tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6477080206627137109.post858158625090557994..comments2024-03-09T14:13:14.671+00:00Comments on News & Press from The Future Fire: T is for TranshumanismDjibrilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06382333338207409292noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6477080206627137109.post-86611573713212069352011-10-03T19:36:01.445+01:002011-10-03T19:36:01.445+01:00There's an alternative posthuman construction ...There's an alternative posthuman construction in the cyborg, as articulated in Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto (1985). What I see as the main difference between these two posthuman visions is the way in which they respond to the anthropological construction of Enlightenment Man: H+ seems, IMO, to take on this anthropology and simply enlarge it, while Haraway's cyborg offers a feminist/queer/postcolonial critique of it from the perspective of those who have always been historically excluded from this limited philosophical and political view of the "human." To simply carry over this view of the human into the posthuman, as I interpret transhumanism to be doing, simply recapitulates the mistakes of a former era in a new technological vein. Not an improvement. The solution is not the reactionary backlash, but a strong articulation of an alternative possibility for the future, one which is equally technophilic but genuinely inclusive.<br /><br />I will now shamelessly plug my forthcoming book--which, alas, has much less SF in it than I wish, but a large part of which argues for making a strong distinction between feminist cyborg constructions and transhumanism...Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the Posthuman. :)<br /><br />P.S. Slan is among my favorite SF novels from my childhood to revisit...I stole my dad's old paperback, come back to it regularly...JJThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14920416765778868736noreply@blogger.com