ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY Anatomy of Failure, Oliver Feltham Beyond Human, edited by Charlie Blake, Claire Molloy and Steven Shakespeare Invasive Technification, Gernot Bohme Philosophy and Simulation, Manuel DeLanda 40, 14/ Posthumanism A critical analysis S T E F A N H E R B R E C H T E R T► LIBRARY OF TI IE C E U CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY I 1 [3mm:sr B L O O M S B U R Y LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com First published 2013 This English translation OD Stefan Herbrechter, 2013 Original edition Posthumanismus. Eine kntische Einfuhrung, 2009 byWBG (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), Darmstadt. The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International -Translation Funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society of VG WORT and the BOrsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers Association). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers Stefan Herbrechter has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7809-3837-0 PB: 978-1-7809-3606-2 ePub: 978-1-7809-3622-2 ePDF: 978-1-7809-3690-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Herbrechter, Stefan. [Posthumanismus. English] Posthumanism : a critical analysis / Stefan Herbrechter pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78093-606-2 (pbk.)- ISBN 978-1-78093-837-0- ISBN 978-1-78093-622-2 (epub)- ISBN 978-1-78093-69D-1 (pdf) 1. Human beings. 2. Technology-Social aspects. 3. Technology in literature. I. Title. BD450.H467813 2013 149-dc23 2013005642 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN Printed and bound in India Contents Acknowledgements vi Preface VII 1 Towards a critical posthumanism 1 2 A genealogy of posthumanism 31 3 Our posthuman humanity and the multiplicity of its forms 75 4 Posthumanism and science fiction 107 5 Interdisciplinarity and the posthumanities 135 6 Posthumanism, digitalization and new media 179 7 Posthumanity — subject and system 195 Afterword: The other side of life 207 Bibliography 214 Index 228 Acknowledgements Parts of Chapter 2 (A Genealogy of Posthumanism') previously appeared as "A passion so strange, outrageous, and so variable": The Invention of the Inhuman in The Merchant of Venice, Stefan Herbrechter, in Posthumanist Shakespeares, eds Stefan Herbrechter and Ivan Callus, 2012 Palgrave Macmillan, reprinted with permission of the publisher (Palgrave Macmillan, www.palgrave.com). Parts of Chapter 4 ('Posthumanism and Science Fiction') previ- ously appeared as 'What Is a Posthumanist Reading?', Stefan Herbrechter and Ivan Callus, Angelaki, 2008 volume 13, number 1, reprinted by permission of the publisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd, http:// www.tandfonline.com). Preface What is 'man'? This age-old question is being asked again every- where today and with increased urgency, given the current technological developments levering out 'our' traditional humanist reflexes. What this development also shows, however, is that the current and intensified attack on the idea of a 'human nature' is only the latest phase of a crisis which, in fact, has always existed at the centre of the humanist idea of the human. The present critical study thus produces a genealogy of the contemporary posthumanist scenario of the 'end of man' and places it within the context of theoretical and philosophical developments and ways of thinking within modernity. Even though terms like 'posthuman', 'posthumanist' or 'posthu- manism' have a surprisingly long history, they have only really started to receive attention in contemporary theory and philosophy in the last two decades where they have produced an entire new way of thinking and theorizing. Only in the last ten years or so, posthu- manism has established itself — mainly in the Anglo-American sphere — as an autonomous field of study with its own theoretical approach (especially within the so-called 'theoretical humanities'). The first academic publications that deal systematically with the idea of the posthuman and posthumanism appeared at the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s (these are, in particular, works by N. Katherine Hayles, Cary Wolfe, Neil Badmington and Elaine L. Graham). In conjunction with this theoretical debate, Francis Fukuyama's book Our Posthuman Future (1999) about the importance of new biotech- nologies for a return to the debate on eugenics opened up a more general philosophical and political discussion. Ever since, a much wider public has shown growing interest in the proliferating ideas and visions of 'our posthumanity'. Many anxieties but also utopian hopes are projected onto new bio-, nano-, neuro- and infotechnologies. These are circulating in the traditional mass media and increasingly, of course, in the so-called 'new', 'digital' and 'social media'. Whereas Fukuyama's contribution to the discussion about the future of the human had been motivated by rather conservative viii PREFACE and moralistic motives based on the apparent opposition between technological development and human nature, there has been sheer delight in 'transhumanist' circles at the prospect that these new technoscientific developments might transform us in a not too distant future into a new digital species with fantastic new potential (cf. Hans Moravec, Max Moore, Vernor Vinge and their followers). The present volume understands itself as a mediating force between these two extreme positions. The kind of critical approach that is being promoted here first attempts to relativize the apparent radical novelty of the 'posthumanist` phenomenon. While the current context might indeed be new and singular, the idea of posthumanism relies on questions and problems that have a long history and are therefore closely connected to other past and present contexts. On the other hand, it is also important to show the truly innovative potential of a critical poSthumanism. Most welcome is, for example, the new and extensive possibilities for co-operation between sciences (and the new bio- or life sciences in particular) and the humanities and social sciences. In this respect, the question of the relationship between humans and technics, or to be more precise, the role of technology for human (and nonhuman) evolution, is of particular importance. In addition, one should not underestimate the fact that the current developments and thus also the discussion about posthumanism are taking place within the context of radical changes affecting the material economic base. This change constitutes a radical transformation within increasingly globalized late capitalism from an 'analog' (humanist, literate, book or text-based) to a 'digital' (posthumanist, code, data or information-based) social, cultural and economic system. The present volume hopes to do justice to all of these complex connections by dealing with posthumanism as a 'discourse', or as a combination of material, symbolic and political changes which are ' constructed' within knowledge production and information politics. As with every critical analysis, the questions that are most prominent in this respect are: Who is the main beneficiary of this discourse? What does the discourse presuppose? What does it exclude? What alternatives are thinkable? 1 Towards a critical posthumanism In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the haughtiest and most mendacious minute of "world history" — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die. One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. it is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it. But if we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that it floats through the air with the same self-importance, feeling within itself the flying center of the world. There is nothing in nature so despicable or insignificant that it cannot immediately be blown up like a bag by a slight breath of this power of knowledge; and just as every porter wants an admirer, the proudest human being, the philosopher, thinks that he sees on the eyes of the universe telescopically focused from all sides on his actions and thoughts. (NIETZSCHE, 19B2 11E1731: 42) This well-known passage from Nietzsche's 'On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense' (1873, §1} may serve as a starting point for, but also as an anticipated summary of, the notion of 'posthumanism' this volume wishes to investigate. Nietzsche's nihilistic, relativist and provocative challenge to 'man, the 'clever animal', is directed against the pettiness of humanism inspired by Christian values and his/its self-inflicted state of godlessness. At the same time, Nietzsche's critique prepares the ground for the supposedly liberating, life- affirming coming of the. 'overman'. It appears that Nietzsche's ' revaluation of all values, which dismisses the traditional distinction between truth and falsehood in a moralist and humanist sense, and instead aims to describe a radically new, non-moralist and posthu- manist situation, is within reach today. Whereas Nietzsche's nihilism mocks the arrogance of the human species along with its self- proclaimed anthropocentric view of 'world history', some humans, inspired by the vision of a technologically induced self-surpassing, thanks to new cogno-, bio-, nano- and information technologies, are pushing the hubris of their species to new extremes. It is likely therefore that even though Nietzsche has repeatedly been proclaimed as a proto-posthumanist thinker, he would probably not be particularly impressed with the current widespread post-humanist techno-euphoria. To project the 'missionary' aspect of the 'human intellect' purely onto the machine-prosthesis is certainly not enough to produce the desired coming of Nietzsche's overman, who, on the one hand, would be humble enough to communicate with a 'mosquito', to learn from it, and, on the other hand, would be powerful enough to overcome humanism's narcissistic pathos. Yet how exactly is the philosopher to tilt his 'telescope' in order to avoid recognizing humanity as already everywhere at work, either in its glory or its deprivation? This could prove to be the most difficult and therefore most important, most urgent and most 'critical' role of a 'postanthropocentric' and thus truly posthumanist philosophy. There are many approaches to this idea. However, a particularly powerful one lies in so-called poststructuralism and deconstruction, with their apparent radically 'antihumanist' critiques. This volume therefore addresses the current technology-centred discussion about the potential transformation of humans into something else (a process that might be called 'posthumanization') as merely the latest symptom of a cultural malaise that inhabits humanism itself humanism in the sense of an ideology and a specific discourse. To perform a critique of the widespread idea of a supposedly inevitable passing of the human species with its associated apocalyptic or euphoric scenarios, it is important to again confront current forms of (technolcultural criticism with the 'antihumanism' of theory in the 1970s and 1980s. While some prophets of a coming post- or transhumanity joyfully proclaim ( once again) the 'end of man', the kind of critical posthumanism advocated in this volume seeks to investigate the possible crisis and end of a certain conception of the human, namely the humanist notion of the human, and, if possible, contribute to the accelerated transformation of the latter. Or, in other words, the underlying rationale of this volume could be: whoever cares about humans and their past, present and future might want to critically engage with humanism's anthropocentric ideology. This could indeed be regarded as a preliminary definition of posthumanism: it is the cultural malaise or euphoria that is caused by the feeling that arises once you start taking the idea of 'postan- thropocentrism' seriously. To be able to think the 'end of the human' without giving in to apocalyptic mysticism or to new forms of spirituality and transcendence — this would correspond to the attitude that the phrase 'critical posthumanism' wishes to describe. The word 'critical' here has a double function: it combines, on the one hand, openness to the radical nature of technocultural change, and, on the other hand, it emphasizes a certain continuity with traditions of thought that have critically engaged with humanism, and which, in part, have evolved out of the humanist tradition itself. The task is, therefore, to re-evaluate established forms of antihumanist critique, to adapt them to the current, changed conditions, and, where possible, to radicalize them.