Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 06:28:51 -0600 (CST)
From: cberkowi-AT-bayou.uh.edu (Dr. Charlotte Berkowitz)
Subject: Re: Finding Braidotti on Cyberfeminism


These are such good questions.  I wish I could participate in the discussion
. . . but Netscape wouldn't take me to the URL. Any suggestions? 

Thanks.

CAB
>
>After reading Rosi Braidotti's paper "Cyberfeminism with a 
>difference" I have several questions, which are interrelated and 
>thematic in regards to a general malaise of anti-humanism which 
>sweeps through contemporary discourse.
>
>1.  Do images of cyber-humans, technologically grafted and 
>maintained, avoid anti-humanist implications?  Why is the 
>surreal image of a cyberfeminist or cyborg more illuminating than the 
>reality of concrete human beings?
>
>2.  Braidotti writes: "Irony is a systematically applied dose of 
>de-bunking; an endless teasing; a healthy deflaction of 
>over-heated rhetoric."  What is the relationship between irony, 
>parody, and democracy or freedom or autonomy?  Is parady intended 
>as one discourse among many or is it a total discourse ("all or 
>nothing")?  Does systematic irony, in contrast to encyclopediatic 
>irony, serve as a vehicle for political and economic emancipation - 
>since the distinctions between truth/fiction, philosophy/literature, 
>life/death, freedom/oppression become blurred in a systematic, 
>totalizing, approach.  Contra Derrida a hope or fulfillment defered 
>infinitely is NO hope at all.  Infinity is not a bus stop.
>
>3.  Braidotti writes: "I would like to suggest that we NEED (KM) to turn 
>to 'minor' literary genres, such as science-fiction and more 
>specifically cyber-punk, in order to find non-nostalgic solutions to the 
>contradictions of our times."  How does a focus upon certain, limited, 
>speculative genres of literature or philosophy (science fiction) 
>unnecessarily limit the worthwhileness of speculative thought in 
>general?  How does it avoid a deadly assimilation to reality rather 
>than a relentless resistance?  especially in light of Max 
>Horkheimer's insight that individuals obliterate themselves by 
>identifying with the apparatus that forces them to conform in the first 
>place (see _Eclipse of Reason_).
>
>4.  Braidotti writes: "I don't mind not having a single shred of 
>discursive coherence to rest upon."  How has post-modernity, as 
>defined by Braidotti, escaped and transformed the ideals of the 
>enlightenment?  What residues of freedom, truth, autonomy, 
>subjectivity, and happiness remain?  To what extent is the notion of 
>postmodernity captured within the dialectic of modern thought.  How 
>does "not having a single shred" possibly offer any basis for 
>resistance?!?  No subject, no communication, no coherence, no life.
>
>5.  How does the recent cyber-genre (rightfully understood as a 
>commodity) buy into trans-national capitalism (telecommunications, 
>computers, CD-ROM, etc.) and thereby become a tool of oppression 
>which wears thin the dialectic of freedom and domination.  Last time I 
>checked Laurie Anderson tickets were selling at $50 to $90.... and a 
>home computer is unaffordable for many.... not to mention finding the 
>time to read science fiction....  Ani Difranco once lyrically notes that 
>"we barely have to react let alone rehearse."  How does a 
>prescriptive blueprint help those who cannot or do not want to 
>participate in such a blueprint.
>
>6.  Braidotti writes: "I see postmodernity... as the threshold of new 
>and important re-locations for cultural practice."  What are the 
>imperialistic implications of privileging the imperatives post-human 
>culture (which by definition is also trans-human) over and against the 
>humanist ideals  of the enlightenment?  How helpful is it - on a 
>practical level?  What insights into communication, democracy, 
>anarchism, or whatever are gained?
>
>7.  How is the post-human body constructed by technology different 
>from the magical-ritualistic belief in 'gods and demons.'  It seems to 
>me that faith in technology is akin to faith in the supernatural.  What 
>is believed to be achieved by one is similar to the perceived 
>achievements of the other.  The role of magic is now replaced by the 
>role of technology without a transformation in the reception of the two. 
> How does the concept post-human then elude the snares of 
>metaphysics, as conceived by the "ancients" and account for the 
>insights of modern though which dymythologize the sacred and 
>recognize that technology is natural?
>
>8.  Braidotti writes:  "Nothing could be further from a postmodern 
>ethics than Dostoyevsky's over-quoted and profoundly mistaken 
>statement that, if God is dead, anything goes."  Dostoyevsky's 
>statement seems to me to be a correct statement - but it misses the 
>point.  The point is not that anything goes but how are we going to 
>live together - in a practical, nonviolent, and communicative manner. 
> The brutal truth in modernity is that anything does go (the holocaust 
>atests to this) but the important point becomes what are we going to 
>do about this.  Do we WANT to live together?
>
>9.  Braidotti writes: "The most effective strategy remains for women 
>to use technology in order to disengage our collective imagination 
>from the phallus and its accessory values."  Prescribing the use of 
>technology against technology is a lethal fight against oneself.  The 
>problem rests precisely a conceptualization of technology as 
>separate from nature (our humanity).  Human beings are natural 
>beings, technologcial beings, social beings.  The struggle against 
>ourselves leads to a liquification of the self in the name of liberation. 
> How might we theoretically think about these things to avoid this 
>self-annihilating approach.
>
>I have taken some liberties, perhaps unfairly, with Braidotti's work.  I 
>realize that some of my interpretations are distornting (if not all of 
>them).  I have done this in good faith - since I am attempting to 
>engage the material critically by pushing it to the limits - brushing it 
>against itself - in order to illuminate its real value.
>
>Kenneth G. MacKendrick
>Centre for the Study of Religion
>Toronto, ON
>
>
>
>
>
>
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