The Cyborg Manifesto
We were asked to write a critique of philosophical texts for one of our modules. The text should be something that we connected with. The one piece that hit me over the head like a bucket of bricks was Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto. Here's my attempt at critiquing it.
“Liberation rests on the construction of the consciousness, the imaginative apprehension, of oppression, and so of possibility”
As a woman, a feminist, who only just encountered to concept of intersectionality within the last five years, the Cyborg Manifesto was eye-opening. The ideas I had thought revolutionary, were, only they were revolutionary 30 years ago. In this critique I will look at Haraway’s Manifesto from this perspective – That of a person encountering feminist theory for the first time. I hope to address the aspects of the manifesto that have clearly held true, and those that have been shown, by passage of time, to have not.
The Cyborg Manifesto is an analysis, not just of technology and society, but also of feminism itself. To Haraway the Cyborg is a symbol of a potential future. One where traditional boundaries are crossed, bent, or broken. She notes that the Cyborg is a creature without myth. It is not concerned with origin, it has never had an innocence to lose. Similar to Latour’s work in compositionism, Haraway sees the cyborg as “Nature and Culture reworked; the one can no longer be a resource for appropriation or incorporation by the other” (Haraway, 1991). However the cyborg does not need a Frankenstein to assist its progress in the world.
In comparing feminism to the cyborg, Haraway notes the fractured boundaries between women, from women of colour, socialist feminists to radical feminists. She traces the path of feminism from its Marxist origins in labour to its (she hopes) inevitable intersectional end. As the cyborg plays in the “confusion of these boundaries” it allows Haraway to take a critical look at them.
She finds these subdivisions of feminism exclusionary, that they cannot “provide the basis for belief in ‘essential’ unity”. As Bertolet said in Philosophy of Language, “being about the same thing might just be a matter of referring to the same thing , with differences in meaning reflecting different ways of thinking about the same thing” (Bertolet, 2008). However, while many parts of society are engaging with feminism, only certain ones are “remaking” feminist history. Feminism is policed to ensure no one deviates from “official women’s experience”.
Haraway sees the feminist past as being guilty of “unreflective participation in the logics, languages, and practices of white humanism and through searching for a single ground of domination to secure our revolutionary voice”.
As Mills stated in her book on Foucault, “Discourse does not simply translate reality into language, rather it should be seen as system which structures the way we see reality” (Mills, 2003). The policing of women, by women, allows a patriarchal oppression to continue. Haraway argues that Cyborg feminists should not want a unity. Rather than looking for a totality, feminists should strive to weave a new narrative, an inclusive one, with no defined categories.
In the post-human, cyborg world, Haraway sees communication technologies and biotechnologies as crucial in redefining and re-crafting ourselves. In this future “it is not just that god is dead; so is the ‘goddess’. Likewise, ideologies will need to reframe their narratives to better suit this technological time. She also predicts a rise of control strategies, specifying strategies applied to women and their capacity to give birth. The technology is not necessarily freeing, but it has the potential.
“Our bodies, ourselves; bodies are maps of power and identity. Cyborgs are no exception.”
The text of the manifesto is often difficult to decipher. The language used is almost deliberately obscure. For me, it required multiple readings before I had a grasp on the ideas contained within. Despite the allegory of the Cyborg, Haraway’s manifesto is surprisingly lacking in imagery. It takes time and effort to understand. To some, this can be off-putting. The human mind appreciates visual cues.
Haraway had an almost prophetic appreciation for how integrated humanity and machines would become, to the increasing dismay of some. Sherry Turkle, in the introduction to her book Alone together, notes that with increasing digital connections we can “hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other” (Turkle, 2011). This ability to hide ourselves leads to a disconnect even as we reach out to engage with each other.
Concepts such as privilege and the patriarchy are normalised by online discussions. People have to a certain extent embraced this aspect of cyborg – this blending of borders between the offline and the online. Although not without some backlash. The increased presence of women in spheres traditionally perceived as male, such as politics and technology has led to an equal rise in vocal misogyny. From the online harassment of Caroline Criado-Perez (who dared to campaign for female representation on bank notes) to the treatment of Julia Gillard, the ex-Australian prime minister, women who dare to break the unstated boundaries are punished by an unruly mob.
Discussions on intersectionality are happening now, on internet forums, on sites like Tumblr, and on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The conversation is the same. Women of colour are asking for their lived realities to be considered. Radical Feminists are still determining who can be both female and feminist. In a 2011 article for the Guardian entitled “The end of Feminism, or, how I learned to stop worrying and wear lipstick.” In it she stated that femininity was incompatible with feminism. One could not both wear lipstick and campaign against domestic violence (Bindel, 2011).
Haraway hoped that feminism would be able to move past its “painful fragmentation” that allows “for the matrix of women’s dominations of each other.” Reading the manifesto was at once energising and at the same time profoundly sad. We have not grasped the potential in Haraway’s vision. We are still struggling to see past our internal borders, past our inherited victimhood.
It has not all been a disappointment. In some areas, the reality is beginning to approach the optimism inherent in cyborg-feminism. In the last 30 years there has been an increase in recognition of non-binary genders. Something Haraway predicted in 1985. Particularly within the developed nations there have been significant gains in political recognition, with those who are transgender gaining equal rights with the traditional binary genders.
Claire Colebrook in her article, From Radical Representations to Corporeal Becomings: The Feminist Philosophy of Lloyd, Grosz, and Gatens, posited that philosophy should be seen as “creation and becoming, and as an always specific becoming, we would open the way for other becomings” (Colebrook, 2000) With the rise of the semantic web, ideas and ideologies are brushing against each other at an exponential rate. In this melting pot of ideas, it may be that Haraway’s Cyborg emerges.
In her interview with Nicholas Gane in 2006 Haraway said that “Manifestos provoke by asking two things: where the holy hell are we, and so what?” (Gane, 2006)
The cyborg manifesto is a question, rather than an answer. The text appears obscure because it does not seek clarity. It asks the reader to find their own interpretation.
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Bibliography Bertolet, R., 2008. Philosophy of Language. In: The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Science. s.l.:Routlegde, pp. 36-46.
Bindel, J., 2011. The Guardian. [Online]
Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/24/feminism-world-femininity-day
[Accessed 14 05 2014].
Colebrook, C., 2000. From Radical Representations to Corporeal Becomings: The Feminist Philosophy of Lloyd, Grosz and Gatens. Hypatia , 15(2), pp. 76-93.
Gane, N., 2006. When we have never been human, what is to be done?. Theory Culture Society, 23(7-8), pp. 135-158.
Haraway, D., 1991. The Cyborg Manifesto. In: Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.New York: Routledge, pp. 149-181.
Mills, S., 2003. Discourse. In: Michel Foucault. s.l.:Routledge, pp. 53-66.
Turkle, S., 2011. Alone together. New York: Basic Books.