Nochmals die Verteidigung des Hypothetischen:
Ohne Erfahrung des ‘vielleicht’ gibt es keine Zukunft und gibt es keinen Bezug zum Kommen des Ereignisses.
Das Denken aber dieses anderen Modus des ‘als’, ‘wenn’ und ‘falls’, dieses mehr als Schwierige, dieses Un-mögliche, das Überschreiten des Performativs … gälte es erneut in den Humanities Ereignis werden zu lassen.
Bruno Latour hat auf eine erschreckende Anwendung der Konditionalisierung hingewiesen. Die Lobby der Ölindustrie macht sich die Kritik des Ideals der Erkenntnissicherheit zunutze. Sie lanciert strategische Zweifel am Konsens der Wissenschaftler über die bevorstehende Klima-Katastrophe.
“In these most depressing of times, these are some of the issues I want to press, not to depress the reader but to press ahead, to redirect our meager capacities as fast as possible. To prove my point, I have, not exactly facts, but rather tiny cues, nagging doubts, disturbing telltale signs. What has become of critique, I wonder, when an editorial in the New York Times contains the following quote?
Most scientists believe that [global] warming is caused largely by manmade pollutants that require strict regulation. Mr. Luntz [a Republican strategist] seems to acknowledge as much when he says that “the scientific debate is closing against us.” His advice, however, is to emphasize that the evidence is not complete.
Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled,” he writes, “their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue.
Fancy that? An artificially maintained scientific controversy to favor a “brownlash,” as Paul and Anne Ehrlich would say.
Do you see why I am worried? I myself have spent some time in the past trying to show “`the lack of scientific certainty'” inherent in the construction of facts. I too made it a “`primary issue.'” But I did not exactly aim at fooling the public by obscuring the certainty of a closed argument?or did I? After all, I have been accused of just that sin. Still, I’d like to believe that, on the contrary, I intended to emancipate the public from prematurely naturalized objectified facts. Was I foolishly mistaken? Have things changed so fast?”