones make possible navigation, communication, stability.

St. Paul (Eph. 3:6) tells us that (Gentile) Christians have become heirs to a promised made to someone else’s (Jewish) forefathers. Christians do not have a say in what this promise includes or excludes. We cannot add or withdraw points from the agreement. We did not take part in the forging of the treaty. We arrive on the scene too late, and must submit to what has been decided. Another example is when St. Paul reminds us (Romans 11:16-20) that we are branches on a tree, and that we are not carrying the root, but the root carries us. Commitment to Christ is on this view a trust in something that has already been done without any contribution on our part.

In conclusion, the biblical canon is self-consciously committed to both of these perspectives at the same time. All of the aspects of Christianity have been handed over to us - and we have been handed over to all the aspects of Christianity.

This very tension is what is meant by 'Christian tradition'.

In the next and final post on this topic, I will try to argue that many disputes and debates between different denominations stem from our futile attempts to somehow resolve this tension between what is seen as 'God-given' and what is seen as 'human-made', and that by devaluing either perspective regarding any one of the aspects of Christianity, we might in fact be betraying the Christian tradition.

Christian Tradition, part 1

On this the first day of a new church year (1st Sunday in Advent), I thought I would post some thoughts on Christian tradition.

But first, it might be worth saying a little something about the two words Christian' and 'tradition' themselves, and how I understand them. In the final part of a three-part series on this topic, I will argue that many of the disputes between Christian denominations, as well as the internal arguments over form and content, the 'traditional' and the 'emerging', have a similar inner structure. In this first part, however, I will focus on the word 'Christian', as denoting something belonging to Christianity. Rather than defining where one could draw the line between 'Christian' and 'non-Christian', or between the 'inside' and the 'outside' of Christianity, I will simply state several aspects that the term 'Christianity' at the very least must include. Many people, even confessing Christians, find it hard to define clearly what Christianity actually is, and so I am only taking a very broad approach because I am not out to upset anyone. The second part will elaborate on the different, and in some ways contradictory, meanings of the word 'tradition'. Hopefully, one thing that will emerge after these three long posts is a more helpful (yet challenging) way of viewing differences between Christian denominations and movements.

First, then, what is included in the term 'Christianity':

One aspect of Christianity is its stories. Christianity consists of a multitude of stories on many levels. There are myths of the origins of reality, humanity and nature. There are historical narratives of the people of Israel, and of individuals connected to this narrative. There are the four accounts of the life of Jesus. There is the story of the early church and the acts and journeys - individual or collective - of the first apostles. Then there are local, regional and global church histories. Christianity is also full of parables and educational stories, such as the story of the Good Samaritan or of the Prodigal Son, or stories of the desert fathers or various saints. There are also the personal testimonies and life stories of the disciples - past and contemporary. Big stories and little stories, all interwoven, and none of them can be removed without altering the whole. Christianity can never be described apart form its stories.

A second aspect of Christianity is its teachings. Christianity consists of a set of concepts and categories that are constructed as if they were a-historical and more or less ‘timeless’. There are the creeds, and there are the doctrines, which are a kind of models or frameworks for thought and reflection, such as ‘Creation’, ‘Trinity’, ‘Incarnation’, etc. These are not necessarily sharply defined in a set of propositions, but function more as places to stand from when we engage with Reality. There are concepts such as ‘sin’, ‘redemption’, ‘atonement’, ‘repentance’, ‘salvation’, ‘theosis’, etc, which are not explicitly defined in any sacred text, are extracted from contexts and developed in relation to each other.  There are principles such as ‘pray and you shall receive’, ‘God cannot lie’, and  ‘if you do this and that, then so and so will happen’. There are logics, that is, systems of thought, such as ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, etc., all interwoven, and none can be removed without altering the whole. Christianity can never be described apart from its teachings.

A third aspect of Christianity is its practices. Christianity consists of sets of practices, individual and series of actions that the people of the church do together and individually. There are individual and communal practices that we would perhaps associate with collective gatherings: baptism (immersion or sprinkling of water), communion (sharing a meal consisting of bread and wine), singing together, exchanging gifts in the form of words and objects. There are also actions such as kneeling, lifting hands, bowing before alter, making the sign of a cross on one’s chest, laying hands on one another. On a wider view there are also Christian actions that take place in a ‘wider’ context, such as performing daily work to sustain one’s living, retreating to quiet places to rest and restore one’s strength, travelling to visit places that have historical significance for Christianity or to serve others (‘missions’). Christianity can never be described apart from its practices.

A fourth aspect of Christianity is its calendars. Christianity consists of temporal rhythms. These rhythms are daily, weekly, and annual. There are particular times for certain stories, tasks and practices during the year (liturgical year), seasons of working and resting, rejoicing and mourning. There are Sabbaths, holidays, festivals, fasts and feasts (Advent, Christmas, Annunciation, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, etc.), set times for particular things in particular places. So-called ‘ordinary time’ is also part of this – there is no moment of the year or the week or the day that is not somehow touched by the Christian calendar. Christianity can not be described apart from its calendars.

A fifth aspect of Christianity is its structures. Christianity consists of structures. It includes institutions, organizational systems, hierarchies of leadership and responsibility, lines of authority. In all human relationships there are certain structures of status - of domination and submission - like it or not, that is simply the case. There is a diversity of roles according to different criteria; there are roles with different status in every relationship (servant-king, flock-pastor, etc). There are many different tasks and ministries, structured in particular ways. Christianity can never be described apart from its structures.


I have gone through these aspects really quickly, and we all realize that much more could be said about each section here. My point right now is that the term 'Christianity' includes all of these, on both macro- and micro-levels. Christianity cannot be reduced to something less than all of its aspects. In other words, everything above is somehow included in the term. More could be included, but not less.  This might seem obvious, but taken together with part 2, it becomes quite radical and, for some, hard to swallow.

In Part 2 I will discuss the term 'tradition', and how I think it relates to the aspects of Christianity.

Latour and modernity

If any book has ever changed the way I think, it would be Bruno Latour's "We Have Never Been Modern". It is a complex argument with a lot of fascinating implications that philosophers are still working out.

In this book, Latour describes modernity - our contemporary way of thinking, living, and asking questions - as being founded on a particular 'constitution' or set of rules that have come to be taken for granted, but that turn out to be self-contradictory and groundless when we examine them. The reason is that we 'moderns' only think consciously about one part of the constitution at a time, and so the contradictions escape us - we believe we are actually being consistent.

Central in Latour's analysis of modernity is our attempt to separate Nature from Society. Nature stands for everything that simply is what it is, whether we would like to change it or not. Society stands for all that is human, human-made and artificial, that we might construct otherwise if we choose to. What Latour shows is that Nature and Society aren't really that easy to separate in reality, even though the moderns treat them as if they are already separate.

For example, a scientist in a laboratory claims to be seeing Nature as it is, apart from any human construction. But he can only confirm what Nature is in itself through the agreement of a community of scientists in a human-made laboratory. They construct an environment and a consensus that Nature is a particular way. This way, Nature is founded on Society. But this can be reversed. The science of Society tells us that humans can construct whatever society we like, and that this is our liberty. But in order to base her argument on something, the social scientist refers to sociological 'laws' that echo the natural 'laws' of the laboratory. Society is then ultimately founded on Nature.

We, the 'moderns', are only able to look at one of these at the time, and so we don't realize the inconsistency. In fact, Latour says, there has never actually been a clear separation between Nature and Society. But for as long as we have told ourselves that we manage to make that separation, we have remained blind to the many 'hybrid' things in the world that belie our categories. In this sense we have never been modern - for we have never actually separated Nature from Society.

Latour shows how our views of God, history, time, materiality, ideas, etc. are all connected to the modern 'constitution', and also how the questions regarding all of these are re-opened when we realize just how unsustainable is the modern way of thinking and practicing. We cannot forever keep on acting as if the separation of Nature and Society is possible, but all our modern practices are tangled up in this misconception.

After having argued that we have never been modern, Latour then has to explain what then we have actually been. In other words, he must give us an alternative way of thinking about the world. This is the basis for what has become loosely known as 'Actor-Network Theory', even though Latour himself is not too fond of that particular label.

The details of this philosophical system is a bit too complex for this post. Generally, it is used as if it simply means giving more attention to the material objects involved in human societies, but Latour's metaphysics are a bit more radical than that. While Latour's view of the world has recently been taken up by confessional atheist philosophers as a kind of 'deep' materialism, his metaphysics also invites a sacramental, trinitarian, catholic theology. In a later post, I hope to show how this is the case.