Why were cyborgs even conceived? Haraway says that
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The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence. No longer structured by the polarity of public and private, the cyborg defines a technological polls based partly on a revolution of social relations in the oikos, the household. Nature and culture are reworked; the one can no longer be the resource for appropriation or incorporation by the other. The rela-tionships for forming wholes from parts, including those of polarity and hierarchical domination, are at issue in the cyborg world. Unlike the hopes of Frankenstein's monster, the cyborg does not expect its father to save it through a restoration of the garden; that is, through the fabrication of a heterosexual mate, through its completion in a finished whole, a city and cosmos. The eyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust. Perhaps that is why I want to see if eyborgs can subvert the apocalypse of returning to nuclear dust in the manic compulsion to name the Enemy. Cyborgs are not reverent; they do not re-member the cosmos. They are wary of holism, but needy for connection- they seem to have a natural feel for united front politics, but without the vanguard party. The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential."
Wow thats a big paragraph, but I don't. .understand. It seems to me tht she is suggesting the cyborg is sort of more perfect human. I guess it depends on the type of cyborg, really. If it's a Terminator cyborg (Arnold in particular) where the human element is skin, with a robot brain that could be programmed, I don't think that it's a "more perfect" human.. I don't know I guess I just don't understand what kind of Cyborg she is talking about. Or is it like in Star Wars where Luke has a robotic hand, making him stronger? Or Darth Vader where machine was part of him, sustaining his life? There are a million different ways to fit a cyborg together.
I'm really looking forward to discussing this in class because as far as I'm concerned, it's impossible to formulate ideas because a "cyborg" can be so many different things.. Part human, part machine? Does that mean people with hearing aides can be cyborgs? or people with metal in them? where is the line drawn and what type of cyborg is this manifesto geared towards?
IN ADDITION WHY IS LADY GAGA ALIVE AND LOOKING LIKE A ROBOT
Also: Can cyborgs be classified as "alive"? If they are as impartial and all that shit like Haraway is saying.. I don't know, it doesn't seem accurate. I feel like as long as a being with a "human" brain has a "human" brain and not a motherboard, it'll always be partial and have human tendencies. This is frustrating.
Please, shed some light! Maybe I'm just not understanding.
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