A Critique on the Politics of Transhumanism

Transhumanism may be considered a recent philosophical development, but its roots go much deeper. Modern transhumanism focuses largely on technological developments, scientific research, and biological means to improve, extend and perpetuate life. Transhumanism is centered around ?transcending humanity?, what it means to be human, and the biological barriers presented by human bodies that deteriorate by nature.

This goal seems quite virtuous. Transhumanists speak of reversing genetic diseases that inhibit people's daily lives, repairing physical damage to our bodies, linking human consciousness to a greater extent, or outright replacing such consciousness with a robotic or non-biological consciousnesses. It is almost always the case that ?Transhumanists? speak of technological and scientific advancements, often times claiming that such changes could cause a drastic paradigm shift for the better of humanity. This focus is almost always devoid of any real political and social criticism, however, particularly of the core paradigms that determine the daily lives of billions of people.

Race, class, gender, ability, and multiple other social phenomena shape the reality of what it means to be human. A vast majority of humanity lives under oppressive capitalist modes of production. They are forced into wage slavery for a mere pittance of the wealth they create. Racism runs rampant through most societies, especially in colonial and imperial states, particularly in the United States. Social definitions of gender and sexuality that don't match the lived reality of humanity continue to oppress and restrict the lives of millions throughout the world.

Progress is by no means inherent, even though most Transhumanists seem to assume that it is. Progress is better described as a knife half withdrawn from the backs of working and oppressed people. Most progress is menial at best and met with drastic measures of repression. Systems of oppression redesign themselves into a different forms with greater nuance, but the same roots. Power elites adjust to changing society and technology to maintain hegemonic power and sustain systems of oppression.

Some argue that technology has an inherent transformative nature, citing the printing press and the internet, making claims that such developments transformed power relations between classes. These technologies are merely tools, however. The Printing Press was employed by the rising bourgeoisie classes to communicate their ideas, develop a class ideology, and gain support from lower classes for their libertarian capitalist revolutions.

These revolutions were not victimless by any means, and in most cases established systems of oppression from their outright. The Colonial war of Independence from Britain was based on racist systems of colonization, slavery, and genocide. The printing press helped develop those systems as much as it helped ?liberate? colonizers from the ?oppression? of the British Crown.

The internet created a space for oppressor to have an omnipresent existence in the life of the oppressed. Poor communities are asked to do things over the internet without access to computers. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQQI) youth are confronted everyday with varying degrees of heterosexism, homophobia, and bigotry, delivered into their bedrooms by the internet through social media. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Wikileaks and uTorrent do not rid the internet of oppressive forces, and have done little to dismantle the power of elites and state entities. Bittorrents are used by oppressive forces to spread intelligence, for instance the Department of Defense. Wikileaks played a role in spurring the Arab Spring, but it was more of an ancillary role. The real power behind the Arab Spring rests in the decades of organizing that took place and acted to build these movements when the rifts were opened by these apparent crises. Claiming that Wikileaks was critical to the rise of these movements is a racist colonial mentality, a white man's burden view of this history that ignores decades of struggle against authoritarian regimes. Wikileaks has certainly had am impact on society, but this impact is not inherent in the technology itself, but rather the political decisions made by those who wield it.

How can we assume that technological and scientific developments will do anything to free us from our human form when our human form is overwhelmingly defined by social factors? We may be able to transform the physical bodies of humans, the storage of consciousness, and progress of diseases and so on, but such transformations will do little to drastically transform a society centered on hegemonic systems of racism, classism, and oppression.

Therefore we must redefine what ?transhuman? means and what it means to be a Transhumanist. We must seek a transhumanism that directly speaks to the social lives of billions of people, instead of relying on some future technology to fix everything for us. We must seek to transcend human boundaries by transforming repressive the very social structures we created while also developing futuristic technologies to improve our lives and our ability to connect with each other.

Transhumanism must encapsulate a libertarian socialistic political view, pursue a drive towards anti-capitalist politics, and seek anti-capitalist modes for producing future technologies. This path would seek to ensure equitable, ethical, and liberating use of developed technologies under socialized modes of production and distribution democratically controlled by working people and communities to serve their best interests and dismantle systems of oppression. Transhumanism without a political view resigns itself to the power hegemony of late-stage capitalist authoritarianism and cedes control of the distribution such technologies to the ruling classes through states, governments, and corporations.

Oppressive structures must be radically transformed if we truly seek to improve the human condition. Such transformations are likely to bring more immediate changes and improvements to the daily lives of people than any well-wishes and intentions meant through the development of future technologies. Capitalism, racism, sexism, imperialism, and other forms of oppression are greater killers than any medical condition and should be at the top of our list of concerns over extending the lives of the privileged few who don't have to think about how they are going to feed themselves each day.

Source: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/strong20130308

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