“The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence.”(Haraway 151) Haraway more or less focuses on the benefits of the cyborg. She aligns its existence with that of a genderless, utopian future society as opposed to our society today in which our differences (gender and others) are the main elements of our downfall. In those two sentences above Haraway summates the sole purpose and in essence the defining characteristics of the cyborg. In dissecting Haraway’s statement, one can discover the being that is the cyborg and inevitably the characteristics of utopian society.
To be resolutely committed to something means to be determined, firm, and to be characterized as being such. It is an absolute. Partiality can either be a favorable bias or a prejudice. Prejudice, a sneered yet ever present attribute to our society. What purpose would it have in a utopian or perfect society. In Dick’s novel, partiality is ever present as well. The humans have prejudices based on IQ and status. The androids although most presented as being in hiding, pretending to be human, have prejudices against humans.
Cyborgs are committed to irony, by choice or simply in principle. Early in Haraway’s paper, she describes the cyborg as being the ‘final’ irony of the Western sense, the cyborg having no origin of its own, proceeds to steal our ending. The irony involved in Dick’s novel is almost suffocating. From the realization by both Isidore and Deckard that the kipple that they toil to keep away will inevitably take over once they cease, to Deckard’s resentment of not “retiring” Rachael. That in itself has some type of double irony. She was destined to wear out in just a few years so he let her live only for her to retaliate by killing his goat and he having no ammo for his revenge on her. To have empathy is to be human. To take advantage of that empathy and not caring either way if revenge comes is to be a cyborg? Or perhaps just a desensitized human?
Intimacy a term associated with closeness and endearment must bring some sort of humanity to these cold beings. The androids gave off an air of having a love-hate relationship with the human race. They found freedom within posing as humans .It is a pseudo closeness and affection with being human even if it meant risking their existence. That shows more commitment to something than even most humans would oblige.
Perversity and oppositional are two characteristics that go hand in hand with the cyborg, only strengthening the resolve. If the cyborg was simply oppositional it would merely mean that it went against something, good or bad. Giving the cyborg the benefit of the doubt, and its supposed lead to Utopia, one can suppose that the cyborg could be opposed to the negative traits of our society, making it both perfect and good. Yet Haraway states that the cyborg is committed to perversity. Perversity meaning a deviance to all that is good. In other terms, the cyborg is wicked. It is committed which means it is persistent in being wicked.
As if it had not been already been implied, the cyborg iswithout innocence. Innocence involves a lack of understanding, freedom from moral and legal wrong, guiltlessness, and harmlessness. The androids of Dick’s novel, were a band of illegal escapees and murderers. They were far from harmless, although they lacked the understanding of emotion they understood its presence, they were guilty although it did not bother them because they did not share the same emotions as humans.
From both Haraway, and Dick’s novel one can see that from the human standpoint, the cyborg represents a cold shell that mimcs a human. It has greater knowledge yet lacks feeling. It understands but is not completely understanding. The cyborg is perfect. It is utopian, but it is not good. At least not from the human standpoint and opinion of what is good. Even so, Haraway approves of the existence of such creatures. The main point being that these beings aren’t human, therefore the characteristics previously discussed would have to be redefined to fit the purpose that is the cyborg.
Partiality from the cyborg’s view is important indeed. In Dick’s novel, the androids indicate a preference for each other, looking down on the humans. With greater numbers of such “rogue” androids , the preference or prejudice would simply work as a stimulus for natural selection. Humans would continue to feel useless and unwanted to the point where they would become nothing more than the appendix of society. Ironically it will be the beings who lack a genesis story, to play the surgeon removing the useless organ that when knowingly present only manages to bring pain, thus ending its reign.
Intimacy is all part of the plan. Ever heard of the phrase: “Keep your friends close keep your enemies closer”? The androids stayed close, absorbing knowledge, observing and practiced being human, so much so that the lines blurred on who is human and who is not. Cyborgs must learn all that is humanity, so that it can be redesigned in Utopia.
Perversity is such an opinionated word but necessary. Humans have obviously confused right from wrong. Ethics and morals are not as they seem. It is the cyborg’s job to correct this. If one deems someone else to be the enemy, then most or all of what they do is wrong. Therefore cyborgs and androids alike are simply being perverse to the likes of humans. Humans do wrong therefore the cyborgs are doing what is right.
3 comments:
This is a difficult paper, which has many interesting moments but doesn't seem, to me, to be coherent taken as a whole (of course, someone might try to make the same claim of Haraway).
Generally speaking I thought your readings of Haraway and PKD were good, although a couple difficult moments stick out. You talk about Haraway's interest in "perversity" without dealing with the impliciation that the word usually is used to refer to sex - so she is embracing sexual "perversity," but that doesn't necessarily mean that she is fully inverting good and evil. Similarly, there is an important moment where your reading of PKD is a little simplistic - your claim, for instance, that androids are ultimately cold and aloof, etc., is not necessarily born out by the text. This is what Deckard says, and maybe even what he believes, but does this accurately describe Luba Luft, for instance? Or Pris at the moment when she touches Isidore? Your discussion of PKD gets a little general, and problematic as a result.
None of that is fundamental, though. The fundamental issue here is that I'm not at all sure what your argument is. I'm not even sure if you're arguing, for instance, that Haraway's work is based on PKD's, or that PKD's androids are cyborgs (as Haraway discusses Cyborgs). You say a number of interesting things about, for instance, the role of irony in both texts, among other subjects - what's lacking at this point is focus. What are you trying to demonstrate to your reader?
You need a single clear argument (about irony? About morality? Maybe - these are subjects that you return to), and then you need to rework the paper around that argument.
“The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence.”(Haraway 151) Haraway more or less focuses on the benefits of the cyborg. She aligns its existence with that of a genderless, utopian future society as opposed to our society today in which our differences (gender and others) are the main elements of our downfall. In those two sentences above Haraway summates the sole purpose and in essence the defining characteristics of the cyborg. Phillip K. Dick’s novel, Do Android’s Dream of Electric sleep, a transitional stage of life in a dying world is projected where androids have yet to reign supreme. In theory by dissecting Haraway’s statement, and analyzing Dick’s androids one can discover the being that is the cyborg and inevitably the characteristics of utopian society. The question is whether or not this perfect cyborg is the bringer of Utopia or Dystopia.
To be resolutely committed to something means to be determined, firm, and to be characterized as being such. It is an absolute. Partiality can either be a favorable bias or a prejudice. Prejudice, a sneered yet ever present attribute to our society. What purpose would it have in a utopian or perfect society? In Dick’s novel, partiality is ever present as well. The humans have prejudices based on IQ and status. The androids although most presented as being in hiding, pretending to be human, have prejudices against humans.
Cyborgs are committed to irony, by choice or simply in principle. Early in Haraway’s paper, she describes the cyborg as being the ‘final’ irony of the Western sense, the cyborg having no origin of its own, proceeds to steal our ending. The irony involved in Dick’s novel is almost suffocating. From the realization by both Isidore and Deckard that the kipple that they toil to keep away will inevitably take over once they cease, to Deckard’s resentment of not “retiring” Rachael. That in itself has some type of double irony. She was destined to wear out in just a few years so he let her live only for her to retaliate by killing his goat and he having no ammo for his revenge on her. To have empathy is to be human. To take advantage of that empathy and not caring either way if revenge comes is to be a cyborg, or perhaps just a desensitized human?
Intimacy, a term associated with closeness and endearment must bring some sort of humanity to these cold beings. The androids gave off an air of having a love-hate relationship with the human race. They found freedom within posing as humans .It is a pseudo closeness and affection with being human even if it meant risking their existence. That shows more commitment to something than even most humans would oblige.
Perversity and oppositional are two characteristics that go hand in hand with the cyborg, only strengthening the resolve. If the cyborg was simply oppositional it would merely mean that it went against something, good or bad. Giving the cyborg the benefit of the doubt and its supposed lead to Utopia, one can suppose that the cyborg could be opposed to the negative traits of our society, making it both perfect and good. Yet Haraway states that the cyborg is committed to perversity. Perversity means a deviance to all that is good. In other terms, the cyborg is wicked. It is committed which means it is persistent in being wicked. Haraway focuses on the sexual perversity of the cyborg. This shows a great division between the android-cyborg analogy. Dick’s novel sets up such an instance in the relationship between Deckard and Rachael. Haraway attaches perversity to the foundation of her genderless utopia. Where Rachael exploits her feminine wiles and machine like detachedness, Haraway scorns such a need being existent.
As if it had not been already been implied, the cyborg is without innocence. Innocence involves a lack of understanding, freedom from moral and legal wrong, guiltlessness, and harmlessness. The androids of Dick’s novel, were a band of illegal escapees, murderers. They were far from harmless, although they lacked the understanding of emotion they understood its presence, they were guilty although it did not bother them because they did not share the same emotions as humans. This is from where the underlying envy stems. The androids realized the one thing that separated them from humans and were driven to test its validity.
From both Haraway, and Dick’s novel one can see that from the human standpoint, the cyborg represents a cold shell that mimics a human. It has greater knowledge yet lacks feeling. It understands but is not completely understanding. The cyborg is perfect. It is utopian, but it is not good. At least not from the human standpoint and opinion of what is good. Even so, Haraway approves of the existence of such creatures. The main point being that these beings aren’t human, therefore the characteristics previously discussed would have to be redefined to fit the purpose that is the cyborg.
Partiality from the cyborg’s view is important indeed. In Dick’s novel, the androids indicate a preference for each other, looking down on the humans. With greater numbers of such “rogue” androids, the preference or prejudice would simply work as a stimulus for natural selection. Humans would continue to feel useless and unwanted to the point where they would become nothing more than the appendix of society. Ironically it will be the beings who lack a genesis story, to play the surgeon removing the useless organ that when knowingly present only manages to bring pain, thus ending its reign.
Intimacy is all part of the plan. Ever heard of the phrase: “Keep your friends close keep your enemies closer”? The androids stayed close, absorbing knowledge, observing and practiced being human, so much so that the lines blurred on who is human and who is not. Cyborgs must learn all that is humanity, so that it can be redesigned in Utopia. By ultimately destroying the one aspect that separates human from android, the androids succeed in leveling that playing field again. With humans and androids judged together in a single group, like males judged against female, the human fallacies come to the forefront, indeed showing the weaker “sex”.
Perversity is such an opinionated word but necessary. Humans have obviously confused right from wrong. Ethics and morals are not as they seem. It is the cyborg’s job to correct this. If one deems someone else to be the enemy, then most or all of what they do is wrong. Therefore cyborgs and androids alike are simply being perverse to the likes of humans. Humans do wrong therefore the cyborgs are doing what is right.
The redefinition of these characteristics could continue but it would only strengthen the argument of the ambiguity of these terms based on reference points. This leads one to believe that these characteristics are not the characteristics of a Utopia or Dystopia, but those that lead to one or the other. Just as Dick shows us a world in transition, Haraway also shows us the changes that come with a shift in societal structure. The android/cyborg brings a type of dystopia to the human world before creating its own utopia. While some people may argue that a perfect world conceived in domination is not perfect at all, that brings out the fact that like then android who may never completely empathize with humanity, we imperfect humans can never truly understand perfection. Then again, how can a perfect creation stem from imperfect hands? Therein lays the answer. If the cyborg truly is the miracle of creation, that is being greater in all magnitudes than its creator, then its domination will lead to a Utopia (as misunderstood, human less, and boring as it seems on our side of things) but if the cyborg is not as perfect as it appears, then it will in fact cause its own Dystopia just as the human race will have done to itself.
I like some of the language in your introduction a lot, at least in this version. Look at these lines: "In theory by dissecting Haraway’s statement, and analyzing Dick’s androids one can discover the being that is the cyborg and inevitably the characteristics of utopian society. The question is whether or not this perfect cyborg is the bringer of Utopia or Dystopia." I'm not at all clear on why you are asking these questions, or what your orientation to them is. I'd like to understand what *your* project is, or what *your* view is.
From the beginning on through the first half or so, my response is much like my response to the draft: I think you apply Haraway in lots of interesting ways to PKD, but I'm not crazy about it (despite the value of individual insights), because I'm not sure where you're *going* with it all. You interpret PKD through Haraway well - but to what end.
Then I come to these lines: "The cyborg is perfect. It is utopian, but it is not good. At least not from the human standpoint and opinion of what is good. Even so, Haraway approves of the existence of such creatures." This is good material, I think, and it's a good take on Haraway. The reason why it works, in large part, is she is working against what she sees as a Christian/Western/Patriarchal understanding of good, and posing something else (what you call "utopian") against it. You are doing good work with tough material, but again - to what end? What is your take on Haraway? Do you want the good, or the utopian? Or are you torn? Rather than addressing that question, you return to your work with the definition - "Partiality from the cyborg's view..."
One comment on these lines: "Cyborgs must learn all that is humanity, so that it can be redesigned in Utopia. By ultimately destroying the one aspect that separates human from android, the androids succeed in leveling that playing field again. With humans and androids judged together in a single group, like males judged against female, the human fallacies come to the forefront, indeed showing the weaker “sex”." -- That's really smart. I'm *still* unsure of your own point of view, but you are really good, in this version, at reading Haraway and PKD together, in a genuinely interesting way.
I'm really torn about the ending. Here's my favorite line from what I see as the end: "The android/cyborg brings a type of dystopia to the human world before creating its own utopia." You've done a good job, through a combined reading of PKD and Haraway, of showing the utopia within dystopia and the dystopia within utopia. You've also made all sorts of interesting readings of DADES along the way. I like a lot of this.
At the same time, though, it drives me nuts that I don't know what you think at the end of the day. You're able to see both perspectives, which is great, but what do you want - the (classical) good, or the (revolutionary) utopia? Maybe you're genuinely torn - but if so, why not get into what it means that you're torn? What do you believe? At the end of the day, I have difficulty that anyone could perform this complicated reading without, at some point, siding for or against Haraway, for or against the androids - that is what's absent here, despite the abundant good material.
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