Chapter 4 of How We Became Posthuman is titled "Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled," and as the question of what Hayles means by "the liberal subject" went unanswered last time we should begin with an attempt to answer it. The significance we attribute to the work that Professor Black will be discussing today will depend on the answer.
First, a scenario and a(nother) question. As you know, contemporary medicine regards at least some forms of depression as biochemically treatable with neuropharmacological substances like Prozac. Thus, it's not impossible to imagine that in the near future there will be tests for certain sorts of depression that would be carried out in ways similar to tests for mononucleosis, diabetes, etc. Suppose such a test exists and is accepted as part of the standard offerings and procedures of the Brown University Health Services.
Suppose too that you're in your first year at Brown and life is great. All is well at home, classes are fun, and you are pleased with your personal relationships and social life. As a result of that social life, you find yourself at a weekend-long party celebrating the release of Andras Schiff's new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations (fill in detail as mild or debauched as you wish)(about the party I mean). Come Monday, however, you feel feverish and ill. For various reasons you think you might have "strep" or "mono" so you go to the Health Service. The doctor notes your glassy-eyed fog and your mild fever, he says he heard that the Schiff party was quite a scene, and he suggests some blood work. He gives you some Tylenol and tells you to call for the results of the blood work in 24 hours.
The next afternoon you're feeling a bit better, not feverish but certainly not great, and you call the Health Service. They tell you that you tested negative for strep and mono, but that your blood sugar is a bit high, and you've tested positive for a low-level depression for which the doctor recommends you take some medication with practically no side-effects (i.e. side effects no worse than from eating the "Cilantro Chicken" at the Ratty).
Would you take the medication?
We'll take different answers to this question as indicative of different views about first-person authority, a critical component of our sense of ourselves as autonomous (modern) subjects. What distinguishes the modern (i.e. post-Enlightenment) individual if not our "will, desire and perception" (xiv)? Such a form of subjectivity is called "liberal" in the sense that "liberal" is:
" ... the distinctive epithet of those 'arts' or 'sciences' that were considered 'worthy of a free man'; opposed to servile or mechanical. In later use, of condition, pursuits, occupations: Pertaining to or suitable to persons of superior social station; 'becoming a gentleman'. Now rare, exc. of education, culture, etc., with mixture of senses 3 and 4: Directed to general intellectual enlargement and refinement; not narrowly restricted to the requirements of technical or professional training. Freq. in liberal arts." (The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989).
But once we are willing to grant that first-person authority is dubitable and that another person (or a machine?) may know our will, desires and perceptions more accurately and precisely than we know them, then the reality of the "liberal subject" is called into question. Using history to explain how the "myth of the liberal subject" was constructed, and using biology to explain what is "really going on, let's see how (quickly) we can find ourselves asking (with Hayles):
"If our body surfaces are membranes through which information flows, who are we? Are we cells that respond to stimuli? Are we the larger collections whose actions are the resultant of the individual members?" (109)
Brain-Machine Interfaces and Posthuman Science
"... life is a question of optimizing the brain-machine interface." John Hockenberry, Wired August 2001, p. 98
We're extremely fortunate to have Michael Black with us today, talking about his research, the Hockenberry article he gave us to read, and his sense of what the future holds for human and posthuman "subjects". He has graciously agreed not only to present his work and the work of colleagues, but to address some of the details of Hayles vision (if we are able to articulate questions about them!).
For Next Time:: Post your paper topics to the CHV-L list by the end of the day/night on Friday, and for Tuesday read chapters 9 and 11 of Hayles.