ANTi-Human : The Ethical Blindspot

Schreiber, Michel

ANTi-Human : The Ethical Blindspot

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Date

2017

Publication type

Contribution to a collection

Publication status

Published

Published in

Applying the Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies / Spöhrer, Markus; Ochsner, Beate (ed.). - Hershey, PA : IGI Global, 2017. - pp. 266-276. - ISBN 978-1-5225-0616-4

Abstract

In his writings on the gunman, Bruno Latour (1994) paraphrases the anti-human ideology of the National Rifle Association of the USA. Amongst a long list of stances one can find nonsense such as: “One is born a good citizen or a criminal. Period.” I will not suggest that Latour is an advocate in favor of the NRA's strange cause or in favor of their ideology. Nevertheless, will I use this example to point out the biggest flaw in the so called Actor-Network Theory – or at least Latour's version of ANT: The absolute ignorance to ethical doubts towards that specific approach of describing our world and what ONE calls society. I will bring forth this argument using not much more than this one example, this absolute negation of ethical philosophy and humane thought. I will therefore use a very fundamentalist approach to ethics, as it was developed by Emanuel Levinas (1988). Within this framework it will become obvious why ANT may be a good tool to describe technical processes within a society, but will always fail to explain the human side of things.

Subject (DDC)

300 Social Sciences, Sociology

Cite This

ISO 690

SCHREIBER, Michel, 2017. ANTi-Human : The Ethical Blindspot. In: SPÖHRER, Markus, ed., Beate OCHSNER, ed.. Applying the Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies. Hershey, PA:IGI Global, pp. 266-276. ISBN 978-1-5225-0616-4. Available under: doi: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0616-4.ch016

BibTex

@incollection{Schreiber2017ANTiH-39369,
  year={2017},
  doi={10.4018/978-1-5225-0616-4.ch016},
  title={ANTi-Human : The Ethical Blindspot},
  isbn={978-1-5225-0616-4},
  publisher={IGI Global},
  address={Hershey, PA},
  booktitle={Applying the Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies},
  pages={266--276},
  editor={Spöhrer, Markus and Ochsner, Beate},
  author={Schreiber, Michel}
}

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