Date: 	Tue, 4 Mar 1997 21:08:58 -0500
From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: Cyberfeminism with a difference



> OK, here's some more of my response to Kenneth's original post (although 
> at his point, based on what he says in his response to my response, I'd 
> guess we're working from such different premises that we won't come to 
> much agreement, so I think this is mostly for whomever among the rest of 
> you might want to jump in. Diane?)

premises like understanding, justice, reason, and, crucially, "I might be wrong" 
etc.... ???  
> 
> On Thu, 27 Feb 1997, Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
> 
> > 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?
> 
> To begin with, I'd have to contest the phrase "faith in technology": it 
> doesn't seem to me that Braidotti (or other theorists of the post-human 
> body, for that matter) are suggesting that technology is something to be 
> believed in, or something that works without our understanding, like 
> magic. Technology is of our own making, and while _I_ might not 
> understand exactly how my typing these words on my computer keyboard and 
> hitting the send button distributes my words to the 400+ subscribers of 
> this list, I know that someone _does_ understand. Which is to say that 
> even in the mind of a technical illiterate like me, technology is not 
> imbued with "magical" powers. And I certainly don't--and I doubt that 
> Braidotti does, either--expect technology to "save" us from anything. 
> It's more the case that our own (technological) interventions in what was 
> previously thought of as a "natural," or even "God-given," world have 
> enabled us to come up with new ways of theorizing our relationships with 
> each other and with the non-human world.

I just don't get it though.  Why a post-human body?  Why make the jump to light 
speed?  We are biological organisms with a consciousness - and despite 
theoretical claims to the contrary - this fact will not disappear soon.  I was being a 
bit polemic with the technology-magic bit, but rightfully so i think.  Think of our 
rituals surrounding death - respirators, drugs, paramedics, etc.  When we see 
technology as being "other" we mimic magical beliefs.  Go to the doctor and get a 
prescription or go to the priest for a laying on of hands.  We trust both, we have 
faith in both - without understanding we have no choice (as you noted).  But How 
does a post-human body lend itself to a greater understanding of human 
relationships?  Technology mediates our conscious relations - but does not replace 
them.  It seems to me a post-human body is a theoretical attempt to metaphysically 
unify (differance is the metaphysics of fragmentation) what is concretely 
dialectically mediated.

> 
> > 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 don't get your point here, Kenneth. I don't see Braidotti saying that 
> we should struggle "against ourselves." And I also don't see her arguing 
> that technology is radically separate from nature--in fact, I'd say that 
> _that_ claim is more characteristic of precisely the humanism that she's 
> trying to call into question, and that she's arguing that cyborg bodies 
> are theoretically significant because they show this to be the case.

I'm concerned here with the conceptual assimilation of human beings and 
technology - a move that i regard as a fascist aesthetic (akin to Ernst Junger's 
image of the warrior /cyborg) - which is actually, in the words of Walter Benjamin a 
kind of "depraved mysticism."  The hierarchy of technological relationships "the 
infomatics of domination" lends itself to an antagonistic interpretation of 
technology - good bots and bad bots (a 1970's separatist argument if i've ever 
heard one).  My comments, i think, are more directed at donna haraway's cyborg 
manifesto than braidotti's cyberfeminism.  

is braidotti arguing that a cyborg body is "truer" to form than a human body? and 
then what happens to the mechanics of technology apart from the human body?  
why is the conceptual assimilation of tech n' bod illuminating and liberating vs. the 
idea of mediation?
thanks, again, for the insightful comments/questions,
ken




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