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Février 1998 21st Man: From subject to object? Cliquez pour retrouver, en bas de cette page, des boutons de navigation
 

In our last installment, we briefly discussed the pros and cons of bionics, i.e. the incorporation of electronic and computer-driven aids in the human body. While this particular topic has not yet generated as much controversy as human cloning or genetic engineering, it ranks clearly in the same category as those latter two disciplines. In all three cases, what is indeed at stake is whether we want or should meddle with nature.

A couple of major, related, ethical objections have been raised:

  1. we shouldn't try to become semi-gods capable of creating and manipulating life, especially human life; this kind of project lies precisely beyond the ethical line we shouldn't cross, lest our hubris should inflate to the point of becoming inhuman;

  2. man is a subject, and we must absolutely not let ourselves drift to a point where man could be the object of experiments. This would be a denial of the inalienable self and of our very nature.

It is true that a number of new technologies seem to lead to a growing objectification of the individual, which may appear rightfully disquieting and worrisome. There even seems to be a convergence of most technologies to that effect. Simulation and virtual reality (VR), for instance, seem to invite us to follow Alice through the looking-glass and to trade our physical selves for "low-resolution" avatars. We know that this convergence is based on digitalization – the representation or simulation of reality through numbers – but that doesn't help us in any way to resist that trend.

And this is not just theoretical – we can encounter signs of human objectification in our everyday life. My two sons, who've each been using a computer since age 2 ½, regularly imitate a robot or another kind of machine. We're supposed to press such or such button (the nose, the ear, the navel…) to start such action on their part. They do it for fun, of course, but doesn't that show signs of a more mechanistic view of their own nature? Do they see themselves as determinist systems moved solely by cause and effect?

My wife, who has extremely good and sensitive hearing, tells me that pretty regularly, when she happens to drive with a rather loud-voiced passenger, she instinctively tries to reach for the "volume down" control, before realizing there's no such thing on human beings – or rather that the usual protocol to obtain a similar effect is to politely ask the person. Does the increasingly usual one-touch control we get on the digital world, thanks to new technologies, influence us to the point of mistaking our fellow beings for inanimate systems?

But technologies aren't the only vector of objectification. At the same time, the raging competition for market shares on the part of ever-growing global conglomerates contributes to reducing us to market survey statistics and pawns of determinist commercial strategies. A number of observers also contend that the sexual liberation of the 60s and the 70s have lead us increasingly to roles of sexual playthings, while a few others note that widespread practices of tatoo and piercing show an increasing disrespect for our very body.

As usual when feeling that the present times show a dangerously degrading trend, it helps to try to assess man's past history for a little perspective.

To those who worry about piercing and such, it is easy enough to remind that ritual body paintings, bone and metal ornaments, and various body markings have apparently been used since the dawn of humanity. Some may have been rather extreme, but they can hardly be tagged as modern-times perversions.

As for the games of love and sex, there's a case to be made for saying that their very interest, and the pleasure and feelings we draw from them stem from a constant play on the subject/object duality. Desire, and even love, needs an object to focus on, as countless tragedians have told us. Modern-day couples tend to think that ideal love and gratifying sex may not be opposed but complementary. They obligingly interchange roles of subject and object in their lovemaking and no-one can deny that this is a definite advance compared to the times when women were too often on the wrong side of the subject-object axis. A recent witty column on the Commerce amoureux, in the French daily Libération, by Yannick Blanc, even compares the games of seduction to the offer and demand mechanisms of the market. For those who can read French, I heartily recommend it.

In the realm of new technologies, Michel Serres, an inspiring French philosopher and historian of sciences has interesting things to say on how faculties that we've thought of as being intrinsically human have one by one been objectified by new techniques (memory objectified by the invention of writing, knowledge objectified by the invention of the printing press, reason objectified by the invention of computers). He seems to hint that human nature does not necessarily coincide with any given set of faculties or values we may think embody it at any given point in time. Although not on this particular topic, this abstract of one of Serres' conferences (in English) gives a good idea of his exciting ideas and reflections. I will try to comment on some of them here in a next installment.

In the end, we could propose an apparent paradox: animals (except maybe our most evolved cousins, the apes) don't see themselves, they don't perceive themselves as "I", they don’t reflect on their condition, and in that, they could be said to be subjects and that alone. Self-conscience is probably a distinctive feature of man and the first water used as a mirror in primeval times may have marked the beginning of human objectification: "I" look at "myself" which thus becomes the object of my observations and reflections.

Self-conscience focuses on an object; desire focuses on an object; exchange focuses on an object: aren't those three of the fundamental attributes of man?

Doesn't it follow that to be part object is in fact to be human?


(c) Lionel Lumbroso 1998-2001



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