4. the Posthuman: Situating the Subject in Human-Tech Relations
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Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject R.S. L A Posthuman Approach EWIS RICHARD S. LEWIS Media literacy is oft en focused on evaluati ng the message rather than refl ecti ng on the medium. Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject and Media Literacy, Technology, Bringing together postphenomenology, media ecology, posthumanism, and complexity theory, Richard Lewis off ers a method for such a refl ecti on and shows how our everyday media environments consti tute us as (post)human subjects, always in a state of becoming. An original interdisciplinary eff ort and a must-read for everyone interested in how we become with and through technologies. Prof. Mark Coeckelbergh, University of Vienna We are mediated by and immersed in a world where informa� on and communica� on technologies (ICTs) are undergoing accelerated innova� on. From hardware like smartphones, smartwatches, and home assistants to so� ware like Facebook, Instagram, Twi� er, and Snapchat, our lives have become inextricably entwined with a complex, interconnected network of rela� ons. Scholarship on media literacy has tended to focus on developing the skills to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages without considering or weighing the impact of the technological medium and the broader context. What does it mean to be media literate in today’s world? How are we transformed by the many media infrastructures around us? These issues are addressed through the crea� on of a transdisciplinary approach that allows for both prac� cal and theore� cal analyses of media inves� ga� ons. The author proposes a framework and a pragma� c instrument for understanding the mul� plicity of rela� ons that all contribute to how we aff ect—and are aff ected by—our rela� ons with media technology. The increased awareness provided by this posthuman approach aff ords us a greater chance for reclaiming some of our agency by providing a sound founda� on upon which we can then judge our media rela� ons. This is the author-approved edi� on of this Open Access � tle. As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital Technology, Media Literacy, edi� ons, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found at h� p://www. openbookpublishers.com and the Human Subject Cover image: Albert György, Mélancolie (2012). Photo by Marieke S. Lewis (2019), CC-NC-ND. Cover Design by Anna Ga� . A Posthuman Approach book eebook and OA edi� ons also available OBP RICHARD S. LEWIS OPEN ACCESS https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2021 Richard S. Lewis This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Richard S. Lewis, Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject: A Posthuman Approach (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2021), https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0253 Copyright and permissions for the reuse of many of the images included in this publication differ from the above. This information is provided in the captions and in the list of illustrations. In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0253#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0253#resources Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 9781800641822 ISBN Hardback: 9781800641839 ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781800641846 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781800641853 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781800641860 ISBN XML: 9781800641877 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0253 Cover image: Albert György, Mélancolie (2012). Photo by Marieke S. Lewis (2019), CC-NC-ND. Cover Design by Anna Gatti. 4. The Posthuman: Situating the Subject in Human-Tech Relations I take the posthuman predicament as an opportunity to empower the pursuit of alternative schemes of thought, knowledge and self- representation. The posthuman condition urges us to think critically and creatively about who and what we are actually in the process of becoming. (Braidotti, 2013: 12) After focusing on the technological relations in the previous chapter, I now bring the discussion to the human side of the human-technology relation, trying to better understand what makes up the human subject under discussion. I first give a brief historical account of the humanist subject, consider the transhumanist subject, and discuss how they each are involved with the human enhancement debate. I then make the case for a philosophical posthuman subject that is complex and emergent. Through a contemporary approach to the human, I use complexity to understand our selves not as standalone individuals but as complex and interrelational beings who are always becoming through the relations in our lives. This chapter will finalize the background and theoretical underpinnings for the framework developed in Chapter 5. It is difficult, if not impossible, to fully comprehend the effect of information and communication technologies (ICTs) without first having an accurate understanding of the human subject. While we have made great advances in developing technologies, it is surprising © 2021 Richard S. Lewis, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0253.04 88 Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject how challenging it remains to answer the question, what are we? While it may be simple to ask the question, contriving an answer is much more complicated. Finding the answer to this question has been one of the primary concerns of philosophers (and humankind) throughout recorded history. In order to understand how the technological relation discussed in chapter three constitutes us, it is helpful to understand what is this ‘us’ we are talking about. While understanding the human subject has changed throughout history, it is further complicated by the wide range of cultures with radically different ways of interpreting the human. My main focus remains on the contemporary, Westernized world. This is not to discount other cultures that have beneficial contributions and perspectives, but simply to limit the scope and stay embedded within my own situated knowledge so as to avoid ‘appropriating the vision of the less powerful while claiming to see from their positions’ (Haraway, 1988: 584). Humanists and Transhumanists Debating Enhancement As ICTs encroach more and more into our lives, questions of the convergence of humans and technology are raised. The majority of people in the developed world now have a constant connection with the digital world through smartphones—roughly 72%—and the undeveloped world has reached almost half who have a constant connection (Poushter et al., 2018: 4). This connection provides instant information retrieval via a browser search (often Google) and an ever-present network of friends via social media. At one’s fingertips are answers to almost any question, from restaurant reviews, to directions, to definitions. Translation apps can use augmented reality by using the phone’s camera to change an image’s words into one’s preferred language (Fragoso et al., 2011). Wearable technology is taking advantage of being located on one’s body and provides a person with health-related information and insights (Van Den Eede, 2015b). Technologies are indeed ‘moving towards us, into us’ (Van Den Eede, 2017: xxv). Recent advances in nano, biological, and information technologies, along with cognitive sciences (collectively referred to as NBIC 4. The Posthuman: Situating the Subject in Human-Tech Relations 89 technologies), have sparked a passionate ‘human enhancement’ debate concerning what it means to be human (Roco & Bainbridge, 2003). On one side are transhumanists, who cite our long history of using technology to survive and improve our lives; from fire, to shelter, to cross-breeding plants for better agricultural yields. In the transhumanist view, gene splicing and nano technologies are simply next steps in this long history. On the other side of the spectrum are the bioconservatives, or traditional humanists, who believe that human enhancement can lead to the potential loss of something essentially human. First, there is no one humanism or one transhumanism. Both have evolved over time, and both are comprised of many people with differing opinions. My ultimate goal is not to disprove either of these approaches, but to create a contemporary understanding of the human subject in order to more fully realize how relations with technologies contribute towards constituting the human subject. I attempt to limit making sweeping statements. I also restrain from spending too much time defining myself against other approaches, saving the bulk of my argument for an affirmative building of my position. Convergence of Humans and Technologies As ICTs come ever more entangled with our lives, one question might be raised concerning how much longer it will be before we move from wearable to wide spread embedded technology? This brings about the question of NBIC technologies and human-technology convergence. Already there are advances to neural interfaces, where the goal is to ‘seamlessly integrate the interface between neurobiology and engineered technology to record from and modulate neurons’ (Wellman et al., 2018: 1; cf. Neely et al., 2018). Brain-to-machine interfaces are being developed for assistive technologies (Donati et al., 2016) but also more generally for ‘interaction between a person and a machine via thought’ (Sargent et al., 2017: 1).