What Is Cyber Society And How Do We Fit Into It?
“Cyber organisms” sounds like almost as much of an oxymoron as “same difference” or, better still, “a team of mavericks.” The juxtaposition of the term “organism,” as a living, breathing, earthy and natural being, and “cyber,” as a cold, shiny, artificial, scientifically assembled mechanism, pose a duality that sounds unlikely to break down. Yet today we live in a world of Cyborgs, part mechanism, part organism, and vastly embraced by society. From everyday technologies to the imagined matrix of William Gibson in the novel Neuromancer, we are blasting off and becoming something more than mere flesh.
We, as a society, are becoming less and less human by means of technological innovation. If you’re depressed, swallow a capsule of chemicals that will change the natural functioning of your mind. If you need an answer plug yourself into your computer and Google to your heart’s content. If you lose a limb, have a mechanical limb attached in its place. If you get old, fight it with all the developments those scientists and plastic surgeons have to offer. Chris Hables Grey writes about this cyborg phenomenon: “The probability of posthuman cyborgs horrifies some people and thrills others,” and this is because all of these scientific creations can be seen as progressive to some, and eerily unnatural to others (Gray 2002: 11). Gray argues that we are becoming a cyborg society, and he feels that we must readjust our ideas of citizenship to mesh with this forth and coming cybersociety. Despite the discomfort of part of the population, we are heading straight into a posthuman era, and our role in this emerging society, our responsibly to it, and our essential foresight of the dangers that may be a result of it, all must be realized in order to remain sane in cybersociety.
At a time when only primates had been in space, Kline and Clynes were optimistically probing the potentials of cyborginization in their essay “Cyborgs and Space.” These research scientists of a large mental institution write that “Various biological solutions have also been developed for another problem – respiration,” (Clynes & Kline 1995: 29). The description of respiration as a “problem” indicates the view that in becoming cyborgs we are transcending our natural, and restrictive, life processes. Indeed, this point is further emphasized when they write, “Space travel challenges mankind not only technologically but also spiritually, in that it invites man to take an active part in his own biological evolution,” (Clynes & Kline 1995: 29). Many scientists look at the increasingly cyborg society as the next logical step in our evolutionary progression, and yet the whole nature of human evolution has never before been so within our grasp.
In realizing our departure from the constraints of our organic bodies, we must turn to Romanyshyn and consider that “The body is a situation and as such changes,” (Romanyshyn 1989: 110). The body is only inhabited in life, but life may somehow be improved or even prolong if we are not as dependent on the body as we are when born into it. In technologically altering our bodies, the definition of body changes along with its situation. As we evolve our situations are hugely redefined as our physical shell transforms. With the power to heighten our physical capabilities by means of technology, we completely redefine the contemporary self.
Chris Hables Gray is very interested in these new cyber-selves. In one of his works, Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age, Gray explores the new implications of these changes. The new situation of the body, once turned cyborg can become a sort of “vital machine,” (Gray 2002: 10). The vital machine today could be an artificial respirator in a hospital, functioning on behalf of the lungs. Someday perhaps more of our bodily functions will be replaced by machines, and thus we will realize our potential to create vital machines that work on our behalves.
Although these life saving and progressive perspectives paint an invigoratingly optimistic portrait of cybersociety, it can also be dangerously flawed. For all the excitement the notion brings to some, anxiety is instilled in others. This is because wherever there is newfound power, such as cyborginization, our capitalist society immediately rearranges its power dynamics to seize control of it and profit from it. From the industrial revolution to the cyborg revolution, capitalist and corporate greed have used technology to capitalize off of others. Economy and technology go hand in hand, whether it’s due to the flourishing military-industrial complex in a time of war, or ephemeral consumerism in a time of economic prosperity. These dangers and power dynamics are interrogated in William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer.
The exposition of Neuromancer exemplifies a lot of the fears our contemporary society, and the fears of Americans when the cyberpunk novel was written in 1984, have to cope with on a daily basis. The fears that too many aspects of daily life are becoming privatized, and that the government is willing to let corporations run rampant, are realized in Gibson’s world where virtually everything is owned by corporations. From every building to every aspect of the environment, corporations are in control and nothing is public.
The bonding ties between cybersociety and corporate society grow even stronger when we examine the nature of Case’s, the protagonist of Neuromancer, employment. To repair his central nervous system cyborg technologies are installed in him by his employer, Armitage, to regulate both his work and his general lifestyle. Sacs of devastatingly potent poison are placed in Case’s blood stream, only to be removed when Case promptly completes his mission. Furthermore, Case’s liver and pancreas are also altered by Armitage so that Case’s body can no longer process the drugs that he has been addicted to. This is an even scarier dystopia than George Orwell’s 1984, because the external and ever-present surveillance of “Big Brother” is not nearly as omnipotent as the self regulating bodily installations in Gibson’s vision of the future. Corporations in contemporary society have the power to test for drugs, could the future be employers physically halting what they deem inappropriate habits in employees? This is a danger we must be on guard against, because it seems as though cybersociety allows for the exercise of more and more freedoms to be compromised in the name of, and as a result of, progressing technologies.
The corporate control of the body is not only examined by William Gibson, but also by Victoria Pitts-Taylor in her book, Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture. Pitts-Taylor writes about how many adults, mostly women, undergo cosmetic surgery in a deluded attempt to allow “the real, true, or more proper self to be restored or revealed,” (Pitts-Taylor 2007: 44). The TV show “Extreme Makeover” is sponsored by a group of plastic surgeons who want nothing more than for withering women across the globe to throw themselves under the knife for a plethora of self-enhancements. The cultural politics are undeniable; a group of self promoting surgeons are financially sporting a show that misrepresents the true pain and complications of one particular cyborginization process.
This is not a denial of reality; it is a reconstruction of it. In blasting off from the world around us we become separated from the earth and our bodies as we know them. In discussing the effects of departure Romanyshyn writes, “An invented body! A created body! Manufactured body! And perhaps above all else a body without context, isolated from its surrounding atmosphere, a visible body, a spectacle,” (Romanyshyn 1989: 17). In this departure we completely reposition the place from which we see the world. If our body has changed, our situation is new, and thus the world around us is transformed. In the case of those who seek plastic surgery, cyborginization is necessary to improve how they imagine, when removed from themselves, they are perceived. The power of humans to reconstruct a body, a situation, is very real, but can also become a sort of isolation, or an attempt at escape.
Romanyshyn describes this separation as a result of new technologies of perception, specifically the method linear perspective in renaissance artwork. This, along with any new technology of perception like TV, or the internet, can remove us from the world. “It sets the stage, as it were, for the retreat or withdrawal of the self from the world which characterizes the dawn of the modern age,” (Romanyshyn 1989: 42). Scientists are trying cyborg the human body to create a different situation, because instead of viewing the body as a situation in and of itself “we have become accustomed to defining the body apart from its situation,” (Romanyshyn 1989: 111). The body is the situation, and through technology we create a new perception, the illusion of escape.
This is a very real part of life for Neuromancer’s Case, who plugs in to the matrix in the hopes of removing himself from the cold, dingy, uncaring, “real” world. This, unfortunately, is not true escape. Just because Case’s mind is virtually removed from his body, does not make it a new world. The cyberworld is engulfing the world we once knew, and the situation is changing for better or for worse. While escape has a negative, passive, retreating connotation to it, becoming a cyborg provides and new thrill for some.
Contrary to those pretending themselves into a psychologically new place with the aid of cyborg technology, In Cyborg Citizen we learn of students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are using new cyborg innovations to enhance their human experience, and taste the promises of a posthuman era. Gray writes, “Research into improved interfaces and power technologies…is ongoing. For many young people, being ‘borged is empowering,” (Gray 2002: 10). Is the empowerment healthy? Scientists, no doubt, have helped society in countless ways and countless times, and cyborg progress is incredible, yet society must be the ward of its creations.
Technology as a means of improving life is cyber society at its best, but as Romanyshyn writes, “Death denied, however, is a foolish mockery of life,” (Romanyshyn 1989: 152). In trying to improve life, we cannot deny death. The danger of a post human era lies in our potential to forget the humanity from which cyborgs rise. If we attempt to permanently outwit death, by means of any number of other imaginative cyborg possibilities, we may then abandon the history that got us to this point of self-evolution. “The light of consciousness does cast a shadow,” (Romanyshyn 1989: 150). The farther we become removed from our past, the more we cast our existence into the shadows, as an ugly denial of what we once were. We are then doomed to repeat the blunders, the exploitations, the rapes of land, and the pollutions of the corporate powers that have all helped, in part, to get us where we arrive today: cold, controlled, and cyborged. The depths to which we can examine cybersociety are boundless. The positive results of technology surround us every day, as do the negatives, and it truly is not a matter of black and white. Robert D. Romanyshyn is neither condemning nor condoning of this posthuman progression in his book Technology as a Symptom & Dream. He is, however, skeptical. A great philosopher once said, “Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect.” The more the intelligent the human race becomes, the more discerning we must be when evaluation the repercussions of our actions. “Unless we are responsible to and for our creations the death that we would escape becomes our own destruction,” (Romanyshyn 1989: 162). As cybercitizens we must have constant vigilance over our evolving world as we depart farther…and farther…and farther away from it.
