Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:33:04 -0600
Subject: Re: more on cyborgs and the inhuman


Hugh - see below

hbone wrote:

> One doesn't change the past, one changes one's mind - the same way one
> changes one's  mind about the future.

It seems you are still working with a "Myth of the Given". My question
to you, using your terminology, what is there about the past, that isn't
in the mind?

What we call the past always demands interpretation and is usually
structured in terms of narrative which valorize the past and give it
meaning.  When these structures change, the meaning changes, and, I
would argue, the past does as well. 

It is a question here of moving from an observer universe to a
participatory universe. Cyborgs live in the latter, not the former.

 
> One isn't a citizen of the world, for there is no world group that has
> citizens. One is automatically citizen of her/his birth country which can punish inappropriate behavior with death or lesser penalties.

So there were no American citizens until the constitution was ratified?

Besides this legalistic notion, what happened to the idea that one is
first a member of an imagined community, and a citizen in that sense.

Doesn't the law often merely formally legitimize what has already
occurred?