Modernism is a myth, because being scientific doesn't stop a person from being deeply human regardless.
The idea of modernism is that the previous way of life was eradicated by science and the scientific method. But actually, for Latour, this preference of science is just a feature of our own culture. The scientific community behind modernism and postmodernism made it seem as though all former ways of life had been outmoded, but objectively, modernism is just one of many lenses to use when studying human experience.
Objectivity is obfuscated by individual interpretation.
If everyone on the earth perceived colors differently, but each time we referred to a color by its name, we used the same name, could we ever discover whether our perceptions of colors are the same? This is the dilemma at the center of the Platonic argument against modernism. We have pretended to be objective when by our very nature, humans are extremely limited, biased animals.
Humans are a part of nature, not external to it.
Humans can often start to believe that they have special insights into the nature of life, but first of all, we are animals who depend on food, water and community for survival, and we all die when it's said and done. So who really can say with certainty what 'objectivity' means, when we're so deeply indoctrinated in our lives on earth, in time, with cultures and experiences.
Basically, no idea can stop man from being what they literally are—living animals on earth. Therefore, modernity is an arrogant myth at best.
Science and technology need to be understood in context.
Without contextualizing science to its limited goals and methods, it is easy to start to believe in science for things it can't succeed in doing—explaining the purpose of life. This dilemma is what got us here in the first place, says Latour, because it allowed our conclusions and beliefs in the western world to take on an authority that Latour believes is theoretical at best, and likely wrong.
In other words, he used deconstructionism and skepticism to deconstruct and disbelieve the Western myth around science, knowledge and modernity.
