Posthuman Practice in Haraway's Chthulucene
A key aspect of posthuman theories is the divide between “popular posthumanism” and “critical posthumanism” (Wallace 1). Popular posthumanism objects (bio)technological advancements interfering with human nature and freedom (Wallace 1). In contrast, critical posthumanism is “a way of thinking the human” critiquing humancentric ideals of humans in relation to non-humans and the environment in the age of the Anthropocene (Sammendrag 1). Most importantly, both branches of posthumanism address the political implications of what they critique – that is the political implication of technological advancements and human exceptionalism (Sammendrag 1).
Furthermore, both oppose transhumanism; the humancentric belief that human life can transcend bodily ailments/degradation and ignorance “by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature” (Huxley 76). Early 20th century eugenicist and biologist Julian Huxley proposes a transcendence through scientific exploration of human nature as well as social exploration of human nature to help humanity reach its full potential. He praises science for helping the development of humans;
“The scientific and technical explorations have given the Common Man all over the world a notion of physical possibilities. Thanks to science the under-privileged are coming to believe that no one need be underfed or chronically diseased, or deprived of the benefits of its technical and practical application.” (74-75)
These physical possibilities come with an ethical question: who has the right to attain them and who does not? Huxley notes that “people will realize and believe that if proper measures are taken, no one need to be starved of true satisfaction” (75). He envisioned a period of “unpleasant times” in the future as humanity deals with the political implications of human advancement, but asserts that it would lead to fulfillment of the individual self in his/her capacities as well as the fulfillment of being in service of one’s community and “promoting welfare of the generations to come and the advancement of our species as a whole” (76). Transhumanism thus, coined by Huxley, promotes human exceptionalism socially and scientifically, which posthumanism challenges.
Therefore, critical posthumanism and popular posthumanism offer critique to the transhumanist movement by questioning what it means to be human as it continuously needs revisioning due to technological advancements and the impact these advancements have on non-humans (the-world-in-itself). Posthuman theories that are part of critical posthumanism are Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, Patricia MacCormack’s Posthuman Ethics, Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble, When Species Meet and Companion Species Manifesto, Claire Colebrook’s Death of the Posthuman, Cary Wolfe’s What is Posthumanism?, Neil Badmington’s Human Chic, Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects, Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology, Katherine Hayles’ How We Became Posthuman and many more.
So what would be a posthuman practice? And according to whose definition of posthumanism? Posthuman practice can be determined as the execution of posthuman theories in practice. The theories that are of use for the analysis of religion in Parable and Year are Haraway’s Chutulusene , When Species Meet and Eugene Thacker’s In the Dust of this Planet. In the second chapter, an in-depth explanation of Eugene Thacker’s theories on the end of the world without humans is provided. In this chapter, Haraway’s theories are addressed.
Not Post-human but Com-post
Donna Haraway is not unknown to the academic community. Her early work A Cyborg Manifesto, is still taught at universities around the world for various courses, including courses that entail posthumanism. In her latest book Staying with the Trouble, Donna Haraway builds on her arguments from A Cyborg Manifesto and When Species Meet, focusing on climate change, companion species and touches upon feminism as well. Donna Haraway’s work is very posthumanist because of her critique on human impact on the planet as a consequence of how human interact with Earth’s natural resources and non-humans.
Even though Haraway, denies posthumanism, she admits that she is “nourished by much generative work done under that sign” (Haraway 856). She criticizes the discourse that follow the Anthropocene and Capitalocene. Instead, she proposes the term “Chthulucene” (813). For this terminology she draws on SF, which stands for science fiction, science fact, speculative feminism, string figures and speculative fabulation (“Donna Haraway – SF: String Figures, Multispecies Muddles, Staying with the Trouble”). In contrast to the Anthropocene and Capitalocene, Chthulucene conceptualize all agencies (human and non-human) involved in climate chaos and environmental degradation. Moreover, Haraway proposes the Chtulucene to highlight the present instead of the past or the future, temporalities that the Anthropocene and Capitolosene elicit. The mention of Anthropocene in scientific discourse elicits fear of a future degradation of Globalization: It is spoken of “in the context of ubiquitous urgent efforts to find ways of talking about, theorizing, modeling and managing a Big Thing called Globalization” (1100). In a way, the name Anthropocene for this age is misanthropic, because the stories associated with it “ends in double death; they are not about ongoingness” (1170). She lists eight reasons why she objects the term Anthropocene as a tool, the first one mentioned in the previous sentence. The most important ones that follow are that 1) the human exceptionalist belief that humankind make history (with technology), 2) That the Anthropocene is used as tool to encourage stories of the non-human (“geostories”, “Gaia stories” or as Thacker would call: stories of the world-in-itself), but the error in this way of approaching the non-human forgets that the non-human does not have agency and “don’t do history,” 3) The Anthropocene relies too much on “computer modeling and autopoietic system theories and an ‘unthinkable’ theory of relations” (1170). And 4):
“The sciences of the Anthropocene are too much contained within restrictive systems theories and within evolutionary theory called the Modern Synthesis, which for all their extraordinary importance have proven unable to think well about sympoiesis, symbiosis, sybiogenesis, webbed ecologies and microbes. That’s a lot of trouble for adequate evolutionary theory.” (1170)
Other reasons have to do with bureaucracy and high class that the term Anthropocene is associated with. At the same time, these reasons are the reasons Haraway wants to disassociate herself with posthumanist theorists. Too many of them have adopted the term in their discourse (1190). Similarly, the Capitolocene prompts the same criticisms and harsher ones, because “the stories of both the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene teeter constantly on the brink of becoming much Too Big” that do not account for everything (1190). Haraway opposes the capitalist culture that shape the Anthropocene and Capitolocene: “what is required is action and thinking that do not fit within the dominant capitalist culture” The Capitolocene thus exludes non-human relations and again focuses on human centralism and capitalism.
In contrast, Haraway proposes the term Chthulucene as a way to embrace the current epoch as one that is not deterministic in its demise, but that is practical in the present with the aim to
“make kin in lines of inventive connection as a practice of learning to live and die well with each other in a thick present. Our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devastating evens, as well as to settle troubled waters and rebuild quiet places" (293).
Staying with the trouble is thus about staying in the present, instead of dwelling in the future or past. Chthulu evokes thoughts on SF monster created by H.P. Lovecraft, yet Haraway attempts to avoid this association by removing the H from Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. Despite her attempt to avoid Lovecraft’s monster, the association can still be made with the non-humans or as Haraway calls them “critters” or “chthonic ones” and are imagined as the ones “replete with tentacles, feelers, digits, cords, whiptails, spider legs, and very unruly hair” (293). While Thacker’s philosophy is very nihilistic, a connection could be made with Haraway’s Chthulucene and its chthonic ones. Chthonic ones are the non-humans, the representations of the world-in-itself. Furthermore, while Thacker speaks about the end and explores the fears of humanity in the horror of philosophy, Haraway proposes a positive view that both Lauren’s Earthseed and God’s Gardeners attempt to create in their religions. These religions adopt sympoesis instead of autopoeisis to their way of living, they encourage kinmaking and the idea of “becoming with” humans and non-humans in a complex matrix of a Haraway’s metaphor: string figures. For Haraway, we are not post-human, but com-post: on the same level as the chthonic ones. Haraway may not agree, but Haraway posits a way of thinking about what I call posthuman practice. In the following chapter, I will provide a close-reading of Parable and Year on the basis of Haraway’s Chtulucene and Thacker's horror of philosophy.