Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 16:38:54 -0500
From: shawn wilbur <swilbur-AT-wcnet.org>
Subject: Re: DEFINITIONS:  Re: [Fwd: [CSL]: At Airport Gate, a Cyborg Unplugged]


I'm working on something more, erm, definitive on the "cyborg," but the
core of the issue is that "cyborg" designates a condition of mixture.
The term is derived from "cybernetic organism," and i am interested in
that condition in its broadest sense. My concerns are much broader than
the "human-machine interface" or the "user-tool" relation, both of
which, it sems to me, tend to leave intact and un(der-)questioned
concepts like "the human" which perhaps need a bit more active
deconstruction. Haraway starts from the empirical observation of the
"leaky boundaries" of some of our cherished categories, which doesn't
efface those categories - her "cyborg" is, i think, a radically
troubling of "the human" as imagined by feminism and socialism, rather
than an attempt to replace it with some new, clean and proper
identitarian category - and in fact seems most radical by holding our
attention close to the process by which (what we might recognize,
following Bataille, as) limited economies such as "the human" or the
(non-human) "animal" are carved out from the general, more excessive
economy of "nature." To rethink oneself as a "cyborg" is to engage in a
sort of conscious "reterritorialization" (to pick up another of the
poststructuralist phraseologies.) Haraway insists on the non-innocence
of the cyborg. In a way, to "be a cyborg" is to attempt to be that
which, in the economies of humanism has been "the accursed share." Steve
is right - as i have agreed right along - to associate the cyborg with
the inhuman. I think, however, that he is wrong in attributing to
Lyotard a blanket opposition to the inhuman. The introduction to "The
Inhuman" seems to include a much bolder - and more dangerous - double
engagement with "the inhuman."

I think the concern about the limits, or lack thereof, of my definition
of the cyborg is a bit misplaced as well. That most entities on the
planet may now in some way be "cybernetic organisms" is the source of
all the heat in this debate. It simply seems to be the case. But i have
consistently insisted that the designation "cyborg" *alone* explains
nothing *except* this state of mixture or leakage. My argument is that -
particularly in the context of feminist and socialist critiques of
humanism - the "cyborg" is a place to start asking other questions,
engaging in other kinds of analysis, and forging other kinds of
politics. And that it has been those things for quite some time now.

More soon, but i just wanted to clarify that i am talking about a very
small-c cyborg.

-shawn


fuller wrote:

> G'day,I know this may be obvious... but, for the sake of discussion
> (if you think there is some benefit) can we please make a distinction
> between Steve's cyborg, the actual melding of organic and technical
> inorganic material in some intelligent system, and Shawn's Cyborg, a
> broader term, encompassing the cyborg (of Steve), used to describe a
> subjectivity within a system where there is a blurring of boundaries
> between 'tool' (previously object) and 'user' (ditto subject), for
> whatever 'tool' is being played with (haha), be it an actual
> cybernetic prothesis, a word, etc. The politics of both are similiar,
> but only in an abstract sense dealing with power and authority,
> authenticity, desire, etc.I think both Cyborg and cyborg as distinct,
> but related (perhaps Cyborg?:) terms have their uses, Steve? Shawn?
> Glen.