Latour and Hybrids

Certain parts of Latour's book were very dense and difficult to read, but I did enjoy reading about his concept of "Hybrids" and how he explained them.  He makes very interesting statements about the division of nature and culture, and uses very controversial topics as examples of hybrids that we have today.  I think the first paragraph of the book is actually the most significant.

"On page four of my daily newspaper, I learn that the measurements taken above the Antarctic are not good this year: the hole in the ozone layer is growing ominously larger. Reading on, I turn from upper-atmosphere chemists to Chief Executive Officers of Atochem and Monsanto, companies that are modifying their assembly lines in order to replace the innocent chlorofluorocarbons, accused of crimes against the ecosphere. A few paragraphs later, I come across heads of state of major industrialized countries who are getting involved with chemistry, refrigerators, aerosols and inert gases. But at the end of the article, I discover that the meteorologists don’t agree with the chemists; their talking about cyclical fluctuations unrelated to human activity. So now the industrialists don’t know what to do. The heads of state are also holding back. Shouldn’t we wait? Is it already too late? Towards the bottom of the page, Third Would countries and ecologists add their grain of salt and talk about international treaties, moratoriums, the rights of future generations, and the right to development. (1)."

Reading this paragraph the second time after reading the rest of this book made me think about certain parts in Sherry Turkle's book Alone Together.  The idea of people relating to different forms of artificial intelligence can certainly be viewed as a hybrid that has evolved in our society.  After reading several of Turkle's studies, an artificial form of intelligence can certainly be a hybrid between nature and society.  A robot is not created as a product from nature, yet we use materials from nature to form it.  Many of the people studied then assigned personal value to it, giving it social significance.  The case of Edna, a grandmother being exposed to a "My Real Baby" stood out the most to me.

“Edna takes My Real Baby in her arms. When it starts to cry, Edna finds its bottle, smiles, and says she will feed it. Amy tries to get her great grandmother’s attention but is ignored…
Edna’s attention remains on My Real Baby. The atmosphere is quiet, even surreal: a great grandmother entranced by a robot baby, a neglected two-year-old, a shocked mother, and researchers nervously coughing in discomfort.” (p. 117)

Turkle painted a very vivid picture and did a tremendous job explaining the emotions that were in the room during the interaction between Edna and Amy.  The fact that a robot was able to overpower an actual child for an adult’s care and attention completely floored me.  I know that people become increasingly lonely as they become older, and maybe the My Real Baby gave Edna a sense of ownership that she could not have with Amy since it was not her actual child.  No one had ownership of the doll, and this allowed Edna to take it upon herself to care for it.  As Turkle continued describing the situation, I could almost feel Edna snap out of it and return her attention back to the “real world.”


Some of the concepts and ideas that Latour propose still don't quite make sense to me, but I did enjoy the separation he makes between nature and society.  It is interesting to think about nature as a stand alone entity that exists regardless of what we as a society does, but that we have such a strong ability to assign significance to certain parts of it.  I agree with his ideas of this separation, but I also see how they can never be completely separate from each other.