"We have always been cyborgs"
-Michael Shanks
Warming Up
CYBORG. The word itself sounds so mechanical, so inhuman, that I imagine it as an electronic, monotone voice. For me, the word also conjures up memories of watching Star Trek episodes with my older brother and Arnold Schwarzenegeer as the “Terminator”.
Though our understanding of the cyborg may at first be limited to these fantastic sci-fi figures, it turns out that the cyborg is actually closer to you than you might think. Let’s start with the basics: defining what a cyborg is. In her chapter “The Cyborg Manifesto”, Donna Haraway describes a cyborg as “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction" (Haraway 149).
In essence, a cyborg is both machine and man, and exists as a result of our social desire to develop new technologies and our willingness to test some ideas from our wildest imagination. This definition certainly fits the media’s depiction of the common cyborg, but it also gives room for us to reflect on our personal interaction with machines and things as well.
Greetings, cyborg
Throughout history, we have forged our identities through our interactions with things, from Paleolithic hand axes to the hottest new BMW Mini. A particularly obvious manifestation of the cyborg theme is the development of man-made additions to the human body, from a pirate’s wooden leg, to Captain Hook’s sharp hand. Are these not cyborgs? They have and depend on a man-made artifact, but it is an integral part of their personality, of their identity.
Can anyone not exist as a cyborg, then? In a world filled with artificial teeth, hips, tissues, and organs, it is difficult to find a way out of this cyborg madness, since we are constantly trying to use technology to give nature a helping hand. Everything from walking canes to contact lenses, from roller blades to surf boards, can become an extension of ourselves. Thus “we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs" (Haraway 150).
Though it might be difficult to consider yourself in the same league as the cold, calculated cyborgs depicted in the media, it might be easier to see the progression of the modern cyborg by considering the artificial heart.
Doing away with dualisms
We often enjoy sorting the world into neat little boxes- this is true, this is false; this is good, this is bad; this is human, this is machine. The presence of the artificial heart, though, complicates matters slightly. If a close family member of yours received an artificial heart transplant, would you then start referring to him/her by the serial number of the transplant heart? Clearly we would like to maintain our sense of being ‘’’human’’’ for as long as possible, because it’s all we know.
How, then, do we come to terms with the fact that an external power source is being used to pump blood through someone’s veins? Here were turn to our familiar concept of the cyborg, and we find that “cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves" (Haraway 181).
The point is, if we continue to insist that humans are humans and machines are machines, we come across these types of personal dilemmas where we aren’t quite sure how to evaluate our own self-being when we depend so much on man-made tools. However, if we simply consider ourselves as cyborgs, then there is no contradiction at all- we were never completely human to begin with.
Out of sight, out of mind
Recent technologies in artificial heart development have emphasized the importance of functioning “without the benefit of consciousness, in order to cooperate with the body's own autonomous homeostatic controls" (Halacy 9). In essence, scientists are trying to develop a forgettable heart. The AbioCor has made significant press because it is the model that has come the closest to achieving exactly this.
We don’t want to think of ourselves as cyborgs, because… cyborgs have no heart, no feeling. We are humans that laugh and cry do everything in between, so we don’t want to see the dominance of technology over our lives: "modern machines are quintessentially microelectronic devices: they are everywhere and they are invisible" (Haraway 153). It’s much easier to deny the presence of all these technologies when we can’t see them. If we can’t see the AbioCor pumping in our heart, if we can’t see any tubes or wires coursing through our skin, then we have a sense of comfort because we look just a little bit more like everyone else.
In fact, for the AbioCor patient, who is to say that he has an artificial heart at all, when clearly he has a vibrant smile, a charming personality, a passion, a heart? If he never saw the heart he was born with, and he doesn't see his new mechanical heart, who is to say there is a difference at all? He still has ten fingers, ten toes, a loving family and a fondness for macaroni and cheese. Besides a few extra pills to quiet his protesting immune system, a few extra moments to plug in and power up, he is the same, better than ever, completely and undoubtedly human.
Going once, going twice…
In 1990, David Lamb warned that "proposals for a market in organ sales should be strongly resisted lest they encourage the vested interests of organ suppliers and brokers" (Lamb 117). With the public eye now on innovative technologies in artificial heart transplantation, a lucrative market has been opened for the development and production of the best artificial heart: "Naturally, there is competition between researchers (and, of course, manufacturers) to create the best device to treat the tens of thousands of Americans who could benefit from artificial hearts each year" (Cauwels 172).
Though some may argue this type of competitive market has the potential to produce higher quality goods, it is nevertheless a market based on making and selling hearts. Thus in a sense, our bodies become no more than machines that need fixing, and the hearts become no more than one of many mechanical parts. How, then, do you judge the quality of an artificial heart? The length of time before it is rejected by the host body, the risk involved during surgery, the material that it is constructed from? Once we start talking about our hearts in terms of pump rates, its market values, or ease of installation, we know we are living in a cyborg world.
The power of knowledge
So where do we go from here? We have found that we are cyborgs, that we have deceived ourselves into thinking otherwise, and that we have made a business of making and selling hearts. We have certainly come quite far by following our drive to further our own knowledge and develop technologies that can improve human survival rates.
I would like to end, then, with some words of warning from Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein, who learned the hard way what consequences may arise from an overeager desire to defeat death and preserve life:
“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (Shelley C4).
References
Cauwels, JM. The Body Shop: Bionic Revolutions in Medicine. St. Louis: Mosby, 1986.
Halacy, DS. Cyborg- Evolution of the Superman. New York: Harper, 1965.
Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Lamb, David. Organ Transplants and Ethics. London: Routledge, 1990.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein.
http://www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein
Tammy Wang: A New Heart to Heart >
Hearts: Let's Begin!
