The Terminator AgonistesCyborgs in the Popular Imagination

Cynthia A. Davidson, Stony Brook U., C&W 2015

How can we help students understand the contested identity of the cyborg in the public sphere?

CYBORG

• “a profound myth, hope and fear specific to our era”

–Alexis Madrigal

DEFINING THE CYBORG

MANFRED CLYNES & NATHAN KLINE (1960)

"For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we propose the term 'Cyborg.'" 

Clynes and Kline:• The cyborg was not less human, but

more. (Human Plus+++)• They criticized the idea of creating

human-ready environments up in space, arguing humans should adapt themselves to extraterrestrial conditions, whatever those might be.

Monsters, Superheroes…

Transhumanism

Natasha Vita-More (Extropian Institute)

• On the difference between cyborg and transhuman:“It’s a different concept. The cyborg is not self-directing evolution. And it’s not self-directed enhancement. And there’s no mention in cyborg theory about psychology, about philosophy, about living longer in the future. Whereas the transhuman, by its very definition, it’s about human transition. And altering our biology for living longer. And improving, or elevating the human performance, both in our physiology and in our cognition.”

Loss, Pain, Gain, and Power

“We are all cyborgs now…”

Donna Haraway“A Manifesto for Cyborgs,” 1991

“A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.”

Amber Case“We are All Cyborgs Now,” TEDWomen 2010

“ [The world] has its own external prosthetic devices, and these devices are helping us all to communicate and interact with each other. But when you actually visualize it, all the connections that we're doing right now -- this is an image of the mapping of the Internet -- it doesn't look technological. It actually looks very organic. This is the first time in the entire history of humanity that we've connected in this way. And it's not that machines are taking over. It's that they're helping us to be more human, helping us to connect with each other.”

What all these examples have in common:

• Reinvention of nature or something natural, like a limb, or a way of communicating.

• These processes are both involuntary and self-directed. They become far less repulsive or fearful when there is less fear of loss or loss of control.

Craig Malkin:“Can Cyborgs Fall in Love?” (2012)

Malkin: A social cautionary tale of lost

connections and family values

Craig Malkin:• “Up until Amber Case’s thought-

provoking TEDtalk, the whole idea of cyborgs falling in love might have seemed like the premise for an outrageous science-fiction story. You know, the kind with cheesy cover art, depicting a fetching, scantily clad fem-bot, draped around a beefy, steely-eyed hero.”

Craig Malkin:• “When we talk about our cyborg self, then,

what we're really describing is the as yet crude admixture that emerges from the blend of human needs, desires, motivations, and perceptions and the projected self we know through cyberspace. The second self isn't at all the same as the human self, precisely because who we are is limited and shaped by the cyberspace in which it dwells.” (My emphasis.)

Malkin’s Example: A father is a cyborgwhen he turns away from his child to check his texts

Student Views

Instructor’s view• Even students who were interested

in it enough to write a textual analysis of it struggled with the idea that Haraway’s cyborg was not an entirely negative proposal. –Sara Santos, WRT 102 instructor

My assignment• I would like you to respond to Malkin’s op-ed.

Feel free to respond with stories of your own experiences. Think about the definition of cyborg that these speakers/writers are forwarding. How do they differ? How are they similar? How does he shape or alter their words to his own views? Do you reject the idea that you are a cyborg, an argument that Case makes? Do you agree with Malkin that the cyborg is a “crudely pixelated” version of the whole human self, or do you have a different idea?

Student 1• “The final and arguably, the most important argument in

favor of the ‘human-ness’ of the humans of today is self-reflection. If we look at our own lives, we see that even if we become more and more digitized by the day, we still maintain very strong bonds with the people we love. When we’re away from our loved ones, we still strive to keep in touch due to the fact that we are so immersed in technology that enables us to do so with extreme ease. In my opinion, the aforementioned arguments clearly prove that humans will always be humans, not cyborgs and no, cyborgs cannot fall in love, humans can.”

Student 2• “To love someone means knowing him or her

– to know that person’s strengths, weaknesses, and flaws. To love someone means accepting imperfections and making yourself vulnerable – concepts that are completely contradictory to the rules followed by our cyber selves. To love someone means knowing the human them, and letting them see the human you.”

Student 3• “I think that calling humans cyborgs is a major

generalization. Although it is somewhat relatable, I believe that there are other factors, like human emotions that no human can deny - despite the influence of technology - which help avoid the classification of humans as cyborgs. Cyborgs are not meant to feel. Humans do.”

Quinn Norton“50 Posts About Cyborgs” project

Quinn Norton:• “It seems like the discussion of cyborgs in the

time since 1960, echoing the discussion of robotics, bounced between news of DARPA and DARPA-like Sci-fi projects none of us will ever really see and Critiques on how We’d All Been Cyborgs, Really, Since We First Picked Up Sticks. I want a middle ground. I want to say there are inflection points where the scale of things changes the nature of what they do.”

Bill Nye reveals the science of racism:“We’re all the same from a scientific standpoint.”

• There is tribalism, and the argument that we are all “the same” rests on our humanity. The power of humanity as a unifying construct is undeniable. This is part of the difficulty of finding the cyborg a positive construction for identity. The less human the cyborg is, the more truly different it is, and the more similar humans seem in relation to it.

Are you a cyborg? Why or why not?Do you agree with the idea that you are a cyborg? In what was can you identify as a cyborg? In what ways can you NOT? How do you think your students would respond to these questions?