Cyborgs and Sinners

This blog will attempt to inspect the situation between man and technology. This is a highly intricate field and the possibilities for critique, moral judgment, the taking of offense, and the quickening of disagreement are vast; but I implore you to read, digest, and perhaps come to a conclusion.

Well first, let me introduce you to the very liberal, intelligent scholar named Donna Haraway. Haraway has worked extensively with feminists theory and in her discussions of the body (among other topics) she formulated what I (and others) am going to call Cyborg Theory. Haraway, in this theory, claims that we, the human race, are cyborgs. Now when I first hear the term cyborg, I think of The Borg from Star Trek, all robotic, metallic, emotionless, and for the most part evil. When I think of humans, cyborgs are the last thing with which I would compare them, they seem to be antonyms by nature. But, Haraway claims that the cyborgs of today do not fit our science fiction archetypes. With the great use of technology in food and cosmetics production, we ingest and cover ourselves in technology. Thereby ‘becoming what we eat’. And in more obvious ways medicine has created cyborgs out of humanity by accepting vaccines, surgery, prosthetics, stints, sealants, braces, iv’s, and pain medication into the human tradition of life. We have already seen a backlash in this tradition with the advent of ‘organic’ foods and cosmetics, antiabortion, anti stem-cell research, etc, but it is a very intriguing theory.

I took a printmaking class a few years ago and was asked to make a social commentary through a wood block print. I chose to portray Cyborg Theory using a perfume bottle. The print can be seen at the top of this post. If you look in the middle/lower right hand side of the print, there is a circuit board. I suggest in this print, that perfume, to the naked eye, looks like something natural, fragrant, and ordinary; but when observed with a trained eye the perfume looks mechanical. This, I think, is a factual observation. The perfume is technology, because, after all, our ancestors could not have made the glass bottle or that particular smell (as the ingredients are chemicals…rather than raw items from the earth). But this type of observation brings about a vast array of disagreement and controversy. To what extent is technology harmless? If we are cyborgs (and I believe we are in our own, and not necessarily bad, way) then is that morally right?

The simplest answer to this question is yes, because man has been creating technology and needing technology since he fell from God’s grace in the time of Adam and Eve (my views originate from the belief that the Bible is true and inerrant). We can actually read Genesis and find the point in history when man first made ‘technology’. I am referring to Genesis 3:7 – “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” At that moment, the moment when they created their clothing, Adam and Eve became part of what Author Kenneth Burke calls: The Definition of Man. Burke has written an essay in which he has attempted to formulate a definition of man. There are a few clauses one of which I am particularly concerned with:

“Third clause. Separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making” (Burke Language as Symbolic Action 13)

He continues in describing this clause, “It concerns the fact that even the most primitive of tribes are led by inventions to depart somewhat from the needs of food, shelter, sex as defined by the survival standards of sheer animality. The implements of hunting and husbandry, with corresponding implements of war, make for a set of habits that become a kind of “second nature,” as a special set of expectations shaped by custom, comes to seem “natural.”

This clause or condition of man can be seen as having its inception immediately after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and sinned; for they made instruments to cover their nakedness. Thus, I can make the claim that since the fall, mankind has continued to progress in making instruments that separate us from our natural state, in fact, we have progress so much that we generally fail to see it as a second nature. The perfume bottle, like I said, seems normal, when in reality it is a technological instrument of separation between man and nature. We, as humans, are stuck (in Burke’s terms) in a second nature until the day of redemption when we will be restored to our first nature – the nature where we need not make or create in order to be healthy or avoid death.

Now, if we are in an undeniable state of ‘second nature’ where we MUST create and use technology or else face starvation, the elements, and death is technology such a bad thing? We literally cannot avoid technology, as Adam and Eve have proven. But, I do not think this means that technology is inherently good or bad. I think that it all depends on the heart of the maker or user of technology. Person A is convicted to eat organic food. Person B feels no such inclination. Is one wrong? I think not. The danger is when person A believes that they have escaped the need for technology; as humans we need technology and will need it until the return of Christ – even if your technology is as primal as a sharp rock employed to skin a rabbit, that rock is technology! And God said himself that man would have to work by the sweat of his brow to produce food from the earth (Genesis 3:17-19). It is our state. But at the same time, it is dangerous to be entirely reliant on technology! We must rely on God not technology. After all, God made Adam and Eve fur clothes to replace their loincloths of leaves (Genesis 3:21) He fulfills their needs just as he fulfills our needs today.

Lastly, I want to look at a verse that often makes me question my reliance on technology:

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it”
(1Corinthians 10:13)

The part of this verse with which I am most concerned is, “the way of escape.” What is that way? I have come to understand that technology may, in fact, be a perfectly moral way of escape. I think what makes me so sure of this is that God literally provided technology in the form of fur clothes to Adam and Eve. I tend to think that the way of escape is only found in prayer or denial of the flesh (or other spiritual modes of the like) BUT I now see that the way of escape can take many forms. Medicine seems to be a form of escape; the key is remembering that medicine may help us in this life, but Jesus saved us for eternity. There may come a time when the denial of technology defends the supremacy of Christ.