Women of the World...Unite! Haraway, Turkle and Plant

The feminist writings of Haraway and Plant in particular illustrate highly pessimistic views on society and technology in particular. Although Turkle was not as explicitly as Haraway in her proclamation of being a socialist feminism, she also discusses the ramification of technology (most notably the loss of real human interaction) in this "culture of simulation" (Turkle 254). If the above writers were more prominent in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, their influence on new media would make cybernetics forces cautious to support expansion of media into the private sphere. In the Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway in particular draws on how cybernetics and technologies have not given women a more equal footing in society. None of the previous writers really discussed gender and sex politics in the same way as Haraway and Plant do. Plant's emphasis on the female labor force and how women were alloted the supposedly menial tasks of plaiting and weaving which Freud contends is the only thing women are good at (255). Plant picks on the fact that these tasks involve much attention to detail and that "plaiting, spinning, and weaving...led to rather increasingly complex processes and products," (258). Any products that should have alleviated women's toil did not do so because the social stigma associated with being a woman in a developing country did not change. Socially women were still considered inferior to "male dominant capitalism" and left to continue working in grueling environments such as sweatshops. factories and not to mention taking care of a family with limited resources such as running water and electricity (150).
I do see a little bit of optimism in Haraway's anger and endless discussion of the cyborg when she writes that "cyborgs...are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism...but illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins..." (151). I took that to mean that feminist writers as they gain more prominence in this age of the blogosphere and handheld devices as she calls them, they will be able to use thee cyborg not as a means to further repress women especially "women of color" but to also finally create a world "without gender." I hearkened back to my semester in Feminist Theory and how we as a class wondered why is it that writers, artists, journalists, etc... are categorized by gender. Could we not just say, unless the writer wishes to be referred to as a feminist writer (which the term in and of itself does not limit its meaning to include just women but also men), that Emily Dickinson was a New England poet and find her under the category of  "Poets of Massachusetts" and not "19th century female poets" ? That might be part of Haraway's issue with the cyborg and the literature and technology of the time. I have heard in countless classes about man's propensity to label and categorize nearly everything, and Haraway wants gender out of the equation at least until women are no longer facing oppression and control. Her observation of feminist cyborg stories which want to "recode communication and intelligence to subvert command and control," (175) are similar to Turkle's whole issue with "simulation". Turkle reflects much of the contemporary criticisms of new media-especially social media when she writes about MUDs and its virtual networks. Turkle and Haraway to an extent agree that there is something wrong with the way society interacts with media. Children will meld the real with what they see on television. Thus even Turkle recounts her childhood memory of expecting a flower to grow as fast as it did in a film she watched (237). But more so, Turkle discusses how media should "break down traditional barriers" and strengthen communities but instead computers create an "information elite" (244). Thus if women ruled the television, radio and newspaper channels 20-30 years ago, audiences would have heard and read about a cautionary approach to the supposed panacea called "cyborg" or really "new media." Though Turkle mentions the voices of Foucault and his Panopticon as an embodiment of her criticisms.

Hayles and Turner: Drugs, Cybernetics and Mass Media

For both Hayles and Turner, the scientists involved in both the Macy conferences and those around San Francisco, posthumanism, cybernetics and the role of technology on material things such as books, print media, and artwork were discussed. While Hayles and Turner both refer to the post-war era (i.e. heavily Cold War decades), for Hayles due to the immediate problems facing international countries such as weapons and technology being used for deleterious ends leads to the homoeostasis stage of cybernetics (9,18-19). For Hayles especially, men like Shannon and Weaver, and later McLuhan were responding to the advent of technology such as television and more precarious the digitization of print media (i.e. the first computer-like devices). Although the computer does not reach mass consciousness until the 1980s via room size CPU systems, Hayles presciently discusses the e-book phenomenon of the Kindle and the Nook when he writes, “because they have bodies, books and humans have something to lose if they are regarded solely as informational patterns, namely the resistant materiality that has traditionally marked the durable inscription of books no less than it has marked our experiences of living as embodies creature,” (29). Hayles discussion of the posthuman and cyborg was frustrating in that there really seemed to be no point at face value to argue whether or not human beings are machines. I was relieved to find even one of the participants of the conferences is quoted in saying in 1969 that “cybernetics itself seemed to [him] mostly baloney,” (73). His confession seemed harsh to me because there were some interesting points dragged out from these conferences. To highlight a few: the concept of access versus possession as indication of information’s value in the capitalistic age on page 39, about the role of the “narrator or narrative” on page 43, and I presume the materiality of information versus the conceptualization of  said information (body versus mind, randomness vs. patterns/algorithms) on pages 7-8 all. These major points or maybe not so major for others to me are the most intriguing and I found myself thinking about today’s technology where one could access a book via kindle but then also on his or her android phone anywhere in the world. the android screen is considerably smaller than a kindle or nook’s and the text depending on the phone’s capabilities may be altered. This may not change the story the text is telling but it may change how we view the story.

On a lighter note, Hayles has a fun anecdote about the Catholic Church’s acceptance and adroitness with new technology with the computerized confessional—little did he know that the Church now has an iphone App that with a mere $1.99 fee guarantees its purchaser a confession system where one can choose which sin they committed or even type it into the phone and then the cyborg priest will recommend the just punishment needed for redemption (just kidding on that last part-the sinner will still have to go to a human priest to receive guidance about punishment).

You can check out the article here:  

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/confession-app-roman-catholic-church-sanctions-iphone-app/story?id=12866499

                The Turner piece focuses more on the art scene of the Bay area. In his opening pages, he hearkens back to McLuhan and the notion of technology and any medium becoming the extension of man. Hayles also references this when he discusses the posthuman as one who may become merely a vessel of information and patterns rather than an individual. Turner’s piece is an interesting shift, whereas Hayles focuses extensively on mathematicians Shannon and Weaver and some fictional writers like Gibson and his contemporaries, Turner’s focus on the Beats and Merry Pranksters shows how reality can change through the use of psychedelics like LSD. Furthermore, many of the anti-Vietnam protesters in Berkeley also rallied against the administration and thus illustrated a growing distrust of the status quo and of American values. The New communalists exemplify the changing role of technology as a medium of social change. The Techno music for example, “allowed them to feel as though the boundaries between the social and the biological , between their minds and bodies…were highly permeated,” (68). The image again reminds me of McLuhan because then these individuals who may or may not be high on LSD are experiencing some sort of out of body experience not necessarily only attributed to the drug but also to the venue, the music played and the attitude of their fellow dissidents. In this case, the medium can be the music or the drug itself and not necessarily a pamphlet or brochure about the Fest.

                On a more economic and political note, the computer ultimately becomes the newest technology that revolutionizes economies and people’s individual role in the economy. Up until this time, there was a push to put more machines in factories and take over the repetitive tasks which were previously held by human workers (I always think of the guy who puts the cap on the toothpaste tube from a movie that I cannot remember). But now with projects like the Media Lab the extension of more mechanization and more infusion of technology in everyday lives and everyday activities in particular formed (180-1). The GBN and other networks were founded in the wake of a scenario ridden Cold War era in which a nuclear holocaust was staged regularly to exemplify how much of a threat it was for the U.S.  (185-6). In the end, both accounts show how different disciplines approached societies’ changing technologies and changing perceptions about American values and ideals. Cybernetics is an interdisciplinary field though Shannon and Weaver, and Weiner types seemed to get the most out of it conceptually—both writers refer to them extensively.

Hayek and the Rule of Law

This excerpt from Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom, Hayek offers some of the pros and cons of a rule of law type of government and also of its negative effects when the rule of law intervenes into everyday life. His subsequent chapter titled, "Economic Control and Totalitarianism," elucidates many of the points he made and the regimes he alluded to (particularly Hitler's Germany). His concerns about economic planning and the issue of "whether it shall be we who decide what is more, and what is less, important to us, or whether this shall be decided by the planner," allude to the ideas of who runs the state (91). In a democracy or republic the theory is that the people rule. Unlike the Marxist predecessors especially Adorno and Horkheimer and Debord, there is concern of whether a democratic society or totalitarian society will be able to withstand the control of a designated few and their demoralizing and despicable technological devices--most likely of bourgeois origins. I find his quote about money very interesting and melds with his earlier comments about the moral and economic motivations and formal and substantive rules (73-75). To Hayek, "money is one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented by man," (89). it sounds counter-intuitive to his initial comments about the disastrous outcomes of economically based initiatives--economics can easily become totalitarian. That is one of the defining features of a totalitarian regime, when the state starts to take hold and nationalize all economic ventures in the region (i.e. Stalin's Russia, Nazi Germany). then the state has an excuse to come into more personal ventures and allow certain rights such as free speech and right to assemble to be ignored or decreased substantially in the name of economic plans and the safety and prosperity of the state. I have read of similar claims when people discuss the U.S tax code and the amount of information the government asks in order for it to figure out what its citizenry owes the state. I do not think that the tax code is a testament of a possibly totalitarian regime (though the forms are tedious), nor do I Hayek would have the same conclusions. He notes the importance of the bill of rights or any form of "rule of law" that can provide for a just and reasonable society or government. To a large extent, Hayek is also contesting many Marxist assertions about how whomever controls the means of production must be changed to create a more just world. Reverting to a socialist means of economic planning would not alleviate the material inequalities in society nor ensure that civil liberties would be protected under a new socialist government (that learned from the mistakes of its predecessors). Overall, Hayek has been engaging and interesting especially for a political science major like myself...I look forward to reading what Pool has to say!