The Aesthetics of Metahumanism: A FeministPerspective
摘要
Transhumanism, posthumanism, and metahumanism are futurist movements that critique Enlightenment-era humanism and aspire for something beyond the human. Transhumanists and posthumanists refer to their aesthetic ideals as the posthuman. However, they have different definitions of posthumanity. For transhumanists, the posthuman is a being with faculties so far superior to those of humanity that one cannot consider it a clear part of the same species. Transhumanists encourage the use of technology to upgrade the human into the posthuman. Feminist critics of transhumanism perceive it as an extension of humanism and eugenics. Posthumanists see the posthuman as a state beyond oppressive social hierarchies. Posthumanism stems from postmodern feminism and is opposed to sexism and ableism. The posthumanist quest for posthumanity sometimes downplays the role of technology. In several works, Jaym*/Jaime del Val and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner introduce metahumanism, a radical pluralist approach. Metahumanism does not aim at an ideal final state, and espouses a techno-aesthetic of dance and the amorphous. In this paper, I make a feminist case for metahumanism as a potential path beyond and between transhumanism and posthumanism. Metahumanism can help synthesize the transhumanist embrace of technology with the feminist goals of posthumanism.