"The Post/Human Condition - Economies of gods
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The “posthuman” and considerations around “posthumanism” may have dual meanings, both of which are critically distinct considerations. The post-human can be considered a postmodern critique of “human” as a concept; it may also be considered as the term given to the next evolutionary step, in other words, post-human in terms of some hypothetical future ‘being’ whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans that it is no longer considered human by current standards.
Elaine Graham’s “Post/Human Conditions” considers both incarnations of post/human & post/humanism and establishes a critique of technology and natural science that suspends the objectivity of science into questions of truth and power. At the heart of her work sits the politics of representation. Her ideas are situated at the interface of theology and technology, identifying how popular culture and scientific discourses provide the Western cultural imagination with all sorts of definitive understandings of what it means to be human (or rather post/human) in a digital, biotechnological and cybernetic age. In considering if we are already post/human, she questions how identities are produced and taken up through practices of representation. The post/human, and in turn, humanity, is not seen as an inevitable condition. In deconstructing the discourse, Graham ends the innocence of our imaginative constructions and redefines the habits of our technology, but the real achievement of Graham’s work is in identifying the values beneath the invention of the post/human and subsequently re-thinking Foucault’s problem of ‘man’ for a technological age. A consideration of Graham’s work forces the question as to whose version of (post) human-ness must be considered – there is a relationship here between the means of production and representation that I want to explore in response to Graham’s study.
If, as Foucault argued, man is a recent invention and indeed one that may be dying in the face of the post/human, it seems to me that rather than the question of who we are, it is the question of how we relate or exchange that becomes critical. If, in fact, it is only in the act of relation or exchange that we become aware of our ‘human-ness’, and such exchanges are built upon capital (on the accumulation of capital), then the question of ‘representation’ is suspended inside economics. Graham illustrates that the problem of who we are in the West is found in the history of what we think is not human – in the monstrous & the divine, in gods & cyborgs – but if theses technologies are products of the machine of capitalism, then what? Perhaps as Foucault stated in 1982, “maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are”.[1]
The post-human condition is not, then, as the term might first suggest, about the next evolutionary step in existence. It is not even about what it means to be human. It is perhaps more specifically a consideration of the impact of technologies on our understanding of what it means to be human, an understanding fueled by economic politics. In light of this, an examination of the political and economic context of cyborg culture and technology as seen in Elaine Graham’s post/human is required. By following two critical strands within her argument, that of trancendence and monstrosity, the significance of the posthuman goes beyond an examination of how – in a material sense – technologies have impacted and will impact the ‘human’ and exposes the discourses and values that shape the assumptions of what it means to be human.
The relationship between transcendence and the monstrous becomes clearer if we consider the confusion between humanity’s interaction with technology and its assimilation by technologies. This is the very fear & desire debate that sits at the foundations of “roboculture”. However, the relationship between human or post/human, imagination and technology rests on critical economic subtext. Graham’s “Post/Human Conditions” is neither rejecting nor embracing technoscience, but rather highlighting the deeper values underpinning technology, values, I would argue are inextricably tied to capitalism.
In order to interrogate the values currently informing representations of the post/human a critique of the discourses that Graham uses to deconstruct the existence of her post/human – that of transcendence & teratology – is required.
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[edit] trancendence & scientific discourse
This brings me first to a deeper discussion around her concept of “transcendence” and its position within scientific discourse. Graham highlights how some of the most intriguing representations of the post/human are those consciously deploying religious metaphor. Do appeals to religion inform visions of the post/human future? If we concede that the pursuit of technology is somehow the realization of a spiritual yearning, then as Graham argues, even in a supposedly secular age, conceptions of God & the spiritual still colour the definition of exemplary models of the divine and these in-turn, continue to fuel humanities’ technological dreams.
This kind of thinking goes against the grain of interpretations which regard science and religion as antagonistic; for here are new technologies – as David Noble outlined in his book, “The Religion of Technology”[2] – presented as instruments of deliverance, vehicles of ascent to higher planes with the power to transport their users into a sacred realm of transcendence, free of the encumbrances of the flesh.
To equate a drive for transcendence with an abandonment of physical worlds is to extrapolate a particular religious symbolic system specific to Western modernity into a universal human essence. The emphasis upon how privileged humanity is in the scheme of things within this (arguably Judeo-Christian) tradition varies but it is unavoidable in one form or another. This leads to all sorts of questions—what is human, who is human, is it better to be more or less human, or better still to be a god, and then, what kind of divinity?
Aspirations toward a digitalized post-biological humanity often reflect the desire for a spiritualized, non-corporeal body as the fulfillment of contempt for the mortality of the flesh. Consider how narratives of transcendence and mastery in scientific discourse, masquerading as eternal, enduring, universal ‘religious’ instincts are elevated as exemplary ideals. This preference for the qualities of detachment and omniscience morphs into a transhumanist anthropology founded on defiance against embodiment, vulnerability and finality of existence in which only the “fittest will survive”.
Ideals of transcendence also call into question if the material world is an impediment to authentic spirituality or the possibility of the divine-human encounter. Graham speaks of technologies as sacraments, and the characterization of Cyberspace as sacred space… such rhetoric makes a particular connection between desire, disembodiment & spirituality and places new values on technologies. Consider the case of social networking sites, specifically Facebook, and the phenomenon of “Facebook Memorials”. A notable ancillary effect of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, has been the ability for participants to mourn publicly -- both for individuals (like a sort of public book of condolences) and to commemorate occurrences such as September 11 or the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007.
If we consider the possibility that the divine is the ultimate definition of the radically nonhuman, what does this ‘‘nonhuman’’ dimension of existence refer to? And how is it related to discourses of transcendence, the religious, or the sacred? Is it fundamentally different from the post/human? If so, how?
Does the fascination with virtual technologies represent the re-enchantment of a world void of religion or simply a materialist perspective in which humanity transforms the natural environment into commodities to which cultural value is attributed. The pursuit of monetary gain is a considerable factor in determining the direction of scientific and technological change Graham herself admits this in her discussion of OncoMouse. Religious metaphor may then be considered less the sole underwriter of science than one of many ideological bolsters of a voracious consumer capitalism that encourages particular patters of relationship and engagement with technology, ‘nature’ and social order. After all, this urge for transcendence coexists with the constant stimulation of consumer desires.
[edit] monstrosity & popular culture
The discourse of monstrosity is also something which both bolsters and denaturalizes talk about what it means to be human. Imaginative considerations of the post-human are especially fraught with monsters. Graham’s teratology concerns itself not with the essence of something but the conditions of its construction; it also recognizes the importance of popular discourses in the formulation of hegemonic notions of what it means to be human. Graham states, “For every assertion of the definitively ‘human’ there is a refracted ‘other’ – the almost-human, the monster, the alien – who shows the workings of the principles by which normative and exemplary humanity is defined”[3] Why is it that the want to define technology as monstrous appears to arise when economic concerns surrounding the technology are still up for discussion? If the key underlying question is the relation between capitalism and technology, tension only arises when uncertainty is placed between economics and the question of agency.
Popular culture dwells upon the fantastic, which summons up alternative universes, imagines things differently, and challenges the fixity of the status quo. If we consider the ‘cyborg’ as an example of Graham’s refracted other, it can find a space where it is both divine & monstrous, but not yet normalized. Returning to the initial question of how we relate or exchange, this may be seen in Paul Verhoven’s Robocop. The cyborg Robocop is initially characterized as a monstrous dehumanized “other”, a modern-day Frankenstein’s monster. Murphy is killed in the line of duty and rebuilt as a cold, mechanized, and violent entity. The initial Robocop is not much of a leap from the murderous “enforcement droid” ED-209, and in this incarnation, it is a realization of the greatest human fears of assimilation, an organic being that has been so fused with machine that any trace of ‘human-ness’ has been obliterated. However, as the narrative progresses and the cyborg begins to realize his “humanity” the ambiguity with which Verhoven treats this realization… to quote Robocop, “I can feel them, but I do not remember them” …allows space for recasting Robocop as divine… transcending humanity and truly becoming post-human. Interestingly the birth of Robocop, allows for an initial reading of the film as a critique of capitalism, as Robocop’s creators engage in a complete disregard for Murphy’s humanity in the pursuit of naked capitalistic gain. However, I would argue that the path that capitalism sets is eventually realized as acceptable (perhaps even desirable?) when Robocop is recast in a post-human light.
[edit] conclusion
Rapid changes in technology signal the need to ponder the implications for culture and the post/human in more sophisticated ways. It is necessary to reach behind superficial appearances and interrogate the implicit metaphysical and theological values embedded in what we worship, where we place our trust and ultimately what it means to be post/ human.
What is at stake when we consider the future of humanity as post-bodied and post-human… such terminology raises a number of questions. Consider the spectrum of diverse responses to new technologies – ranging between seeing the digital and biotechnological age as one of enslavement or liberation, of advanced technologies as threats to human integrity or means of facilitating its further evolution. This generates an imperative to interrogate more deeply the values and interests that underpin any representation of the ‘posthuman condition’. What is at stake in the debate about the implications of digital, genetic, cybernetic and biomedical technologies is precisely what (not who) will define authoritative notions of normative, exemplary, desirable humanity into the next century.
There is also a question of how such visions will be enshrined in the design of technologies and built environments; how they will shape political and policy choices about scientific funding; and how they will inform scientific theories and metaphors.
What Graham’s work opens up is the extraordinary ways technology constructs both the body and thinking, even the critique of thinking, but these models of reality run even deeper. There is a sinister overlap between imagination and economic technology. This dimension of the argument requires more analysis, because it returns us to the question of whether our agency is compromised and to whether our very thought patterns have become part of the technology, not in terms of the technology, but in terms of the machine of capitalism which produces the technology. The machine is no longer controlled by the ethical imagination, but by the power of capital. It is not so much the imaginative spaces of the digital, genetic and biomedical world – as is seen in Graham’s discourses of transcendence & monstrosity – providing new visions of being post/human, but the relationship between representation and the means of production, the production of capital.
The human tendency seems to want to engage in the construction of symbolic, as well as material worlds, and as a result we find a need to embed our technological creations in deeper narratives of hope, anxiety, transcendence and ultimate value. And so, we find that visions of this post/human in humanist science fiction and in the new scientific Gnosticism remain committed to a generic but predominantly rational human nature; an “essence” that is exemplified in the virtues of individual freedom and self-determination, strange, but this sounds very much like the familiar rhetoric of capitalism to me.
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