FROM CYBORG TO CYBERPUNK

The Art of Living in the Cyberage

A. T. Nuyen

Department of Philosophy, National University of Singapore, 3 Arts Link, Singapore 117570

Keywords: Art of living, Bio-power, Cyberage, Cyberpunk, Cyborg, Foucault, Harraway, Heidegger, Leary.

Abstract: The World Wide Web, the Internet and other cyber technologies have changed the way we live and work. In

addition to such technologies, and interwoven with them, are biological technologies, such as those in the

areas of cloning and genetic engineering. Some of us welcome the technological age, some are hostile to it,

most are ambivalent, and hardly anyone approaches it with the Socratic question “How should one live?”

The context in which Socrates asks this question, in The Republic, is different, but in the context of modern

technology, electronic as well as biological, the significance of the question remains the same: Not a trifling

matter as Socrates puts it. Indeed, the new technologies have changed the way we conduct ourselves so

drastically, and the way we think about ourselves so fundamentally, that Socrates’ question must now be

asked with urgency. In what follows I offer some reflections on how one should live with the new

technologies, drawing on the works of Foucault, Heidegger, Leary and Haraway.

1 INTRODUCTION

Cyber technologies have changed the way we live

and work. In addition to such technologies, and

interwoven with them, are biological technologies,

such as those in the areas of cloning and genetic

engineering. Some of us welcome the technological

age, some are hostile to it, most are ambivalent, and

hardly anyone approaches it with the Socratic

question “How should one live?” The context in

which Socrates asks this question, in The Republic,

is different, but in the context of modern

technologies, electronic as well as biological, the

significance of the question remains the same: Not a

trifling matter as Socrates puts it. Indeed, the new

technologies have changed the way we conduct

ourselves so drastically, and the way we think about

ourselves so fundamentally, that Socrates’ question

must now be asked with urgency. In what follows I

offer some reflections on how one should live with

the new technologies.

2 THE ART OF LIVING

According to Foucault, the emancipation of the self

consists in efforts to construct oneself, “to promote

new forms of subjectivity” and “to build up what we

could be” (Foucault, 1982: 126). Using art as a

model, Foucault urges us to construct ourselves

aesthetically as a response to any kind of

domination. He calls on us to develop an “aesthetics

of existence” consisting of a set of “arts of

existence,” or “technologies of the self.” Foucault

defines the “arts of existence” as “those intentional

and voluntary actions by which men not only set

themselves rules of conduct, but also seek to

transform themselves, to change themselves in their

singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre

that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain

stylistic criteria” (Foucault 1986a: 10-11). The point

is later reinforced when Foucault calls for “the

cultivation of the self … in the form of a new

stylistics of existence,” for forming oneself “as an

ethical subject of his actions,” and giving oneself “a

purpose to his existence” (Foucault 1986b: 95).

The construction of the self is urged by Foucault

as a means to resist power in power relations. Power

occurs in complex strategic situations in a society

and is exercised by a free agent over another free

agent, thus linking free agents in a strategic

situation. Power relationships produce social

realities. They make a society possible. Furthermore,

it is trough them that we understand ourselves. How

power is exercised is a question of power politics. In

T. Nuyen A. (2007).

FROM CYBORG TO CYBERPUNK - The Art of Living in the Cyberage.

In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and e-Government /

e-Learning, pages 92-96

DOI: 10.5220/0001267700920096

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his earlier works, Foucault focuses on a particular

kind of power politics, the exercise of power to

discipline and to punish. What is characteristic of

power in this phase of its history is that it is the

power of degrading life, and ultimately of taking life

away, or conferring death. Also, it is a power

exercised on agents individually. But as pointed out

in Foucault’s later works, since the Enlightenment,

there has been a shift in the nature of power politics.

Governments have increasingly exercised their

power to give life, or to make life better, over the

population as a whole rather than individually.

Foucault calls this new form of power “bio-power.”

It is the power to “make live” (faire vivre) in

contrast to the old power of “giving death.” Bio-

power has given rise to bio-politics with a different

set of power “dispositifs,” or apparatuses of control.

However, the effect on free agents remains the same

as before. Thus, while bio-power takes on life as its

object, exercised so as to “make live,” it is still a

disciplinary power in political terms.

While Foucault was prescient about bio-power,

given the fact that we are now living in what one

scientist calls “the age of biological control”

(Wilmut 1999), he did not see the full ramifications

of the power exercised in cyberspace, of “electronic

control.” The experience in certain countries may

lead us to believe that the latter power is diffused,

rested in the hand of “Net citizens” and so does not

pose the same control problem as bio-power. To be

sure, new power relationships have emerged –

individuals have been shamed, condemned, made

famous or notorious, simply because their conduct

has been recorded and posted on the Net – but they

seem to be benign, even egalitarian, or democratic.

However, this is to ignore the fact that given the

technical complexities and the costs of supporting

the electronic technologies, the electronic control,

exercised through the control of technological

apparatuses, such as networks and servers, is really

concentrated in the hands of a few. In addition,

electronic control has been fused with biological

control, resulting in a whole new set of power

dispositifs and a whole new set of control

mechanisms. Think of the proliferation of data bases

containing medical and biological information and

the technological devices that have emerged or are

being planned in the name of fighting a “war on

terror” or controlling pandemics. Seeing these

ramifications, Foucault would regard electronic

power as an extension of bio-power.

Given the combination of electronic and

biological control, given what might be called

bio/techno power, the question is whether there is

room for the construction of the self, whether there

can be an effective resistance to the new power

relations. Many commentators have gone so far as

saying that there is not enough freedom left for the

task of self-construction, that resistance to bio-

technological power is useless. For instance, Hardt

and Negri contend that a global “Empire” is

emerging, wielding an omnipotent and all pervasive

bio/techno power that “regulates social life from its

interior” (Hardt and Negri, 2000: 23). This is an

empire consisting of gigantic multi-national

corporations, many of which operate in the areas of

bio-technology, logistics and security, and all are

capable of controlling the life of the population. Just

as pessimistic is Giorgio Agamben. Unlike Hardt

and Negri, who locate the new power relations in the

business empire of multi-national corporations,

Agamben locates it in the alliance between the State

and the experts, the latter consisting of the technical

experts (doctors and engineers) and the legal and

moral experts (jurists and priests) (Agamben, 1998).

In support of Agamben and Hardt and Negri, in the

case of the Internet, one might cite the “alliance,” or

the co-operation, between the Chinese Government

and corporations such as Google and Yahoo! in

controlling Net communication. Indeed, there have

been cases in which political activists have been

identified and subsequently incarcerated by the

government with the help of such corporations. The

modern power of “giving life” has not really

displaced the old power of “taking life.”

Clearly, in the age of bio-techno control,

Foucault’s call for an art of living is all the more

urgent. How do the new power relationships affect

the free agent, who, as a subject, must defend the

subject’s freedom in establishing relationships, with

oneself and others, in all strategic situations, which

is for Foucault the “very stuff of ethics”?

Foucault’s answer is not to free oneself of

power relationships but rather to engage in power

relationships in a particular way, i.e. aesthetically.

That means, in turn, to engage in resistance. There is

little evidence to show that Foucault would go as far

as Agamben and Hardt and Negri. For Foucault,

resistance is certainly neither impossible nor useless,

even in the most disciplinarian state. It is true that in

the new bio/techno-political environment, resistance

is practically much more difficult. This is so because

Hardt and Negri are certainly right about the

growing power of multi-national corporations, and

Agamben about the growing alliance between the

State and the experts. How then is one to live, as a

free agent, in the age of bio-technological control?

FROM CYBORG TO CYBERPUNK - The Art of Living in the Cyberage

How does one make resistance into an art of living,

or an ethical response to the Socratic question?

3 LIVING IN CYBERSPACE

One way of living in the age of bio-technological

control is to live stoically in the face of modern

technology, i.e. avoiding anything technological.

Another is to go over to modern technology in a

manner that effectively means giving up all

resistance. However, both of these ways would be

inauthentic, to borrow a term from Heidegger. In a

well known essay, Heidegger argues that we must

not succumb to “a stultified compulsion to push on

blindly with technology or, what comes to the same

thing, to rebel helplessly against it and curse it as the

work of the devil” (Heidegger, 1977: 25-6). Rather,

we need to confront technology decisively and

reflect constantly on its essence. To accomplish this,

we have to wrench ourselves away from the dazzling

effects of technology and turn to something else.

That something else, this realm, is art, or the art of

living. This is the meeting between Heidegger and

Foucault.

Returning to Foucault, the art of living must

exhibit resistance, and in the electronic age, it is

resistance to bio-technological control. However, it

has to be much more than resistance. To resist is to

say no, and to resist bio/techno-power is to say no to

certain forms of conduct encouraged by the new

technology: “You have to say no as a decisive form

of resistance” (Foucault 1997: 168). But to say no is

only to make half a step. Without going further, it is

an inauthentic moving of “rebelling helplessly”

against technology that Heidegger speaks against.

The other half is to create. Foucault argues that

“resistance is not solely a negation but a creative

process,” that to “create and recreate … is to resist”

(ibid.). Against bio/techno power, it is to create a life

that is not dictated by technology. For Foucault,

such a life will have to be unique, a product of art.

Free agents can remain free by creating for

themselves forms of life that “affirm themselves; not

merely affirm themselves in their identity, but affirm

themselves insofar as they are a creative force”

(ibid.). What forms of life? I will now discuss two

suggestions.

Many commentators on technology have offered

arguments for resistance consistent with Foucault’s

call for the construction of the self, and have given

examples that manifest the art of living in the face of

bio-technological control, an art that manifests

creative resistance. For Timothy Leary, the

cyberpunk embodies such art (Leary 1996: 355-

363). Leary reminds us that the word “cyber” comes

from the Greek word “kybernetes,” meaning one

who steers a boat or a vessel, a pilot. A

“cyberperson” is “one who pilots his/her own life,

[who] continually searches for theories, models,

paradigms, metaphors, images, icons that help chart

and define realities that we inhabit” (Leary, 1996:

355). The word “punk” refers to a rebellious youth

who engages in what appear to be anti-social

practices, such as wearing outrageous hairdos, body-

piercing, playing or listening to “punk rock” etc. For

leary, in the age of bio-technological control, the

cyberpunk is someone who offers resistance in a

creative way: “Cyberpunks use all available data

input to think for themselves …” (ibid.). They are

like the “heroic legends,” the “strong, stubborn,

creative individuals who explore some future

frontier, collect and bring back new information, and

offer to guide the human gene pool to the next

stage” (ibid.). Leary distinguishes two types of

people living in the cyber society, the “good person”

who is a cyberpunk and “the problem person … who

automatically obeys, who never questions authority,

who acts to protect his/her official status, who

placates and politics rather than thinks

independently” (Leary, 1996: 356). We may add to

these two types the Heideggerian inauthentic person

who either avoids anything technological or goes

over to it in a slavish way.

For Leary, while the term “cyberpunk” seems

risky, it is a perfect term to describe the good

cyberperson, one who understands cyberpolitics and

offers up a creative, self-constructing resistance. He

reminds us that the Latin translation of the Greek

word “kubernetes” comes out as “gubernetes,”

formed from “gubernare,” which does mean to steer,

but also to govern, to direct, to regulate, etc., i.e. to

control (Leary, 1996: 357). On the other side of the

coin, the direct Latin word for “to steer” is “

stare,”

the past participle of which “produces ‘status,’

‘state,’ ‘institute,’ ‘statue,’ ‘static,’ ‘statistics,’

‘prostitute,’ ‘restitute,’ ‘constitute’” (ibid.), all of

which refer to the state of being controlled. The two

faces of the word “cyber,” freedom (to steer one’s

life) and control, are reflected in the history of the

Internet, originally a tool of control set up by the

U.S. military, now vulnerable to cyberpunks. Using

the word “cyberpunk” is a deliberate act of

“liberating the term [“cyber”], teasing it free from

serfdom to represent the autopoetic, self-directed

principle of organization that arises in the universe

in many systems of widely varying sizes, in people,

societies, and atoms” (Leary, 1996: 358). It

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represents a return to the “Hellenic concept of the

individual navigating his/her own course, … an

island of humanism in a raging sea of totalitarian

empires” (Leary, 1996: 359). The cyberpunk, then,

is the hero we need in the struggle against the Hardt-

Negri Emoire, the grand Agambenian alliance of the

State and the experts. He or she is a person who

embraces and personalizes information technology

in the process of constructing his or her self.

While Leary sees the cyberpunk as “an island of

humanism in a raging sea of totalitarian empires,”

Donna Haraway goes further in advocating what

might be called a post-human form of life, that of a

cyborg, a hybrid being that combines human

elements with non-human ones (haraway, 1996).

Haraway has in mind a human-machine organism,

but recent advances in stem cell research, in which

human-animal chimeras are created, may be seen as

ushering in the post-humanistic age populated with

human-animal-machine cyborgs. With the

technology in our hands, we can break free from

biological constraints and create, or recreate,

humans from the physical ground up. The

cyberpunks will no longer have things done to their

bodies, or wear them as accessories: they can have

them genetically engineered into them. They will in

turn perform one of the tasks that Leary has

envisioned for them, namely “guid[ing] the human

gene pool to the next stage.” As is well known,

Foucault himself went from the structuralist phase

characterized by anti-humanistic views (declaring

the “death of man” in one of his structuralist works),

to the post-structuralist phase characterized by the

talk of self-constructing resistance. The kind of post-

humanism that Haraway speaks of seems to be the

polical end-point of the Foucauldian trajectory.

In a language that is distinctly Foucauldian,

Haraway gives her own account of power,

domination and resistance in the cyberage. For

Haraway, the bio-technological age has a new

“informatics of domination” (Haraway, 1996: 384)

and a new “microelectronic and biotechnological

politics” (Haraway, 1996: 385). In the new politics,

“[C]ontrol strategies will be formulated in terms of

rates, costs of constraints, degrees of freedom”

(Haraway, 1996: 386). We have already seen that

“robotics and related technologies put men out of

work in ‘developed’ countries and exacerbate failure

to generate male jobs in third-world ‘development’

and as the automated office becomes the rule even in

labor-surplus countries, the feminization of work

intensifies” (Haraway, 1996: 390). A new economic

underclass has emerged, the new subjects of modern

bio-technological control. Microelectronics has

worsened the situation insofar as the controlling

agencies, the “states, multinational corporations,

military power, welfare-state apparatuses, satellite

systems, political processes…” etc. all “depend

intimately upon electronics” (Haraway, 1996: 387).

As if agreeing with Agamben and Hardt and Negri,

Haraway presents a catalogue of the controlling

effects of the new technologies, presenting a bleak

“image of the informatics of domination” (Haraway,

1996: 392): “a massive intensification of insecurity

and cultural impoverishment, with common failure

of subsistence network for the most vulnerable”

(Haraway, 1996: 394). The Socratic question is now

desparately relevant and Foucault’s call for the

resistance in our art of living is now desparately

urgent.

Given the rather bleak picture painted by

Haraway, is resistance to bio-technological control

possible and if so how is it effected? Indeed,

believing that the time has come to go beyond even

Foucault, Haraway claims that the answer lies in the

cyborg: “The cyborg is not subject to Foucault’s

biopolitics; the cyborg simulates politics, a much

more potent field of operations. Discursive

constructions are no joke” (Haraway, 1996: 386).

The cyborg thus resists by means of discursive

constructions. What does this entail? If I understand

Haraway correctly, we can say that in the post-

humanistic age, distinctions, particularly binary

ones, such as human-animal, human-machine,

animal-machine, natural-artificial, will be crossed,

or transcended. They will no longer serve to restrict

or circumscribe creativity. Instead, the crossing of

boundaries allows infinite flexibility in the

construction of the self. For Haraway, binary

distinctions, or dichotomies, are the tools of

domination, and the cyborg, embodying the crossing

of binaries, takes advantage of the blurring of

distinctions in its resistance to domination. The

cyborg takes advantage of the fact that “[H]igh-tech

culture challenges … dualisms in intriguing ways”

(Haraway, 1996: 399): “Cyborg politics is the

struggle for language and the struggle against perfect

communication, against the one code that translates

all meaning perfectly, … [It] insist(s) on noise and

advocate(s) pollution, rejoicing in the illegitimate

fusion of animal and machine” (Haraway, 1996:

398). In cyborg politics, the “machine is us”

(Haraway, 1996: 402). Insofar as we are

“responsible for boundaries,” machines “do not

dominate or threaten us … [for] we are they”

(Haraway, 1996: 402). Haraway will no doubt agree

that the “they” includes animals and animal-human-

machine hybrids.

FROM CYBORG TO CYBERPUNK - The Art of Living in the Cyberage

I have discussed two responses to Foucault’s

challenge to resist bio-technological control, to

construct the self creatively so as to live well in the

bio-electronic age, or the cyberage. Whether they are

the right answers to the Socratic question remains to

be seen. What we can say is that it is certainly not

Socratic wisdom to “put up with or evade” bio-

electronic technologies, to borrow Heidegger’s

words. It is not to give in to the empires of bio-

technological multi-national corporations, or the

grand alliances of states and experts.

It may be said, however, that there is something

missing in the suggestions made by Leary and

Haraway. What limits are there on the creativity of

cyborgs and cyberpunks? It seems that what is

missing is the ethical dimension. Foucault himself

does not lose sight of this. His art of living consists

in the building of relationships with others, which

are for Foucault the “very stuff [matière] of ethics”

(Foucault, 1986a: 95). The new technologies can

greatly assist a free subject in living an ethical form

of life. The Foucauldian subject, who resists and

constructs itself in resisting, is also an “ethical

subject.” The image of the cyberpunk, or the cyborg,

is Foucauldian only if it is the image of an ethical

cyberpunk, or an ethical cyborg. Haraway may be

right in saying that “discursive constructions are no

joke,” but unethical discursive constructions most

probably are. Foucault would certainly say that

constructing an ethics for the cyberpunk, or the

cyborg, to live by is “the very stuff of ethics” in the

bio-electronic age. To do so is beyond the scope of

this paper, although I have argued elsewhere that

Lyotard’s postmodern ethics of just gaming, the

imperative of which is to let games proliferate,

seems to be eminently suitable (Nuyen, 2004).

Where to go from here? What games are to be

created? What would be the content of the art of

living? The answers to these questions can only, at

best, be gestured at. The idea of specifying content,

of constructing a “model” for living, contradicts the

idea of living creatively. Foucault himself speaks

merely of “certain stylistic criteria” without

specifying them. Here again, art serves as an

analogy: there is good art and bad art, the former

satisfies “certain stylistic criteria.” However, to

specify the criteria that an artist must satisfy is

almost certain to produce bad art. The cyberpunk

creates his/her own criteria; the cyborg transcends

existing ones. Yet, there have to be criteria, without

which what we have is randomness, not art. Criteria,

but they will have to be what Kant calls

“regulative.” They cannot be what Kant calls

“determinant.” The art of living is regulated, but not

determined by anything.

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