Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 23:23:50 +0000
Subject: Re: more on cyborgs and the inhuman




Eric/All
As I said to Shawn, clarifying my position on this seemingly diversive 
subject of 'cyborgs', the irony of which is that in previous posts I've 
always maintained a positive relationship to things scientific and 
technological - however I do happen to think that Lyotard's refusal of 
inhumanism needs answering. (I agree his email is excellent and thought 
provoking though I don't know where the 1870 reference came from).

To rehearse the argument - what royal science and technology strives for 
is control, a control that stretches out into the distant future, this 
will inevitably constrain and attempt to eliminate differance. To place 
technology in a cyborgian relationship to the human is to further this 
trend - where haraway places the cyborg in a gender and redefinition 
project - breaking out of the trap of gender and race 'a cyborg is a 
hybrid of machine and organism...it is a condition mch to be desired 
particularly when it comes to women...'  why so?  OK - I concede that 
Haraway and you (Eric and Shawn) are following her call to subvert from 
within, that the cyborg can be usurped for the generation of a radical 
politics and I applaud and at times have and will utilise this 
construct, but (BUT) as the semi-intelligent bombs fall, the cyborg 
weapons rollout of the factories - it is simply naive to imagine that 
technologists are furthering any such human orientated cause, for what 
'we' do is to further the goals of the society, the economy. However if 
the cyborg 'is our neon buddhist nature' then I am in complete sympathy 
and agreement... And I agree that the directions and arguments raised 
below are strong and anti-essentialist ones.

When I (re-)opened this thread on 'more on cyborgs and the inhuman' I 
was conscious that the use of the couplet maddox/lyotard would probably 
not be addressed since the utopian ideal that maddox places in the frame 
- that the 'cyborg' becomes human is precisely contary to the 
predominant utopian belief that the cyborg functions as an 
anti-totalising image. The other element that has not been addressed is 
why Lyotard is so strongly anti-inhuman and what it gives us as an 
approach that notions like the cyborg do not.

I especially like the drawing together of the multitude and the cyborg - 
Les Levidow wrote somewhere that the problem for scientific-military 
complex would be that when they created an intelligent machine it might 
not be very keen on blowing itself and its relative the building below 
it up. Intelligence requires negation after all.

regards
steve


Mary Murphy&Salstrand wrote:

>steve:
>
>I will provide a critique of Badiou later.
>
>Before I had a chance to respond, I read Shawn's fine email and thought
>his thoughts echoed many of my own.
>
>But to briefly extend the discussion, let my add the following comments. 
>
>You write:
>
>>we are simply human subjects and the metaphors used are endlessly >reductionist. 
>>
>
>My problem with this is contained in the adverb 'simple'. For me, what
>is most characteristic about the human subject is its capacity to form
>various idealizations in the attempt to transform its environment. Some
>of these "ends in view" are external objects, but others impact upon the
>human subject more directly in terms of how it sees itself and the
>meaning it gives to the value of its life and action.
>
>Such a characterization of the human subject means that something called
>religion loosely called always remains as a potential for experience. 
>For what I just briefly described includes religious idealizations as
>well.
>
>In a time like ours, when the tradition patriachial religious
>institutions are undergoing a crisis of legitimation, it is a fair
>question to ask, what if anything might take their place.  I evoke the
>cyborg because it moves the entire discussion into a new key.  Instead
>of entering into neo-traditional reapproachments to religion, the epoch
>offers us the promise of a dynamic entrance into novelty.
>
>As I said before the cyborg offers us the moral equivalent of religion
>to the extent the it could take these energies and idealizations of the
>old religion and activate them in a new way, one that offers some of the
>better, life-affirming aspects of religion without their negative,
>hierarchial elements. 
>
>Certainly, for the global politics of the multitude to emerge it is
>necessary for a positive conception to emerge of the possibilities the
>new emerging planetary information culture offers. Certainly, Negri
>himself isn't shy about evoking figures such as Augustine and Francis in
>talking about this.
>
>The promise of the cyborg is that it could transform religious energies
>in a way that understands both technology and science more responsibly
>and less like a fetish.  It also allows us to embrace technology in way
>that is more libidinal and less puritanical, which allows us to be
>actors, playing more diverse roles in a vast, myriad of relationships 
>which the present workaday with its frozen identities cannot even begin
>to comphrehend, it would allow us to pacify the struggle for existence
>and slow things down as well (the cyborg is ultimately a slacker, a
>cyberpunk with mirror shades.)  
>
>The cyborg comes to emcompass for me much of what I mean by the
>postmodern is its liberating sense.  Instead of the old metanarratives
>with their eschatologies, it situates us in a new relationship to both
>time and pleasure.  The future is now the world is a place where both
>bliss and justice may ensue here now everywhere.  The cyborg is our neon
>buddha nature.
>
>The cyborg is an idealization of our situatedness within technology in a
>way that allows us to create a new image of who we are and what we may
>become.  If this is reductionist, I say let's make the most of it.
>
>eric
>
>

HTML VERSION:

steve:

I will provide a critique of Badiou later.

Before I had a chance to respond, I read Shawn's fine email and thought
his thoughts echoed many of my own.

But to briefly extend the discussion, let my add the following comments. 

You write:

we are simply human subjects and the metaphors used are endlessly >reductionist. 

My problem with this is contained in the adverb 'simple'. For me, what
is most characteristic about the human subject is its capacity to form
various idealizations in the attempt to transform its environment. Some
of these "ends in view" are external objects, but others impact upon the
human subject more directly in terms of how it sees itself and the
meaning it gives to the value of its life and action.

Such a characterization of the human subject means that something called
religion loosely called always remains as a potential for experience. 
For what I just briefly described includes religious idealizations as
well.

In a time like ours, when the tradition patriachial religious
institutions are undergoing a crisis of legitimation, it is a fair
question to ask, what if anything might take their place.  I evoke the
cyborg because it moves the entire discussion into a new key.  Instead
of entering 
into neo-traditional reapproachments to religion, the epoch
offers us the promise of a dynamic entrance into novelty.

As I said before the cyborg offers us the moral equivalent of religion
to the extent the it could take these energies and idealizations of the
old religion and activate them in a new way, one that offers some of the
better, life-affirming aspects of religion without their negative,
hierarchial elements. 

Certainly, for the global politics of the multitude to emerge it is
necessary for a positive conception to emerge of the possibilities the
new emerging planetary information culture offers. Certainly, Negri
himself isn't shy about evoking figures such as Augustine and Francis in
talking about this.

The promise of the cyborg is that it could transform religious energies
in a way that understands both technology and science more responsibly
and less like a fetish.  It also allows us to embrace technology in w
ay
that is more libidinal and less puritanical, which allows us to be
actors, playing more diverse roles in a vast, myriad of relationships 
which the present workaday with its frozen identities cannot even begin
to comphrehend, it would allow us to pacify the struggle for existence
and slow things down as well (the cyborg is ultimately a slacker, a
cyberpunk with mirror shades.)  

The cyborg comes to emcompass for me much of what I mean by the
postmodern is its liberating sense.  Instead of the old metanarratives
with their eschatologies, it situates us in a new relationship to both
time and pleasure.  The future is now the world is a place where both
bliss and justice may ensue here now everywhere.  The cyborg is our neon
buddha nature.

The cyborg is an idealization of our situatedness within technology in a
way that allows us to create a new image of who we are and what we may
become.  If this is reductionist, I say let'
s make the most of it.

eric