Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Bow Before the Machine

Cyborgs are cool; seriously, they are, but is making an academic system of thought based on science fiction really a good idea? Sciencetology did that with L. Ron Hubbard, and everyone thinks they're crazy. But this phenomena of cyborg culture/worship , not only in the terms Hathaway describes it, is really nothing new.


Humanity tends to project its dependence on tools it needs to survive into a kind of socio-symbiotic worship. The Egyptian gods are a good example of this. They are a combination of human and animal relative to the dominion of life each god was said to have. Not much has changed, as humanity becomes more dependent on technology and redefines its meta-narrative with the underpinnings of chance evolution rather than divine creation, its gods have changed shape. A new priestly class has risen trading sacred robes for white lab coats, but essentially filling the same function as their ancient counter parts, giving the people some overarching reason for existence. It’s no wonder that the idea of the cyborg is so attractive today. If humanity has replaced the divine with science and the technology that it spawns, then we as humans, craving divinity, naturally want to see ourselves in mechanical terms. We have reduced our humanity to informational code (DNA), as if all that we are is a preprogrammed mechanical construct, and in that definitive model, why would we not be compatible with our own information-based silicon creations?


Agree or not, Hathaway makes this point really clear in the manifesto when she says, “ Biology and evolutionary theory over the last two centuries have simultaneously produced modern organisms as objects of knowledge . . . within this framework, teaching modern Christian creationism should be fought as a form of child abuse” (517).

And we don’t stop with ourselves. If all that we see is information-based, than that information can be changed to fit our own ideals. As Brenda E Brasher points out:



"Technology's rapid progress in the late twentieth century in this regard is not accidental. Within the economic paradigm of late capitalism, Disney/America, Microsoft, IBM, Eli Lilly, SONY/Columbia, and a host of other techno-capitalists survive and thrive by hastening the cyborging process. To generate profits they offer us sounds better than life. They compose images more beautiful, more awesome than anything we can naturally see. They design and produce drugs that make us more social, thinner, happier, sexier, putatively more ourselves. Even "nature" is not natural anymore (i.e., changing and evolving in response to the biological balance of ecosystem paradigms). It, too, is being cyborged as techno-agriculturalists slowly configure the seed market to privilege hybrid plants that require farmers to purchase patented seeds each year. As a result, we who act and interact in the contemporary world are becoming 'borged.'"


Who knows how far the “borging” will go, but hesitancy and pessimism about the trends we’re seeing aren't bad. The fear representative in films like the Matrix, and all the way back to Frankenstein is not just the result of over-active imaginations, but clear warnings about considering consequences before crossing certain boundaries. Ancient people built idols and then feared those idols would turn their inanimate wrath against them. The pharaohs of old looked on their gods, and said, “hey I’m kind of like that, maybe I’m a god too”, and we would look at their reaction and say, “they were crazy”, but humans today are looking at machines and saying the same thing. How long before that kind of break with reality has dire consequences if it hasn’t already?

Notes: The Cyborg: Technological Socialization and Its Link to the Religious Function of Popular Culture

by Brenda E. Brasher

Brandon and I had such similar reactions to Hathaway; we just combined our posts here.


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