Why the MLA does not speak for me

I’ve been a member of the MLA (Modern Language Association) for over ten years. It has rarely spoken for me. The only publication I truly look forward to is the annual Profession magazine, which is a collection of essays on the state of the profession. So I was excited to see that there were several essays on the role of the intellectual in the 21st century, including one by Julia Kristeva.

Students of mine know that I take psychoanalytic theory such as that discussed by Lacan and Kristeva seriously. But every now and again I’m reminded that I take them perhaps more seriously than I should. In a piece entitled “Thinking in Dark Times” she writes:

“Contrary to what we’re led to believe, the clash of religions is in fact merely a surface phenomenon. The problem we’re facing at the beginning of this new millennium is not one of religious wars but rather the rift that separates those who want to know that God is unconscious and those who prefer not to, so as to be pleasured by the show that announces he exists” (16).

The rest of the paragraph clearly indicates (though it’s debatable that Kristeva is ever clear) that the only place to be in this dichotomy is with those who “want to know that God is unconscious” and not with those who “prefer not to”. Now, what kind of choice is this, really? What does it mean to want to know that God is unconscious? Best I can make out, it is to believe, contra gut instincts maybe, that God is only a force in our psyches, not external to us, a force we made up that is powerful nonetheless. The second choice is to know this (perhaps in your unconscious) but to prefer not to believe it, to choose an unenlightened state, so as to receive a kind of sexual pleasure from consumer capitalism’s promise of goods “guaranteed by the promise of superior good” in an endless Lacanian god-is-the-phallus-in-the-box deferral. Quite simply, this is ridiculous. I pulled out this paragraph to discuss it with my husband (who is a philosopher), and it reminded me how often I just let this kind of reasoning sneak by me, because of the way people like Kristeva write. The fact that the MLA would publish this without hesitancy is not surprising to me. Nor am I surprised that no one in its upper echelons can see (or care about) how truly contemptuous this kind of thinking is to the “other”---in this case, people with genuine belief. We have been reduced to self-pleasuring infants who never want to grow up. And because we are infantile, it is also our fault that things like 9/11 happen. If the MLA wants to be relevant, it needs to back away from this kind of self-serving contempt.

Science, technology, and the promise of liberation

“Scientific progress can at most be liberation from; it can never constitute or provide the thing that it is a liberation for.”

These memorable words are from Albert Borgmann's insightful book: Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. Though this quote is about the notion of scientific progress, this book is much more about the way technology changes our lives. Borgmann draws a distinction between science and technology in order to argue how technology is changing the way we deal with the concrete world, which has enormous ramifications. Specifically, technology tends to commodify our lives by transforming things into devices. A violin is a thing; it requires mastery to play it, it is more of a focal point for us; in other words, it is not just about the music it produces. A stereo, on the other hand, is a device that produces only the commodity of the music it plays. While we seem to be getting the "freedom" from the burdens of our lives, Borgmann warns us that the transformation of things into devices can thin the quality of our lives.

Rudolph, Peter Singer, and the question of dignity

Blogs are excellent for completely random thoughts, and here's mine for the day. I was changing my son's diaper this morning, a task that requires constant singing if you don't want him to cry. So for some reason I was singing Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, and I was stuck on the part when Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh tonight. "Then all the reindeer loved him, and they shouted out with glee, 'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history.'" And it occurred to me that this little song nicely demonstrates the problem with the rule of technique in society when it comes to others. Rudolph was a misfit, unloved by the others until his nose became useful. Then he was lauded as a hero. The lesson can only be that you will be valued only if what others perceive as freaky proves to be valuable. Forget about inherent dignity in this world. It is a Peter Singer paradise. It's pull a sleigh exceptionally well, or don't expect to participate in our reindeer games, chump.

Radical Evolution

It is refreshing to read a book that accurately and interestingly names the various responses to "the singularity" that is an inevitable part of our future. That book is Joel Garreau's Radical Evolution. He lays out different scenarios predicted by people who care about posthumanism. They are: Heaven; Hell; Prevail; Transcend. The best thing about the book is his introduction to the personalities that are behind the scenarios. It is well worth your time to read, if only to learn about the nerds who will call the shots of all of our futures.

"Proficient delayers"

I just finished reading Brent Waters' book From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology and Technology in a Posthuman World. In my opinion, its greatest strength lies in its analysis of the language of posthuman theology that tries to replace God with creativity. The creativity that posthumanism worships is one of infinite self re-creation that knows (it thinks) no limits. The holy grail of that pursuit is immortality, but Waters shows clearly how that immortality is not to be equated with eternity.

"Even if we grant that the posthuman dream of virtual immortality is feasible rather than fanciful, its twofold strategy of radical transformation fails, for the problem of finite and temporal necessity is not overcome, but merely displaced and denied. In the first instance, independence from ecological processes is achieved by shifting human dependence from nature to artifice. In deploying technology to become progressively less dependent on natural processes, humans will be using artifacts of their own design, and therefore subject to their control. Yet the eventual success of the posthuman project is predicated on the evolution of artificial life that is superior to humans, and therefore not under their control. Dependence is not so much overcome as displaced; natural necessity is exchanged for an artificial counterpart. [. . .] posthumans are ultimately not the masters of their own fate, but only proficient delayers."

This is so very true. And although Waters does not go on to argue this point, it strikes me with a new force (as it did Jonathan Swift and many other writers) that immortality on human terms (vis a vis human control) is not necessarily good, and may even be fundamentally bad. And yet our technophiles go on working for it, freezing their heads and hoping to live into the future that they think is going to be so very luminous.