Posthumanist Rhetoric
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POSTHUMANIST RHETORIC: THEORY AND CRITICISM FOR THE MORE-THAN-HUMAN by DIANE MARIE KEELING B.A., Ripon College, 2004 M.A., Colorado State University, 2007 A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of Communication Spring 2012 This dissertation entitled: Posthumanist Rhetoric: Theory and Criticism for the More-than-Human written by Diane Marie Keeling has been approved for the Department of Communication _____________________________________ Dr. John Ackerman _____________________________________ Dr. Bryan Taylor Date________________ The final copy of this dissertation has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. iii Keeling, Diane Marie (Ph.D., Communication) Posthumanist Rhetoric: Theory and Criticism for the More-Than-Human Dissertation directed by Associate Professor John Ackerman This dissertation historicizes the way posthumanist values have been infused in theories of rhetoric from classical antiquity through our contemporary moment. There are many versions of posthumanism utilized by rhetorical scholars; however, these conversations have not yet been gathered for metacritical reflection. This project begins this process. I put contemporary rhetorical scholars interested in psychoanalysis, technology, the built world, the body, and animals in conversation with one another in ways that demonstrate a common thread in their writings. Terms such as transference, energy, relationality, affect, aesthetics, and physical materiality assist in the constitution of rhetoric as an intra-activity that continuously shapes our becomings in time and space through its many manifestations. I argue that what we call posthumanism emerged simultaneously with, if not prior to, humanism. I show that by solely attending to how rhetoric moves through discourse, scholars privilege a humanist inspired individualistic, masculine, and human-centered orientation to knowledge production. I argue for the reconceptualization of key rhetorical terms in place of those that privilege language as separate from materiality: rhetorical milieus instead of rhetorical texts, evolving rhetorical selves instead of rhetorical subjectivity, and rhetorical invention through chora rather than topos. I then demonstrate this approach through a critical essay that critiques the spread of androcentric and anthropocentric transhumanist rhetorics. iv DEDICATION To my parents, my sister, and my Thomas Ryan. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am forever grateful for the time, thoughtfulness, guidance and merriment provided by John Ackerman, whose conviction for this project inspired and sustained my creative process. I am appreciative of the support and counsel offered by my committee: Jerry Hauser, Lisa Flores, Robert Buffington, and especially Bryan Taylor for his advisement during my comprehensive exams in preparation for this dissertation. I must thank my dear friend Daniel Kim whose conversation, advice, and encouragement was never lacking and never without want. And finally, I am beholden to Janell Bauer, Jennifer Malkowski, Merrit Dukehart, James Fortney, Virginia McCarver, Kate Mullen, and the Beckers for their moral support and affection. This dissertation benefitted greatly from my participation in the Non-rational Rhetorics Workshop led by Diane Davis and Debra Hawhee during the 4th Biennial Rhetorical Society of America Summer Institute. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: MORE THAN A HUMAN-IST RHETORIC ………………..……………..1 1. RHETORIC AS PHILOSOPHY: THE POSTHUMANIST TRADITION………………...…18 2. RHETORICAL MILIEUS: THE WHAT OF RHETORIC’S STUDY………….…………….39 3. BECOMING A RHETORICAL SELF: THE INTRA-ACTIVE FOLDINGS OF RHETORICAL AGENCY………………………………………………………………………68 4. CHORIC INVENTION: ABJECT BECOMINGS OF TIME………………………………...91 5. THE HISTORY OF (FUTURE) PROGRESS: HYPER-MASCULINE TRANSHUMANIST VIRTUALITY……………………………………………………….….114 CONCLUSION: OF FUTURES YET UNTHOUGHT………………………………….……..142 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………151 1 Introduction More Than a Human-ist Rhetoric Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. (Nietzsche, 1873/2001, p. 1171) In our daily activities we make implicit assumptions about who we are as humans, our human nature, and the human condition. These assumptions have accumulated through a complex history of ideas, affecting how we experience and act in the world and how we go about our intellectual inquiry of it. Throughout remembered time in Western thought such tacit ontological beliefs have tended towards a concern for designating a human exceptionalism, commonly argued as “first, the ability to use language; second, the ability to make and use tools; third, a sense of consciousness about oneself; and fourth, the ability to transmit culture” (Candland, 1993, p.3). Each distinction, however, “as is true of all icons scientific and spiritual, has crumpled and fallen” (Candland, 1993, p. 3). That is to say, we are animals and beyond that our exceptionalism is of our own construction. Based on what we “know” about other environmental organisms, we deem ourselves the cleverest of our kind. However, our existence is amongst a larger more intricate universe filled with galaxies upon galaxies of ecological systems, phenomena, and most probably life forms far beyond possible comprehension or indexing. Thus, Nietzsche (1873/2001) observes that humans 2 are relatively unimportant, and yet somehow have acquired an infatuation with our person and an inflated sense of self significance, “as though the world’s axis turned” by mere human intellect (p. 1172). As humans, he insists, we are flawed, fallible, and fools at our core, deceptive to each other and even ourselves, possessing a keen ability to anthropomorphize our environments, turning nature into natural resources. He (1878/1996) refers to this as being human, all too human; that is, all too invested in the human species to realize our very insignificance. Nietzsche’s, however morbid, conclusions assist philosophers in breaking from the epistemologies or regimes of truth that have guided their intellectual inquiry throughout the Western tradition, a regime such as post-enlightenment humanism that distinguishes man from other animal species as autonomous and special, possessing universally shared qualities of rationality, and which promotes the separation of mind/soul from the body (Balibar, 1991; Foucault, 1966/1970). How did this knowledge come to be? To answer this question, we must consider the emergence of knowledge as an ontological predicament. Humans, like other living organisms, have the ability to negate or recognize differences in phenomena they perceive. All creatures, to different extents, negate for survival and this negation is constant since all matter is active and morphogentically pregnant, that is, capable of generating new forms through exposure to other intensive differences. The sciences are based on the negation of different phenomena and their pressures, temperatures, and speeds. Humans recognize difference based on their physical sensations of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Some organisms have the ability to apprehend electrical and magnetic fields, water pressure and currents, infrared emissions and ultraviolet wavelengths, stimuli not immediately available to the bare human body. Certainly, there are stimuli in creatures that we may never be aware. Our limited perceptions cause part of the antropocentric orientation to the world through sheer 3 ignorance. What our species can negate—for example, the mineral difference between gold and silver—another species, like fish, likely do not distinguish. Conversely, we are cognizant that fish detect currents and vibrations in water, but perhaps we are oblivious to other sources of their perception for which we have no tools to observe. The process of negation relies on a threshold of difference within the movements of matter that a sense perception can recognize. Matter is always moving through waves of fluctuating intensities and as significant difference emerges from these waves the motion can be symbolically arrested. Thresholds of difference emerge through processes of change, such as when ice transforms into water. They are environmental artistic expressions that provide the opportunity to represent the difference when the phenomena is absent, when it has moved on. While all organisms are aware of their environmental expression—the thresholds of difference available to their sense perceptions—not all organisms attempt to double, or represent, the first ephemeral expression. This second act of expression is dependent on an innate relationship, or intra-activity, between that which is sensible and that which perceives. For humans, the second expression becomes another artistic production created through our aesthetic capacities, typically in sight and/or sound. The artistic representation, the attempt at arresting movement, is not the actual phenomena; it is a lie (Nietzsche, 1873/2001), a simulacrum (Baudrillard,