Cyborg Bill of Rights
Chris Hables Gray has published a Cyborg Bill of Rights. I see that it was last updated in 1997, so it might be played out by now, but I'm sorry; I have to weigh in on this. It's one of the most right-wing (in the libertarian sense) things I've ever read! The word "individual" appears in it 16 times; the individual is privileged above all other things. This flies in the face of Haraway's strong critique of Western individualism--her use of the cyborg as metaphor for the fact that nothing is really individual anymore. We're all amalgams, and the fact that I'm part machine and part human, thanks to my prosthetic hammer, anvil, and stirrup, contact lenses, etc. can be analogized to community. Western individualism, Haraway argues, has interfered with unity among people, community. It seems to me that this Bill of Rights, which invokes the individual so frequently and earnestly, shouldn't invoke the cyborg at all. Consider this quotation:
Freedom of Consciousness. The consciousness of the citizen shall be protected by the First, Fourth, and Eighth Amendments. Unreasonable search and seizure in this, the most sacred and private part of an individual citizen, shall be absolutely prohibited. Individuals shall retain all rights to modify their consciousness through psychopharmological, medical, genetic, spiritual and other practices in so far as they do not threaten the fundamental rights of other individuals and citizens and if they do so at their own risk and expense.
What are the implications of this for community? If I want to take 100 hits of acid, that's my individual prerogative, right? MY self, my modified consciousness. That would surely kill me and affect my community, but so what?
Sheesh.
Link courtesy of Dr. B.
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Cyborg Bill of Rights
It is true that the Cyborg Bill of Rights I've put forward is libertarian...but it is small l-- left-wing, anarchist-feminist libertarian...not right wing.
I don't agree Donna Haraway, my ph.d. advisor by the way so I do know her and her work well, is against indivisualism per se... cyborgs can be many different things, including individuals. But certainly what I hope (and I think Donna as well) from cyborization (since it seems inevitable...I'm not fond of it actually) is choice. We can make choices now that we could not before--such as being transexual. Of course, cyborgization can lead to less choice...like the ability of people who don't want me to take acid to spy on me and read my brain waves and stop me--for the good of community, no doubt! I very much believe in community, but a Bill of Rights is to protect us (us cyborgs and people...citizens) from the government, not to impose community on us. We must choose to commit to community for it to be healthy.
This whole issue is gone into in much greater detail in Cyborg Citizen (Routledge 2001), including much more discussion of technologies such as constitutions...
Thanks for your comments though.... chris hables gray