Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 22:13:32 +1000
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: more on cyborgs and the inhuman


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--Boundary_(ID_oi2TLHxjCP9VKUCQUOhn1g)


  Steve/All,

  Cyborgs are a late development of the process of mankind assisting its own evolution.  From Stone Age to Computer Age, clever inventions helped the species evolve into conditions of comfort, culture and power that gave supremacy over all other species.

  But the A-bomb, completed about the same time that Computers were born, was one of the
  first clever inventions that could threaten  homo sapiens on a global basis.  Evolution could  become devolution.  Now we have an severla nations possess and unbelievably large arsenal of nuclear weapons, plus chemical and biological weapons which singly or in various combinations can destroy populations, cities, lands, and make air water and food unfit for human consumption.

  Computers, satellites, and rockets have cyborgian elements which assure diabolical
  and  accurate means of delivery, not to mentioned perfectly programmed religious fanatics for whom martydom is the path to Paradise.

  A less onerous but distressing outcome of cyborgian technology is the Communications and Entertainment complex which envelops the Globe as Spectacle, pollutes minds, wastes time, energy, money, and increases the flow of wealth from poor to rich.

  regards,
  Hugh

  .

  Steve wrote:

  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 thoughthis 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, whatis most characteristic about the human subject is its capacity to formvarious idealizations in the attempt to transform its environment. Someof these "ends in view" are external objects, but others impact upon thehuman subject more directly in terms of how it sees itself and themeaning it gives to the value of its life and action.Such a characterization of the human subject means that something calledreligion loosely called always remains as a potential for experience. For what I just briefly described includes religious idealizations aswell.In a time like ours, when the tradition patriachial religiousinstitutions are undergoing a crisis of legitimation, it is a fairquestion to ask, what if anything might take their place.  I evoke thecyborg because it moves the entire discussion into a new key.  Insteadof entering
into neo-traditional reapproachments to religion, the epochoffers us the promise of a dynamic entrance into novelty.As I said before the cyborg offers us the moral equivalent of religionto the extent the it could take these energies and idealizations of theold religion and activate them in a new way, one that offers some of thebetter, life-affirming aspects of religion without their negative,hierarchial elements. Certainly, for the global politics of the multitude to emerge it isnecessary for a positive conception to emerge of the possibilities thenew emerging planetary information culture offers. Certainly, Negrihimself isn't shy about evoking figures such as Augustine and Francis intalking about this.The promise of the cyborg is that it could transform religious energiesin a way that understands both technology and science more responsiblyand less like a fetish.  It also allows us to embrace technology in w
aythat is more libidinal and less puritanical, which allows us to beactors, playing more diverse roles in a vast, myriad of relationships which the present workaday with its frozen identities cannot even beginto comphrehend, it would allow us to pacify the struggle for existenceand slow things down as well (the cyborg is ultimately a slacker, acyberpunk with mirror shades.)  The cyborg comes to emcompass for me much of what I mean by thepostmodern is its liberating sense.  Instead of the old metanarrativeswith their eschatologies, it situates us in a new relationship to bothtime and pleasure.  The future is now the world is a place where bothbliss and justice may ensue here now everywhere.  The cyborg is our neonbuddha nature.The cyborg is an idealization of our situatedness within technology in away that allows us to create a new image of who we are and what we maybecome.  If this is reductionist, I say let'
s make the most of it.eric



--Boundary_(ID_oi2TLHxjCP9VKUCQUOhn1g)

HTML VERSION:

 

Steve/All,

 

Cyborgs are a late development of the process of mankind assisting its own evolution.  From Stone Age to Computer Age, clever inventions helped the species evolve into conditions of comfort, culture and power that gave supremacy over all other species.

 

But the A-bomb, completed about the same time that Computers were born, was one of the 

first clever inventions that could threaten  homo sapiens on a global basis.  Evolution could  become devolution.  Now we have an severla nations possess and unbelievably large arsenal of nuclear weapons, plus chemical and biological weapons which singly or in various combinations can destroy populations, cities, lands, and make air water and food unfit for human consumption.

 

Computers, satellites, and rockets have cyborgian elements which assure diabolical

and  accurate means of delivery, not to mentioned perfectly programmed religious fanatics for whom martydom is the path to Paradise.

 

A less onerous but distressing outcome of cyborgian technology is the Communications and Entertainment complex which envelops the Globe as Spectacle, pollutes minds, wastes time, energy, money, and increases the flow of wealth from poor to rich.

 

regards,

Hugh

 

. 

 

Steve wrote:

 

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 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