Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society 2018964960, 9781622738939, 9781622735365

Citation preview

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society Edited by

Diego Compagna University of Applied Sciences Munich, Germany

Stefanie Steinhart

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Series in Sociology

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2020 Vernon Press, an imprint of Vernon Art and Science Inc, on behalf of the author. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Vernon Art and Science Inc. www.vernonpress.com In the Americas: Vernon Press 1000 N West Street, Suite 1200, Wilmington, Delaware 19801 United States

In the rest of the world: Vernon Press C/Sancti Espiritu 17, Malaga, 29006 Spain

Series in Sociology Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964960

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62273-893-9 Also available: 978-1-62273-536-5 [Hardback] Product and company names mentioned in this work are the trademarks of their respective owners. While every care has been taken in preparing this work, neither the authors nor Vernon Art and Science Inc. may be held responsible for any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in it. Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition. Cover design by Vernon Press. Cover image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Table of contents List of Figures

vii

Introduction

ix

Diego Compagna

University of Applied Sciences Munich, Germany

Stefanie Steinhart University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Gender, Biopolitics, Feminist & Queer Theory 1. Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown: German Sirens of the 19th Century

1 3

Rebecca E. Steele

University of Wyoming, Wyoming

2. Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

27

Katherine Kurtz Villanova University, Pennsylvania

3. The Break of Gender Stereotypes and its Relation to Desire, Eroticism and Love in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” (1991)

49

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Katja Schöffmann University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Politics, Postcolonial Studies, Trolling & Subversion Practices 4. Looking B(l)ack: Examining the Monstrous History of Black Oppression through Racist Imagery and Artifacts

75 77

Wanda B. Knight

The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania

5. Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: From Monstrous Threats to Rorschach Opportunities Vassilis Galanos University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

103

6. Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity. The Difference between Negative and Positive Consideration about Monsters

131

Andrea Torrano CIECS-CONICET-UNC, Argentina

Life Sciences, Body & Self 7. Morphological Deviances: Figures of Transgression in Motility Disability and Exoskeleton Use

157 159

Denisa Butnaru University of Konstanz, Germany

8. Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile: The Body in Orthodontic Treatment in Turkey

175

Hande Güzel University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

9. "Help, the Monster is Eating Me!" Loss of control of the technical vs. harmonically acting cyborg

197

Melike Şahinol

Orient-Institut Istanbul, Turkey

10. The Assemblage of the Skull Form. Parental Decision, Surgery and the Normalization of the Baby Skull

215

Andreas Kaminski High Performance Computing Center (HLRS), Germany

Alena Umbach Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

High Performance Computing Center (HLRS), Germany

Aesthetics, Art, Media & Literature 11. From Golem to Cyborg: Symbolic Reconfigurations of an Ancient Monstrum

231 233

Barbara Henry Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy

12. Citizen Dead: Aesthetical, Ominous and Rotten Zombies Adrián Pradier Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), Spain

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

257

13. Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality: Conspiracy Theory as Critical Technical Practice

283

Alex Gibson University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Leonardo Impett Max Planck Institute for Art History, Italy

Anders Thrue Djurslev

University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Alan F. Blackwell University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

14. A Wonderful Kind of Monster: the Likeable Monster

313

Stefanie Steinhart University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Philosophy, Ethics, Theology & Anthropology 15. The Devil in Contradiction: Bringer of light - embodiment of the wicked - of the libidinal monstrosity

341

343

Peter Heintel University of Klagenfurt, Austria

16. Monster Anthropologies and Technology: Machines, Cyborgs and other Techno-Anthropological Tools

353

Mark Coeckelbergh University of Vienna, Austria

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

17. I, Monster: Hybrid Anthropology

371

Markus Fath QualityMinds GmbH, Germany

18. Mathematical Monsters Andrew Aberdein Florida Institute of Technology, Florida

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

391

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

List of Figures Figure 4.1: Cover of the popular book, The Negro A Beast or In the Image of God, by Charles Carroll, 1900.

79

Figure 4.2: Vintage Black Americana 3.5 X 5.5 linen postcard, Two of A Kind, 1940.

80

Figure 4.3: Vintage 3.5 x 5.5 Black Americana linen postcard with mother and children, Carbon Copies.

83

Figure 4.4: Vintage 3.5 x 5.5 Black Americana linen postcard that stereotypes The Whole Black Family.

84

Figure 4.5: Sambo Image.

85

Figure 4.6: Images of monstrous beasts.

87

Figure 4.7: Image from “Gone with the Wind”

89

Figure 4.8 Vintage Pre-linen 3.5 X 5.5. Black Americana Pickaninny Postcard

93

Figure 10.1: Normacephalus and different assorted characteristics of craniosynostosis (very simplified illustration).

219

Figure 18.1: The picture frame, fugitive non-Eulerian polyhedron?

397

Figure 18.2: Weierstrass’s function W with a=.5 and b=5 on [0,3] (Thim 2003, 22).

400

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Introduction Diego Compagna University of Applied Sciences Munich, Germany

Stefanie Steinhart

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

University of Klagenfurt, Austria

The terms “monster” and “monstrous” are subjectivizing adjectives that are often used to refer to entities’ characteristics or somatic individual traits, as well as certain types of style and design. They evade clear definition since they encompass various complex, conflicting notions. Monsters simultaneously cross borders and demarcate them: The stranger and the other vs. one’s cohorts and acquaintances; the ugly and disgusting vs. the beautiful, the pleasant, and the harmonious; the abnormal and the freakish vs. the normal and the well-adjusted; the human vs. the inhuman, cyborgs, hybrids, mutants, and animals. These borders involve the specific and the diffuse, inclusion and exclusion, and lastly – good and evil. The various attributions we make, connect monsters with topics such as sex and gender, religion, psychology, aesthetics, and politics. Within the context of the makeover paradigm, they also relate to idealized standards of beauty, bodywork, and cosmetic surgery. Monstrosities often seem strange, repulsive, frightening, and abhorrent, but at the same time, they can also strike us as fascinating and interesting, captivating, and sometimes even amusing. Like societal taboos (Freud, 1950), monsters are extremely ambiguous, and – again, just like taboos – they are a constitutive element of the history of our civilization in a way unrivaled by almost any other entity. The monster is a reified, personified concept, a distilled embodiment of historically contingent reduction, selection, and structuring of social order. The monster, the monstrosity, and the abomination are at times very specific entities; they remain at the borders of our concepts of reality and define the scope of an unspecified external world from the inside out – monsters are therefore the last specifiable element of our conceptions of reality (Lacan, 2013). In the discourse dedicated to neoliberalist tendencies, monsters are linked with the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion: Most of the inconsistency between the naturally given facts of appearance and the cultural constructed,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

x

Introduction

idealistic evaluation of “natural” beauty – which is, of course, artificial – is abrogated in practices of self-discipline and manipulation of one’s own body (Saguy, 2013). Within a neoliberalist society, the monster has to be adjusted, and the monstrous has to be normalized (Foucault, 2007). Plastic surgery reveals very clearly the tendency to gain normalization instead of acting in a subversive and disruptive way. Plastic surgery is usually not used to create a subversive sketch of oneself to undercut the assumed “own nature”. Instead, it aims at optimizing the cultural idealized perception and understanding of “beauty by nature” of the own body (Haraway, 1999). Cyborgs, on the other hand, enable the opposition to dominant subjectivity practices (Haraway, 1987). Despite the fact that there is no nature in adopting the sophisticated cultural achievement of aesthetic surgery, the aim is to obtain a gendered and fitness-related optimum in regard to socially set standards, which are obviously contingent historical structures of relevance. The cyborg-figure was introduced in humanities as the outcome of a mindset dedicated to the monstrous, as a strategy to achieve substantial freedom from entrenched societal frameworks [the human as a natural entity strictly linked to (assumed!) nature-given goals]. Today, however, it is very often reified as a neoliberalist concept to manage the body in regard to demands of fitness, beauty, and expected behavior, as well as cognitive capacities (Orland, 2005). The irony of these practices is that while purportedly generating material for diversifying and equalizing social realities (e.g. as described in Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” (Haraway, 1987)), the outcome is often the reification and permutation of stable differentiations/oppositions that are strictly linked to hierarchical relationships between them. On the contrary: obvious deviations from the expected shape and / or behavior are stigmatized as monstrous in a completely negative notion and therefore have to be normalized. Cyborgization became a procedure to align oneself with the common standards and gain adaptation in the best possible means. In the past, different approaches dealt with the continuum from the very well-known and intimate to the unknown and uncanny; e.g. Haraway’s Cyborg (Haraway, 1987), Agamben’s Homo Sacer (Agamben, 1998), as well as Garfinkel’s transgender studies (Garfinkel, 2007) or Goffman’s analysis on total institutions (Goffman, 1961). In their most extreme peculiarity, monsters always provoke a direct confrontation with the status quo. They don’t question academically the point of reference that is taken for granted, and that is used to define what seems to be good and naturally right – like humanities and social sciences, the two fields that usually conduct these kinds of enquiries. Instead, they allow the structure of order and rightness to collapse. In this regard, the term implosion is commonly used – especially by Baudrillard (Baudrillard, 1994, 1983) and Bataille (Bataille, 2001) – to point out that the monster and the monstrous both simultaneously act as firewall and explosive.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Introduction

xi

It combines antagonist forces and is at the same time very different from nonlinear and non-hierarchical theories and approaches that in the past were proposed as alternative views of contemporary societies – e.g. Deleuze’s and Guattari’s proposal of a rhizomatic view of reality (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988). Contrary to the unmanageable intertwined references of the rhizome, the monster is embodied throughout.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

One type of monster, the hybrid, can be found in all levels of scalability. Methods of cleanup are found on the levels of the individual, organizations, and society. The actor-network theory, in particular, constructs monsters that way. In his work “We Have Never Been Modern,” Bruno Latour (Latour, 1993) shows that there has never been a societal reality that was that dependent on mechanisms of cleanup. Nature and culture are intertwined quite irreversibly and never were separated that strictly. This notion constructs the monstrous as a typically modern phenomenon. It arises out of the effort put into these processes and destroys things and creatures to maintain the nature-culture differential. John Law’s “Sociology of monsters” (Law, 1991) sets up monsters from different perspectives and on several levels (from micro to macro). Monsters run counter to common classification patterns. What these contributions accomplish is shifting the perspective from the “naturally given” view, with its preconditions, enforced and directed by discourses of cleansing, to the ambiguity and subversiveness of monsters. Monsters play an important role in narrative structure as well. We use the term narrative widely here for “high arts products” as well as “popular culture.” Monsters have been very popular in modern aesthetics since romanticism. One group of narratives focuses on how to contain a monster. They shape one part of aesthetics and popular culture: Firstly, the uncanny, better known as the horror, creates the monster as a threat, showing and testing the borders of society’s hegemonic rationality (Freud, 1955 and Rosenkranz, 2015). It is something of an imperative that the monster has to be destroyed (Carroll, 1990). These types of narratives stigmatize monsters as evil and colonize them. Secondly, there are a lot of comedies related to the makeover paradigm. These narratives focus on the improvement of the protagonist, the adjustment to (beauty) standards. Thirdly, there are comedies that modify and reintegrate the monster into the social order. Fourthly, some dramas focus on the failure(s) of unadjusted monsters. All of these four types of narratives reproduce the social order. They construct monsters in a negative way, to be precise, as creatures that have to be contained, reintegrated through modes of adjustment, something that has to be transformed in order to be beautiful and good. On the other hand, narratives also contain more complex, more dialectical functions of monsters. They also focus on “inclusion exclusion dialectics” but

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

xii

Introduction

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

differ from the first type because they show the monsters’ potential and possibilities. Modern aesthetic theories no longer focus on mimesis, a copy – like reproduction of “given nature,” but on creating other worlds. Art is no longer bound to the conventional understanding of purpose and sense, as Immanuel Kant’s (Kant, 2007) and especially Friedrich Nietzsche’s (Nietzsche, 2000) aesthetic theories point out. The purpose and sense of art lie in art itself; it is beautiful because it is needless; it is luxury. Socio-political approaches, like Friedrich Schiller’s (Schiller, 2004) and Herbert Marcuse’s (Marcuse, 1974, 2002), see the shift of perspective produced by society’s aesthetic education as inevitable for a better life. The creation of monsters is not considered as purely negative, but as beings with potential. Modern conceptions of the absurd, for example by Martin Esslin (Esslin, 2004), and of the grotesque, for example by Wolfgang Kayser (Kayser, 1981), show the inappropriateness of society’s hegemonic understanding of the world. Modern theories sketch the aesthetic of the monstrous as an aesthetic of deviation, showing potentials. The monster acts as corrective, contrasting and correcting the wellestablished order of looking at things. It holds a mirror in front of people and makes the established order of looking at things visible to them. Goffman shows in his study Stigma (Goffman, 1986) that monsters are stigmatized by society because of their deviations, but they can form groups with fellow monsters and develop techniques for handling their stigma. Some monsters even turn their flaws into abilities, special gifts. Popular culture supplements aesthetics with figures, which turn their flaws into positive potentials: Firstly, sometimes characters with differing or shared defects form groups in comical or serious ways. The monstrous here functions as a solitary deviation. Secondly, there are narratives that focus, more or less, on success stories of anomalous characters – exemplarily shown in the likeable figure of the underdog. These subversive narratives aren’t subordinated to the makeover paradigm, which means their characters don’t have to be modified. Humor is very important, though, because it helps monsters to survive and solve problems. It makes it easier for them to face their fears, sometimes even overcome them – getting through awkward and uncomfortable situations. Julia Kristeva has shown that laughing interrupts the discourse of standardization without bursting it (Kristeva, 1982). In the context of the comical, the genres of satire and sarcasm are the third type of these monster narratives. Fourthly, there are horror narratives that don’t reproduce the social order. One example of this type of horror narrative indicates that the monster is still alive, but the number of humans is reduced, or humanity is destroyed – these narratives are very popular in the zombie genre. Modern science and aesthetic theory imply that rationally oriented logic – the strict demarcation of boundaries through the use of dualisms – reduces

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Introduction

xiii

the complexity inherent in the concept of the monstrous, instead of examining it more closely. It also creates a stigma instead of pointing out potential. A “specific utopia of monsters and the monstrous” is a sociology of the other, an aesthetic-sociological future outline of a society for cyborgs, hybrids, mutants, extraterrestrials, and robots. Our anthology not only aims at the reconstruction of constructions and second-order observations of today’s reality – which is predominantly hostile to input from monsters and monstrosities – but also at inventive and constructive contributions to a social future that will hopefully be influenced and shaped by “monsters” and “the monstrous.”

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford University Press. Bataille, G. (2001). Die Aufhebung der Ökonomie - Der Begriff der Verausgabung; Der verfemte Teil; Kommunismus und Stalinismus; Die Ökonomie im Rahmen des Universums. 3rd ed. Das theoretische Werk in Einzelbänden. Batterien. München: Matthes und Seitz. Baudrillard, J. (1983). In the shadow of the silent majorities and other essays. New York: Semiotext 86. Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulation and simulacra. Vol. 19. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Carroll, N. (1990). The Philosophy of Horror. New York et al.: Routledge. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1988). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Bloomsbury Publishing. Esslin, M. (2004) [originally 1961]. The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, M. (2007). Abnormal: lectures at the Collège de France 1974-1975. Vol. 2. Macmillan. Freud, S. (1955) [German original 1919]. The 'Uncanny'. Strachey, J. (Ed.). An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Vol. XVII (1917-1919). London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. 217-252. Freud, S. and Strachey J. (1950). Totem and taboo: Some points of agreement between the mental lives of savages and neurotics. WW Norton and Company. Garfinkel, H. (2007). Passing and the managed achievement of sex status in an intersexed person - Part 1, Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press. 116–185. Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Garden City et al.: Anchor. Goffman, E. (1986). Stigma - Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identities. New York: Touchstone. Haraway, D. (1987). A manifesto for cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s. Australian Feminist Studies 2. 1–42.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

xiv

Introduction

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Haraway, D. (1999). The biopolitics of postmodern bodies: Determinations of self in immune system discourse. Vol. 1. Price, J. and Shildrick, M. (Ed.). Feminist theory and the body: A reader. 203–214. Kant, I. (2007) [German original 1790]. Critique of Judgement. New York: Oxford University Press Kayser, W. (1981) [German original 1957]. The Grotesque in art and literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of Horror. New York: Columbia University Press. Lacan, J. and Miller, J.-A. (2013). The psychoses: the seminar of Jacques Lacan. Routledge. Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge et al.: Harvard University Press. Law, J. (1991). A Sociology of Monsters. New York et al.: Routledge. Marcuse, H. (1974). Eros and Civilisation. A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud. Boston: Beacon Press. Marcuse, H. (2002). One-Dimensional Man. Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. London et al.: Routledge Classics. Nietzsche, F. (2000) [German original 1872]. The Birth of Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press. Orland, B. (2005). Wo hören Körper auf und fängt Technik an? - Historische Anmerkungen zu posthumanistischen Problemen. Artifizielle Körper Lebendige Technik. Technische Modellierungen Des Körpers in Historischer Perspektive. Interferenzen. Zürich: Chronos. 9–42. Rosenkranz, K. (2015) [German original 1853]. Aesthetics of Ugliness. London et al.: Bloomsbury Academic. Saguy, A. C. (2013). What’s wrong with fat? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schiller, F. (2004) [German original 1795]. On the Aesthetic Education of Man. Mineola et al.: Dover Publications, Inc.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Gender, Biopolitics, Feminist & Queer Theory

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

1. Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown: German Sirens of the 19th Century Rebecca E. Steele University of Wyoming, Wyoming

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract Understanding literary constructions of the female monster of the postEnlightenment help us make sense of the socially constructed woman and the insistent “othering” of woman that dominated the 19th century, and, to some extent, continues today. The existence of monsters as cultural embodiments of the unknown in the Middle Ages, before modern scientific advancements were able to explain natural phenomena, is unsurprising. But what do monsters say about identity formation and how the world can and should be understood after the Enlightenment, an age of supposed reason? The existence of the female monster – already “othered” as women and doubly “othered” as a monster – simultaneously calls into question Enlightenment notions of reason while figuring the woman as irrational. The appearance of the most prominent female monster of the German canon, the siren figure Lorelei, coincides with the economic depression in the Rhine region and the perversion of nature when the Rhine is straightened. In male-authored texts, she is often spurned by a lover, and she always lures men to their death, making her seem a fearsome and violent creature. By contrast, the femaleauthored water nymph is shown explicitly betrayed by man thus turning the trope of the nature spirit ravaging innocent men on its head by calling attention to a justified motivation for revenge. Keywords: Lorelei, siren, female monsters, female authors, German 1.1 An Introduction to the Post-Enlightenment Female Monster The age-old siren call has infamously beckoned man to disregard his surroundings until he is crushed upon a jagged shore. The siren’s beauty and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

4

Chapter 1

voice are seemingly magical in their power to overwhelm him. But what does she look like? What does she sound like? Is not this vagueness the most alluring part of all? This is, at least, what German male-authored representations of sirens have often implied, in particular in the texts under discussion here, Goethe’s “Der Fischer” (1779), Brentano’s “Zu Bacharach am 1 Rheine” (1801), Eichendorff’s “Waldgespräch” (1815), “Der stille Grund” (1837), “Verloren” (1841), and Heine’s “Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten” (1823/24). Because these authors give us few clues to the siren’s complete physical appearance, her fishy tail can be imagined away, and the ideal woman superimposed over the monster. The existence of such “possibilitywomen” (Wienker-Piepho 1992, 101) post-Enlightenment presents a delectable tension between knowing and not-knowing. We “know” she is beautiful and seductive, even as we are denied a detailed representation. We also “know” the danger of her voice, even as we never actually hear it unmediated. Desire and containment of such a creature become the “natural” intertwining reactions to her presence and her song.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Enter the overlooked German female-authored siren such as those found in 2 Franz’ “Die Nymphe aus Goethe’s Fischer” (1843) and Huch’s “Lügenmärchen” (1896), who only marginally resemble such “possibility women.” In true Enlightenment fashion, these authors privilege knowledge over fantasy, fidelity over seduction. The siren is presented completely in her fishy monstrosity and exists in a kind of sisterhood of the “other” with human women. Her unmediated voice reveals itself to be unthreatening, eliminating any justification for containment or neutralization. Since Homer, the Wasserfrau, “equally seductress and seduced” (Dippel 2003, 3 263), has evoked a “mixed feeling of anxiety and lust, of threat and satisfaction, of 4 denial and longing” (Roebling 1992, 1). She has many names: Melusine, Undine, siren, Rusalka, nix, mermaid, fountain woman, nymph, naiad, nereid, as well as a “large German repertory of untranslatable Mettjes, Buckelesmuhmen, Bachhakeles, Nixen, Nikkis, Seegöttis, Pützfeen, Soothmühmchen, Dümpfelichen, Mümmlings, Zwergenweibeln” (Wienker-Piepho 1992, 94). The half-woman, halffish fantasy figure is often read by modern literary critics as some form of dichotomy (Stuby 1992, 56). But most commonly, she is understood as a

1

The poem appears later in 1801 under “Lureley” with small revisions. This is the date from her Vermächtnis. Original date of publication unsure. 3 “Verführerin und Verführten zugleich” [Unless otherwise noted, all translations from German to English are mine.] 4 “Mischgefühl von Angst und Lust, von Bedrohung und Befriedigung, von Verleugnung und Sehnsucht” 2

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

5

projection of male erotic desire: “The horizontal nix body offers itself to the male gaze as an object of lust, as a projection screen for a desire, which allows itself to 5 be enjoyed hazard-free” (Stuby 1992, 163). However, in the proliferation of the siren in German-language literature of th th the late 18 and early 19 centuries, the representation does not simply conform to erotic projection. Both male and female authors featured water women in their texts, yet to read the numerous anthologies and literary criticism discussing sirens, nymphs, and mermaids, one would conclude that 6 female authors did not deploy such figures in their writing. (Or that they did th not do so until the 20 century with Ingeborg Bachmann’s Undine geht, which has received substantial critical attention.) Thus, for instance, Roebling’s

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

5

“Der horizontale Nixenkörper bietet sich dem männlichen Blick als Lustobjekt dar, als Projektionsfläche für ein Begehren, welches sich gefahrlos genießen läßt.” See also Böschenstein (1992, 113) and Schmitz-Emans (2003, 218-219). This interpretation is born out in many of the well-known representations of water women in Germanlanguage literature beyond those under discussion here such as Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s Undine, Gottfried Keller’s “Seemärchen,” other texts by Clemens Brentano, Heinrich Heine (Harzreise), and Joseph von Eichendorff, Theodor Fontane’s Melusine, Ludwig Tieck’s Sehr wunderbare Historie von der Melusina, Gebrüder Grimm’s Die Nixe im Teich, Franz Kafka Das Schweigen der Sirenen, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Der goldne Topf, Rainer Maria Rilke, Alois Wilhelm Schreiber, Thüring von Ringoltingen’s Dis abenteürlich buch beweyset uns von einer frawen genandt Melusina die ein Merfaye was, Egenolf von Stauffenberg’s Die gestörte Martenehe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Neue Melusine, Achim von Arnim’s Der Ritter von Stouffenberg, and Eduard Mörike’s Die Historie von der schönen Lau. This list is not complete. It does not include the numerous ballets, operas, operettas, etc. Irene Krieger has collected. 6 These anthologies include Märchen von Nixen und Wassenfrauen edited by Barbara Stamer (1987), with no female-authored texts, and Undinenzauber edited by Franz Rainer Max (1991), with contributions by Nelly Sachs, Regina Röhner, Ingeborg Bachmann, Penthesilea (Leonie Meyerhof), Barbara Frishmuth. With the exception of Meyerhof (who has received no critical attention), these authors published in the 20th and 21st centuries. Other collections discuss wider themes found in male-authored texts, for example, Benwell discusses the origin of the Wasserfrau, Bessler the visual representations of Wasserfrauen, Deppermann the slavic version of the Wasserfrau in the Rusalka, and Klugsberger examines strictly mermaids/Meerjungfrauen in literature. The most frequently analyzed female-authored Wasserfrau is found in Ingeborg Bachmann’s Undine geht (Baackmann, Fassbind-Eigenheer, Revesz, Stuby, ter Horst). Other female-authored Wasserfrauen, which have received critical attention, are generally from the 20th century and are primarily in Anglo-Saxon literature and film, such as Kerstin Hensel’s Ulriche und Kühleborn (Davies), Edith Wharton’s Custom of the Country (McHaney), Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei Lee in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (Fauser) and “Lola rennt” (Revesz).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

6

Chapter 1

Sehnsucht und Sirene lists only two female-authored texts (Bachmann’s Undine geht and Sophie von la Roche’s Melusines Sommer-Abende) among the forty-one works that comprise a “Little Chronology of the most important 7 source texts on the motive of the water woman” (1992, 372-374). At the same time, “The Little Chronology” stands out among anthologies on Wasserfrauen, for it at least recognizes that water women were not under the sole purview of male authors. In the introduction to Sehnsucht und Sirene, Roebling explains away the dearth of critical analyses of female-authored water women, noting that “only a few images or texts by women on the subject of the Wasserfrau have been passed on, and the few currently known 8 ones are mostly obvious reactions, are answers to the men’s texts” (1992, 1). This highly problematic explanation ignores the fact that most, if not all, 9 literature is in some way a “reaction” or “answer” to what has come before. Not only has this fact never hampered extensive analyses of such texts, but it is also often the basis thereof. As a case in point, one need only observe the extensive critical literature on the Lorelei figure. Lorelei first appeared in Brentano’s 1801 “Zu Bachararch am Rheine” and was then subsequently reimagined by Eichendorff and Heine, as well as by lesser-known poets such as Loeben and Schreiber. In fact, Heine’s Lorelei has received the most attention, even though it is demonstrably indebted to previous depictions of the siren. Even Brentano’s first Lore Lay retains echoes of Homer’s sirens (Lentwojt, Syfuss, Politzer), the myth of Narziß and Echo (Bellmann, Dippel, 10 Politzer), as well as the nix from Goethe’s “Der Fischer” (Peters, Politzer).

7

“Kleine Chronologie der wichtigsten Quellentexte zum Motiv der Wasserfrau” “[es] sind nur wenige Bilder oder Texte von Frauen mit Wasserfrauensujets überliefert, und die weniger bisher bekannten sind zumeist deutlich Reaktionen, sind Antworten auf Männertexte.” 9 In a similarly problematic vein, Kraß’ analysis of Bertha Pappenheim’s “Weihernixe” falls prey to the unfortunately frequent and misogynistic fallacy of a purely biographical reading, which has been the fate of many female-authored texts. 10 Bellman also sees echoes of Brentano’s biography in the poem. Origins have consumed the analyses of Eichendorff’s and Heine’s contributions to the Lorelei myth. Eichendorff’s “Waldgespräch” cites two lines of Brentano’s poem, making the connection obvious. Mohr’s focuses on the source of influence for Loeben’s 1821 “Loreley, eine Sage am Rhein” seeing Brentano and several of Eichendorff’s poems. Of the poems naming Lorelei, Heine’s comes the latest and obviously bears influence from Eichendorff and Brentano, although Mohr argues that he is also “stark verpflichtet” to Loeben (1958, 42), a statement countering Porterfield, who had made a case for Schreiber’s influence over Loeben’s (1915, 81).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

8

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

7

However, as I will demonstrate in the following analysis, female-authored water women are not nearly as rare as critically assumed and their existence cannot and should not be reduced to mere “reactions” or “answers to male 11 texts.” To note just a few, Wasserfrauen populate Charlotte von Ahlefeld’s Der Bote von Jerusalem, Die Nimpfe des Rheins and Die Quelle Leuconia, Marie von Olfers’ Klein-Nix, Agnes Franz’ “Nymphe der Carlsbad Brunnen,” Benedikt Naubert’s Libelle, Eine romantische Erzählung and Wallfahrten oder Erzählungen der Pilger as well as the texts under discussion here. th

th

The siren’s increased appearance in the late 18 and into the 19 centuries significantly marks the twin shifts in the post-Enlightenment understanding of both gender and monsters. The rising nature discourse of biological th difference, rooted first in the late 18 century philosophical notion of gender th difference and further broadened in the 19 century through “scientific” grounding, made it “natural” to justify the continued subjugation of women after the argument to do so based on religious dogma became passé. The female-authored representations of sirens counteract the reduction of woman to her biology and her consequent exclusion from the public sphere. As Rousseau posits in Book V of Emile (1762), if Nature made men and women different, insisting on equality would be unnatural.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In the union of the sexes, each contributes equally to the common aim, but not in the same way. From this diversity arises the first assignable difference in the moral relations of the two sexes. One ought to be active and strong, the other passive and weak. One must necessarily will and be able; it suffices that the other put up little resistance. Once this principle is established, it follows that woman is made specially to please man. […] This is not the law of love, I agree. But it is that of nature, prior to love itself. (Rousseau 1762, 532)

Rousseau’s framework, which lays out the basis for gender difference and complementarity rooted in nature, would go on to provide a useful framework for German educators, politicians, philosophers, and men in general for 12 decades to come. For example, Humboldt also argues for the necessity of 11

Moreover, among the existing critical literature on sirens in German-language texts, the majority are not accessible to an English reading audience. 12 Including Johann Berhard Basedow’s Methodenbuch für Väter und Mütter, Familien und Völker (Book of Methods for Fathers and Mothers, Families and Peoples, 1773), Christian Gottlieb Steinberg’s Lehrbuch für Frauenzimmer (Textbook for Women, 1772), Isaak Iselin’s Ueber die Erziehungsanstalten (On the Reformatories, 1770), Friedrich Heinrich Christian Schwarz’ Grundriss einer Theorie der Mädchenerziehung in Hinsicht auf die mittleren Stände (Blueprint of a Theorie of Female Education in Relation to the Middle Class, 1792), as well as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s Lienhard und Gertrud (1781-87). In turn, Pestalozzi becomes influential in Swiss and German education. Pestalozzi developed his own pedagogical

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

8

Chapter 1

“natural” complementarity in “Über den Geschlechtsunterschied” (“On 13 Sexual Difference” 1794): Without it [sexual difference], nature would not be nature, its movement would cease, and the drive, which connects all beings, as well as the fight, for which each one needs to equip himself with his unique energy, would stop, if in the place of this difference a boring and flagging equality appeared. (Humboldt 1794, 268)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This is where the difference between the sexes begins. The procreative power is attuned more toward development, the receptive power more toward reaction. That which is animated in the prior is called masculine, and that of the latter feminine. All that is masculine shows more auturgy, all that is feminine more suffering. (Humboldt 1794, 277)14

theories and became independently popular and heavily influenced theologian/educator Johann Ludwig Ewald’s Die Kunst, ein gutes Mädchen, eine gute Gattin, Mutter und Hausfrau zu werden. Ein Handbuch für erwachsene Töchter, Gattinnen und Mütter (1798). Rousseau’s influence can also be seen in lawyer/statesman/historian Justus Möser’s Patriotischen Phantasien (1.1775-4.1786), educator/linguist Joachim Heinrich Campe’s Väterlichen Rat für meine Tochter (1789), lawyer Ernst Brandes’ Über die Weiber (1787), anthropologist/educator Carl Friedrich Pockels’ Versuch einer Charakteristik des weiblichen Geschlechts (1797-1802). Later influences include mathematician and physicist Christian Ernst Wünsch’s Kosmologische Unterhaltungen für die Jugend (1780). 13 For additional commentary on Humboldt, see Vogel. 14 “Die Natur wäre ohne ihn [den Geschlechtsunterschied] nicht Natur, ihr Räderwerk stände still, und sowohl der Zug, welcher alle Wesen verbindet, als der Kampf, welcher jedes einzelne nöthigt, sich mit seiner, ihm eigenthümlichen Energie zu waffnen, hörte auf, wenn an die Stelle dieses Unterschiedes eine langweilige und erschlaffende Gleichheit träte” (268). “Hier nun beginnt der Unterschied der Geschlechter. Die zeugende Kraft is mehr zur Entwicklung, die empfangende mehr zur Rückwirkung gestimmt. Was von der erstern belebt wird, nennen wir männlich, was die letztere beseelt weiblich. Alles Männliche zeigt mehr Selbstthätigkeit, alles Weibliche mehr leidende Empfänglichkeit” (277). A similar argument can be found in Kant: “The woman refuses, the man woos; her surrender is a favor. Nature wants that the woman be sought after, therefore she herself does not need to be so particular in her choice (in matters of taste) as the man. […] She should be patient; he must be tolerant. She is sensitive; he is sentimental. – Man’s economic activity consists in acquiring, woman’s in saving.” (403-404; emphasis in original) “Das Weib ist weigernd, der Mann bewerbend; ihre Unterwerfung ist Gunst. - Die Natur will, daß das Weib gesucht werde; daher mußte sie selbst nicht so delicat in der Wahl (nach Geschmack) sein, als der Mann” (652-3; emphasis in original). “Sie soll geduldig, Er muß duldend sein. Sie ist empfindlich, er empfindsam. – Des Mannes Wirthschaft ist Erwerben, die des Weibes Sparen. – Der Mann ist eifersüchtig, wenn er liebt; die Frau auch, ohne daß sie liebt weil so viel Liebhaber, als von andern Frauen gewonnen worden, doch ihrem Kreise der Anbeter verloren sind. - Der Mann

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

9 th

The debate on gender difference was updated in the early 19 century through the growing acknowledgement, depth, and reliability of the sciences. There, woman’s continued subjugation to man was no longer justified through an amorphous and abstract concept of nature. Instead, science in general and anatomy specifically ground the seeming inferiority of woman in 15 objectivity. Even though the science at this time was still relatively inaccurate and often weakened by prejudices (particularly when it came to 16 women), these “scientific” explanations carried significant weight th th 17 throughout the 19 and into the 20 centuries. For example, with Anthropologie für das gebildete Publikum (1837), which “scientifically” supported gender difference based in physiology, obstetrician/gynaecologist Johann Christian Gottfriend Jörg grounds gender difference in the physicality of men and women’s organs. Instead of focusing on physical strength alone as a deciding factor for male superiority, Jörg demonstrates that the entire male body positions him to be free, just as the woman’s body designates her to be less free:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Because the woman with her weaker muscles is connected to a marginal locomotion, it may be due to the fact that the woman is less intended for freedom. Incidentally, the man with his larger lungs is also more like an animal of the air, by contrast, through her longer intestines, the woman is more bound to the ground. (Jörg 1837, 71)18

hat Geschmack für sich, die Frau macht sich selbst zum Gegenstande des Geschmacks für Jedermann” (654; emphasis in original). 15 For a more extensive discussion of the development of the anatomical sciences and its implication for gender and rights, see Honegger. 16 As Schiebinger notes, the medical community provided the scientific “evidence” necessary for complementarians to justify their insistence on opposite gender roles. For example, “anatomists – in their desire to see the sexes as anatomically (and therefore socially) distinct – tended to discount the sexual ambiguities that some of their colleagues had identified in the shape of breast bones, pelvises, or even sexual organs” (1989, 229-30). 17 Other examples include Hillebrand, Burdach, and Fröbel. Professor and philosopher Joseph Hillebrand’s Die Anthropologie als Wissenschaft (1822-1823), physiologist Karl Friedrich Burdach’s Der Mensch nach den verschiedenen Seiten seiner Natur, and geologist and politician Julius Fröbel’s System der sozialen Politik (1847). For additional commentary, see Hausen (1981, 91). 18 “[…] da nun aber das Weib mit seinem schwächern Muskeln eine geringe Locomotion verbindet, so mag es auch darin liegen, daß das Weib weniger für die Freyheit gestimmt ist. Uebrigens kommt hier noch das hinzu, daß der Mann durch seine größeren Lungen mehr zum Luftthiere erhoben worden ist, dagegen das Weib durch seinen längeren Darmcanal mehr an den Boden geheftet wurde” (Jörg 71).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

10

Chapter 1

The science of Jörg’s argument appeals and expands on the tired claim that men are superior due to physical strength by suggesting that the size of the lungs or the length of the intestines contribute to that body’s inclination for freedom. Jörg takes his argument one step further by reading the physical location of male and female genitalia as indicative of proper gender roles in society: The imperfection [of the women] results already widely known from the external composition of the sexual organs, by which these are not closed, and therefore clearly enough register the imperfection. The dependence of the female sexual activity irrefutably emerges from there, that the woman cannot become pregnant, give birth and breastfeed without the man. By contrast, the man appears socially in a much higher position, and therefore more perfect and much less dependent than the women. Already the man’s sexual organs partly extend beyond the periphery of the body and thus indicate no longer the closed, but even also his overabundant condition. (Jörg 1837, 62)19

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In other words, because the penis and testicles are external and can reach away from the periphery of the body, man is meant to be the independent one. In the male-authored texts under discussion here, we will see that the siren’s anatomical descriptions become increasingly less specific even as the “scientific” differentiation of biology becomes more prominent. Containing woman as a monster is a manifestation of a general attempt to subordinate woman through her anatomy. There is a similar shift in how monsters are understood due to developments in science and increasingly sophisticated methods for explaining natural phenomena. Pre-Enlightenment, the sexy, seductive “possibility-women” seemed plausible even in reality due to reported sightings of such Wasserfrauen (Benwell, 1965). Monsters in the preEnlightenment world represented a facile way of explaining inexplicable phenomena. In the so-called Enlightened world, however, the monster loses its customary significance, because natural phenomena have become increasingly explainable through science. In particular, Darwinism “rehabilitates […] the 20 animal in man” making him a “matter of course” (Brittnacher 1994, 194). At the

19

“Die Unvollständige [des Weibes] ergiebt sich schon sattsam aus der äußeren Beschaffenheit der Geschlechtsorgane, indem dieselben ja das Nichtgeschlossene, also auch das Unvollendete deutlich genug beurkunden. Das Abhängige der weiblichen Geschlechtsthätigkeit geht daraus unwiderleglich hervor, daß das Weib ohne den Mann nicht schwanger werden, gebären und säugen kann. Dagegen erscheint gesellschaftlich der Mann auf einem weit höheren Standpunkte, daher vollkommener und weit weniger abhängig, als das Weib. Schon die Geschlechtsorgane desselben erstrecken sich zum Theil über die Peripherie des Körpers hinaus und deuten dadurch nicht allein mehr den geschlossen, sondern sogar auch den überreichlichen Zustand desselben an” (1837, 62). 20 “rehabilitiert […] das Tier im Menschen,” “Selbstverständlichkeit”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

11

same time, the post-Enlightenment monster suggests that a human can be 21 “overpowered” by her own “naturalness” (Brittnacher 1994, 197).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The siren as monster represents a heightened threat. By collapsing siren and human woman, the threat of the monster becomes the threat posed by woman. The siren as monster represents a “confusion of categories — animal and human, for example, or male and female — […] its roots lay rather in the perceived violation of moral norms” (Daston and Park 2001, 181). The monster is a figure of “displacement” (Cohen 1996, 4), which is particularly evident in the siren. “The monster has always been a being on the threshold, which is located between categories. His anomalous deviance derives precisely from the precarious status of the in-between, the transition through which he participates in both categories at the same time and thus transcends the other,” 22 (Mein 2009, 165). The monster appears not coincidentally at a time of crisis 23 (Cohen 1996, 6) and is something “ruleless,” “irregular,” and “mixed” 24 25 (Helduser 2016, 17), a “chimera” (Helduser 2016, 31). At the same time, according to Brittnacher, all differences between the “ideal human” and the “empirical human” constitute the monstrous. Thus, "the precarious relationship of the human to the monster is due to his own participation in him” (Helduser 26 2016, 184). We must ask then, what is the difference between humans and monsters, whether women can be neatly categorized, and whether their “weird” bodies make them any more monstrous than men. The cumulative shift in understanding gender difference helped justify and sustain the continued social and political subjugation of women. What we see and know about the siren in male-authored texts is that we programmatically see and know incompletely. The hazy, ambiguous representation of the maleauthored siren not only allowed for a projection of male erotic desire, but also the additional justification of the “natural” subjugation of women. By aligning woman with the monster and implicating her voice as destructive, the threat of her otherness is heightened, thereby confirming the correctness of restricting 21

“überwältigt,“ “Natürlichkeit” “Das Monster ist seit jeher ein Schwellenwesen, das zwischen den Ordnungen situiert ist. Seine anomalische Deviant leitet sich gerade aus dem prekären Status des Zwischens, des Übergangs her, durch den es zugleich an beiden Ordnungen partizipiert und so die jeweils andere überschreitet” 23 “Die Missgeburt […] zur Chiffre für das ‘Falsche,’ Misslungene, zu verwerfende und schließlich zum Gegenbegriff des Ästhetischen”. 24 “Regelloses,” “Irreguläres,” and “Vermischten” 25 “Chimäre” and “‘widernatürliches’ Kunstwesen” 26 “Idealmensch[],“ “empirische Mensch,” “das prekäre Verhältnis des Menschen zum Monströsen verdankt sich der eigenen Teilhabe an ihm” 22

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

12

Chapter 1

woman. By contrast, in the long-ignored counternarrative uncovered through my close readings of the female-authored representations of sirens, these Wasserfrauen, can be seen, heard, and known. Those authors have looked “at the Medusa straight on […]. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing” (Cixous 1976, 885).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Erasure of the physical reality of the water woman’s half-human half-animal body has been part of this male-authored narrative for centuries. Already in Thüring von Ringoltingen’s 1474 tale of the half-woman, half-snake Melusine, the focus is not on Melusine’s anatomy, but on her husband’s transgression of watching her secretly bathe after promising not to do so (Classen 2013, 538). By the 19th century, the myth of the Wasserfrau was so pervasive that an author could evoke the half-human, half-animal spectral of the undine, mermaid, siren, nix by merely calling her so and did not need to provide a description of her body (Stephan 1987, 119). This completely or partially erased her monstrosity, bringing her closer to a human woman. An explicit description of her monstrous body would eliminate her sex appeal. As Kraß notes, “the impossibility of the grotesque body points to the impossibility of love and, at the 27 same time, marks the fictionality of the story being told about it” (2010, 42). In the secondary literature on the German siren, one can observe a similar tendency to move away from the more monstrous terms to more human ones. While some critics use terms such as siren (Lentwojt, Syfuss, Politzer, Stephan) or nix (Lentwojt, Politzer, Stephan), we can also find slightly less specific 28 or “an descriptions such as a “non-human being” (Mohr 1958, 48) 29 overpowering figure” (Stephan 1987, 127), to more human designations such 30 as an Ophelia (Stuby 1992, 186), or an “Amazonian witch” (Stephan 1987, 127). For some, the siren is not a monster, but instead “the misunderstood woman of 31 the 19th century” and a “conceptualization of loneliness” (Politzer 1967, 455). 1.2 “Possibility Women” and the Seduction of the Unknown Beginning with Goethe’s siren, this figure initially retains some fishy qualities, but later male-authored German-language representations obscure the monstrous in favor of the human. Although she is first introduced merely as a “feuchtes Weib” (“dripping woman,” 8), Goethe’s monster in “Der Fischer”

27

“die Unmöglichkeit des grotesken Körpers verweist auf die Unmöglichkeit der Liebe und markiert zugleich den fiktionalen Charakter der Geschichte, die darüber erzählt wird” 28 “unirdisches Wesen” 29 “eine übermächtige Gestalt” 30 “amazonische Hexe” 31 “die unverstandene Frau des 19. Jahrhunderts” and a “Denkbild der Einsamkeit”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

13

draws a connection between her children, her “Brut” (brood, 10), and “Fischlein” (little fish, 13). She emphasizes that real health is to be found under the water and not on land: “You would come down, as you are,/And finally be 32 well again” (15-16). There is also a juxtaposition between the monstrous woman and the human man as she notes that the fisher lures her children out of the water “mit Menschenwitz und Menschenlist” (with human wit and human cunning, 11), emphasizing his humanness. These signals of her monstrous nature are then obscured by the fact that the rest of the poem is not really about her. Instead, the focus is on the fisher as well as on the seduction of the fisher, which, perhaps surprisingly, hardly involves the siren. Starting with the title “Der Fischer” (“The Fisherman”) and the fact that the siren is only ever designated as a “feuchtes Weib” (“a dripping woman”), there is much to suggest that this poem is centrally about the fisher. As Dye notes, the maiden is the object, because we only have an external view of her (1989, 53). By contrast, we learn a lot about the fisher. He performs the majority of the action “[sat],” “observed,” “sits,” “listens,” “his heart swells and grows,” 33 and “glided”. In addition, we learn that he at first has a “kühl” (“cool”) heart, which later becomes “sehnsuchtsvoll” (“yearning”). The siren is less active (“rauscht”/ [“rushed”] - same word used for the water - “sang,” “sprach” - each twice - and “zog” / “sang,” “spoke,” [“drew”]). Moreover, even though she is the only one speaking (and singing), she addresses the fisher directly seven times (with “du,” “dich,” and “dein”) and references herself one single time (“meine”).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Beyond noting that he would become healthy if he joined the fish, the bulk of the seduction is not connected to the siren. Instead, the seduction is displaced through a series of questions asking the fisher how various elements are influenced by the water. First, the sun and moon are seduced by the ocean: Do not the sun and moon take on Refreshment in the sea? Do not their faces billow-drawn Loom twice as splendidly?34

Then the focus returns to the fisher, and she suggestively asks him if he is seduced by the ocean: This sky-like depth, it calls you not, This dank transfigured blue?35

32

“Du stiegst herunter, wie du bist,/Und würdest erst gesund.” “saß,” “sah,” “sitzt,” “lauscht,” “sein Herz wuchs,” and “sank” 34 Labt sich die liebe Sonne nicht, / Der Mond sich nicht im Meer? / Kehrt wellenatemend ihr Gesicht / Nicht doppelt schöner her? 33

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

14

Chapter 1

Finally, she insinuates that he is, in fact, seduced by his own reflection: Your mirrored form enthralls you not To seek the endless dew?36

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This suggests that the fisher completely projects his erotic fantasies onto her: her image is obscured by the superposed reflection of male desire. In the various Lorelei and Lorelei adjacent poems following Goethe’s “Der Fischer” in the early 19th century, the descriptions of the sirens have moved further away from her fishy origins and the “impossibility of the grotesque 37 body” (Kraß 2010, 42). To be sure, Eichendorff’s “Der stille Grund” and “Verloren” each still use the terms “Nixe” (“nix,” 13) and “Meerfei” (“merfairy,” 2), respectively, and both are half-submerged in water, but their anatomical fishiness ends there. Instead, we are to focus on their hair (the nix “flocht dort ihr goldnes Haar” (“braided there her golden hair,” 14) and the Meerfei “kämmt ihr Haar am Riff” (“combs her hair on the reef,” 2) and their singing. The other sirens are either only water adjacent (Heine) or introduced on horseback and some distance from the water (Brentano, Eichendorff’s “Waldgespräch”). Brentano’s siren is a “Zauberin” (“sorceress,” 2), “schön und feine” (“beautiful and delicate,” 3), “schön” (“beautiful,” 12), the “schöne Lore Lay” (“the beautiful Lore Lay,” 30, 68), and the “arme Lore Lay” (“poor Lore Lay,” 14). Eichedorff’s Lorelei is a “schöne Braut” (“beautiful bride,” 4), “reichgeschmückt” (“richly adorned,” 9), “so wunderschöne der junge Leib” (“the young body so gorgeous,” 10), and “die Hexe Lorelei” (“the witch Lorelei,” 12). Heine’s depiction of the siren goes one step further and removes all supernatural elements. She is “die schönste Jungfrau” (“the fairest maid,” 9), who “sitztet [..] wunderbar” (“sits dreaming,” 9-10), and “Ihr goldnes Geschmiede blitzet, / Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme” (“Her gold and jewels are gleaming. / She combeth her golden hair,” 11-12). Each of the male-authored texts suggests that a man’s death is caused (or could have been caused) by the siren’s voice. But, just as we do not ever really know the siren, we also do not know with any certainty that the siren is responsible for the men’s deaths. As previously discussed, Goethe’s fisher is ultimately seduced by his own image, not the siren: “Your mirrored form enthralls you not / To seek the endless dew?” He is not unwillingly dragged below the waters but instead is “halb zog, halb sank er hin” (“half-pulled, half-

35

Lockt dich der tiefe Himmel nicht, / Das feuchtverklärte Blau? Lockt dich dein eigen Angesicht / Nicht her in ew’gen Tau? 37 “Unmöglichkeit des grotesken Körpers” 36

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

15

sank”). There is also no clarity whether he actually dies; we only know that he was “never to be seen again.” If the siren spoke the truth, then, in fact, the fisherman will not perish, but will “finally be well again” (16).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In both Brentano’s “Zu Bacherach am Rheine” and Eichendorff’s “Waldgespräch,” Lorelei warns her listener. In Brentano, the siren asks to be put to death (“Herr Bischof, laßt mich sterben” [“Bishop, let me die,” 17]) and in Eichendorff, she commands “O flieh! Du weißt nicht, wer ich bin” (“O flee! You know not who I am,” 8). However, the (male) listeners do not change their course of action. Brentano’s ballad ends with his Lore Lay being escorted to a convent by three knights. She asks to stop at the Rhein for one last look at her beloved’s castle. From there, she throws herself into the river’s depths. Inexplicably, the knights must also die: “The knights had to die, / they could not 38 get down; / They all had to perish, / without a priest and a grave!” (92-95). Lore Lay’s death, followed by that of the knights’, seems to be coincidental; yet the general interpretation implies causation rather than correlation (Peters 1997, 5). Indeed, with the shorthand of the siren figure, we can read Brentano’s poem and see the bones of other men at the shore of Odysseus’ siren island. In the same way, the man’s death is implied but not confirmed in each of Eichendorff’s poems. “Waldgespräch” ends ominously with the siren’s words, 39 “You will never leave this forest!” (16). Once again, the assumption is made that the man dies due to the siren (Lentwojt 1998, 239-240), but there is only innuendo and no textual evidence to support it. In “Der stille Grund” and “Verloren,” sunken ships are depicted along with a singing siren, but, again, correlation does not equate with causation. In “Der stille Grund”, the speaker notes at the end that he was only saved by the distant church bells: “And if I had not heard / The chime at that good hour: / I would have never come / Out 40 of this silent ground” (25-28). Again, the destructiveness of the siren’s voice is only ever intimated. Finally, Heine’s famous depiction of Lore-Ley provides us with the most and least definitive cause of the man’s death. The lyrical I does not parse words when describing the events leading to the man’s death: Lore-Ley is combing her hair

38

“Die Ritter mußten sterben, / sie konnten nicht hinab; / Sie mußten all’ verderben, / ohn’ Priester und ohn’ Grab!” 39 “Kommst nimmermehr aus diesem Wald!” 40 “Und hätt’ ich nicht vernommen / Den Klang zu guter Stund’: / Wär’ nimmer mehr gekommen / Aus diesem stillen Grund”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

16

Chapter 1 A wondrous song sings she. The music quaint in the gleaming, Hath a powerful melody. It thrills with a passionate yearning The boatman below in the night. He heeds not the rocky reef’s warning, He gazes along on the height.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

I think that the waters swallowed The boat and boatman anon. And this, with her singing unhallowed, The Lorelei hath done.41

His cause of death is explicit: Lore-Ley’s “gewaltige Melodei” grips the sailer “mit wildem Weh” so that he can only look at the singer and not the danger ahead. (The English translation softens the violence here with “powerful” losing the mark of violence in “gewaltige” and the “passionate yearning” reduced from “wild”, i.e. perhaps uncontrollable, animalistic). He is sunk by the waves, and the poem ends conclusively “And this, with her singing unhallowed, / The Lorelei hath done.” At the same time, two little words in this description throw doubt on its very specificity. We do not know that the sailor drowns. The lyrical I states “ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen” (“I think that the waters swallowed,” emphasis mine). As if to reinforce how little one can know, the only two times the lyrical I inserts himself into the poem are to express doubt. The first time occurs in the first line: “Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten, / Daß ich so traurig bin” (“I know not what spell is o’er me, / That I am so sad to day,” 1-2). By beginning and concluding the poem with statements of doubt, we cannot say with any certainty how the sailor died or whether he died at all. Thus, as with the previously discussed poems, the siren’s destructive voice as the cause of man’s downfall is once again merely intimated, not demonstrated. What remains here and with the previous poems is the possible danger represented by these monstrous women, by the ambiguity of their bodies and their voices. These monsters, collapsed with their counterpart human women, cannot be trusted not to harm man.

41 “Und singt ein Lied dabei; / Das hat eine wundersame, / Gewaltige Melodei. / Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe / Ergreift es mit wildem Weh; / Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe, / Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh. / Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen / Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn; / Und das hat mit ihrem Singen / Die Lore-Ley getan” (14-24).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

17

1.3 Revealing the Anatomy of the Siren Female-authored sirens provide an important counternarrative to these cautionary tales rooted in obfuscation. The main impulse behind the femaleauthored siren is knowledge. No secret is made of her status as a monster; her origins and her underwater life are made explicit. In fact, the emphasis on knowledge about and from the siren make a seduction of the unknown impossible. Just as her corporeality is unambiguous, her voice is unmediated and noticeably undeadly. The ability to see and know the siren not only diminishes the supposed threat she is said to represent. This knowledge also redirects the reader’s attention to the human man, whose dubious motives and actions call into question who is truly the monster here.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Because both the Franz and Huch texts are virtually unknown, I will provide a brief overview before demonstrating their respective counternarratives. Agnes Franz’ “Die Nymphe aus Goethe’s Fischer” (“The Nymph from Goethe’s Fisher,” 1845) is a lyrical monologue featured in Franz’ collection of Polterabendscherze und Spenden für Familienfeste. The nix from Goethe’s “Der Fischer” addresses a wedding party at a Polterabend, a celebration before the wedding vows, on a mission of enlightenment. She retells the love story of the nix and the fisher before describing the glories of her underwater life to make the seductive unknown known, and therefore no longer enticing for the groom. In a commanding tone directed at the groom, she concludes her speech with a promise to make his fisher’s nets overflowing, if only he recognizes that he has already made the best catch with his bride and remains true to her. Ricarda Huch’s Lügenmärchen (Pack of Lies, 1896), published in her collection of Teufeleien (Devilries), weaves a complicated tale about knowledge, what we know, and how we know it. With Pack of Lies, Huch rewrites the Odyssean encounter with the sirens as well as Adam and Eve’s episode with the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. A young man learns that the siren song has the power to make known every aspect of any creature or object to the singer. He wants to obtain this godlike power to know everything; however, he wants to do so without having to make the required sacrifice: He must give the siren his heart freely and with love. She, in turn, will receive a soul. In the end, he brings her the heart of a calf, which he claims as his own, only to discover that the only way to obtain the siren song is to be devoid of a heart. He maintains his deception to the end, allowing her to continue in the false belief that she now has her desperately desired soul. In contrast to the male-authored sirens, both Franz and Huch present unambiguous Wasserfrauen. Franz’ siren is called a “Nixe” in the title and refers to herself repeatedly as a nymph (2, 12, 31, 43, 59). She also retains

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

18

Chapter 1

some monstrous features through the connection to the previously discussed nix in Goethe’s poem, who speaks of her fish children and of how much better life is underwater. She can command the fish to do her bidding including flooding his fishing nets with trout: And when you fish in a cool pond, Where the trout circle, The fisher’s catch will be so rich, That his nets will rip (49-52)42 43

She lives in a “kingdom of fairies” (34) that she describes several times in 44 some detail: “My kingdom is the crystal tide” (5), “The gleaming crystal 45 castles, / To which nothing compares” (35-36), “the resplendence of the 46 nymph’s kingdom” (59). Franz’ siren acknowledges what is seductive about her world, but directs the groom’s attention to the riches he already posses, his bride. In a move that equates his human bride with water creatures, she declares You have already made, The very best catch, And if you fish for many years, You will encounter nothing more beautiful. (53-56)47

She also compares the bride to her kingdom, declaring the human woman far superior:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The lovely bride in the youthful wreath, That is the talisman, Which even resplendence of the nymph’s kingdom Cannot surpass. (57-60)48

Thus, the siren demystifies the glories under the sea, taking away the groom’s possible desire to explore it. It is a seduction of the known (his bride), instead of the unknown (the siren).

42

“Und angelst du im kühlen Teich, / Wo die Forelle kreis’t, / So sei des Fischers Fang so reich, / Daß ihm das Netz zerreißt” 43 “Feenreich” 44 “Mein Reich ist die krystall’ne Flut” 45 “Die blanken Schlösser von Crystall, / Dem Nichts auf Erden gleicht” 46 “des Nymphen-Reiches Glanz” 47 “den allerbesten Fang, / Den hast du schon gethan, / Und angelst du Jahre lang, / Nichts Schön’res träfst du an” 48 “Die holde Braut im Jugendkranz, / Das ist der Talisman, / Den selbst des NymphenReiches Glanz / Nicht überbieten kann”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

19

Huch’s siren is the most explicitly monstrous of the sirens in this study. The text is flooded with references to the otherness of the female protagonist. Before she is introduced, the young man (known only as “ein Jüngling” [“a youth”]) reads a book about “Wasserweibern” (“water sprites”), “Nixen” (“nixes”), “Wasserfrauen” (“mermaids”). He then encounters this water spirit who is referred to alternately as “Nixe” (“nix”), “Wasserfrau” (“water nymph”), “Wasserweib” (“water sprite” and “water nymph”), and “Meerweib” (“mermaid”). The narrator lists her kind as one 49 of the “heathen water demons” (354), and the youth calls her one of the “water 50 51 wonders” (354) and “sea creature” (355). The anatomy of Huch’s siren is repeatedly aligned with fish in description and location. The Nix is positioned on a rock “half-submerged in the surf” 52 (354), implying that part of her body is also in the water. Her physical body is connected to other creatures like herself and is called a “scaly sea creature” 53 54 (355). The siren’s body is “radiant” (354), “her damp beauty shimmers” 55 56 (355), and she is “stretching her glistening body” (355). She is clearly connected to the water. The music the youth first hears comes “from the sea” 57 58 (353), and he is compelled to go to the “seashore” (354). He later states that she surely has a great life “in the caressing waves and the companionship of 59 diverse fish and other water wonders” (354).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

There are several comments that position her in opposition to humans. The text repeatedly states that she and her kind have no heart (354, 355, 356). In order to gain a soul, water spirits must perform the cannibalistic act of eating a human heart (354), which the female protagonist does in a detailed description: “she replied, however, that she would prefer to eat it raw and immediately bit off 60 a large piece with her sharp, barbed teeth” (356). In addition, there are several descriptions of her face and actions that leave an unfavorable if not even

49

“heidnischen Wasserunholden” (128) “Wasserwunder” (128) 51 “Meerwunder” (128) 52 “der halb im Wasser lag” (127) 53 “schuppiges Meerwunder” (128) 54 “erglänzend” (127) 55 “ihre feuchte Schönheit […] hinflimmer[t]” (128) 56 “dehnte ihren blinkenden Leib” (128) 57 “vom Meere her” (127) 58 “Strande des Meeres” (127) 59 “in den kosenden Wellen und in Gesellschaft der mannigfaltigen Fische und anderer Wasserwunder” (128) 60 “sie sagte, sie esse es lieber roh, und bis sogleich ein großes Stück ab mit ihren scharfen, stacheligen Zähnen” (128) 50

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

20

Chapter 1

monstrous impression: “the yearning in her glimmering eyes and the restless 61 smile on her sly lips” (354), “the color of her eyes danced from a limpid light green to a smoky dark green and then back again, as if they were not eyes at all, but rather waves reflected in a delicate crystal, dreamy and mysterious to 62 watch” (356).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Huch and Franz’ sirens and their fishy anatomy leave little room for the seductive “possibility women” found in Goethe, Brentano, Eichendorff, and Heine. At the same time, these female authors present the siren’s voice restored and unmediated. Franz reclaims the siren voice and story while demystifying Goethe’s nix by retelling the story and describing a love that was not evident in the original poem. She states: “And with love touched her heart. 63 / He gazed upon her in like manner” (16-17). By contrast, the only indication of feeling in Goethe is a change in the fisher’s heart. At the start, he 64 is “cool to his heart was he” (4), and after the Nix speaks and sings, “his heart 65 with yearning swells and grows, / As when two lovers meet” (27-28). Franz also reclaims the siren’s story by shifting the focus toward the siren. Instead of an almost singular focus on the fisher, in Franz, there are equal references from the speaker about herself and to the groom. The Nymph speaks about herself in the first and third person (4x “ich”, 2x “mich/mir”, 1x “mein”, 3x “der Nymphe Gruß/Mund” [“the nymph’s greeting/mouth”], 1x “die Nix”) and to the groom directly (5x “du”, 1x “dir”, 3x “dein/deinem/deines”) and indirectly 66 (“to the grandson” and “of the fisher’s catch”). Although the story of the fisher means so much to her (“it has forever 67 remained meaningful to me”), the siren still does not want the groom to be seduced by that world. Instead, she forms a united front with the bride, recognizes their sisterhood, and uses her unique power to protect her. Franz imagines a future of coexistence with the monster - without taming or neutralizing it – and a coexistence of men and women without female difference being constructed by “nature” discourses to establish her inferiority. 61 “das Schmachten ihrer flimmernden Augen und das unstete Lächeln ihres falschen Mundes” (128) 62 “die Farbe ihrer Augen beständig zwischen einem klaren Hellgrün und schwärzlichem Dunkelgrün hin- und herwogte, als ob es gar keine Augen, sondern in einem zarten Kristall spielende Wellen wären, was träumerisch und geheimnisvoll anzusehen war” (128) 63 “Und Lieb’ ihr Herz gerührt./Er sah sie an mit gleichem Sinn” 64 “Kühl bis an’s Herz hinan” 65 “sein Herz wuchs ihm so sehnsuchtsvoll,/Wie bey der Liebsten Gruß” 66 “dem Enkelsohn” and “des Fischers Fang” 67 “mir blieb es ewig werth”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

21

Huch’s reclaimed siren song is also different from the mythical tradition, calling into question assumptions about the danger of sirens. Instead of the Odyssean sirens “who bewitch everybody who approaches them” and for whom “there is no homecoming” if he “draws near them unawares and hears the Sirens’ voices” (158), the young man reads about the sirens who “with such exceptionally sweet voices and exquisite skill that they were able to coax the soul out of any being. It happened in this fashion: as the soul listened, it strained so longingly toward the singing force that it laid itself bare and 68 revealed itself without resistance” (353). In Huch’s fairy tale, we have a different kind of unknown as reflected in the title. Although the siren song is introduced in this manner and the siren’s singing is repeatedly connected to 69 70 magic (her singing is of “magical means” [128], a “magical song,” and 71 “magical singing” [128]), we never see the depth of power initially suggested. Twice we see her “power” in action: when the young man first hears her voice and later when she is waiting for him to arrive with the heart. He approaches her that first time with the desire to obtain the siren song for himself, yet, despite her powers, he does not “become completely transparent in body and 72 soul” (353). Otherwise, the siren would have immediately recognized his ulterior motives. Her later song also does not provide such x-ray vision: she is “singing softly to herself so that the waves rolled in from afar, dancing a little ring-a-rosy around her and joyfully spouting their foamy souls into the air and 73 swallowing them up again in turn” (355). Thus, the godlike powers the young man had read about do not exist, suggesting perhaps that one cannot believe everything one reads about sirens.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

1.4 The Heart of a Monster Franz and Huch’s sirens do not represent only a simple counternarrative (The siren has a monstrous body. Her voice is not destructive.) Instead, both texts suggest that true monstrosity lies in inhuman and unloving behavior. Franz’

68 “mit so übersüßer Stimme und erlesener Kunst singen könnten, dass sie damit jedem Wesen die Seele aus dem Leibe zu locken vermochten. Das sei so zu verstehen: Die lauschende Seele waller der singenden Macht so sehnlich entgegen, dass sie sich ihr ohne Widerstand enthülle und offenbare” 69 “Zauberweisen” 70 “Singezauber” (translation mine, original translation reads simply “siren song”) 71 “zauberkräftiges Singen” 72 “Leib und Seele in allen Teilen vollkommen durchsichtig würden” (127) 73 “sang dazu leise vor sich hin, dass die Wellen von weither herzugewallt kamen und einen Ringelreihen um sie herumtanzten, wobei sie ihre Schaumseelen vor Vergnügen in die Luft spin und wechselweise wieder einschluckten” (128)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

22

Chapter 1

siren offers the groom unending riches, if only he will stay true to his human wife and reject the seduction of sirens. In other words, he cannot be trusted to remain loyal to his bride without financial motivation.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Huch’s Pack of Lies makes even more explicit the human man’s capacity for inhuman, monstrous behavior. There is tension in the text between the siren’s described shiftiness and the youth’s actual, purposeful deception, which calls into question who the monster truly is. When the youth first sees the nix, he is 74 75 “uneasy” (354) but “he threw caution to the wind” (354). Later “he still asked himself if she really felt genuine and true love for him, and if she wouldn’t embrace any old scaly sea creature just as intimately when his 76 cadaver rotted on the silty ocean floor” (355). Of course, we see here the male projection, since he knows that he does not have a “genuine and true love” for her, but he demands it of her. The tone for his actions is not judgmental, even as the text makes clear that he is not dealing with her in good faith. When he is caught in a lie, he answers “quickly [..], blushing a bit” 77 78 (356), and later he is in a “frightful predicament” (356). He can also state with a seemingly straight face, since it is his only passage in direct speech - at the end that “knowing and loving one another is the essence of eternal bliss” 79 (357). Thus, Huch shifts the danger typically associated with the siren to the human man. As the youth’s trickery plays out, there are fewer and fewer references to the siren’s monstrous body and her supposed monstrous actions. Instead, the only sign left is the reference to her as “Nixe” and “Wasserweib”. Now, the young man is included in her kind when she speaks of “our magical singing” 80 and that “we have no heart” (356, emphasis mine). The siren’s actions and being are called into question, even as she seems to be going about achieving her goal in a relatively honest fashion. Perhaps this is the titular Pack of Lies. The text conditions us to be on the side of the young man, even as he reveals himself to be the true monster in his trickery and lies. Nowhere is this role reversal more apparent than in the siren’s declaration, “it was really true that 74

“nicht ganz geheuer” (128) he has “Zweifel und innerliche[] Warnungen” (128) 76 “er traute diesen Worten nicht ganz” and “fragte er sich sich, ob sie wohl eine recht eigentlich wahre Liebe zu ihm hätte und nicht irgendein schuppiges Meerwunder ebenso traulich umarmen würde wie ihn, wenn sein Leichnam am schlammigen Meeresboden verfaule” 77 “schnell, ein wenig errötend” (128) 78 “schreckhafter Verlegenheit” (128) 79 “Einander kennen und lieben ist ja das Wesen der Seligkeit” (128) 80 “unser zauberkräftiges Singen” and that “wir kein Herz haben” (128) 75

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

23

humans, because of their immortal souls, were capable of truer and more selfless love, since they were willing to rob themselves of their hearts to enrich 81 their loved ones” (356-357). At that very moment, she believes she finally possesses a soul even as his lying heart still beats in his chest. These female-authored sirens demonstrate a more liveable coexistence with the monster, who – unfortunately perhaps for some – has lost her mystique and thus her seductive draw. More than anything, these brief readings show just a small part of the richness and insight to be gained by including the female-authored siren in the longstanding conversation. If we read the monster as other, as a cipher for woman as other, perhaps these texts also suggest that man and woman can coexist without neutralizing her. Incorporating the female-authored perspective of sirens and other female monsters is clearly not only insightful but also necessary.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Baackmann, S. (1995). ‘Beinah mörderisch wahr‘: Die neue Stimme der Undine. Zum Mythos von Weiblichkeit und Liebe in Ingeborg Bachmanns ‘Undine geht‘. German Quarterly. 68(1). 45-59. Bellmann, W. (1980). Brentanos Lore Lay-Ballade und der Antike EchoMythos. Luders, D. (Ed.). Clemens Brentano: Beiträge d. Kolloquiums im Freien Duetschen Hochstift. Niemeyer. 1-9. Benwell, G. and Waugh, A. (1965). Sea Enchantress: the Tale of the Mermaid and her Kin. Citadel P. Bessler, G. (1995). Von Nixen und Wasserfrauen. Cologne: DuMont. Böschenstein, R. (1992). Undine oder das fließende ich. Roebling, I. (Ed.). Sehnsucht und Sirene. Vierzehn Abhandlungen zu Wasserphantasien. Centaurus. 101-130. Brentano, C. (1978). Sämtliche Werke und Briefe. Vol. 16. Kohlhammer. Brittnacher, H. R. (1994). Ästhetik des Horrors. Gespenster, Vampire, Monster, Teufel und künstliche Menschen in der phantastischen Literatur. Suhrkamp. Cixous, H. (1976). The Laugh of the Medusa. Signs 1(4). 875-893. Classen, A. (2013). The Monster Outside and Within: Medieval Literary Reflections on Ethical Epistemology. From Beowulf to Marie de France, the Nibelungenlied, and Thüring von Ringoltingen’s Melusine. Neohelicon 40. 521-542. Cohen, J. (1996). Monster Theory: Reading Culture. University of Minnesota Press.

81

“es sei doch wahr, dass die Menschen infolge ihrer Seele wahrer und selbstloser Liebe fähig seien, da sie sich sogar ihres Herzens beraubten, um das geliebte Wesen zu bereichern” (128)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

24

Chapter 1

Daston, L. and Park, K. (2001). Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150-1750. Zone Books. Davies, M. P. (2002). Fishy tales: Kerstin Hensel, ‘Ulriche und Kühleborn‘. Linklater, B. and Dahlke, B. (Eds.). Kerstin Hensel. University of Wales Press. 51-66. Deppermann, M. (1992). Rusalka - Nixe der Slaven: Annäherung an ein 'ungehobenes' Motiv. Roebling, I. (Ed.). Sehnsucht und Sirene. Vierzehn Abhandlungen zu Wasserphantasien. Centaurus. 269-292. Dippel, V. (2003). Zur Darstellbarkeit von Echophänomenen oder wie man von einer einfachen Wiederholung zur Chaotisierung der Textstruktur gelangt. Albes, C. and Frey, C. (Eds.). Darstellbarkeit: zu einem ästhetischphilosophischen Problem um 1800. Königshausen and Neumann. 255-269. Dye, R. E. (1989). Goethe’s ‘Der Fischer‘, or the Non-rescue. The Germanic Review 64(2). 51-57. Eichendorff, J. v. (1921). Sämtliche Werke des Freiherrn Joseph von Eichendorff: historisch-kritische Ausgabe. Vol. 1.1. Schulhof, H. and Sauer, A. (Eds.). Habbel. Fassbind-Eigenheer, R. (2001). Undine als literarische Grenzgängerin: Vom Mythos über den spätmittelalterlichen Sachtext zur Sprachreflexion im 20. Jahrhundert. Müller, U. and Wunderlich, W. (Eds.). Verführer, Schurken, Magier. UVK. 949-968. Fauser, A. (2006). Rheinsirenen: Loreley and Other Rhine Maidens. Austern, L. P. and Naroditskaya. Music of the Sirens. Indiana University Press. 250-272. Franz, A. (1843). Literarischer Nachlaß von Agnes Franz. Großmann, J. v. (Ed.). Puttkammer. Goethe, J. W. (1958). Goethe, the Lyrist: 100 Poems in New Translations Facing the Originals. University of North Carolina Press. 98-101. Goethe, J. W. (1982). Goethes Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe. Trunz, E. (Ed.). Vol 1. Beck. 153-154. Hausen, K. (1981). Family and Role-Division: The Polarisation of Sexual Stereotypes in the Nineteenth Century - an Aspect of the Dissociation of Work and Family Life. Evans, R. J. and Lee, W. R. (Eds.) The German Family: Essays on the Social History of the Family in Nineteenth- and TwentiethCentury Germany. London: Croom Helm. 51-83. Heine, H. (1881). Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine. New York: J.J. Little. 58-59. Heine, H. (1975). Heinrich Heine: historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke. Vol. 1. Hoffmann und Campe. Helduser, U. (2016). Imaginationen des Monströsen. Wissen, Literatur und Poetik der ‘Missgeburt‘ 1600-1835. Göttingen: Wallstein. Homer (2003). The Odyssey. London: Penguin. Honegger, C. (1991). Die Ordnung der Geschlechter. Die Wissenschaften vom Menschen und das Weib 1750-1850. Frankfurt am Main, New York: Peter Lang. Huch, R. (1896). Lügenmärchen. Die Zeit Wiener Wochenzeitschrift für Politik, Volkswirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Kunst (86). 127-128.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Revealing the Anatomy of the Seductive Unknown

25

Huch, R. (2001). Pack of Lies. Jarvis, S. C. (Eds.). The Queen’s Mirror: Fairy Tales by German Women, 1780-1900. University of Nebraska Press. 353-357. Humboldt, W. v. (1960). Über den Geschlechtsunterschied und dessen Einfluß auf die organische Natur. Flitner, A. and Giel, K. (Eds.). Werke. Vol. 1. Stuttgart: Cotta. Jörg, J. C. G. (1832). Handbuch der Krankheiten des Weibes. Reutlingen: Mäcken. Kant, I. (1900ff ). Anthropologie in Pragmatische Hinsicht. Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften Akademieausgabe. Dep. I. Vol. VII. Berlin: Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Kant, I. (1974). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. The Hague: Martinus Nijhof. Klugsberger, T. (1989). Verfahren im Text. Meerjungfrauen in literarischen Versionen und mythischen Konstruktionen von H. C. Andersen, H. C. Artmann, K. Bayer, C. M. Wieland, O. Wilde. Stuttgart: Akademischer Verlag. Kraß, A. (2010). Meerjungfrauen. Geschichten einer unmöglichen Liebe. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. Krieger, I. (2000). Undine, die Wasserfee. Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's Märchen aus der Feder der Komponisten. Herbolzheim: Centaurus. Lentwojt, P. (1998). Die Lorelay in ihrer Landschaft. Romantische Dichtungsallegorie und Klischee. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Max, F. R. Ed. (1991). Undinenzauber. Geschichten und Gedichte von Nixen, Nymphen und anderen Wasserfrauen. Stuttgart: Reclam. McHaney, T. L. (1971). Fouque's ‘Undine’ and Edith Wharton's ‘Custom of the Country’. Revue De Litterature Comparee 45. 180-186. Mein, G. (2009). Monströse Instituierung. Geisenhanslüke, A. and Mein, G. (Eds.). Monströse Ordnungen. Zur Typologie und Ästhetik des Anormalen. Bielefeld: transcript. 165-182. Mohr, F. K. (1958). Eichendorffs Lorelei-Romanze ‘Waldgespräch‘. Wächter 38. 42-52. Peters, P. (1997). Die Frau auf dem Felsen: Besuch bei Heines Loreley. Heine Jahrbuch 30. 1-21. Politzer, H. (1967). Das Schweigen der Sirenen. Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 41(3). 444-467. Porterfield, A. W. (1915). Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei. Modern Philology 13(6). 305-332. Revesz, E. (2008). ‘Undine geht’ and ‘Lola rennt’: Symbolic Female Flights in the Work of Ingeborg Bachmann and Tom Tykwer. Germanic Review 83(2). 107-137. Roebling, I. (1992). Vorwort. Roebling, I. (Ed.). Sehnsucht und Sirene. Vierzehn Abhandlungen zu Wasserphantasien. Centaurus. 1-3. Rousseau, J.-J. (2010). Emile: or on Education. Includes Emile and Sophie, or the Solitaries. Hanover, NH, London: University Press of New England. Schiebinger, L. (1989). The Mind has no Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science. Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard UP.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

26

Chapter 1

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Schmitz-Emans, M. (2003). Seetiefen und Seelentiefen. Literarische Spiegelungen innerer und äußerer Fremde. Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann. Stephan, I. (1987). Weiblichkeit, Wasser und Tod. Undinen, Melusinen und Wasserfrauen bei Eichendorff und Fouqué. Berger, R. and Stephan, I. (Eds.). Weiblichkeit und Tod in der Literatur. Köln, Wien: Böhlau. Stamer, B. (1987). Märchen von Nixen und Wasserfrauen. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. Stuby, A. M. (1992). Liebe, Tod und Wasserfrau. Mythen des Weiblichen in der Literatur. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Syfuss, A. (2006). Nixenliebe. Wasserfrauen in der Literatur. Frankfurt: Haag and Herchen. Ter Horst, E. E. (2011). The Triangulation of Desire and the Chain of Reproduction in Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Ingeborg Bachmann. Seminar 47(3). 301-323. Vogel, U. (1987). Humboldt and the Romantics: Neither Hausfrau nor Citoyenne: The Idea of ‘Self-Reliant Femininity’ in German Romanticism. Kennedy, E. and Mendus, S. (Eds.). Women in Western Political Philosophy: Kant to Nietzsche. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 106-26. Wienker-Piepho, S. (1992). Questing for Souls or Never Blame Supernatural Wives: The Stauffenberg-Poem, Clerk Colvil, Undine, Melusine and Other Waternymphs. Arv: Nordic Yearbook of Folklore 48. 91-104.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

2. Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role Katherine Kurtz Villanova University, Pennsylvania

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract Much of the literature on the connection between monstrosity and femininity has focused on the treatment of the female body as abject, tying monstrosity to depictions of menstruation, pregnancy, castration, motherhood, and the like. Although this literature addresses the significant dimension of the “monstrous feminine,” I argue that these representations are foregrounded against a prior conceptual backdrop of Woman-as-monster. My reading is informed by Deleuze’s notion that “The actor is a ‘monster’, or rather monsters are born actors . . . because they find a role in the excess or shortcoming that affects them.” Likening the monster to an actor makes manifest how monstrosity is akin to role-playing, both imaginary and embodied; monstersas-actors fulfil virtual roles with their bodies, and their identities become bracketed––with or without their consent––with these roles. To connect the monster-actor and femininity in this chapter, I draw on the work of Deleuze, Friedrich Nietzsche, Luce Irigaray, and Cassavetes’s film Opening Night (1977). They demonstrate that although monstrous role-playing is constricting in that it limits the actor to the performance of a normalized, given role, it can also free the actor to enact subversive possibilities in the name of this role and available to them only in this role. Keywords: femininity, performativity, role-playing, actor, Deleuze, Nietzsche, Irigaray, Cassavetes Anyone who does not take after his parents is really in a way a monstrosity, since in these cases Nature has in a way strayed from the generic type. The first beginning of this deviation is when a female is formed instead of a male. (Aristotle, Generation of Animals)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

28

Chapter 2 It is man who creates for himself the image of woman, and woman who forms herself according to this image. (Nietzsche, The Gay Science) The ebb and flow of our lives spent in the exhausting labor of copying, miming. Dedicated to reproducing––that sameness in which we have remained for centuries, as the other. (Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One)

2.1 Introduction

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Admirers of monsters and horror fans are likely familiar with various female monsters—Medusae, witches, banshees—as well as the related figures of the “monstrous feminine”—castrating mothers, abyssal wombs, vagina dentata. But what if being a woman is already to be a kind of monster? And if so, what is the nature of this monstrosity? Is woman naturally monstrous, as Aristotle would seem to think? Or, thinking with Nietzsche and Irigaray, is her monstrosity a product of what the world necessitates she become? Are the two possibilities mutually exclusive, or is there an interplay between them? Thought in this context, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s dictum in “Monster Culture: Seven Theses” that “The monster is difference made flesh, come to dwell among us” is reminiscent of that supposedly primordial alterity—sexual difference, the association of women with flesh itself, and the general disdain toward both a hangover from the Western philosophical tradition (Cohen 1996, 7). But reading sexual difference through the lens of monstrosity can be especially illuminating in making manifest the conceptual prerequisites that render sexual difference meaningful. “In its function as dialectical Other . . . the monster is an incorporation of the Outside, the Beyond—of all those loci that are rhetorically placed as distant and distinct but originate Within” (Cohen 1996, 7). The operative word here is “function”; Cohen reminds us that monsters always serve a purpose, whether as ciphers for divine communication, social scapegoats, manifestations of cultural anxieties, or representations of those qualities that must be repressed to produce clean and proper subjects. In other words, monsters and monstrous others perform significant roles with respect to the larger social structures at whose limits they are usually placed. Histories of displacement, marginalization, and even genocide are rife with monstrous representations of cultural and ethnic others (Cohen, 1996). As Cohen and others have argued, to the extent that monstrosity is a function of dialectically-constituted Otherness that plays a vital role to sustain proper boundaries within communities, can we ascribe

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

29

role-playing to the monster? And in this role-playing, might there be space for agency within the performance of monstrosity? This chapter will explore these questions in the context of examining the terms of woman’s monstrosity relative to role-playing, focusing on drawing out the subversive potential in the role of woman as monster. First, I will distinguish between a monstrosity of the feminine that is based on the abjection associated with (biological) sexual difference and a monstrosity of the feminine that is more ideological. I will then move to consider the performative aspects of monstrosity—inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s connection between the monster and the actor (Deleuze, 1985/2007)—where I contend that monstrosity can be deployed strategically in the activity of role-playing, especially for monstrous human others. Finally, I will examine femininity as a modality of monstrous performance—that is, as a way of forming oneself in the image of the given role of Woman—before turning to an analysis of John Cassavetes’s film Opening Night (1977) as an example of how women as actors can navigate their roles subversively within the space of monstrous performance.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

2.2 Situating the Monstrosity of Women: An Alternative to Abjection Much of the literature on monstrosity and femininity has thematized the female body as abject, tying monstrosity to depictions of menstruation, pregnancy, castration, and motherhood. In The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis (1993), Barbara Creed uses the term “monstrous-feminine” to describe the horror conjured by female sexual difference and feminine embodiment regarding reproductive function, bodily fluids (menstruation, lactation, cervical mucus), and genital structure (“the horror of nothing to see”) (Creed, 1993). To this end, Creed performs close analyses of films such as Alien (1979), Psycho (1960), Carrie (1976) and The Brood (1979). But breaking with the exclusive treatment of the monstrous-feminine as stemming from the biologically-based abjection of female sexual difference, Creed also takes to task the Freudian psychoanalytic lens that renders the feminine (monstrous or otherwise) as castrated. Creed’s purpose is twofold: first, she addresses the dearth of analysis on gendered representations of monstrosity in order to show how “the concept of the monstrous-feminine, as constructed within/by a patriarchal and phallocentric ideology, is related intimately to the problem of sexual difference and castration” (Creed 1993, 2). Second, she critiques Freud’s theory of castration for its inadequacy as a

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

30

Chapter 2

psychoanalytic theory of sexual difference, particularly when it comes to 1 understanding the origins and workings of patriarchy. For instance, Creed finds that in films such as Teeth (2007) and I Spit On Your Grave (2010) -where women are terrifying aggressors and not the usual passive victims- the usual dynamic of castration is inverted. The fact that monstrous women do exist in horror films indicates the presence of a prominent cultural phantasy of woman not as lacking, but as having the advantage of not being beholden to the anxiety of being castrated. For Creed, these representations of the monstrous-feminine are sources for plumbing male fear of and ambivalence toward women based on their sexual difference. Nevertheless, “Despite clear evidence that man fears woman as castrating, it [the symbolic order] constructs woman as a castrated creature, man’s lacking other” (Creed 1993, 165).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

If the monstrous-feminine represents the anxiety-inducing image of woman-as-castrator and the threat it implies to a patriarchal order, then its opposite would be the “angel in the house” (Gilbert and Gubar 1979/2000, 2229). This figure refers to a literary trope made popular in the Victorian era emphasizing the role of woman as wife and mother–docile, delicate, passive, and utterly subservient to her husband. The angel in the house is the image of woman as non-threatening, castrated (figuratively), and utterly domestic(ated). The “Stepford wife”—from Ira Levin’s 1972 novel The Stepford Wives—is a darker take on this trope, reflecting women's anxieties about the social pressure to become beautiful automatons who exist only to please men, coupled by the fear that their husbands might actually prefer them that way. In other words, the angel in the house is the monstrosity that woman becomes to placate men’s fears surrounding their perception of her inherently monstrous nature. According to Creed, “The fact that the patriarchal symbolic functions to soothe man’s anxieties regarding woman’s threatening nature suggests that this phantasy is dominant in helping to influence the social and political treatment of women” (1993, 162). The phantasy of woman as castrated therefore serves a double function of assuaging (at least partially) men’s anxieties about women’s sexuality, as well as retroactively justifying women’s relegated social status on the premise of a naturalized subservience to men.

1

A significant portion of Creed’s book is dedicated to revisiting Freud’s case study of Little Hans, which heavily influenced Freud’s theory of the castration complex. According to Creed, testimony from Hans available in the case study compellingly points to Hans’s fear of his mother as castrator, and not his father. In fact, Creed argues that in order to settle on the interpretation that Hans feared castration from his father, Freud must have had to ignore several evidentiary indications to the contrary.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

31

The implication of Creed’s analysis is that the abjection associated with female sexual difference, which gives rise to depictions of the monstrous feminine, is as much ideological as biological. That is, when woman appears as monstrous, it is usually from the perspective of an androcentric, heterosexual social matrix. The monstrosity of women described thus far amounts to a reduction of women to what men have understood and can understand about them from within the context of a heteronormative, patriarchal social order. Given this context, we may be skeptical of the notion of sexual difference itself. Indeed, the idea of sexual difference is still a fairly modern one. Paul Youngquist (2003) writes that prior to the eighteenth century,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

the traditional view of the human body in Western culture was monomorphic: the two sexes shared a single human (that is, male) anatomy. Both had the same genitals; in women they remain inside the body while in men they become extruded. . . . Their [men’s] bodies were basically the same as women’s, only their vitality differed. This anatomical identity between the sexes provided no ground for claims of their equality, since the female frame, for all its similar equipment, lacked an ennobling quantum of vital heat. (Youngquist 2003, 131)

It was only at the end of the eighteenth century that anatomists and physicians laid claim to a new “biology of incommensurability” between the male and female sexes, based on “discoverable biological differences” such as “the size of the head, the width of the shoulders, the shape of the pelvis, and the whole system of articulated bones” (Youngquist 2003, 131). Sexual difference, therefore, does not seem to be the sole conceptual foundation that gives rise to the connection between women and the monstrous, since long before the “biology of incommensurability” was first articulated, Aristotle, for instance, theorized the female sex as a monstrosity on the basis of her being a 2 defect of the generic (male) human type. On this matter, Luce Irigaray has argued that, in the phallocentric imaginary, there is only one conceptual possibility for woman: woman as not-man (Irigaray 1977/1985a). In this imaginary women’s identities and desires take shape always in relation to men and through a logic that is alien to women’s desires on their own terms. This is why she insists that woman in this formulation ought really to be called awoman, and that “sexual difference” would more appropriately be called “sexual indifference” (Irigaray 1977/1985a, 72, 109). Augmenting the understanding of women’s monstrosity with which we began, we can say that there is (1) that which is “naturally” monstrous about woman, from man’s perspective (e.g. the monstrous-feminine); and (2) a

2

See Aristotle, Generation of Animals, Book IV.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

32

Chapter 2

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

monstrosity that women become to assuage men’s anxieties surrounding the first kind of monstrosity (e.g. the angel in the house). Moreover, we should remain suspicious of the perceived “naturalness” with which the first kind of monstrosity draws from the premise of sexual difference as strictly ground in biological fact; there is indeed much evidence that an ideological basis to woman’s “natural” monstrosity undergirds the abjection of female embodiment. As Elizabeth Grosz notes, “Bodies themselves, in their materialities, are never self-present, given things, immediate, certain selfevidences because embodiment, corporeality, insist on alterity, both that alterity they carry within themselves . . . and that alterity that gives them their concreteness and specificity” (Grosz 1994, 209). The second kind of monstrosity noted above is more compelling for the present discussion. Whereas the first kind of monstrosity is articulated from a perspective that is not their own, the second kind bears witness to women’s take in response to the first. Theorizing from this kind of monstrous assignation thus offers a monster’s representation of their own monstrosity. Additionally, the possibility of becoming a monster (even if it is in the shape of a beautiful, domesticated one that assuages anxieties rather than provoking them) makes manifest an interesting feature inherent to the position of being the one who is thought to be monstrous––namely, there is a role-playing element to monstrosity. Moreover, it showcases the possibility of playing into both tropes (the monstrous feminine and the angel in the house) as strategic responses to the monster that woman is already assumed to be. In this sense she is not unlike Frankenstein’s monster who, after multiple failed attempts to circumvent the monstrous identity that others assign to him, chooses to fully embody the monstrous persona he is assumed, by virtue of his appearance, to be (Shelley 1831/1994). But is this feature of role-playing something that is integral to monstrosity more generally, or does it belong to the monstrosity of women specifically? 2.3 Performative Monstrosity In order to develop the connection between women’s role-playing and monstrosity, it will first be necessary to establish a more robust account of the role of performance, or acting, in monstrosity. So, how is monstrosity, which seems immediately evident, nevertheless performed or acted? In Cinema 2: The Time-Image, Gilles Deleuze offers an answer when he writes “The actor is a ‘monster’, or rather monsters are born actors—Siamese twin, limbless man—because they find a role in the excess or shortcoming that affects them” (1985/2007, 71). Central to Deleuze’s statement here is his understanding of every image as composed of two distinct but related elements: the actual and the virtual. The actual and the virtual constitute a relationship of perception

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

33

whereby every actual object is encircled by layers (or “circuits”) of virtuality that react upon, emit from, and are absorbed by the actual object (Deleuze 1985/2007, 148). In other words, the virtual is always already there, influencing and enabling our perception of the actual object. Virtuality can be compared to past associations or memories that we bring to bear in our perceptions of particular objects, which in turn influence how those objects appear to us. It is important to note that the virtual is not to be thought as possible, for Deleuze; both the actual and the virtual are real.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Although they are two distinct elements, reversibility is made possible by their close association; “These are ‘mutual images’ . . . where an exchange is carried out” (Deleuze 1985/2007, 69). In other words, the virtual image can be made actual (actualized), while the actual image recedes to become virtual in the same fashion, continuing this circuit indefinitely. Imagine, for example, someone looking into a mirror: “the mirror-image is virtual in relation to the actual character that the mirror catches, but it is actual in the mirror which now leaves the character with only a virtuality and pushes him back out-offield” (Deleuze 1985/2007, 70). An actor, in Deleuze’s formulation, has the same actual/virtual duality of the image; there is the actual person that the actor is, and the virtual role that she plays. The actor’s task is to use her body to actualize this virtual role. In ancient Greek theater, for example, actors wore masks that allowed their character types to be more easily identified by the audience; think of the actor as “actual,” and the character to be played with the aid of the mask as “virtual.” These masks aid in the recognizability of the role, but someone must wear them in order to bring the role to life. Sometimes the actor would temporarily remove the mask (as in ancient Greek comedies) to step outside of the role and address the audience directly, before putting it back on—thus maintaining a critical distance between actor and role in which comedic irony could blossom. The same duality is enacted by professional actors today, only without the additional prop of the mask: “The actor is bracketed with his public role: he makes the virtual image of the role actual, so that the role becomes visible and luminous” (Deleuze 1985/2007, 71). Acting, therefore, necessitates sustaining this duality of the actual and virtual in near-constant circulation. When we watch an actor perform a role, we are seeing a double image of the actual actor and the role that she is playing. If the acting is done well, the actual image of the actor will cede to the virtual role; the virtual is actualized and vice versa. So when Deleuze says that “monsters are born actors,” he associates monstrosity with the same doubling. But the audience plays an integral role in this spectacle of doubling: “This readiness of the actor to be transformed from real man to dreamed man, with the growth of power which that implies, . . . is

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

34

Chapter 2

a matter of a reflection, a reflection that exists only because of someone else’s gaze, while, beneath the mask, the face lives in shadow” (Deleuze 1985/2007, 3 293, emphasis added). Monstrosity seems to need an audience, insofar as it emerges in the context of a normalizing discourse that renders it culturally intelligible. Comparing the monster to an actor makes manifest how “being a monster” is like playing a role for an audience; monsters-as-actors actualize monstrous (virtual) roles with their bodies, and their identities become bracketed—with or without their consent—with these roles. Another way of putting Deleuze’s observation would be to say that monstrosity is always enacted; since its emergence is dependent upon collective social norms in opposition to which it appears as such. The monster is inseparable from its showing [mōnstrāre] itself; theatrically speaking, monstrosity is a performance where the distinction between the actor and the role is virtually indiscernible.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

It is worth noting that the kind of monsters which Deleuze has in mind are from the film Freaks (1932). The “freaks” are real-life carnival sideshow performers whose bodies render them “oddities,” the likes of whom were exhibited in freak shows that grew in popularity in America and Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The freak’s monstrosity is constituted by its violation of the average proportionality of the human body, usually with either too much or too little of something—for example: conjoined twins, “hermaphrodites,” individuals with missing or extra appendages as the result of a congenital trait, “giants,” and “dwarves.” Therefore Deleuze’s statement about the monster-as-actor is not limited to professional actors, but is more generally applicable to people who find themselves constituted by a certain “excess” or “shortcoming” that is informed by a normative conception of human form (i.e., the “proper body”) against which their bodies are measured and considered to be physically deformed. Both normality and abnormality are products of norms, and embodiment is one of the sites of production: “As an ensemble of discursive effects, it [the cultural norm of the proper body] is a regulatory norm that produces the material bodies it legitimates” (Youngquist 2003, xxvii). Youngquist is right to point out that this norm of the proper body is performative in the sense that Judith Butler articulates, “a reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names” (Butler 1993, 2). Indeed, Butler’s notion of the performative (and the performativity of gender) helps think of monstrosity as both discursively produced (virtual) and materialized in the flesh (actual). The performativity of gender refers to the idea that gender is an effect produced by the “stylized repetition of acts” that constitute it, subject to 3

Deleuze quotes from Jean-Marie Sabatier in this endnote.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

35

the constraints of social and historical norms that invest our acts with meaning and make them culturally intelligible (Butler, 1990). Performative norms also produce through exclusion. So in the case of the norm of the proper body, monstrosity comes to be constituted through that which is abjected from the norm. And since, as Butler argues, the formation of a subject is intimately related to the material and discursive practices that produce it, it becomes possible to understand the monster as a discursivelyproduced subject position (or role) marked by its repudiation from the norm of proper embodiment by virtue of its materially “deviant” flesh.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Unlike Butler’s performativity, however, Deleuze’s formulation of the monster-as-actor calls for the amplification of the performance. In other words, by explicitly referring to actors, roles, and strategy, Deleuze does more than manifest that there is an element of monstrosity that is performative; he invests monstrous performance with a sense of agency. Because there is a separable distance between the actor (actual) and the role (virtual)—even if at times this difference is virtually indiscernible—there is some degree of interpretive space for the actor to determine how she will act with respect to her role. Agency, here construed, exists somewhere between the constraint and freedom involved in interpreting the received norms that render one monstrous. Though neither completely freely determined nor completely voluntaristic, the agency inherent in the performance of monstrosity should be thought as negotiating between the affordances and limitations of a specific role. Agency in the performance of monstrosity is most explicit when, in Deleuze’s words, the monster-as-actor chooses to make a “project” out of her role. Although the “freaks” are to an extent determined by others’ perceptions of them as monstrous, they can nevertheless take advantage of the monstrosity that is assigned to them in ways not afforded to those more aligned with the “clean and proper” embodiment. The performative structure of monstrosity as elucidated by its virtual and actual elements seems to offer the potential for strategic role-playing. This is what Deleuze means by the monster-actor “find[ing] a role in the excess or shortcoming that affects them”; they can choose to foreground the monstrous image (the virtual role) and in doing so enact possibilities afforded to them only in this role. It is a matter of playing within the flexibility surrounding the exchange of the actual and virtual images. Deleuze explains as follows: The more the virtual image of the role becomes actual and limpid, the more the actual image of the actor moves into the shadows and becomes opaque: there will be a private project of the actor, a dark vengeance, a strangely obscure criminal or justice-bringing activity. And this underground activity will detach itself and become visible in turn, as the interrupted role falls back into opacity. (1985/2007, 72)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

36

Chapter 2

Coming back to the metaphor of masking, the actual face of the actor is enshrouded beneath the “mask” in bringing the virtual role to life, but in the movement through which the virtual is actualized, the role allows the actor to fulfil a private activity that was only virtually present.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

‘Performative monstrosity’ thus refers to both (1) the way that being a “monster” is constituted by the enacting of a discursively-produced, given role; and (2) the strategic enacting of (potentially subversive) gestures in the name of that role. Strategic implementations of monstrosity can take various forms to suit the specific goals of the monster-actor who deploys them. For example, performing monstrosity could allow individuals to find—through a shared alienation—a common place to retreat from the monstrosity that is assigned to them, using their ascribed monstrosity to foster monstrous kinships and carve out space in the dominant field within which to reside and 4 thrive. Alternatively, performing monstrosity can be used to wield the disruptive power of the monster, staging encounters that will reveal the obfuscated co-constituency of the human/self and the monstrous/other, and call attention to the normative ideologies that render some people abnormal and marginalize their existence. As a strategy of subversion, moreover, performative monstrosity could particularly suit the type of monstrous subject whose otherness has been naturalized as part of the normalizing discourses that produce their very otherness. That is, performative monstrosity can perhaps be useful to those who do not immediately strike us as “monsters” but experience the effects of marginalization, dehumanization, and violence. For Butler, successful subversion amounts to an activity that denaturalizes a set of relations that are presumed to be natural; drag, for example, can be subversive insofar as it “implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself––as well as its contingency” (Butler 1990, 175), thus dispelling the idea that there is a natural, necessary connection between sex, gender, and desire. Appropriating Butler’s model of subversion for monstrosity, we can say that subversive performances of monstrosity would work to denaturalize the apparently

4

The literary tradition of women’s writing is one such example of this. See Terry Lovell’s Consuming Fiction (1987) for an account of how British women writers of the 18th–19th century strategically took up a bourgeois feminine subject position in their authorial personas, which enabled them to write successfully and to critique oppressive bourgeois ideology. Écriture féminine is another example of monstrous performance insofar as women writers utilized a dialectic of sexual difference to establish a place in a masculinist literary canon, in male-dominated institutional spaces, and to subvert phallogocentric discourse.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

37

natural force of alterity, or deconstruct the self-evidence with which ‘abnormality’ presents itself in opposition to ‘normality.’ Woman presents an interesting case for theorizing performative monstrosity. Her monstrosity is alternately seen as “natural”––i.e., as stemming from the natural deficiency of her sex––and as “unnatural”––referring to what she makes herself into (using cosmetics, body modification, fashion, etc.), in order to fit what is expected of her. Concerning the latter, it would mean that this monstrous role is adopted to make her seem less threatening, more tame, and more domestic(ated). This, of course, runs against the common idea that monsters typically frighten, disrupt, or antagonize, but it does speak to the way that systems of power neutralize monstrosities by carving niches in which alterity (albeit subdued) can be tolerated or incorporated into a normative regime. What remains to be seen is whether the performance of a role designed to contain or neutralize one’s monstrosity can nevertheless be usurped for subversive means. Taking the performative structure of monstrosity into account, the next section will examine strategy and subversion in the context of how woman constitutes a role.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

2.4 Masks, Masquerade, Mimicry: Femininity and Role-Playing Before examining the subversive potential of performative monstrosity with respect to woman-as-role, I will first explore the connection between being a woman and being an actor in more detail. But what it means to “be a woman” is (rightly) a highly contested matter. Simone de Beauvoir’s pronouncement “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” has significantly contributed to our current ability to separate gender from sex, even if exactly what constitutes the two terms and the relation between them is still up for debate (Beauvoir 1973, 301). Indeed, the unmooring of social values, roles, and traits from their previously explained basis in the givenness of biological sex has raised the question, among others, of what to do with the connection between being assigned ‘female’ and being a woman. In Butler’s words, The presumption of a causal or mimetic relation between sex and gender is undermined. If being a woman is one cultural interpretation of being female, and if that interpretation is in no way necessitated by being female, then it appears that the female body is the arbitrary locus of the gender ‘woman’, and there is no reason to preclude the possibility of that body becoming the locus of other constructions of gender. (Butler 1986, 35)

As Butler parses in Beauvoir’s thought, there is no necessary connection between the biological “fact” of female sex and femininity as the gender expression of that given sex. If femininity is related to femaleness, it is neither a relationship whereby the gestures and behaviors deemed feminine spring forth causally from the fact of being female, nor the ongoing acting-out of an

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

38

Chapter 2

inherent, essential truth of how “female-ness” expresses itself. Rather, going along with Butler, the arbitrariness that constitutes the relationship between sex and the particular expressions thought to manifest as a result of that sex (gender) could (and perhaps should) rend open the possibilities of being otherwise. That the naturalized force of gender persists is a testament to operations of power and normativity. But this all informs the “becoming” in becoming one’s gender. So if “being a woman” amounts, in this case, to some performative achievement—a “cultural interpretation” as Butler calls it—how can we begin to amplify the significance of acting with respect to “being a 5 woman” where woman is a culturally intelligible role? In The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche offers a direct connection between women and actors (Nietzsche 1887/1974). In the passage titled “On the problem of the actor,” Nietzsche says that the actor shares the creative power of the “artist”: “Falseness with a good conscience; the delight in simulation exploding as a power that pushes aside one’s so-called ‘character,’ flooding it and at times extinguishing it; the inner craving for a role and mask, for appearance” (§361). In this passage he describes the actor somewhat ambivalently, echoing the Platonic wariness of the falsity of art as imitation. If the actor poses a problem, it seems to be in answering the question of how the production of an illusion can be indicative of strength, power of will, or mastery. From what perspective can trickery be seen as a virtue? Guise as truth?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In working through his answer, Nietzsche compares the “actor” to individuals belonging to socially oppressed groups throughout history. For Nietzsche, the actor and the subjugated person share the quality of adaptability: Such an instinct will have developed most easily in families of the lower classes who had to survive under changing pressures and coercions, in deep dependency, who had to cut their coat according to their cloth, always adapting themselves again to new circumstances, who always had to change their mien and posture, until they learned gradually to turn their coat with every wind and thus virtually to become a coat. (§361, original emphasis) 5 It should be noted that in Butler’s understanding of the performativity of gender, although the idea of performing one’s gender is implicitly theatrical, it would be misleading to suggest that Butler thinks that one’s performance of one’s gender is a consciously-sustained and deliberate role-playing. Although the potential for gender subversion is enabled by and through its performativity, Butler’s agents are not actors in the strong sense. As I will show, the kind of acting that women do in Nietzsche’s and Irigaray’s formulation is much more deliberate and more strategic—more performed— than in Butler’s.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

39

For these lower-class families, adaptability is, above all, a matter of survival. The idiom of “cutting one’s coat according to one’s cloth” signifies not only the necessity of planning in order to use the limited resources that one is given wisely, but also strategy and a certain inventiveness concerning this task. Nietzsche subverts the pejorative meaning of the “turncoat”—meaning one who betrays their original allegiances—with the image of one who is skilled in metamorphosis; navigating a world in which one finds oneself at a disadvantage necessitates learning the ability to become what one needs to be when one needs to be it. Preoccupations with haughty notions of authenticity, allegiance, or Truth are for those who do not have to bear the burden of subordination.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

What originates as a survival mechanism, however, becomes delightful for its own sake and gives rise to “the actor,” someone who is marked by “an excess of the capacity for all kinds of adaptations that can no longer be satisfied in the service of the most immediate and narrowest utility” (§361). In other words, what begins as necessity becomes artful. No longer is adaptability or acting suited to the completion of particular utilitarian ends, but saturates one’s whole being with character, manner, and style. The actor has transformed from one who acts for a purpose—i.e., with a definite aim and finitude to their “performance”—to one whose mastery of the “incorporated and inveterate art of eternally playing hide-and-seek” becomes the instinct by which they live (§361). It is on this point that Nietzsche makes reference to women: “Reflect on the whole history of women: do they not have to be first of all and above all else actresses? ... Woman is so artistic” (§361). Granted, it is difficult to settle on an unequivocal interpretation of Nietzsche’s true feelings toward women, since his depictions of them alternate between eliciting sympathy, disdain, 6 admiration, and more throughout his corpus. Nevertheless, Nietzsche provides us with the insight that women are exemplary actors, which can be interpreted in two senses. In the first sense, it means that women are actors by necessity. Along with “diplomats,” “Jews,” and members of lower classes, there is the sense that women, as a subordinated group, share the quality of resourcefulness as a means of survival. One way Nietzsche illustrates woman’s resourcefulness is through the act (or art) of seduction—“Love [women] . . . What is always the end result? That they ‘put on something’ even when they take off everything” (§361). But in the second sense, women can only be “first of all and above all else actresses” if Woman is already a role to be played. In the same passage of The Gay Science, Nietzsche says that the actor is one who lords their 6

In The Gay Science alone, see §59-75.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

40

Chapter 2

capacity for mimicry (really, their mastery of mimicry) over their other instincts, but “Woman” is the name for the being whose being is to mimic itself. Woman is truly artistic, for Nietzsche, in the mimetic sense of artistry—womanliness is production itself. Independent of mastery, Nietzsche allows us to think of women’s mimicry as a means of survival; informed by the necessity of being adaptable and mutable in order to navigate a world that is hostile to one’s identity. Nietzsche’s account of women as actors, therefore, allows us to begin imagining ways in which the role-playing that women do is strategic. Comparably, Luce Irigaray’s writings on the subject of masquerade and mimicry amplify the strategy of role-play, but her account goes further to manifest its more subversive potential. For Irigaray, masquerade and mimicry are two distinct kinds of role-playing, similar but with significantly different ends. Although both are important in accounting for the situation of women within a phallogocentric male imaginary, the latter is explicitly subversive and forms the basis of Irigaray’s own strategy for critiquing and subverting 7 phallogocentrism.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In This Sex Which Is Not One, Irigaray describes masquerade (la mascarade) as “what women do in order to recuperate some element of desire, to participate in man’s desire, but at the price of renouncing their own” (1985a, 133). Masquerade is often mentioned by Irigaray in conjunction with Freud and the “masquerade of femininity,” or the complex effort that one undergoes in order “to become a normal woman” (Irigaray 1985a, 134). Furthermore, masquerade signifies submission to a version of femininity that is alien to women’s desires: “In the masquerade, they [women] submit to the dominant economy of desire in an attempt to remain ‘on the market’ in spite of everything. But they are there as objects for sexual enjoyment, not as those who enjoy” (Irigaray 1985a, 133-134). As a form of role-playing, Irigaray’s masquerade is near to the acting that Nietzsche attributes to women; that is, masquerade describes the phenomenon by which women “appear” and participate in an economy of desire that is foreign to their own. Although one may argue that masquerade is a weak strategy—between masquerade and mimicry, the former is a more uncritically accepting attitude toward one’s performance of the feminine role as defined by a phallogocentric economy of desire—it is strategy nonetheless. Even in their circumscribed status as “commodities” “on the market,” women participating in the

7

For accounts of the role of mimetic rhetoric in Irigaray’s writings, see Xu 1995. See also Fuss 1989; Grosz 1989; Whitford 1991; Spivak 1993.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

41

masquerade can derive some pleasure from this role, which simultaneously affords them more in this society than, say, the hysteric. Mimicry (mimétisme), on the other hand, is more explicitly strategic and subversive. It is similar to masquerade insofar as in both performances, one “assumes the feminine style and posture assigned to her [woman] within this discourse” (Irigaray 1985a, 220). However, the crucial difference is that in mimicry, this role-playing is a means to a different end than masquerade. In mimicry, “one must assume the feminine role deliberately . . . to convert a form of subordination into an affirmation, and thus to begin to thwart it” (Irigaray 1985a, 76). Mimicry is thus a decidedly subversive strategy for Irigaray. It is an imitation of the feminine role as defined by phallogocentric discourse in order to expose the mimetic posturing of that discourse which purports to reveal “unbiased” “scientific” knowledge and truth: To play with mimesis is thus, for a woman, to try to recover the place of her exploitation by discourse, without allowing herself to be simply reduced to it. It means to resubmit herself—inasmuch as she is on the side of the “perceptible,” of “matter”—to “ideas,” in particular to ideas about herself, that are elaborated in/by a masculine logic, but so as to make “visible,” by an effect of playful repetition, what was supposed to remain invisible: the cover-up of a possible operation of the feminine in language. (Irigaray 1985a, 76)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Scholars of Irigaray have pointed out that mimicry as a strategy is both 8 defensive and aggressive. Defensive mimicry is like camouflage, used for protection and deflection; but the same strategic coloring can alternately facilitate an attack. For an example of mimicry in practice, one can look to Irigaray herself. Indeed, to ignore or suppress the mimetic dimension of Irigaray’s work would be to misread her entirely. As Ping Xu has argued in the article “Irigaray’s Mimicry and the Problem of Essentialism”: “In Irigaray’s writings, mimicry is used not only to facilitate her attack on phallogocentrism but also to prevent herself from being reassimilated by the same power that could otherwise reduce everything into the economy of the Same” (Xu 1995, 79). In her own writing, mimicry is a “rhetorical weapon” that performs a double gesture of defense and offense; it allows Irigaray to employ the feminine role as it has been articulated by and within the male imaginary that dominates Western discourse in order to force a confrontation that exacerbates the obfuscated biases and systematic limitations of phallogocentrism. One such place that she does this is in her interrogation of Freud’s claim to the universality of the “phallic stage” in

8

See Whitford (1991) and Xu (1995).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

42

Chapter 2

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

psychosexual development: “Why does he describe this ‘stage’ as a necessary step in ‘becoming a normal woman’? And even more, why, if stages there be, is there no question, for example, of a vulvar stage, a vaginal stage, a uterine stage, in a discussion of female sexuality?” (Irigaray 1985b, 29). Invoking the insignia of “sexual difference,” Irigaray deliberately inhabits the feminine position within this economy, strategically using the affordances of this role with the aim of “jamming the theoretical machinery” of phallogocentric discourse by forcing it to acknowledge its own role in the mimetic production of the “sexed” nature of 9 its “truth.” Taken together, Nietzsche’s and Irigaray’s accounts of the role-playing dimension of femininity form the basis for conceptualizing how women’s performances of these roles can be at least strategic, if not subversive. Indeed, for both thinkers being a woman necessitates being an actor. For Nietzsche, the “act” involves conscious facilitation of an assimilated image of womanliness in order to best survive conditions of subordination (even if mere survival eventually becomes mastery). And for Irigaray, femininity must be staged in order to “appear” as such. However, of the two, Irigaray’s account of mimicry makes more explicit how this role-playing can be used to subvert the system that has assigned them this role and its effects from the inside. Recalling Deleuze’s statement that “The actor is a ‘monster’, or rather monsters are born actors . . . because they find a role in the excess or shortcoming that affects them” (Deleuze 1985/2007, 71), Nietzsche and Irigaray make plain how woman, whose characterization alternates between excess and deficiency with respect to generic man, is a monstrous role. Furthermore, Irigaray’s strategic mimicry in her writing exemplifies what Deleuze calls the “private project of the actor,” their “dark vengeance . . . or justice-bringing activity” (72), insofar as her work deliberately takes up the qualities and characteristics that Western discourse associates with the feminine to both destabilize the primacy of phallogocentrism and begin to theorize an alternative to that system, one in which women’s desires can emerge on their own terms.

9

Irigaray’s assertion that the history of philosophy participates in mimetic discourse without acknowledging it as such is evident in her comments about Platonic mimesis (1985a, 131) and the question of method (1985a, 150). Her rhetorical strategy of using ironic mimesis as a solution to the denigration of women’s mimetic production thus points out this hypocrisy of phallogocentrism; as Xu writes, “It is because the phallogocentric tradition itself has always been a rhetoric despite its repeated denigration of rhetoric. In order to lay bare the rhetoriticity that covers up its essentialist and ‘sexed’ nature, Irigaray uses as a rhetorical weapon mimicry that has been successfully utilized by the same phallogocentric tradition to exclude and at the same time to assimilate women” (Xu 1995, 85).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

43

2.5 “Is There Any Hope?”: Hysteria in Opening Night “I am not me. I used to be me. But I am not me anymore.” -Gena Rowlands, Opening Night (Cassavetes 1977)

Although Irigaray’s work provides an example of subversive, strategic mimicry of the feminine role, an additional illustration may be helpful. To this end, in this final section, I turn to an analysis of Gena Rowlands’s character in Cassavetes’s film Opening Night (1977). Cassavetes’s film, moreover, will draw together Deleuze’s formulation of the duality of the actor with Irigaray’s subversive feminine role-playing in the arguably monstrous figure of the hysteric.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Opening Night is a film about the production of a play in the days leading up to and including its opening night on Broadway. Early in the film, Myrtle (Gena Rowlands), a seasoned actor and the play’s lead, witnesses the death of a young fan after she is hit by a car outside the theater. Combined with the added stress of rehearsal and what appears to be a case of severe, albeit functioning alcoholism, this event sends Myrtle off on the path of a psychotic break, haunted by the specter (or hallucinations—it’s ambiguous) of the young woman throughout the film. With opening night looming, Myrtle starts going off-script in rehearsals and previews, completely disregarding the lines of the play and derailing the other actors in the process. The play, titled “The Second Woman,” is about one woman’s struggle with aging. The title refers to the fact that Myrtle’s character, Virginia, reconnects with her ex-husband (who is now remarried) and causes strife in their marriage. But the title metaphorically refers to the “woman you become” after reaching a certain age, as if to say that every woman is essentially two people. According to the playwright (Joan Blondell), becoming the second woman is the experience of dealing with the irreparable loss of the first. The heralding of the second woman marks a kind of post-womanness, a permanent state of mourning over the first (more desirable) woman, the one who is arguably freer—more free to love, and more free to be visible. Despite everyone’s insistence that Myrtle should, without question, be able to empathize with the character she plays, Myrtle insists that she feels nothing for this character because she’s not going through what the character is going through. As a viewer of the film, it is hard to determine whether Myrtle is in denial, or if the other characters are projecting their thoughts about women of a certain age and how they ought to feel and behave onto her. There is no doubt that certain elements of the film work to make Myrtle appear as if she is struggling with aging. For example, Myrtle’s makeup both on- and off-stage emphasizes the lines in her face and the droopiness of her

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

44

Chapter 2

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

eyelids; the garish pink lipstick she wears gives her the appearance of an older woman who is trying to look younger. Often the makeup smudges and black mascara sinks into the lines around her eyes, mixing with tears of frustration, laughter, and despair, all running down her face, all pointing to the fact that she has been painted. In various ways, the film emphasizes a disparity between Myrtle’s actual age and how she acts for her age. She is constantly reminded—most of all by the playwright, who is a woman of about seventy years old, and her misogynist director (Ben Gazzara)—that she is no longer young, and so the same behaviors that were okay when she was younger are no longer fitting for a woman her age. The director tells her that she used to be funny, but not anymore; likewise, when she was younger, it was cute to flirt with men, but not anymore. She is told that love does not exist for women her age who have not already found it. Nevertheless, she frequently kisses her male colleagues; she tries to seduce her male lead, and her neediness with the director (with whom, it is hinted that she had an affair) knows no bounds. Her behavior reads—even to the film audience—as silly, pathetic, and juvenile. She is constantly infantilized by those around her; the whole cast and crew are continuously propping her up—quite literally when she shows up on opening night too drunk to stand. In these respects, she fits well into the trope of an aging prima donna who is all the more unbearable because she is not young 10 and cute anymore. But the film’s exploration of the play-within-the-play structure prevents the viewer from forming any secure reading of what is acted and what is not. Most notably, the role Myrtle plays on stage is never clearly demarcated from her life off-stage. This ambiguity is heightened in one particular scene when Myrtle and Maurice (John Cassavetes) are rehearsing a section of dialogue where Maurice slaps Myrtle across the face. Myrtle is deeply uncomfortable with being slapped and muffs several runs through the scene, alternately screaming, crying, falling to the floor and refusing to get up, and laughing, to everyone else’s chagrin. The exasperated director plainly tells her: “You’re on stage for Christ’s sake. He’s not slapping you for real. . . . It has nothing to do with being a woman. You’re not a woman anyway. . . . There’s nothing humiliating about it. It’s a tradition. Actresses get slapped” (Cassavetes 1977, 10

It is possible to read Myrtle, perceived as an older woman trying to look/be younger, as a “monster of prohibition”: “Polic[ing] the borders of the possible, interdicting through its grotesque body some behaviors and actions, envaluing [sic] others. . . . The monster of prohibition exists to demarcate the bonds that hold together that system of relations we call culture, to call horrid attention to the borders that cannot—must not—be crossed” (Cohen 1996, 13)—the crossed “borders” here being the desire for clear demarcations between fertile/infertile in place to control the patriarchal traffic in women.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

45

00:19:00-00:19:50). Myrtle, more than the others around her, seems unable to bracket her role from her identity. The slap punctures the zone of indiscernibility between what is real and what is staged; Myrtle’s protest betrays an awareness of the porosity between spectacle and reality, the clear demarcation of which becomes blurred throughout the film. As Dennis Lim writes in ‘Opening Night: The Play’s the Thing’: The echo chamber of actors playing actors renders almost every utterance layered and ambiguous. The onstage pairing of Virginia and Marty, for instance, is shadowed, and sometimes displaced, by an offstage relationship (Myrtle and Maurice) as well as an offscreen one (Gena and John). (2013)11

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

On opening night, however, Myrtle goes wildly off-script in this scene, and the moment of the slap never comes. Moreover, her improvisation forces Maurice to play along, and the serious tone of the original play becomes comedic, buffoonish, and makes the audience laugh. In using the agency afforded to her by role-playing, Myrtle redirects the terms of the play (meaning both the events therein—e.g. the ‘tradition’ of actresses getting hit—and the perceived limitations of acting—like sticking to a script, literal or social). Considering the subtle manipulation and strategy her actions imply, it is thus ironic that the others perceive Myrtle as being out of control and on the verge of falling apart. This irony makes it possible to regard Myrtle as an Irigarayan hysterical figure. Hysteria, originally thought to be a women’s disease stemming from an inability to cope with improper and repressed desires, is reformulated by Irigaray, now “seen as the woman’s rebellion against and rejection of the requirements of femininity (requirements that are 12 humiliating to her)” (Grosz 1989, 134). In this reading, Myrtle’s deviation from the script on opening night constitutes an act of rebellion to escape the humiliation of being slapped. But Myrtle’s hysteria is the self-conscious undertaking of one performing a charade of hysterical expression and not the

11

As Lim mentions, the spectacle-reality dynamic between Myrtle (Rowlands) and Maurice (Cassavetes) is made all the more dizzying when we acknowledge that Rowlands and Cassavetes, actors playing actors (Myrtle and Maurice) who are ex-lovers playing a married couple (Virginia and Marty) in the play, are married in real life. 12 Irigaray also explicitly connects hysteria to mimicry, insofar as both involve women’s attempts to participate in a language, or a role, that is foreign to them: “Hysteria is silent and at the same time it mimes . . . reproducing a language that is not its own, masculine language, it caricatures and deforms that language: it ‘lies,’ it ‘deceives,’ as women have always been reputed to do” (Irigaray 1977/1985a, 137).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

46

Chapter 2 13

actual exhibiting of the debilitating effects of hysteria. It is not surprising that this distinction would be overlooked, given the propensity to assign the symptoms of a manifest difference to a biologically rooted cause.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Given the present discussion about the ideological versus biological justifications for women’s monstrosity, Opening Night (Cassavetes, 1977) brings into relief the prominence of ideology and role-playing, particularly regarding the roles that women play in everyday life. A significant difference between Myrtle and the playwright, Sarah, is that for Sarah it is apparent that role-playing is inflexible; in the masquerade that women are compelled to play, there is the ‘first woman’ and then the ‘second woman,’ and there is no room for changing the script. Myrtle’s role-playing, on the other hand, is more mimicry than masquerade, and thus one gets the impression that she is always “elsewhere” in the roles she plays, both on- and off-stage (Irigaray 1977/1985a, 76). As a monstrous, hysterical figure, Myrtle participates in the “ludic mimicry” of role-playing, and thus Opening Night (Cassavetes, 1977) bears witness to the possible subversions one can achieve from playing a monstrous role really well. The boundaries between reality and spectacle, onstage and off-stage, inside and outside, and actual and virtual lose their stability in this unmooring of effect granted by the proliferation of roles. When used subversively to call attention to the performance and thus to the artificial nature of what is performed, this role-playing channels the de(con)structive power of the monster “to reveal that difference originates in process, rather than in fact (and that ‘fact’ is subject to constant reconstruction and change)” (Cohen 1996, 14-15). Myrtle’s deviation from the script has another remarkable effect. Despite their acute frustrations and anxiety, the director, playwright, and producer each reach a point where they are helpless to do anything but watch the play take shape. In this acquiescence, they are able to experience the enjoyment of being in the space of the purely improvised, unfolding moment. In the words of her scene partner, Gus (John Tuell): You know, with all the pressure the whole time we were in New Haven, even when she went wrong she made me laugh. In some crazy way with all of her craziness and all of her nuttiness, it was more real for me being up than being in it. In some nutty way it seemed like something real. . . . I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. (Cassavetes 1977, 1:47:05-1:47:35)

13

My argument here echoes Grosz’s argument that “Irigaray herself acts as the hysteric. . . . She imitates/parodies women’s hysterical positions in discourse” (Grosz 1989, 136-139).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster-as-Actor, Woman as Role

47

In the end, they are all watching something real occur, something of which they are part. Perhaps this is one possibility enabled by the type of mimicry that strategically subverts, successfully “jamming the theoretical machinery”: a genuine opening of heretofore undiscovered or repressed possibilities; an encounter with the Real and with the new that, as we know from Lacan and Derrida, is an encounter with the monstrous. References Films Browning, T. (Director). (1932). Freaks (Film). USA: MGM. Cassavetes, J. (Director). (1977). Opening night (Film). USA: Faces Distribution.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Books and essays Aristotle. (2007). On the generation of animals. Retrieved from http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/generation/complete.html Beauvoir, S. de. (1973). The second sex. New York: Vintage Books. (1986). Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex. Yale French Studies. 72. 35–49. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/2930225 Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex.’ New York: Routledge. Creed, B. (1993). The monstrous feminine: Film, feminism, and psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge. Cohen, J. J. (1996). Monster culture: Seven theses. In Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 3-25. Deleuze, G. (2007) [originally 1985]. Cinema 2: The time-image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fuss, D. (1989). Essentially speaking: Feminism, nature, and difference. New York: Routledge. Gilbert, S. M. and Gubar S. (2000) [originally 1979]. The madwoman in the attic: The woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. 2nd ed. London: Yale University Press. Grosz, E. (1989). Sexual subversions: Three French feminists. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. Irigaray, L. (1985a) [originally 1977]. This sex which is not one. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Irigaray, L. (1985b) [originally 1974]. Speculum of the other woman. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

48

Chapter 2

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Lim, D. (2013, October 25.) Opening Night: The play’s the thing. Retrieved from https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/341-opening-night-theplay-s-the-thing Lovell, T. (1987). Consuming fiction. London: Verso. Nietzsche, F. (1974) [originally 1887]. The gay science. New York: Random House. Shelley, M. (1831/1994). Frankenstein. New York: Dover. Spivak, G. C. (1993). Outside in the teaching machine. New York: Routledge. Whitford, M. (1991). Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the feminine. London: Routledge. Xu, P. (1995). Irigaray’s mimicry and the problem of essentialism. Hypatia. 10 (4): 76–89. Youngquist, P. (2003). Mother flesh. Monstrosities: Bodies and British romanticism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 129-160.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

3. The Break of Gender Stereotypes and its Relation to Desire, Eroticism and Love in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” (1991) Katja Schöffmann University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Abstract

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The fairy tale film Beauty and the Beast (1991) sketches different gender dynamics, some of them typically found in fairy tales. This essay drafts the subversion-containment-dynamics of this movie concerning the interrelation of the monstrous with gender, ugliness, beauty, desire, love and moral behavior. Beast connects men with ugliness, disgust and fear of the monster. Belle links women with beauty, the pleasant and harmonic. Gaston sketches men as cruel, arrogant and self-absorbed pretty boys. These three characters develop a love triangle/ménage à trois, based on love and affection (Beauty-Beast), on hate and jealousy (Gaston-Beast), due to desire (Gaston-Beauty). Beauty and the Beast turns the monster into a desirable creature. On the one hand the portrayal of a desirable monster contradicts society’s typical expectation of a disgusting and uncanny monster, but on the other hand, the very specific way it is portrayed – tamed, which means the aggressive monster learns how to love properly – shows a contained tendency as well. The young and beautiful Belle doesn’t play her role assigned by the villagers; she doesn’t fit in. Her lack of social integration, her unconventional point of view, causes her to refuse Gaston’s love and to lose her heart to the monster. Keywords: Beauty and the Beast, fairy tale, gender, love, monstrous, stereotypes 3.1 Introduction Scientific research on fairy tales faces a very long tradition. Especially intense research work had been done during the 1980s and 1990s. Classical studies, like the structuralistic one of folklorist Vladimir Jakowlevič Propp, sketch fairy

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

50

Chapter 3

tales as specific structures, in which characters hold specific functions. These studies draw the plot of fairy tales as a fixed structure (Propp, 1977). J. R. R. Tolkien suggests in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’ (2006) about fairy tales that most research about fairy tales, especially the psychological and anthropological one, traces the relation of fairy tales to the real world, which Tolkien calls the primary world, but neglects the secondary world the artist creates in fairy tales. For Tolkien, the material of fairy tales proceeds from the real, primary world. To be more exact, he grants modern fairy tale narratives the ability to be critical of society’s standards and awaken desire and desirability for alternatives by adopting the wonderful and enchantment – excluded as childish and escapist by society’s standards (Tolkien, 2006). There has been research on gender stereotypes in fairy tales for a while. Lenore J. Weitzman connects the specific portrayal of gender dynamics in fairy tales with an educational function. According to her study, fairy tales teach kids traditional gender role models: girls have to be passive – as servants and followers – and boys to be active – to lead and to be saviours (Weitzman, 1972). More recently research about gender and fairy tales traced female agency in Fairy Tale Films (Greenhill, 2010), but doesn’t pay attention to the many aspects of the monstrous and limits sexual aspects to fairy tale films explicitly for grownups. No study so far considers that in fairy tales monsters can hold the function of criticizing society. In addition to that, they don’t sketch the figure of the loveable monster in fairy tales, and so they negate sexuality and desire connected with monsters in fairy tale narratives.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

There is research about the connection between gender studies and fairy tales focusing on how men and women and their classic gender role are presented in classical fairy tales. However, looking at the “dark” part in fairy tales, and in particular, referring to monsters, there is still a lack of academic research. The “dark” part in fairy tales here refers to Sigmund Freud’s explanations about aggressiveness and (sexual) drives in human society and culture. Following Tolkien’s hint about fairy tales capability of criticizing society the way it is, this essay is going to trace the relation of the monstrous and the gender. The main argument is that the fairy tale film Beauty and the Beast sketches a certain subversion containment dynamics concerning the relatedness of the monster with ugliness, beauty, desire, eroticism, love and moral behavior. Characteristics of the monster such as ugliness, disgust and fear meet beauty, the pleasant and harmonic quality in the young female body (Belle). The film Beauty and the Beast shows very clearly that the monster in

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

51

the film relates to ugliness, aggressiveness and desire, beauty, love, and moral aspects of behavior. This essay is also going to look at classical characteristics of how the three main characters (Belle, Beast and Gaston) are presented throughout the film; including both body characteristics and acts of behavior. In continuation, with the help of Sigmund Freud’s psychological concepts and Tolkien’s essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’, the concept of gender will be connected to Freud’s criticism on society when it comes to the term culture. Furthermore, this essay is going to look particularly at the sex and gender role of the monster, of the man and the woman in Beauty and the Beast with a special focus on how love, eroticism and desire work throughout the film and influence its main characters Beast, Belle and Gaston. The film breaks with the gender stereotypes of traditional gender roles built up by society, for example, in classic fairy tales. The erotic and later sexual object for Belle, an intelligent young woman coming from a conservative village on the countryside somewhere in France, is a monster; both ugly and aggressive seen from the outside, but full of feelings and love from the inside perspective.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

On the one hand, the film strongly breaks with the socially built up convention that beauty and desire can be exclusively found in external beauty. Out of the monstrous, the film makes a very desirable creature. On the other hand, the narrative structure in the film supports the taming and the makingbeautiful of the monstrous, a make-over-paradigm; yet another social convention. There is no scientific study available that deals with the fact that the monster in fairy tales can be a criticism of society. In addition to that, there is no study available to present the monster as a lovely character and not exclusively as an aggressive monster. Another very interesting aspect of Beauty and the Beast is the concept of taming. This topic is also going to be added to this essay to explain how taming works in Beauty and the Beast. To achieve this, examples from Freud’s works Civilization and its Discontents (1930) will be explored. 3.2 The breaking of gender stereotypes in “Beauty and the Beast” Beauty and the Beast offers several key scenes in which the gender relationship between Belle, the Beast, and Gaston is shown intensively. In the following, there will be a try to find an approach to the question of how Belle’s character, behavior, and actions break with the traditional and socially built up norms of the role of a woman, also in comparison to the time th in which this fairy tale is set: the 18 century. Back then, women did not have

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

52

Chapter 3

much freedom and had to obey men. As a next step, there will be an analysis of the monster in this fairy tale film. The classic monster in literature and film is presented as exclusively ugly and aggressive. In Beauty and the Beast, the monster goes through various transformations. In order to sketch the relation between gender and (sexual) desire in this movie link, J. R. R. Tolkien’s theory on fairy tales and Sigmund Freud’s criticism of modern society will be linked. There will be a combination of these theories to analyze selected key scenes of the film regarding the performance of Belle, the Beast and Gaston. Let us look at the following questions: How is Belle presented? Why is the Beast a desirable and lovely character and not a classical monster? Why does Gaston, the egoistic hunter hero of the village, not change? What role does external beauty play in contrast to internal beauty? In one of the first scenes, we see Belle walking from her house into the village. “Our town is a quiet village. Every day like the one before. [...] There comes the baker with his tray, like always — the same old bread and rolls to sell. Every morning just the same, since the morning that we came, to this poor provincial town” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 2, 00:03:4000:04.14). In her blue-white dress, she looks very traditional. In her mind, though, she is presented very progressive and tough.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Christy Williams (Greenhill 2010, 3) says, “The fairy tale may comprise a newer subgenre, but it, too, manages to address a huge range of audiences.” It is true for Beauty and the Beast that both children and adults can find topics in this fairy tale by which they are affected. Beautiful Belle feels desire for a monster. The monster is ugly, and as dictated by human nature, it is not commonplace for a woman to fall in love with a disgusting object. It is not accepted by society that Belle develops feeling for, at first sight, an exclusively ugly animal. Compare to this the scene where “the ice between Belle and the Beast breaks”. Belle is worried about the Beast because he has been wounded by the wolves when saving Belle from them. You see Belle’s facial expression change. Belle brings Beast back to the castle and begins caring for his wounds (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 11, 00:47:06-00:47:28; chapter 12, 00:47:28-00:48:18). In the scene before, Beast just has saved the life of Belle from the wolves (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 11, 00:45:15-00:47:05). Sigmund Freud (1923) presents an important fact which is important for the film: “Our civilization is entirely based upon the suppression of instincts” (Freud 1923, 5f.). With Philippe’s help, Belle brings Beast back to the castle and wants to cure his wounds. Beast becomes aggressive because he is in pain: “That hurts!” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 12, 00:47:42). Then both of them

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

53

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

start a verbal and stubborn “fight”, which can be seen as the beginning of developing feelings for each other. “If you’d hold still, it wouldn’t hurt as much!” (ibid., 00:47:44), “Well, if you hadn’t have run away, this wouldn’t have happened” (ibid., 00:47:46), “If you hadn’t frightened me, I wouldn’t have run away” (ibid., 00:47:48). Belle crosses her arms in front of her breast and plays the “angry one” (ibid., 00:47:51). They are teasing each other, which indicates that they are developing feelings for each other. Beast tells Belle: “Well, you shouldn’t have been in the west wing” (ibid., 00:47:52), and Belle returns: “Well, you should learn to control your temper” (ibid., 00:47:54). Belle then breaks the ice: “By the way, thank you for saving my life”. (ibid., 00:48:08). The Beast, for the first time, says without aggressiveness: “You’re welcome.” (ibid., 00:48:14). Belle cannot leave the Beast alone because she feels touched by the monster saving her life. Then in continuation, they start a “fight” (ibid., 00:47:4400:48:04), which can be seen as teasing each other because they find each other charming. Often it is said that fights between loved ones lead to sexual intercourse in the end. Belle is presented as independent, self-confident, strong and a freedom-loving woman with her own wishes for a male partner who she feels affected by, and it does not matter if he is a monster. Beast in this scene breaks with the conventions of being exclusively “ugly” and aggressive, as he has developed affection for Belle in order to save her life (ibid., chapter 11, 00:47:06-00:47:28; chapter 12, 00:47:28-00:48:18). The moment of fighting in front of the fireplace when Belle heals the Beast’s wounds can also be seen as the scene where both characters, Belle and the Beast, “tame” each other (ibid.). The concept of taming suitable for Beauty and the Beast, will later be described with the help of Sigmund Freud’s works “Civilization and its Discontents” (1930), The Economic Problem of Masochism (1924), Modern Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness (1923) as well as J. R. R. Tolkien’s essay On Fairy-Stories’ (2006). Belle is expected to marry Gaston, but she prefers loving the monster. Belle, in the presence of Gaston, confesses her feelings for the Beast: “[...] but he is really kind and gentle. He is my friend” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 17, 01:03:04). Gaston looks extremely jealous and says: “If I didn’t know it better, I’d think you had feelings for his monster” (ibid., 01:03:08). Belle answers from the bottom of her heart: “He is no monster, Gaston, You are!” (ibid., 01:08:30-01:08:33). Gaston answers this by shouting, “I say we kill the Beast!” (ibid., chapter 18, 01:08:44) and “We’ll rid the village out of this Beast!” (ibid., 01:09:44). Freud’s expression of sublimation becomes important for the discussion of gender roles: “That faculty to exchange the original sexual object for another object, no longer the sexual but the psychic in nature is known as the faculty of sublimation” (Freud 1923, 7). Here we can

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

54

Chapter 3

see that this scene, introducing quite emotionally the last part of the film, shows that Gaston is a jealous and egotistic young man, extremely handsome. That is how the people in the village expect him to be; this is how he is admired by all other women in the village but by Belle. Three young girls in the village admire Gaston’s beauty very much: “Look, there, he goes, isn’t he dreamy? Monsieur Gaston, oh he’s so cute. Be still, my heart, I’m hardly breathing. He’s such a tall, dark, strong and handsome brute […]” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 2, 00:07:10-00:07:23). We see no development in Gaston’s character. His beauty makes him egocentric and full of hate for the Beast.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Freud talks about how a man’s attitude in sexual matters may influence other life matters. He energetically goes on to conquer the object of sexual desire (in our film: Belle), the same ruthless energy towards objects (his hunting statues in the tavern of the village) (Freud 1923, 31). Gaston does not develop his character or his behavior at all and prefers to live up to the expectations of the village (the hunter, the handsome man, the hero of women). Neither does he care for deep feelings for Belle, nor does she show any interest in Gaston (here the scene where Gaston comes to Belles house in order to propose marriage to her) (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 5, 00:17:27-00:18:35)). Freud, in his work Civilization and its discontents (2010), presents various inputs for the break of gender stereotypes in Beauty and the Beast. “At the height of being in love the boundary between the ego and object threatens to melt away. Against all the evidence of his senses, a man who is in love declares that ‘I’ and ‘you’ are one, and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact” (Freud 2010, 26). Here one can look at the example of the concluding fight between Gaston and the Beast. Gaston’s eternal jealousy meets the Beast’s force, which he draws from being in love with Belle. Beast feels his strength returning and decides to fight for his life because he feels so much in love with Belle that this gives him strength again. When Belle returns to the castle (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 20, 01:09:37), suddenly the Beast gets back the glimmer in his eyes and reveals new power. The monster starts fighting (ibid., 01:09:45), motivated by his love for Belle. For the first time, we see Gaston feeling scared and losing his egoism (ibid., 01:09:46) when he realizes the danger of the monster. The monster is stronger than Gaston, and it can certainly beat a human being! Gaston, however, does not give up and hits a stone statue in the form of a monster, in order to kill Beast. All his jealousy and hate Gaston puts into his following phrase (ibid., 01:10:14): “Come out and fight! Were you in love with her, Beast? Did you honestly think she’d want you when she had someone like me? It’s over Beast. Belle is mine!” (ibid.,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

55

01:10:36). This again shows Gaston’s decision to be the winner in this fight of two men for one woman. “Some of the things that one is unwilling to give up, because they give pleasure, are nevertheless not ego but object; and some sufferings that one seeks to expel turn out to be inseparable from the ego in virtue of their internal origin” (Freud 2010, 28). Here we can refer to the fact that Belle, the Beast and Gaston are pushed by inner “desires”, typical for their personalities in order to fulfil their aims. Gaston desires Belle, but not driven by real love, but by the wish to fulfil himself. We see this in the scene when Gaston is introduced. “Right, when I met her, saw her, I said she’s gorgeous, and I fell. Here in town there’s only she who is beautiful as me. So I’m making plans to woo and marry Belle.” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 2, 00:06:56-00:07:08). Gaston, in the beginning, like in the end, does not change at all; he is the “handsome egotistic lover”, a typical stereotype available in today’s society. He searches somebody to confirm his own beauty by marrying the beautiful Belle.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Freud argues that human beings “strive after happiness; they want to become happy and to remain so. This endeavour [sic!] has two sides, a positive and a negative aim. It aims […] at an absence of pain and unpleasure, and […] the experiencing of strong feelings and pleasure” (Freud 2010, 42). Referring to this, in Beauty and the Beast, we see that love cannot exist without pain. Belle has to set various actions in order to “get” her prince; Gaston wants to kill the monster in order to get Belle; this means true pain and fear for Belle. The Beast becomes jealous of Gaston, too, because this guy wants to have Belle for himself. Belle feels a desire for the monster, which does not accord at all with social conventions in human nature as well as in the village. Women in that “poor provincial town” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 2, 00:04:12), like Belle, calls her village, have feelings for handsome and strong and protective men who are proud of themselves. The girls in the village would love to be married to handsome and powerful men like Gaston. They say, “Look, there, he goes, isn’t he dreamy?” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 2, 00:07:10-00:07:13). Freud moves on: “The irresistibility of perverse instincts, and perhaps the attraction in general of forbidden things finds an economic explanation […]” (Freud 2010, 48). “It is that we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love” (Freud 2010, 52). To this thought fits the scene when Belle returns to be Beast after the fight with Gaston. Belle runs up to the place where Gaston and Beast are arguing with each other and their fingers touch (Beauty and the Beast,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

56

Chapter 3

DVD, 2010, chapter 20, 01:16:40). Beast says, “You came back” and puts his paw onto Belles cheek (ibid., 01:16:44). Belle, overwhelmed by her love and worrying, puts the Beast’s hand against her face when Gaston comes in again (ibid., 01:16:47). Gaston hits the Beast into his back really hard (ibid.) because he cannot bear seeing Beast and Belle having affection for each other. Immediately afterwards, Gaston falls down the castle and dies (ibid., 01:16:5801:17:00). Some moments before the Beast’s magic rose loses its last petal (ibid., 01:18:18-01:18:20), the Beast sinks to the floor, leaving Belle scared and horrified, and so Belle touches the monster’s face (ibid., 01:17:16).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The magic rose is given to Beast at the beginning of the film by the beautiful st enchantress. The rose will bloom until the prince’s 21 birthday. “If he could learn to love another... and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell... then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed... to remain a beast for all time.” (ibid., 00:02.45-00.03:00). These are the conditions in order to break the spell. “As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope, for who could ever learn to love a beast” (ibid., 00:03:04-00:03:13). Beast, wounded on the floor, opens his eyes and says, “You came back” (ibid., chapter 20, 01:17:24). Although terribly wounded and very weak, his eyes still express pure love. Belle answers: “Of course I came back. I couldn’t let them ... This is all my fault [...] We’re together now. Everything’s going to be fine, you’ll see” (ibid., 01:17:27-01:17:46). Beast opens his eyes one last time, saying “At least I got to see you one last time” (ibid., 01:17:49-01:17:55). Belle’s eyes fill with tears (ibid., 01:17:57) and when Beast closes his eyes (ibid., 01:18:03), Belle presses her hand against her mouth, terrified in extreme pain (ibid., TC: 01:18:04). Belle now for the first time speaks the three words the monster has already spoken in the scene where Cogsworth, the enchanted clock, asks the monster why he had let Belle leave for home: “[…] Because I love her.” (ibid., chapter 16, 01:05:19): Belle answers the dying Beast: “Please. Please don’t leave me. I love you” (ibid., chapter 20, 01:18:08-01:18:16). Beast and Belle at this moment feel so connected of deep eternal love, and at the same time, they both are experiencing an enormous amount of pain. This film scene is crucial because it shows both Belle’s and Beast’s character development and transformation. Love for the Beast elevates Belle on her strongest point. No other woman in the village she lives in would dare to act the way she does in order to get her beloved Beast. At this point, Beast is completely tame; there is no aggression in his character any more, only true love. Freud explains that beauty and attraction are originally attributes of the sexual object (Freud 2010, 53). This is fulfilled by Belle, who is desired by Beast and Gaston. Beast’s Beauty and attraction are ‘hidden inside’ when Belle develops her feelings for Beast. Referring to the gender contrast of Beast and Gaston,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

57

Freud presents an interesting argument: “The man who is predominantly erotic will give first preference to is emotional relationships to other people, the narcissistic man, who inclines to be self-sufficient, will seek his main satisfactions in his internal mental processes” (Freud 2010, 55). Beast concentrates on his emotions for Belle, while Gaston lives out his narcissism in daily life in the village.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In another key scene, we see Gaston celebrating in the village’s tavern together with his friends and other people from the village (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 7, 00:25:42-00:26:02; chapter 8, 00:26:03-00:28:40). After Gaston has found out that Belle does not want him, because she threw him out of her house (ibid., chapter 5, 00:18:36), he ends up sitting there in the tavern in his chair and feeling depressed and humiliated by Belle. The people and his friends there encourage Gaston by admiring him. He feels humiliated and betrayed in his honor: “Who does she think she is?” (Beauty and the Beast, chapter 7, 00:25:43) “No one says no to Gaston. [...] Publicly humiliated. [...] It’s more than I can bear” (ibid., 00:25:47-00:25:55). Then Le Fou, Gaston’s friend, starts singing for Gaston: “There’s no man in town as admired as you [....] you’re everyone favourite guy” (ibid., chapter 8, 00:26:19-00:26:24). That all the other people in the tavern say he is a perfectly admirable man, helps Gaston: “As a specimen, yes, I’m intimidating” (ibid., 00:27:12), and he sings to himself how strong and handsome he is. Only that counts for him. We see dead animals as trophies on the wall that were shot by Gaston (ibid., 00:28:26). When Maurice enters, Gaston realises something is wrong with Belle. Again, he sees his chance coming: “Who’s got Belle locked in a dungeon?” he asks Maurice, who answers: “A beast! A horrible, monstrous beast!” (ibid., 00:28:5500:28:58). People do not believe him, but Gaston is showing his real character again: “See, I promise myself I’d be married to Belle and right now I’m evolving a plan” (ibid., 00:29:55-00:30:00). “Beauty, cleanliness and order obviously occupy a special position among the requirements of civilization.” (Freud 2010, 69). Here we can think about the people who live in Belle’s village and with whom she does not feel a connection. When Gaston has left after offering his marriage to her, Belle runs out of the house and sings, “No, sir, not me, I guarantee it, I want much more than this provincial life” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 5, 00:19:25-00:19:32). She searches for somebody to love her, and to get rid of the “primitive” and limited thinking people in the village. Belle sings about her dreams that are so different from the provincial life Gaston can offer her when marrying him. People in the village only accept beauty on the “outside” and “clean”, handsome men like Gaston. Their mind stays limited because Belle searches for more; this leads us to Freud’s next thought: “The liberty of the individual is

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

58

Chapter 3

no gift of civilization” (Freud 2010, 72). Belle lives out this liberty. She does not want to live with the people in her village, who live upon the rules of civilization. She wants so much more from life: “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand to have someone understand, I want so much more than they’ve got planned.” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 5, 00:19:44-00:00:20:03). She searches for deep, eternal love.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Freud also talks about sexual love as “a relationship between two individuals in which a third can only be superfluous or disturbing, whereas vocalization depends on relationships between a considerable number of individuals” (Freud 2010, 89f.). The third one in the fairy tale film is Gaston. With his egoistic appearance, he aims to destroy all love and affection between Belle and the Beast. He is not developing at all, but Belle and Beast do so. Gaston truly loves only himself, which leads to the term “narcissism”. According to Freud, “[...] the concept of narcissism – that is to say, the discovery that the ego itself is cathected with libido [...]” (Freud 2010, 105). Gaston feels love, desire for himself, and by doing so, he deeply needs the love and pride of the people in the village. He wants the best woman available in the village. Gaston in his introduction scene talks to his friend Le Fou about Belle: “The lucky girl I’m going to marry, the most beautiful girl in town” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 2, 00:06:45-00:06:48). “That makes her the best and don’t I deserve the best?” (ibid., 06:50-06:53). Freud offers a thought about what happens with aggression in society to get rid of it. Aggression can be set against one’s ego (Freud, 2010, 114). This can be seen for the first time at the beginning of the film, when Beast expresses his anger about himself after being transformed: “Ashamed of his monstrous form, the Beast concealed himself inside his castle with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 1, 00:02:26-00:02:34). Freud remarks that evil is not always something exclusively negative. The “bad” cannot always be dangerous to the ego; it can be something desirable and enjoyable to the ego (Freud 2010, 115). The monster is, by society, seen as evil and bad. Belle struggles and lives through different situations full of difficulty until she discovers the desirable character and beauty in the heart of Beast. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle, in the beginning, dreams of a life very different from her actual one: “Belle runs out of the house and sings, “No, sir, not me, I guarantee it, I want much more than this provincial life” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 5, 00:19:25-00:19:32). She searches for somebody to love her, and to get rid of the “primitive” thinking people in the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

59

village. She longs for getting married to a man who suits her emotionally and lives up to her expectations (intelligence, interests. inner beauty). Let us look at the dance scene in the ballroom. Beast clears his throat; he is obviously nervous. They look into each other’s eyes, and you can see the romantic feelings they have for each other (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 16, 01:00:48-01:00:51). The gazing in the eyes is also stressed by Belle’s hand and Beast’s paw touching with affection (ibid., 01:00:55). They do not see any mistakes in each other, only pure affection. Freud (1921) explains this as the phenomenon of “sexual overvaluation – the fact that the loved object enjoys a certain amount of freedom from criticism” (Freud 1921, 112). 3.3 The three types of libido In Beauty and the Beast, each main character (Belle, Beast and Gaston) acts differently when it comes to living out their erotically and sexual desire. There are various examples in the film when referring only to the main characters; Beast, Belle, and Gaston. Let us look at some of these key scenes in the film.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Gaston, a very egoistic and narcissistic character, shows parallels with the Beast, especially in the beginning, when the Beast is still a human being. The big difference between these two characters is that Beast learns how to love himself and another person (Belle) during the course of the movie, while Gaston always needs other people to tell him what a perfect and handsome man he is, desirable for every woman. When people are gathered in the tavern, and Gaston feels depressed about Belle, only with the help of other people is he then able to feel being loved for who he really is. “No one says no to Gaston. [...] Publicly humiliated. [...] It’s more than I can bear” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 7, 00:25:46-00:25:55). In the scene where Gaston comes to Belles house to lock her father away, he talks very aggressively to the village people about the Beast: “The Beast will make off with your children. It will come after them at night. We are not safe until his head is [...] on my wall. I say we kill the Beast” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 18, 01:08:37-01:08:45). Later in the film, Gaston wants everything he can get, and Belle learns to love a monster, which leaves Gaston completely humiliated. In his jealousy, he then decides to kill the Beast towards the end of the film (ibid., 01:08:45). In Sigmund Freud’s essay, Libidinal Types (1931), the author presents three different types of human beings regarding the “way of their living out” of libido (Freud 1931, 217). These are named the erotic type, the narcissistic type and the pressure-driven type. Some aspects regarding all three main characters in Beauty and the Beast, Gaston, Belle and the Beast, can be explained with the help of these types.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

60

Chapter 3

According to Freud, The narcissistic type is seen very negatively in society. The main interest of this type is his preservation. In addition to that, he shows a lot of aggression in his behavior (Freud 1931, 218f.). As can be seen in the key scenes before, Gaston shows many characteristics of this typical narcissistic type. During the film, we can see that he does not at all care for Belle as a human being and her feelings. Instead, he only searches benefit for his self-esteem and egoistic behavior. Gaston behaves not only rude according to his sexual desires for Belle but also his character, in general, makes him act rather rude and aggressively, narcissistically. Freud (1923) explains that: “A man’s attitude in sexual matters often moulds his attitude towards other life matters” (Freud 1923, 31).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Gaston is the perfect example of a narcissistic character with enormous jealousy of the Beast because he loves Belle – the woman he wants to marry. Freud (1922) classifies three types of jealousy: the ‘normal’ one, the projected and the delusional jealousy (Freud 1922, 223). Gaston feels unhappy with his life; he is scared that he stays the best men in town. This can be seen in the scene in the village’s tavern. Gaston is completely down: “No one says no to Gaston. [...] Publicly humiliated. [...] It’s more than I can bear” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 7, 00:25:55). Then Le Fou and later the people in the tavern start singing for Gaston: “There’s no man in town as admired as you [....] you’re everyone favourite guy” (ibid., chapter 8, 00:26:19-00:26:24). This fits best to the second type of jealousy explained by Freud: “[…] projected jealousy, is derived both men and women either from their own unfaithfulness in real life or from impulses towards it which have succumbed to repression” (Freud 1922, 224). Beast throughout the film goes through a change regarding his love and libido type. Let us look at who different scenes of the film, where this is shown very clearly. In the first scene, in the middle of the film, Beast finds Belle in the forbidden West Wing and chases her away in a very brutal and aggressive way. “Why did you come here? [...] I wanted you never to come here [...] You realize what you could have done? [...] Get out!” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 11, 00:44:36-00:44:53). One second later, when Belle already runs down the stairs, Beast loses his aggressiveness to realize what could happen now: Belle may run away and disappear forever. He covers his face with his paws in despair (ibid., 00:45:00). In the second scene, towards the end of the film, Belle runs up to the place where Gaston and Beast are arguing with each other and Belle’s and Beast’s fingers touch (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 20, 01:16:40). Beast says, “You came back” and, in affection, puts his paw onto Belle's cheek (ibid., 01:16:44).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

61

Beast, first punished because of his narcissistic behavior, changes throughout the film into the erotic type. It can be concluded that Beast transforms from the narcissistic type, when he is a human being, to the erotic type (in its strongest form when he is transformed into a human being again). First, the prince shows strong narcissistic behavior because he does not grant the old woman shelter in his castle (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 1, 00:01:18). The prince later begs on his knees, trying to apologize and saying he is sorry (ibid., 00:02:09), but it is already too late: As punishment, he is transformed into a Beast (ibid., TC:00:02:19). Being a monster, the prince stays st narcissistic, but he has the chance to change into the erotic type by his 21 birthday. If “he could learn to love another and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken” (ibid., 00:02:4400:02:53). At the end of the film, Beast has fulfilled the transformation into the erotic type of libido. According to Freud, what is most important for people belonging to this type is to love and to be loved in return, as well as being scared of losing the love of the beloved person (Freud 1931, 218).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Belle, throughout the film, stays kind and loving for the people around her who deserve it. She strongly disagrees with Gaston’s narcissistic behavior and sends him away with power and inner strength. At the beginning of the film, we see Belle presenting her wishes for her life: “I want much more than this provincial life [...] I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand to have someone understand I want so much more than they’ve got planned” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 5, 00:19:29-00:20:03). In the final scene, when Belle cries over the Beast outside the castle in the rain, we see that the feelings in her heart win over the outside appearance of the Beast: “Of course I came back. I couldn’t let them ... This is all my fault [...] We’re together now. Everything’s going to be fine, you’ll see” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 20, 01:17:26-01:17:46). Beast opens his eyes one last time, saying “At least I got to see you one last time” (ibid., 01:17:50-01:17:55). Belle’s eyes fill with tears, and when Beast closes his eyes, Belle presses her hand against her mouth, terrified in extreme pain (ibid., 01:17:56-01:17:59). Belle nearly drowns in her tears. This is the extremely emotional consequence of true love when the loved one dies. This true love is, in the end, also fulfilled erotically and sexually by a passionate kiss that the Beast, now transformed back into a prince, and Belle give each other (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 21, 01:20:25). The movie puts its focus on love and therefore, on the erotic type. According to Freud, the erotic type is the easiest one to characterize. His main interest is love life. To love and to be loved in return is the main interest of the erotic type (Freud 1931, 218). This type of human being is also scared of losing his love

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

62

Chapter 3

again. In Beauty and the Beast, we can see from the examples presented in this chapter that both Beast and Belle belong to this type. Belle is the “pure” erotic type, while Beast in the first place shows very strong narcissistic features in his character, especially when still being a human being (the egotistic prince) and when Belle and the Beast are in the process of getting to know each other.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

A very strong element in the relationship Gaston-Beast is the jealousy for Belle’s love. Let us look at the scene again where Gaston is outside Belles and Maurice’s house, arguing with Belle whether she has feelings for Beast or not (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 17, 01:08:21-01:08:36). Belle sees Beast in the Magical Mirror, and Belle is saying, “He is my friend” (ibid., 01:08:26). Here we can see again that the erotic type suits best for Belle. By naming “the monster” her “friend”, she shows here her deep feelings for Beast in front of Gaston. Although seeing a monster in the Magic Mirror, Belle names Beast “a friend”. Gaston shouts at Belle: “If I didn’t know better I’d think you had feelings for this monster.” (ibid., 01:08:25-01:08:29). Then Belle shouts back very strongly with conviction: “He is no monster, Gaston. You are!” (ibid., 01:08:30-01:08:33). Anne Carson describes jealousy in her work EROS the Bittersweet (1998) as follows: Coming originally from the Greek language, it is an emotion talking about placement/displacement and anxiety is what motivates the jealous person to act in the way he does (Carson 1998, 14). She also talks about that the lover always wants to be beloved (Carson 1998, 62). Gaston says he loves Belle, but for the audience, this is rather doubtful: His main aim is to marry Belle, but he does not care if she wants to or not. Instead, he is just starting making plans for persuading her with his dark methods. Belle really wants to be beloved, but is not sure she will find the right man for this (compare “No, sir, not me, I guarantee it, I want much more than this provincial life” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 5, 00:19:25-00:19:32). Anne Carson explains in EROS the Bittersweet (1998) the deep feeling when being in love: “No one in love really believes love will end” (Carson 1998, 124). How can this be shown when looking at Belle, Gaston and the Beast? Gaston does not believe in the end of love, because he lives an egotistic and narcissistic motivated life. Beast, in the beginning, shows the same characteristics but is punished because of that. “[...] the prince was spoiled, selfish and unkind” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 1, 00:01:30-00:01:35). As a consequence, the prince has to live the life of a monster. Beast feels so humiliated and hopeless that he does not even believe he will ever be able to love somebody, or, even more difficult, somebody else will ever be able to love a monster. “[...] he fell into despair and lost all hope, for who could ever learn to love a Beast?” (ibid., 00:03:0300:03:13). Belle is very much driven by her emotions and does everything to be together with her beloved ones (first of all her father, later the Beast). Her

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

63

tears of fear to lose the Beast is what in the end breaks the magic spell (compare Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 20, TC:01:18:33). 3.4 The concept of taming For Belle and the Beast it is an important requirement that in order to fall in love and feel that that other one gets and stays unique for the other, they both have to tame themselves, to some extent. Belle would have to tame the Beast in order to turn his aggressive character into a lovely one. But the Beast, very deep inside, is, to a certain extent, still a human being with human feelings. In his aggression, he turns against himself because he looks like a monster to everyone from the outside. In addition to that, Beast has to learn to transfer the egoistic behavior of his soul at the beginning of the film (prince) into love (end of the film, break of the spell). This is explained and meant in this chapter by the term taming. Throughout the plot, Belle and the Beast have to get nearer and nearer each other. At the end of this process, they both discover their deep love. In their case, only taming leads to their love. Especially this is true for the Beast. Beast has to learn to tame, to control his aggressiveness, the “animal” in him to be able to get together with Belle.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Let us look at five key scenes in the film, where we see that the ugly, aggressive “monster” is tamed by Belle in preparation for the final step to show and prove his deep true love and to be loved in return. When Belle already lives in the castle and Beast shows Belle her room, she starts crying on the bed (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 7, 00:25:3000:25:38). In only one day, she has lost both her father and her freedom. When Beast appears in front of the door to Belles room and wants her to have dinner with him (ibid., chapter 8, 00:33:36), the magic inhabitants of the castle help Beast to tame his aggressiveness, to calm down, to be more “human-like”. Of course, here, the aim is to impress Belle in order to fall in love with Beast and to break the magic spell. Beast knocks on Belles door and shouts: “I thought I told you to come down to dinner.” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 9, 00:33:38). Belle answers: “I’m not hungry” (ibid., 00:33:40) and Beast responses: “You’ll come out or I’ll … I’ll … I’ll break down the door!” (ibid., 00:33:42-00:33:45). Freud argues in his essay, Civilization and its Discontents (1930) that the individual has a natural desire for aggression in himself (Freud 1930, 24). Even more, this is true for a monster. Here Lumière, one of the enchanted inhabitants of the castle, comes in and says that Beasts aggressive way to ask Belle out for dinner “may not be the best way to win the girl’s affections” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 9, 00:33:47). The inhabitants want to Beast to try to “be a gentleman […]” (ibid., 00:33:54) and “Gently, gently” (ibid., 00:33:58). Freud says that “civilization […] obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

64

Chapter 3

and disarming it and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it […]” (Freud 1930, 123f.). As a result, Beast calms down and asks in a quiet voice: “Will you come down to dinner? […] It would give me great joy if you would join me for dinner” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 9, 00:34:08-00:34:13), but when Belle shouts “No, thank you!” (ibid., 00:34:15), Beast cannot tame his anger any longer, and he shouts: “Fine! Then go ahead and starve! If she does not eat with me, she does not eat at all!” (ibid., 00:34:19-00:34:28).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The next scene is a very special key scene in the film, as it changes the relationship between Belle and the Beast forever. After telling Belle to get out of the West Wing, she leaves the castle in panic (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 11, 00:45:00-00:45:12). Then her horse and Belle get chased and attacked by a pack of aggressive wild wolves (ibid., 00:45:28-00.46:28). Beast notices that Belle may disappear forever and in this key scene, Beast shows his feelings for Belle for the first time: He has to save Belle from the wolves in order to win her feelings (ibid., 00:46:29). Belle and her horse Philippe cannot flee from the wolves. As a consequence, they panic (ibid., 00:45:34). In the moment they nearly get killed by the wolves and are surrounded by them, Beast shows up and starts a terrible fight with the wolves, always staying at Belle’s side to protect her (ibid., 00:46:29-00:46:54). Then Belle some seconds thinks that now she is able to flee. In the next moment, however, her facial expressions change from fear to sympathy (ibid., 00:47:07). She cannot leave Beast alone like this, wounded. He has just saved her life! Belle takes Beast back to the castle (ibid., 00:47:20). There she takes care of his wounds, and so they start talking (ibid., chapter 12, 00:47:33). Beast becomes aggressive as his wounds hurt: “That hurts!” (ibid., 00:47:42). Belle answers: “If you’d hold still, it would not hurt as much!” (ibid., 00:47:44) Then they start “teasing” each other about their mistakes. Beast finds another argument: “If you had not have run away, this would not have happened” (ibid., TC:00:47:46), Belle: “If you had not frightened me, I wouldn’t have run away” (ibid., 00:47:49). Beast argues again: “Well, you shouldn’t have been in the west wing!” (ibid., 00:47:52). In the next moment, Belle says something very interesting: “Well, you should learn to control your temper.” (ibid., 00:47:55). This brings us back to Freud (1930) when he explains that civilization employs means “in order to inhibit the aggressiveness which opposes it, to make it harmless, to get rid of it, perhaps?” (Freud 1930, 123). In the end, Beast says, “You’re welcome.” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 12, 00:48:14). According to Freud, Beast has successfully found a way to control his temper and his aggressiveness. Another clear scene showing the rules human beings have carried out for behaving properly during dinner at the table is the following. Beast and Belle

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

65

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

are having dinner together in the dining room of the castle. Belle is eating with a spoon out of a bowl (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 14, 00:51:54). Beast does not know how to eat with a spoon, because he is an animal and so Belle is shocked. The magic inhabitants of the castle want Beast to try to eat with a spoon, but he takes the spoon in his paw in a very aggressive way, which again scares Belle (ibid., 00:51:58-00:52:00). Beast does not manage to eat with the help of the spoon. Belle gets an idea: She takes her bowl and puts it to her mouth (ibid., 00:52:22). There is a sudden smile in the face of Beast: He is happy, smiles and does the same (ibid., 00:52:23). So they both can eat as human beings do. In this scene, Belle shows Beast how to eat in a proper and “culturally-based” way, which had been established as a rule of appropriate behavior in society. Another example of Beast learning to control his temper is in the fighting scene with Gaston towards the end of the film (Beauty and the Beast, DVD; 2010, chapter 20, 01:14:28-01:15:58). When Beast and Gaston have their fight over jealousy, Beast holds Gaston in his hand to let him fall to his death. In the last second, Beast’s eyes expression changes to a feeling of pity for him and Beast lets Gaston live (ibid., 01:16:10-01:16:19). This happens shortly before Belle appears. Here we have another example of control. Beast, in a way, feels sorry for Gaston. He knows if he lets Gaston die, Beast could not forgive himself for the rest of his life; this would be his punishment. Freud (1930) also talks about “own punishment” (Freud 1930, 77): “A restricted satisfaction of every need presents itself as the most enticing method of conducting one’s life, but it means putting enjoyment before caution, and soon brings its own punishment.” (Freud 1930, 77). Beast would love to see Gaston die: So he and Belle could be together without problems of someone being jealous about them. It would be a great pleasure for Beast to win over Gaston. In the last second, he tames both himself and his thoughts, and he thinks of his punishment and how he would feel guilty for the rest of his life if he let Gaston die (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 20, 01:16:10-01:16:19). The last very well working example of love winning over animal instincts is the transformation scene at the end of the film. Here, when Belle cries over the Beast after the monster breaks down in the fight with Gaston, she says, “Of course I came back. I couldn’t let them ... This is all my fault [...] We’re together now. Everything’s going to be fine, you’ll see” (ibid., 01:17:27-01:17:46). Beast opens his eyes one last time, saying “At least I got to see you one last time” (ibid., 01:17:49-01:17:55). Belle’s eyes fill with tears (ibid., 01:17:57) and when Beast closes his eyes (ibid., 01:18:03), Belle presses her hand against her mouth, terrified in extreme pain (ibid., TC: 01:18:04). Let us look one moment at the inhabitants of Belle’s village. People there celebrate Gaston, the young hero hunter, his beauty, power, energy and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

66

Chapter 3

strength. There is only one opinion in this village, only one type of character, seen in all the inhabitants. They all live a realistic way of life, without going more into depth. This can be seen very clearly in the tavern scene where Gaston sings about himself how beautiful and brave he is (ibid., chapter 8, 00:27:09-00:28:37), as well as in the scene where Gaston encourages the whole village to fight against and kill the Beast (ibid., chapter 18, 01:08:44).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

When talking about the natural aggressiveness of the Beast, we should consider what J. R. R. Tolkien means with the contrast between magic and enchantment in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’ (Tolkien, 2006). For Tolkien, the term magic means the suppression of the world and its characters and making assimilation or making identical the whole world. As a result, diversity is wiped out and what is left behind is a one-dimensional society (Tolkien 2006, 114ff.). Belle stands in complete opposite to the inhabitants of her village. She loves fantasy. Fantasy she finds in her books. There, she feels being in a different world. There is a scene when Belle is sitting at the fountain in the centre of the village. She is reading a book while talking to the animals around her: “Isn’t this amazing? It’s my favorite part, because you’ll see. Here’s where she meets Prince Charming. But she won’t discover that it’s him till chapter three” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 2, 00:05:37-00:06:04). Belle’s world is full of fantasy. She does not let the other inhabitants of the village tame her in order to live up to their expectations of an appropriate life. They even think Belle is completely different from them: “Very different from the rest of us. She’s nothing like the rest of us. Yes, different from the rest of us is Belle” (ibid., chapter 2, 00:06:17-00:06:23). “Look, there she goes, a girl who is strange but special, a most peculiar mademoiselle, it’s a pity and a sin, she doesn’t quite fit in, ‘cause she really is a funny girl, a beauty but a funny girl. She really is a funny girl that Belle” (ibid., 00:07:42-00:08:06). In addition to that, in a scene where Belle meets Gaston, we can see that the village’s inhabitants do not like people who use their brain. Gaston, the most handsome and selfish man of the village, always looks for Belle. When meeting her, he admits he does not think well of women reading books: “How can you read this? There’s no pictures. […] Belle, it’s about time you got your head out of those books and paid attention to more important things. Like me. The whole town’s talking about it. It’s not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas and thinking” (ibid., chapter 3, 00:08:14-00:08:33). According to Tolkien (2006), “Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason […] The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make” (Tolkien 2006, 144). Common sense in our society is something different than the term reason for Tolkien. Common sense we learn when being educated. Tolkien here means a different reason in

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

67

order to see the world with other eyes as Belle does. She has a heart for fantasy. Tolkien says that “fantasy is made out of the Primary World (Tolkien 2006, 147), which is the real world, in which we live. Belle has a lot of desires. She wants to live somewhere else, with people understanding her. She wants to find the love of her life. “I want much more than this provincial life [...] I want adventure in the great wide somewhere; I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand to have someone understand I want so much more than they’ve got planned” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 5, 00:19:29-00:20:03). The heart of a fairy tale, according to Tolkien, is desire (Tolkien 2006, 116). In the true fairy tale, “the primal desire [is] […] realization, independent of the conceiving mind, of imagined wonder (Tolkien 2006, 116). In the true fairy tale, this means a passive condition turns into an active one.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Belle wants to make her desires come true and not only dream of them. Tolkien explains that an “essential power of Faërie is thus the power of making immediately affective by the will the visions of ‘fantasy’” (Tolkien 2006, 122). While Freud talks about art being a form of satisfying desires (Belle does this when reading her books, it is her way to flee into a different world, a world where her desires become true), Tolkien says that our desires proceed from the primary world (Tolkien 2006, 147). Tolkien introduces the terns Primary and Secondary World. In the primary world, things can happen for “real” (Tolkien 2006, 132), while a sub-creator (maybe the author of a fairy tale) creates a Secondary World, the fairy tale (Tolkien 2006, 132). This secondary world must be experienced as “true” as well. Belle does not bother if her fantasies and her desires may come true; she just enjoys her dreams very much. She does not think her fantasies and her wishes are not important because they are not ‘real’ in the usual sense of the term. Belle makes what she desires come true. Desires are the core point of Sigmund Freud’s theory – he connects it to libido (Freud 1931, Libidinal Types, 217-220) – and for J. R. R. Tolkien the core of modern fairy stories is not possibility, but desirability (Tolkien 2006, 134). Belle, Beast and Gaston are very different characters. They can be connected to what Tolkien means with magic and enchantment. Gaston, as we have seen before, belongs to the narcissistic type and does not live out any transformation or development. He performs magic in the primary world. Belle is an example of enchantment. She likes fantasy; she lives out her desires, which derive from the primary world, but which create a Secondary World, the fairy tales. Beast makes a transformation from magic (suppression; primary world) to enchantment (transformation back into a prince; Secondary

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

68

Chapter 3

World). “Enchantment produces a Secondary World […], Magic produces […] an alteration in the Primary World. […]” (Tolkien 2006, 143).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Belle loves her fantasies, and she can make up everything she likes in her mind. After Gaston has tried to make her marry him (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 5, 00:17:27-00:18:35), she runs outside the house onto a large field and starts thinking of her wishes and dreams about life, while taking flowers into her hands (ibid., 00:19:32-00:20:03). Belle sings: “No, sir, not me, I guarantee it. I want much more than this provincial life […] And for once it might be grand to have someone understand I want so much more than they’ve got planned” (ibid., 00:19:25-00:20:03). In another scene, we learn that Belle also doubts if she does everything right in life. She trusts her father, so she also mentions her wishes to Maurice at home. In this scene, Maurice is working on his new invention. Belle asks her father: “Papa, do you think I’m odd? [...] Oh I don’t know. It’s just that I’m not sure I fit in here (ibid., chapter 3, 00:09:56-00:10:08). Maurice answers his daughter: “What about that Gaston? He’s a handsome fella.” (ibid.; 00:10:09-00:10:12). Here it becomes obvious that Belle finds Gaston handsome, too, but that she does not feel attracted at all by his soul. Belle explains to her father that she wishes there would be someone else for her: “He’s handsome, alright, and rude and conceited and ... Papa, he’s not for me” (ibid., 00:10:12-00:10:18). Belle deeply loves her books, written by authors who think like her, who love fantasy as she does, and who knows how another world, different from her own, looks. Belle especially loves one book, as she tells the man in the bookshop: “Well, it’s my favourite” (ibid., chapter 2, 00:05:10), where there is a completely new world (Secondary World for Tolkien; fairy tales) waiting for Belle to make her escape from her real-world (Primary World). Fairy tales take the “real” out of the primary world and form a secondary world. Essential is Belles desire for love, which she can find in her books again (fairy tales: secondary world). The inhabitants of the village only are interested in themselves. In the village, the woman does what the man has planned for her; Belle should marry Gaston, she should be happy he wants her. That is what the other people are thinking. They perform magic, and so does Gaston; they cannot imagine someone like Belle, who performs enchantment. When Gaston comes to Belles house to propose marriage to her, he explains what he wants from her: “[...] my latest kill roasting on the fire, my little wife massaging my feet, while the little ones play on the floor with the dogs” (ibid., chapter 5, 00:18:04-00:18:12). In order to break out of that world, Belle loves fantasy, which she finds in her daydreams, in her fantasies and literature (books, fairy tales; Secondary World). For Tolkien, “Fantasy is made out of the Primary World, but a good craftsman loves his material and has a knowledge and feeling for clay, stone

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

69

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

and wood which only the art of making can give” (Tolkien 2006, 147). Belle represents absolute beauty, while Beast, the “monster”, is ugly and aggressive. In society, ugliness is very likely excluded from our world and seen as wrong. The existence of both opposites at the same time, the combination of beauty and ugliness, is not accepted in our society. The classical aesthetic trinity of the real, the good and the beauty breaks down in modern society. Gaston and the inhabitants of the village want to kill the Beast (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 18, 01:08:44); they don’t ask what Beast’s character truly is. They are scared, without knowing Beast at all, because monsters are exclusively ugly and aggressive to the inhabitants of that village; Gaston wants to kill the “monster” mainly because of his jealousy. He suspects Belle is in love with the monster. We see that in the scene where Belle and Gaston are arguing in front of her house. Belle says: “[...] but he is really kind and gentle. He is my friend” (ibid., 01:08:26). Gaston looks extremely jealous and says: “If I didn’t know it better, I’d think you had feelings for his monster” (ibid., 01:08:26-01:08:30). Gaston is very handsome, but Belle is not interested in him at all. She would only die for Beast, the “monster”, who she loves deeply. This scene shows very clearly that the combination of beauty and ugliness is not accepted by society. When Belle and Beast develop feelings for each other, Gaston and the inhabitants of the village think Belle is crazy. Gaston says, “She is as crazy as the old man” (ibid., 01:08:34). The desire for ugliness is not accepted. Freud says that “Our civilization is entirely based upon the suppression of instincts” (Freud 1923, 5f.). Belle does have truly sexual desires, but until she finds the right man, she puts all her effort and her energy into books in order to live out her fantasies. She could have Gaston as her sexual object, but she prefers to stay alone rather than choosing him instead of the Beast: “The faculty to exchange the original sexual object for another object, no longer sexual but psychic in nature, is known as the faculty of sublimation” (Freud 1923, 7). In the film, the village cannot imagine someone can develop love and sexual feelings for a monster. Freud writes about this: “It is a crying social injustice that the cultural standard should exact from everyone the same behavior in sexual matters” (Freud 1923, 17). J. R. R. Tolkien describes what society connects with something ugly though: “[…] to us evil and ugliness seem indissolubly allied. We find it difficult to conceive of evil and beauty together.” (Tolkien 2006, 151). Like for Belle, fairy tales offer a way to “escape” from one world (Tolkien 2006, 151). At the end of Beauty and the Beast, we do not have a clear happy ending. A classic happy end would be that after the transformation, Belle and the prince would marry, but we do not have a guarantee for that. Belle and the prince dance in the castle, but this is no guarantee for marriage and nothing

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

70

Chapter 3

“universal”. This is what Tolkien explains as “Consolation of the Happy Ending” (Tolkien 2006 153). He says that “almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it. […]” (Tolkien 1006, 153). You have to consider as well that love is a lucky state which might not last forever. Maybe old feelings come back or your feelings towards the beloved person change to new feelings for somebody else. In life, there is always a chance for that. So the movie’s open ending doesn’t offer the guarantee that love can overcome any obstacle. Instead, this very particular form offers the chance that it might. Conclusion

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

It has been shown that Beauty and the Beast breaks to a great extent with traditional gender stereotypes appearing in the original fairy tale. In terms of the three types of libido introduced by Freud (1931), every character (Belle, Beast and Gaston) can be classified into one of these types. In addition to that, regarding the dynamics of subversion and containment, according to each of these types, in the film, they become gender stereotypes again. In the character of Beast, we, first of all, see the ugly and selfish monster. In the beginning, when still being a prince, this character is presented as being totally aggressive, spoiled, egotistic and narcissistic. He does not care for other people; he is in no way a desirable man internally for a woman. Only from the outside perspective, he is presented as extremely handsome. As a result, the transformation into an ugly and aggressive monster is the punishment he gets from the enchantress. The aim of this punishment is to learn to love a woman truly and to learn what it means to be loved in return. Beast in the beginning only causes fear and disgusting feelings in Maurice, Belle and later in the people of the village. Beast causes aggression and jealousy in Gaston. Throughout the film, Beast goes through a transformation from the narcissistic type to the erotic type. Step by step, he learns not only to think of himself and his needs and wishes but also those of other people. In the end, love and being tamed by Belle enables Beast not only to transfer into a human being again but also to become a desirable and lovely character, when still being a “monster”. In the end, Beast has taken the characteristics of the erotic type – to love and to be scared of losing his love (Freud 1931, 218), which is very clearly shown in the scene preparing the transformation of Beast into the prince in the end of the film (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 20, 01:16:36-01:01:18:31; chapter 21, 01:18:32-01:18:36). This implies that the monster has to be tamed to some extent in order to live together with a human being. Beast’s character also shows the very closely intermingled dynamics of subversion and containment. Still being a wild

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

71

animal and a monster, in the beginning, he does not learn immediately to control his aggressiveness and his temper. What happens is that throughout the film, Beast plays around between wild aggression and more “human” behavior, which culminates in behavior full of tenderness and love feelings for Belle. In the erotic type, you can also find a stereotype again: The shy, very sensitive and loving man with deep feelings inside him. Often artists like musicians are presented like this.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Gaston, the egocentric, handsome hunter in the village, does not change at all and fulfils throughout the whole plot gender stereotypes set up for him by the inhabitants of the village. He is handsome (beauty on the outside), but “ugly” on the inside. In the beginning, Gaston is sharing this behavior with the egocentric prince in the castle. In society, various men like Gaston can be found. This is a typical gender stereotype of many handsome men. Often this goes together with narcissistic tendencies in a person’s character, as Freud (1931) shows in his work. These men are very proud of their external beauty but often cold and rotten in their heart. Only their own opinion counts and they neglect other people’s needs and opinions. They think they are the best. What they need is the confirmation and admiration of both their body and personality by other people. Gaston thinks that Belle will be impressed by his beauty and that she will be willing to marry him. He cannot believe Belle will ever resist his “charming” behavior. During the film, Gaston does not change at all. He stays narcissistic and, as a consequence, is punished by Belle’s rejection, and at the end of the film, he is finally punished by his own death. Belle does neither represent the traditional “housemaid” nor the obeying woman being typical of the inhabitants of a small French village during the th 19 century. She does separate herself directly and strictly from her village and the people living in it. She seeks happiness and fights powerfully for making her expectations in life and love come true, until, in the end, they do. But in her blue-white dress, she looks very traditional. People in the village talk about her beautiful body, but they do not understand her way of thinking. Her “internal beauty” seems very strange to them. In her mind, Belle is presented very progressively, modern and tough. She is a girl with a strong will. She aims to flee from the real world into a fantasy world, where only in her books she finds “Prince Charming” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 2, 00:05:55). At first, she does this only in her imagination, with the help of books only. In the end, her dreams come true: She finds true love in a “monster”, which later turns back into a prince. Looking again at the concept of taming, it has been explained that Beast and Belle to a certain extent have to tame each other in order to get together and to be able to live as a loving couple. Belle, the shy, but self-confident woman, has to learn how to deal with the strange habits and characteristics of an

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

72

Chapter 3

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

aggressive “monster”, and throughout the film, her hate for Gaston and her developing feelings for the Beast help her to get tamed. The monster has to go through a much more intensive period of taming than Belle. Spoiled at the beginning of the film, the enchanted prince stays spoiled and aggressive during a very long period in the film. The enchanted inhabitants of the castle are a great help for Beast during the learning process of taming and controlling his temper. Throughout the film, they give a lot of advice to Beast to win Belles feelings and, in the end, her deep love. There are various examples for showing this throughout the film. One is the scene where Beast takes Belle from the castle’s tower to her room. Lumière (French for “light”), the enchanted candle holder tells the Beast to be nice to Belle: “Say something to her.” (Beauty and the Beast, DVD, 2010, chapter 7, 00:24:53). Another example is the scene in front of Belles room at the door. Lumière says: “Master, I could be wrong, but that may not be the best way to win the girl’s affections” (ibid., chapter 9, 00:33:45-00:33:52). Then there is the scene where Beast and Belle have dinner together in the castle (ibid., chapter 14, 00:51:51-00:52:28). Beast, with the help of Lumière, also makes Belle the best gift to show his deep feelings for her. By showing Belle this gift, Beast tames Belle to dispel the rest of her fear of the “monster” and to win her love. Beast leaves the entire castle’s library to Belle with thousands of books (ibid., chapter 13, 00:50:35-00:51:33). When showing Belle around the castle, Lumière finds out that Belle loves books and reading. She asks: “You have a library?” (ibid., chapter 11, 00:42:41), and Cogsworth answers: “ Yes, indeed. With books. Scads of books. Mountains of books. Forests of books. Cascades. Cloudbursts. Swamps of books. More books than you’ll be ever to read in a lifetime […]” (ibid., 00:42:44-00:42:53). This is, together with the scene when Beast saves Belle from the pack of wolves, the most important key scene of breaking the ice between Belle and Beast and for developing deep love for each other. References Film Trousdale, G. and Wise, K. (Director). (1991). Disney Die Schöne und das Biest (Film). Diamond Edition. 2010. 2-disc-set. Running time: 84 minutes. USA Books and essays Carson, A. (1998). EROS the Bittersweet. 1st Dalkey Archive ed. Dalkey Archive Press. Freud, S. (1920-22). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XVIII. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Group

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The Break of Gender Stereotypes

73

Psychology and Other Works. Translated from the German. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Freud, S. (1921). Being in Love and Hypnosis. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XVIII. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Group Psychology and Other Works. Translated from the German. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. 111-116. Freud, S. (1922). Some Neurotic Mechanisms in jealousy, paranoia and homosexuality. A: Jealously. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XVIII. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Group Psychology and Other Works. Translated from the German. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. 223-225. Freud, Si. (1923). Modern Sexual Morality and Modern Nervousness. Critic and guide New York: Co. 12 Mt. Morris Park W. Freud, S. (1923-1925). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XIX. The Ego and the Id and Other Works. Translated from the German. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Freud, S. (1927-1931). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XXI. The Future of an Illusion. Civilization and its Discontents and Other Works. Translated from the German. London: Vintage Books. Freud, S. (1930). Civilization and its Discontents. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XXI. The Future of an Illusion. Civilization and its Discontents and Other Works. Translated from the German. London: Vintage Books. 64-145. Freud, S. (1931). Libidinal Types. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XXI. The Future of an Illusion. Civilization and its Discontents and Other Works. Translated from the German. London: Vintage Books. 217-220. Greenhill, P. (2010) Fairy tale films. Logan. Utah: Utah State University Press. Propp, V. J. (1977). Morphology of the folktale. 2. ed. Wagner, L. A. (Ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Tolkien, J. R. R. (2006). On Fairy-Stories. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Tolkien, C. (Ed.). London: HarperCollinsPublishers, George Allen and Unwin, 1983. 109-161. Weitzman, L., Eifler, D., Hokada, E. and Ross, C. (1972). Sex-Role Socialization in Picture Books for Preschool Children. American Journal of Sociology, 77 (May). 1125-50.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Politics, Postcolonial Studies, Trolling & Subversion Practices

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

4. Looking B(l)ack: Examining the Monstrous History of Black Oppression through Racist Imagery and Artifacts Wanda B. Knight The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract Images convey history. For centuries, White oppressors who loathed Africans and their descendants created and used distorted representations of them in Western culture to tell stories about Black people and the Black Diasporic experience. To justify enslavement and exploitation, White supremacists used racist imagery and their monstrosity to portray Black people in the worst possible light, depicting them as subhuman, monsters and beasts. The malicious entrenchment and ubiquity of degrading images of black as monster and blackness as monstrous imbue the racial thinking that slavery produced. Africana Studies Professor, Maulana Karenga, notes that the effects of slavery were "the morally monstrous destruction of human possibility… redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know [Black People] through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among peoples.” This chapter looks back at a monstrous past and deconstructs the long-held master narrative of black inferiority––highlighting assumptions about black morality, civility, integrity, beauty, and intelligence––universally linked to re/presentations constructed through White peoples’ hostile imaginations. Likewise, this chapter creates a new cultural narrative, one of enlightenment, a utopian ideal, and future that is libertarian and recognizes the human potential, possibility, and humanity of Black people. Keywords: Blackness, stereotypes, racism, monstrous history, Black oppression, racist imagery

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

78

Chapter 4

4.1 Looking B(l)ack: Examining the Monstrous History of Black Oppression through Racist Imagery and Artifacts [T]his stranger brought by slavery into our midst, is hardly recognized as sharing the common features of humanity. His face appears to us hideous, his intelligence limited, and his tastes low; we almost take him for some being intermediate between beast and man. (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835)

White supremacists benefited from the image of an oppressed Black body, sorted amongst sub-humans, demons, monsters, and beasts. The statement, "we almost take [the African captive] for some being intermediate between beast and man," by French historian and political writer, Alexis de Tocqueville, reflected how Europeans and their descendants regarded people of African ancestry and how they wanted the United States and the world over to view them.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Subsequently, various authors produced books that tried to generate scientific and biblical evidence that Blacks descended from beasts rather than from human beings (Carrol 1900, Drescher 1990; Fredrickson 1971, Jordan 1968). For example, a White “American” clergyman, Charles Carroll (1900), wrote The Negro a Beast: Or In the Image of God, to bolster his argument and “prove” that Blacks and Whites are not of the same species and origin (descendants of Adam and Eve). Figure 4.1 presents an image of the cover of Carroll’s popular book. Noting phenotypical differences between Blacks and Whites in skin color, hair, skull shape, and cranial capacity, among other areas, Carroll claimed that the physical features of people of African descent were more akin to animals or primates than they were to people of European descent. Therefore, people should not treat African Americans as humans. Instead, they ought to regard them as “bi-ped animal[s]” and beasts that exist only to serve White people (Carroll 1900, 197). Further, to justify the institution of slavery and the inhumane treatment of Blacks, White oppressors who despised Africans and their offspring created and used distorted visual images (Farrington, 2005/2017) to portray Black people in the worst possible light. By identifying Africans as another species, White supremacists wanted others to consider them as subhuman, demons, monsters, and beasts. Therefore, Whites constructed visual stereotypes that exaggerated their physical features in peculiar ways: inky black skin, wildeyes, gigantic red lips, unkempt wooly hair that protruded in all directions, and other distinctive areas consistent with the idea of the grotesque. While definitions of the term “grotesque” vary, there is always an element of horror due to a strange mixture of entities, in this case, wo/man and beast.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

79

Figure 4.1: Cover of the popular book, The Negro A Beast or In the Image of God, by Charles Carroll, 1900.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Photo by author

Canvassed as horrifyingly grotesque sub-human, savage beasts, cannibalistic brutes, hypersexual predators, and threats to society, these anti-Black visual depictions of Black people took the form of material objects and artifacts. Such items included: ashtrays, banks, detergent boxes, dolls, drinking glasses, fishing lures, games, postcards with demeaning humor, sheet music, toys, and other everyday items. Figure 4.2 is an example of a postcard with degrading humor. Such racist visual representations, as shown in objects, both reflected and shaped attitudes towards Africans in “America.” Robbin Henderson (Faulkner, Henderson, Fabry, and Miller 1982), director of the Berkeley Art Center in California, stated "derogatory imagery enables people to absorb stereotypes; which in turn allows them to ignore and condone injustice, discrimination, segregation, and racism" (Faulkner, Henderson, Fabry and Miller 1982, 11). Likewise, racial distortions of Blacks supported a set of interests to uphold asymmetrical power relations and maintain the current structural inequalities characteristic of the broader society (Hall, 1997). In this

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

80

Chapter 4

instance, racial distortions of Blacks helped to spread ideas of inferiority that have negatively influenced African descendants’ material realities, land, pay and wealth in inheritance, among other areas. The malicious entrenchment and ubiquity of degrading images of Blacks and the racial thinking that the institution of slavery produced made it easier for White oppressors to commit monstrous atrocities against, perceived, sinful creatures stained with a hue of darkness.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 4.2: Vintage Black Americana 3.5 X 5.5 linen postcard, Two of A Kind, 1940.

Slavery in the United States of America began when White colonizers kidnapped and transported African captives to the North American shores, in th the 16 century. The trauma of slavery and its toll on unrealized talents and achievements of Africans in “America” cannot be measured. Africana Studies Professor, Maulana Karenga, notes that the effects of slavery were "the morally monstrous destruction of human possibility… redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know [Black People] through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly 1 human relations among Peoples” (Karenga 2001, 10).

1 Though this piece of writing focuses on the monstrous history of Black oppression during the United States “slave era,” Black oppression was not limited to the United States. Oppression was and continues to be a problem for Black people throughout the world.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

81

4.2 Images of Africans Before the “Slave Trade” Western notions concerning Blacks were entirely different before the commencement of the African “slave trade.” From classical antiquity to the Renaissance, Africans were highly regarded in Western culture (Devisse 1979, Mark 1974, Pieterse 1992, cited in Farrington 2005). For example, the ancient Greeks admired Africans and believed they were of the highest moral character. Moreover, they perceived Africans to be the favorites of the gods. Africans also held high-ranking positions in classical mythology. For example, “the Ethiopian princess Andromeda, considered a rare beauty, was rescued from a sea monster by the Greek hero Perseus, who [subsequently] married her” (Farrington 2005, 9-10). Greek vase paintings embody Andromeda’s phenotypical African features, dark skin, curly hair, thick lips, and broad nose (Farrington, 2005). Likewise, similar imagery is represented in the sculptures and mosaics of ancient Rome, which in addition to mythological scenes, present portraits of African dignitaries, workers, priests, soldiers, hunters, and musicians who occupied the Roman Empire (Farrington, 2005). “Despite the abundant evidence of Africa’s political, religious, and social history, eighteenth-and nineteenthcentury European historians, scientists, and other scholars began to refer to Africa as a land without a history” (Farrington 2005, 13). Motivated by a sense of racial and national superiority, colonial explorers presented the west with distorted accounts of Africa as an uncharted, near impermeable jungle when, in reality, it had a sophisticated system of trade routes that spanned the continent for centuries (Pieterse 1992, cited in Farrington 2005).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

4.3 Perceptions of Racial Difference: Black As Monster And Blackness As Monstrous Black/ness, having Black skin and/or is defined as Black, is usually described in relation to White/ness, having White skin and/or being characterized as White (Dyer 1997, Jay 2005, Mills 1986). European colonizers used biological differences in skin color to establish a social hierarchy and system of White supremacy and racist ideology. Further, European colonialism led to a structure of domination that privileged Europeans over Africans and White/ness over Black/ness. For example, White supremacists constructed Black/ness and White/ness in opposition to one another, with black being at one end of the continuum and white at the other end. In artistic practice, the color black is valued. However, when Whites attributed black to race, they regarded black skin as “cursed,” and believed those who were stained with the alleged monstrous hue were lowly, sinful creatures, which justified enslavement and colonization (Boime, 1990). Historians agree “AntiBlackness is at the heart of the settler-colonial project” (King 2014, quoted in Au

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

82

Chapter 4

et al. 2016). The conceptual meaning of Black/ness, which is associated with darkness symbolized by the devil, is connected to an ontological scheme of White supremacy. For instance, in 1837, historian Frederick Portal published a book on color symbolism, which eventually turned out to be persuasive in art practice. In the text, Portal singled out black for its negative connotations. He stated in his writing that black is a “symbol of evil and falsity, black is not a color, but rather the negation of all nuances and what they represent.” (Boime 1990, 2). Building upon Portal’s text, Paillot de Montabert, an artist and leading theorist on art practice of the era, wrote a manual for artists in which he developed symbolic differentiation between black and white.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

White is the symbol of Divinity or God; Black is the symbol of the evil spirit or the demon. White is the symbol of light… Black is the symbol of darkness and darkness expresses all evils. White is the emblem of harmony; Black is the emblem of chaos. White signifies supreme beauty; Black ugliness. White signifies perfection; Black signifies vice. White is the symbol of innocence, Black that of guilt, sin, and moral degradation. White, a positive color, indicates happiness. Black, a negative color, indicates misfortune. The battle between good and evil is symbolically expressed by the opposition of white and black. (Paillot de Montabert (1838), quoted in Boime 1990, 2).

Conscious of the entirely optical nature of color, Paillot de Montabert, like other artists, understood that color conveyed conclusions about one’s position in the social structure. As such, Paillot de Montabert’s binary oppositions of black and white are not neutral linguistic categories; they reflect social relationships of power and privilege. Given the taboo of Black/ness, White/ness became “a norm that had been so pervasive in society that White people never needed to acknowledge or name it” (Berger 2004, 25). As indicated by professors Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright (2009), “all binary oppositions are encoded with values and concepts of power, superiority, and worth,” consequently, “the category of the norm is always created in opposition to that which is deemed abnormal…” or monstrous (111). 4.4 Slavery and Post-Slavery Stereotypical Re/presentations of Black Americans and Their Monstrosity Racial stereotypes of Black people mar the United States society, which reinforces preconceived notions of who Blacks are and how they behave. The

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

83

portrayal of Blacks as coinciding with racial stereotypes was a familiar trope, expressed in nearly every facet of United States society during the slave era. The term “stereotype” has its origins in the print shop. Technically, a stereotype was a plate that repeats a fixed, unvarying pattern. In a social sense, a stereotype is an exaggerated image, belief, or distorted truth about an individual or a group of people (Knight 2014, Kottak and Kozaitis 2003). Stereotypes of Black people carry allegations of a fixed set of characteristics based on their group affiliation. There are no gray areas in the subject matter of stereotypes or room for nuances, qualifiers, and subtleties that might more accurately characterize Black people. Figure 4.3 is a stereotypical visual representation of a Black family, a mother, and her children that signifies that all Blacks are precisely the same.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 4.3: Vintage 3.5 x 5.5 Black Americana linen postcard with mother and children, Carbon Copies.

Photo by author.

Throughout the antebellum period in the South before the American Civil War, White oppressors created racists images of every member of the Black family, including men, women, and children (See Figure 4.4). This standard repertoire of images (Sambo, Tom, Coon, Mammy, and Pickaninny) re/presented Blacks as docile, ignorant, scared, watermelon-eating, childlike, subservient “darkies.” Proponents of slavery created and promoted these enduring racists images of Blacks to justify the monstrosity of institutionalized slavery and to sooth White peoples’ consciences regarding the horrors of such inhumane treatment. Likewise, in Lectures on the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

84

Chapter 4

Philosophy and Practice of Slavery, as Exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States: with the Duties of Masters to Slaves, William Andrew Smith (1856) stated, The Africans of this country, in common with minors, imbeciles, and uncivilized persons, have a right to be governed and protected, and to such means of physical comfort and moral improvement as are necessary and compatible with their providential condition. That which it is their right to have as slaves, it is the duty of the masters to secure to them. (Smith 1856, 282)

If the enslaved humans (as alleged) were child-like, and they were unable to govern and sustain themselves as independents, then the enslavers seemingly acted as quasi-parents to their human captives. The reason the issue of racial stereotyping is of grave concern is the fact that history has shown that stereotyping leads to scape-goating that leads to discrimination that leads to segregation that leads to physical violence that leads to state-sponsored genocide. These are lessons learned from not only the Jewish Holocaust but the genocide of Indigenous Americans and the Lynching of African Americans, etc. (Knight, 2010). In what follows, I examine predominant stereotypical, visual representations of Black men, Black women, and Black children that White supremacists constructed to distort truths about Black people and make them into fixed monstrous stereotypes.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 4.4: Vintage 3.5 x 5.5 Black Americana linen postcard that stereotypes The Whole Black Family.

Photo by author

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

85

4.5 Black Men Stereotypes of Black men functioned to emasculate them and separate them from the masculine ideals supposedly demonstrated by White men. Their alleged uncontrolled buffoonery and incivility affirms why they were “inherently incapable of achieving the masculine qualities of courage, morality, consciousness, and civility.” (Farrington 2005, 50). Sambo, Coon, Tom, and Brute were classic stereotypes of Black men that made them less worthy of the privileges of society. These stereotypes are what I explore in the upcoming sections.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 4.5: Sambo Image.

Photo by author

Sambo The Sambo stereotype was one of the most enduring and damaging depictions of Black men during the slave era. Physiognomical distortions of jet-black skin, oversized red-lips, and bulging white eyes were commonplace in visual representations of the Sambo (See Figure 4.5). Referred to as musical, dancing, laughing, lazy, irresponsible, simple acting, docile, and subservient creatures, Sambo was the typical, watermelon eating, plantation slave, according to United States Southern enslavers (Boskin 1986, Harris 2003). And though subservient and loyal, Sambo was prone to lying and stealing, and his behavior was childlike. He allegedly was unable to care for himself and needed the care of his enslaver to survive (Knight, 2006a).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

86

Chapter 4

Images of the light-hearted, dancing and singing Sambo character were influential on the politics of slavery. Persistent pictures of happy enslaved people gave Whites the sense that the Plantation was a somewhat paradise where human captives were content and willing to serve. For many United States Citizens, both in the North and South, the Sambo myth resolved both the moral and political struggle associated with institutionalized human enslavement in a free society, based on democratic ideals. As the United States moved forward toward civil war to eliminate slavery in the North, White oppressors endeavored to increase distorted representations of Blacks by creating a new caricature, the Coon, who appeared alongside the southern Sambo (Bogle, 1994).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Coon The Coon caricature was one of the “most blatantly degrading of all [antiB]lack stereotypes,” according to film historian Donald Bogle (1994, 8). The term “coon,” an abbreviation for “raccoon,” is first and foremost dehumanizing. According to Bogle (1994), “[t]he pure coons emerged as noaccount niggers, those unreliable, crazy, lazy, subhuman creatures good for nothing more than eating watermelons, stealing chickens, shooting crap, or butchering the English language” (Bogle 1994, 8). Similar to Sambo, visual images of the Coon portrayed Black men as lazy, slow-talking, inarticulate, “buffoons.” However, the Coon differed from Sambo in subtle ways, one being that he was an adult. Even so, the Coon acted childishly and dodged work and all other full-grown responsibilities (Pilgrim, 2015). Unlike the Sambo, the Coon was not particularly happy with his enslaved status; however, he was too idle and slothful to change the situation and circumstances surrounding his subhuman position. Together, the Sambo and the Coon visual images produced by Whites during the Antebellum era provided a defense of slavery, as did the Tom caricature, highlighted next (Bogle, 1994). Tom The Tom caricature was an old/er, desexualized man who was docile and nonthreatening to Whites. Usually portrayed as a wide-eyed, dark-skinned, grinning man: a cook, butler, waiter, fieldworker, or porter, Tom was a faithful, obedient, happy, domestic servant. Toms, as depicted in movies, were beaten, dogged, enslaved, hassled, pursued, and insulted. However, they kept the faith, never turned against their White “massas,” and remained “kind, sincere, stoic, submissive, and selfless, As a consequence, “[t]hey endear themselves to White audiences and emerge as heroes of sorts.” (Bogle 1994, 5-6). Loyal and happy to work for his enslaver, Tom was physically weak and needed emotional support from Whites. This attitude and behavior partly

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

87

support why the term “Uncle Tom,” in various African American communities, is used to belittle Blacks, whom they perceive as being overly subservient to Whites because of opportunism (Bogle 1994, Pilgrim 2015, Stowe 1985). Despite Tom being a model domestic servant, political debates concerning Black emancipation influenced racial hysteria of the United States “others,” which re/formed visual images and stereotypes to the new politics. Increasingly, White supremacists pictorially re/presented and labeled or marked Blacks as Brutes, as I discuss in the next section.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 4.6: Images of monstrous beasts.

The cover of Vogue Magazine portrays Black NBA superstar LeBron James as a demonic brute and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen as a helpless victim. Retrieved from https://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/lebron-vogue-cover.jpg?w=500&h=363

Brute The Brute caricature portrays Black men as beasts, animalistic, destructive savages. Though not given visual expression, Black Brutes were hideous, terrifying predators—who pursued helpless victims, especially White women (Griffith 1915, Pilgrim 2015). The dreadful crime that most Whites frequently associated with the Black Brute was rape, especially the rape of White women. Thus, there was a climate of public racial fear pervasive within United States

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

88

Chapter 4

societies, which echoed sentiments that Black monsters and beasts were deserving of punishment, perhaps even death (See Figure 4.6). For example, Thomas Dixon’s novel, “the clansman,” became a hit Broadway play, “Birth of a Nation.” This most successful “early American” motion picture sought to provoke racial violence against Black persons with justification, by visually re/presenting Blacks as beasts, played by White men in blackface, in pursuit of White virgins (Griffith, 1915). The allegation that Black Brutes were, running rampant, raping White women became a public rationalization for lynching Blacks (Pilgrim, 2015). Lynching was a means of social control that Whites used to dominate Black peoples and instill fear in Black communities (Apel, 2004). Before emancipation, there was no caricature of the savage, rebellious, Black Brute, because such a visual characterization would not be beneficial in defense of slavery. The image of Blacks that was needed (politically) during antebellum times was that of docility (Knight, 2006a). Next, I examine the stereotypes of Black women during the slave era.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

4.6 Black Women White supremacists used a particular repertoire of images to represent African American women, in both visual culture and fine art. These representations included the mammy, a desexualized faithful servant; the Tragic Mulatto, a woman who is sad and suicidal because of her mixed-race; the Jezebel; sinful, hyper-sexualized woman; and the Sapphire; domineering, emasculating, angry Black woman. Such stereotypes began in the 1800s and became extremely popular in the United States during the post-Reconstruction era between the 1880s-1890s (Farrington, 2005/2017). In the upcoming sections, I examine the stereotypical representations of Black women as Mammy, the Tragic Mulatto, Jezebel, and Sapphire. Mammy One of the most well-known and easily recognized stereotypes in United States history is that of the Mammy, sometimes referred to as “Aunt Jemima.” The Mammy image included toys, dolls, postcards, children’s books, spoon holders, cookie jars, and other everyday items. By the early Nineteenth Century, the Black Mammy had become iconographic in art and design illustrations of the Old South. Visually portrayed as a fat, pitch-Black domestic servant, with huge breasts and large buttocks, wide grin with big white teeth, and a handkerchiefcovered head to hide her kinky hair (Knight, 2006a), the Mammy archetype was the female counterpart to Tom. Whites represented her as a faithful

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

89

servant to the plantation household, and she supposedly was happy to be a domestic worker (Pilgrim, 2015). The Mammy allegedly protected and loved her White family but despised her own Black family. Too, she was happy to care for the children of her White enslaver, even though this placed her in a precarious position of nurturing her future owners. These images, showing constant contentment, emerged in support of slavery and were designed by proponents of slavery to uphold the image of a unified South. Though White racists scorned black skin, obesity, nappy hair, and thick lips, southern enslavers exploited those attributes, intentionally stereotyping the Black woman as Mammy. The exaggerated visual images of the fictitious, overweight Black Mammy in juxtaposition to the delicate portrayal of the idyllic, thin, corseted Euro-American woman constructed Mammy as the antithesis of the White “lady” (See Figure 4.7).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 4.7: Image from “Gone with the Wind”

Film with characters Scarlet O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Mammy (Hattie McDaniel). Retrieved from http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/News/gty_vivien_leigh_hattie_mcdaniel_gone_with_ the_wind_ll_120229_wblog.jpg

The Mammy lacked the “American” standards of beauty, femininity, and womanhood that would make her valued by society. Being dark-skinned and 2 obese, with her hair continually concealed by a headscarf or head rag, the

2

The headscarf (head rag) may have been a custom from Africa in which women (in some cases) were required to cover their heads for religious purposes and for other reasons.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

90

Chapter 4

Mammy was without sex appeal. Visual exaggerations of big arms, broad shoulders, ample girth, and a wide stance, relegated the Mammy caricature to qualities akin to “masculinized sub-human creatures” (hooks 1981, 71). By pictorially representing her in this manner, White male enslavers could deny their sexual interest in African American women because the Mammy’s presence supposedly did not arouse sexual tension within the household. Therefore, she was not a threat to the system of slavery (Bogle, 1994). Mammies were sexual beings, and enslavers wanted them sexually. Dairies and letters of enslaved mistresses report conflicts and disagreements within the purportedly happy plantation system that White enslavers needed to project in defense of slavery (Weiner, 1998). Overall, the Mammy stereotype was created by Whites to promote the notion that Black women had a proclivity only for domestic servant work, and that they were sexually objectionable to White men. In what follows, I discuss the myth of the “Tragic Mulatto,” the offspring of the White slaveholder and his Black, enslaved mistress. Tragic Mulatto

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The “Tragic Mulatto” was a stereotypical character of bi-racial heritage that th th emerged during the 19 and 20 centuries (Caspry 1929, Hurst 1933, Larsen 1929, Reuter 1918). Although usually represented visually as a beautiful, sexually seductive, female character, “Mulatto” (mulato in Spanish) means small mule. Such a reference to human beings was intended to be demeaning. To White supremacists and enslavers, a bi-racial human being was subhuman—nothing more than an animal (a mule—the sterile offspring of a donkey and horse), which resulted from cross-species mating. Unlike the pitch Black-skinned Mammy, the Tragic Mulatto was a lightskinned African American woman who was light enough to “pass” for White (Larsen, 1929). Within the context of slavery, being able to pass for White may have meant the difference between living a life of captivity or a life of freedom. If African Americans were as equally valued as Whites and were afforded equal access to the privileges of society, bi-racial individuals would not need to pass. In some instances, the Tragic Mulatto was not conscious of her African ancestry. Consequently, upon discovery of her Black heritage, she was excluded from White society. Denied her White skin privilege, the Tragic Mulatto’s life was doomed and bound to end in heartache and tragedy (sometimes suicide) because she did not fit into either the “Black world” or the “White world” due to her hybridity. White supremacists created the Tragic Mulatto Myth and similar visual imagery to highlight so-called personal pathologies in mixed-race individuals,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

91

including self-hatred, depression, substance abuse, sexual perversion, and suicide (Pilgrim, 2015). The Tragic Mulatto Saga also functioned as a cautionary tale for Black peoples—as White supremacists needed to perpetuate the notion that race mixing is detrimental to one’s progeny (Pilgrim, 2015). By attributing race-mixing to the perceived trials and tribulations that mixed-race individuals experience, White oppressors deny the real source of their so-called problems, which is racism. Along with the Mammy and the Tragic Mulatto, White oppressors created another stereotype of African American women, the Jezebel. The Jezebel stereotype, which I discuss, next, portrayed Black women as sexually promiscuous and immoral. This characterization emerged as a defense to the sexual abuse of Black women by White men. Jezebel

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The term “Jezebel” has biblical origins. Jezebel was the wife of the King of Israel, Ahab. In biblical history, Jezebel was perceived to be sexually promiscuous, lewd, and lustful. Subsequently, Jezebel has come to signify a hypersexual Black woman (Harris-Perry, 2011) who has beastly sexual urges she cannot contain. Diametrically opposed to the sexless, Mammy stereotype, and characterizations of White women who are portrayed historically as “models of self-respect, selfcontrol, and modesty—even sexual purity” (Pilgrim, 2015, p.104), the Jezebel is erotically alluring, sexually enticing, innately promiscuous, and predatory (Collins 2000, Jewell 1993, Moody 2012, Pilgrim 2015, West 2008, White 1999). In some visual portrayals, she is a worldly whore (Moody, 2012). The “slavery-era” Jezebel supposedly did not want sex with Black men; she only wanted intercourse with White men. Her alleged, incessant, sexual cravings and promiscuity excused and legitimized White enslavers’ rape and sexual assault against Black women and offered an underlying reason for Jezebel’s mulatto children (West 2008; West and Johnson 2013). Though some enslaved Blacks may have consented to sex with their enslavers and may have shared a mutual sexual attraction, “the rape of a female slave was probably the most common form of interracial sex” (D’Emilio and Freeman 1988, 102). White oppressors constructed the Jezebel racial stereotype to rationalize sexual relations between White men and Black women, especially sexual interactions between enslavers and African captives (West, 2008). If a Black woman did not fit the stereotype of Mammy or Jezebel, White oppressors characterized her as Sapphire, which I consider next. Sapphire The Sapphire caricature portrays Black women as being angry. All Black women are Sapphire as there are no particular physical characteristics associated with

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

92

Chapter 4

this stereotype, other than having dark skin. The mid-20th-century radio and television sitcom “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” promoted the Sapphire stereotype through the emasculating character, Sapphire Stevens (White, 1999). Sapphire is loud, tart-tongued, and belligerent. She is also a controlling, hateful, bitchy, stubborn, evil, Black woman. With a hand on her hip, Sapphire usually indulges in temperamental bouts of neck-rolling and finger-wagging during arguments. She is a bitter, mean-spirited, domineering, nagger and whiner whose complaints and criticism are not constructive. She grumbles and criticizes because she is miserable and projects her discontent upon others, particularly Black men. (Abagond 2008, Collins 2000, Harris-Perry 2011, Jewell 1993, Jones 2004, Moody 2012, Pilgrim 2015, West 2008, White 1999). This harsh stereotype of Black women by White oppressors functions to emasculate Black men, and serves as a “social control mechanism that is employed to punish Black women who violate the societal norms that encourage them to be passive, servile, nonthreatening, and unseen” (Pilgrim 2015, 121). At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States experienced unprecedented fear, loathing, and hatred aimed at Blacks. During this phase of “American” history, brute caricatures of children referred to as “pickaninnies.” emerged. These racist visual images of children follow in the discussion of Black stereotypes.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

4.7 Black Children “Pickaninny” means “small child.” Despite its Portuguese origin, the term was applied to African American children, and Pickaninny became the main racial caricature of Black youngsters for most of U.S. history. In visual representations, the Pickaninny or “child coon” appeared to be between 8-10 years old (See Figure 4.8). They had enormous red lips, unkempt hair protruding in all directions, big bulging eyes, and large mouths wherein they stuffed giant slices of watermelon (Pilgrim, 2015). Moreover, Pickaninnies were re/presented visually as being dressed in ragged, old, extra-large garments, or they were depicted sitting in or hanging from trees, crawling on the ground or by the river, moderately clothed or even stark-naked. Nudity inferred that Black children lacked parents or that Black parents neglect their children, and they are less human than Whites who wear clothes (Pilgrim, 2015). Besides, nudity sexualized Black children. Widespread visual re/presentations of their adult-sized, exposed genitalia and buttocks, normalized their sexual objectification and justified sexual abuse of Black children (Pilgrim, 2015).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

93

Figure 4.8 Vintage Pre-linen 3.5 X 5.5. Black Americana Pickaninny Postcard

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Look me over, Buddy…I’m a Real Brunette. Photo by author.

Pickaninnies, featured on postcards, posters, greeting cards, and other visual culture artifacts, were routinely shown being pursued or eaten by animals (roosters, dogs, pigs, geese, etc.), notably alligators, or they were re/presented side-by-side with animals. This kind of graphic imagery suggests that mainstream White “Americans” needed to imagine Black children as subhumans, animals, monsters, and beasts to justify violence against them based on the imminent embodied threat they posed as Black beings. The Ten Little Niggers song, adapted by Frank Green in 1869, presents influential illustrations of black males as victims, who meet their demise one by one through violent visual parody (i.e., choking on food, mauled by a bear, being burned, limbs severed, hanging, etc.) (Martin, 2004).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

94

Chapter 4

Visual images can shape young, impressionable minds. Children’s picture books, such as Coon Town and the Coon Alphabet, that stereotype and glorify the death of Black characters were a hallmark tactic to debasing Black life. These, like other popular children’s picture books of that era, promoted AntiBlack ideologies and visually re/presented Black peoples’ social realities as resulting from their actions or inactions. Such visual narratives, however, did not incorporate the monstrous history of Black oppression that has had the utmost influence on Black life and the racists stereotypical representations that created and promoted a damaging image of Black people that still exists in contemporary times (Pinar, Slattery and Taubman, 1995). 4.8 White Beasts and Monsters

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Whites supremacists construction of an idealized self-image is a chief outcome of an exaggerated derogatory image of Black peoples. This creation is both psychodynamic and cognitive as it is created by White people’s movement of negative self-characteristics to Black people (Keen, 1986). The threat of perceived enemy “others” justifies actions that might otherwise be unacceptable or illegal (Middents, 1990). Although White supremacists molded stereotypes of Black people into the shape of monster or beast, arguably Whites enslavers and their racist collaborators were the real monsters and Beasts. These foreign, White aliens from a different land invaded the continent of Africa. They kidnapped and shipped African captives to the New World from 1525 to 1866 during the “transatlantic slave trade,” causing death to one-sixth of their human “cargo.” Upon arrival, they ripped families apart on the auction block, selling them as property to the highest bidder who then held them in bondage, and made them “beasts of burden”— using brutal violence to obtain the maximum amount of free labor. Moreover, these alien monsters viciously suppressed African captives, and branded, bred, sold, chastised, whipped, murdered, and raped African men, women, and children. Further, they conspired and employed tactics to render Africans with culture and history into a historyless people. Such barbaric acts were lacking in human qualities and were akin to malevolent beasts and monsters. It is worth noting that the holocaust of slavery, which I discuss in detail later, was not an accident in history. Moreover, the creation and circulation of derogatory monstrous stereotypes and narratives about Blacks entailed more than some corrupt White supremacists with hostile racial imaginations. AntiBlackness and stereotypes of that period were based on cultural logic and monstrous intentionality (Goldsby, 2006). This statement means that “antiBlackness and all that constituted the process of marking Blacks as “less than”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

95

was viewed by White interests as a rational and necessary practice to hold in place the racial hierarchy of that time.” (Au et al. 2016, 127). The United States, founded on racism, has yet to tame its demons of White supremacy and racial discrimination. Moreover, the United States has not made reparations for the harm its purported monster oppressors caused humans of and with Black skin, and it has not embraced the humanity of Black people fully. Thus, it is necessary to deconstruct the master narrative that has positioned Blacks as monster and blackness as monstrous. Black futuristic thinking and imagination make it possible to dream, explore, create, and build a Black Utopian future. Black futurism is not merely about recovering, reclaiming, and reimagining the history of the past; it is about recovering, reclaiming, and reimagining the history of the future as well. 4.9 Recovering, Reclaiming, and Reimaging African Peoples’ History and Experiences Black Americans have been detached from their African roots for centuries. Moreover, younger generations “have no experiential means of identifying with their racial/ethnic histories and feel no compulsion to root themselves in them” (Harris 2003, 246). King Adinkera of the Akan people from Ghana, West Africa developed the concept of SANKOFA to remind African descendants that they must go back to their roots in order to progress in the future.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Sankofa” visually and symbolically represents a mythical bird that has its body positioned forward and its head rotated backward while carrying an egg in its beak that embodies the future. For African descendants to move forward, they must look back to remember what was lost, forgotten or stolen so that it can be recovered, reclaimed, preserved, and perpetuated (McClure, 2000). Remembering is more than Africans and their Diasporas calling to mind someone or something they have seen, known, or experienced in the past. Remembering is, also, gaining an African historical consciousness. It is the recollection and assembly of parts, components, and elements of dismembered selves (rejoining that which is severed) due to the scattering of cultures, languages, and peoples uprooted from Africa. Looking back and remembering the past while imagining the future, “expand[s] the boundaries of Black representation in ways that include more diverse, realistic, and empowering images and, in turn, enable[s] [African descendants] to see themselves in new ways that are divorced from dominant images" (Wright 1994, 12). The abolition of slavery and the emancipation of African captives in the United States offered a process by which steps could be taken to repair the horrific past and stop ongoing injury to African peoples. African American scholar, Maulana Karenga, provides the basis for such repair and restoration

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

96

Chapter 4

concerning injuries of Africans and their descendants in his acclaimed paper, The Ethics of Reparations: Engaging the Holocaust of Enslavement (Karenga, 2001). As stated by Karenga, the injury must be defined as “Holocaust.” Within the context of this chapter, Holocaust means “the morally monstrous act of genocide that is not only against the people themselves, but also a crime against humanity” (Karenga 2001, 2). Holocaust considers not only human destruction but signifies intentionality in their fundamental ways: “the morally monstrous destruction of human life, human culture and human possibility” (Karenga 2001, 2).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Regarding the destruction of human life, estimates suggest that White oppressors and their collaborators murdered ten to one hundred million Black human beings both individually and collectively using various vicious and brutal means (Karenga, 2001). The destruction of human culture involved the obliteration of “centers, products and producers of culture: cities, towns, villages, libraries, great literatures (written and oral), and works of art and other cultural creations as well as the creative and skilled persons who produced them” (Karenga 2001, 2). And “the morally monstrous destruction of human possibility involved redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning pasts, present and future relations with others who only know [Blacks] through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among peoples” (Karenga 2001, 2). It also entailed removing Africans from their history by limiting and denying their ability to speak for themselves and make their unique contributions to the “forward flow of human history” (Karenga 2001, 2). “Removing Africans from their history, enslaving them, and inhumanly exploiting their labor has barred and restricted Blacks from building futures and living lives of dignity and decency which is a human right” (Karenga 2001, 2). In Ancient Egypt (in Maatian ethical tradition), there is a moral obligation to heal and repair the world expressed in the following terms: 1) to raise up that which is in ruins; (2) to repair that which is damaged; (3) to rejoin that which is severed; (4) to replenish that which is depleted; (5) to strengthen that which is weakened; (6) to set right that which is wrong; and (to make flourish that which is insecure and undeveloped. (Karenga 2001, 3)

According to Karenga (2001), there are five critical pieces that must be addressed concerning a “meaningful and moral approach to reparations” (Karenga 2001, 3). These include: “public admission of Holocaust, public apology, public recognition, and institutional preventive measures against the recurrence of Holocaust and other similar forms of massive destruction of human life, human culture and human possibility” (Karenga 2001, 3). First, the United States government and its people must admit publicly to Holocaust committed against African people. Given the nature and gravity of the injury inflicted on African people, White citizens must move beyond denial

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

97

and acknowledge that “the most morally appropriate term for this utter destruction of human life, human culture and human possibility is Holocaust” (Karenga 2001, 3). Secondly, following a public discussion and admission of Holocaust, there must be a public apology by the United States on behalf of its White citizens. However, as the injured party, Africans must establish the framework for the discussion and must define the substance of the apology as it relates to holocaust as the government “maintained and supported the system of destruction with law, army, ideology and brutal suppression” (Karenga 2001, 4). Thirdly, public admission and public apology should be emphasized through public recognition (e.g. founding of institutions, construction of monuments, education through schools and universities, and through the media, etc.) focused on preserving the memory of the Holocaust of enslavement within the United States (including indigenous peoples) and the implications for humanity as a whole. According to Karenga, “until and unless [African people] receive justice in their rightful claims, the [United States] can never call itself a free, just or good society” (Karenga 2001, 4).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Fourthly, reparations necessitate compensation in various ways. These means entail not only money, but property, free health care, lodging, and no-cost education from preschool through college, etc. Further, reparations are more than compensation for lost labor, reparations concern “compensation for the comprehensive injury—the brutal destruction of human lives, human cultures and human possibilities” (Karenga 2001, 4). Finally, United States national conversations concerning reparations should consider measures to prevent the recurrence of such an enormous “destruction of human life, human culture, and human possibility” (Karenga 2001, 4). Likewise, the United States must view and approach the quest for reparations as part of African peoples’ overall struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. What Karenga outlined above requires a good and just society that cares about all human beings and their freedom and prosperity. It is only within such a context that Africans and their descendants can begin to heal genuinely and repair injuries sustained from alien others during holocaust. In the final analysis, for Africans and their descendants to fully remember their histories and live full, meaningful and productive lives in the desired world in which all deserve to live, there must be reparations. What would an ideal world for Blacks entail? While we cannot unmake history, individuals can dream of new and more egalitarian futures. Next, I envision a world anew, an Afrotopia, where reparations for holocaust serves as a harbinger of a more joyful and promising Black future.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

98

Chapter 4

4.10 Afrotopia: A Triumphant Tale of Black Dis-ALIENation and HomeLESSness Mod-eerf Dnal, Freedom Land spelled in reverse, re/presents an inversed life for Blacks in the United States (US), following reparations for holocaust, and signifies the destruction of oppression for all peoples. This inversed life is devoid of the social construct of race and lacks asymmetrical power relationships in which one-group exercises control over another. Instead, Mod-eerf Dnal is a harmonious society where all people share universal cultural values, which allows them to move forward in solidarity. Despite the diasporic experience of homelessness and alienation that once defined the condition of Africans in “America,” Blacks live in abundance, like all others, and engage in the activities they want to pursue for personal gratification rather than for economic survival and profit of others. Leaving a dispossessed past and future that White enslavers imposed upon them, Africans and their descendants experience freedom, equality, and justice and have the opportunity to lead full and meaningful lives of dignity and decency, which is a human right.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Now that race is no longer inscribed with indelible ink on individual bodies, the notion of Black/ness in Mod-eerf Dnal has changed entirely. There is respect for all forms of difference as residents have eliminated social systems of injustice and inequality, and they have rebuilt institutions that slavery destroyed. The horrific injury that affected Africans and their offspring in the dystopic United States for more than three hundred years fades in the historical memory of African peoples who were scarred potentially for lifetimes. After years of paving the way for a new and more egalitarian future, everything is as good as it can be for Black people and all other inhabitants of Mod-eerf Dnal. This ideal world is motivated by a sense of shared national pride, where utopian inhabitants provide the West and others across the globe with enlightened accounts of the alleged “Dark Continent,” of Africa. Producing and growing in the knowledge that honors the histories of Africans and their descendants, Mod-eerf Dnal’s citizens are mindful of the collective contributions of Africans and their offspring to civilization, agriculture, science, the arts, and inventions throughout the world. Through curricular teachings and other means, they demonstrate that Black peoples have contributed extensively to World civilization and that it would be nearly impossible to exist a full day in Mod-eerf Danl, or any area of the world, without benefiting from the brilliance of the Black mind and imagination. Following the United States’ Great Civil War, the industry made significant gains. Mod-eerf Dnal acknowledges that Black people made much of this

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Looking B(l)ack

99

growth possible through over 1000 significant patented inventions by 1913. These devices and designs included material objects such as the almanac, baby buggy, bicycle frame, biscuit cutter, bridle bit, clothes dryer, curtain rod, dustpan, elevator, fire extinguisher, and fountain pen. Other inventions consisted of the golf tee, guitar, hairbrush, horseshoe, ice cream scooper, ironing board, kitchen table, lawnmower, lawn sprinkler, lock, luggage carrier, the refrigerator, riding saddle, stove, street sweeper, telephone transmitter, and wagon. Later Black inventions incorporated the air conditioning unit, the cellular phone, gas mask, thermostat control, and traffic light among others. Not only are the residents of Mod-eerf Dnal aware that Africans contributed extensively to world civilization, they acknowledge that a Black woman is also the original mother. Mod-eerf Dnal celebrates this beautiful Black Goddess as the mother of the universe as all humans can trace their ancestral roots to this common female in Africa. She is the carrier of the dominant gene, and all people endure through her. As such, no group has a monopoly on beauty as dark skin, light skin, curly hair, kinky hair, straight hair, broad noses, thin noses, large lips, thin lips, and other phenotypical variations among diverse cultural groups are considered to be characteristics of rare beauty among humans, in general. Given that the human race originated in Africa, Blacks and all others affirm their African ancestral roots planted in the fertile soil of humanity within a diverse world.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Abagond. (2008). The Sapphire stereotype. Retrieved from https://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/the-sapphire-stereotype/ Apel, D. (2004). Imagery of Lynching: Black men, White women, and the mob. New Brunswick, NJ, London: Rutgers University Press. Au, W., Brown, A., and Calderón, D. (2016). Reclaiming the multicultural roots of U.S. Curriculum. New York, NY: Teacher College Press. Berger, M. (2004). Whiteness and race in contemporary art. Baltimore, MD: Center for Art and Visual Culture, University of Maryland. Bogle, D. (1994). Toms, coons, mulattoes, mammies, and bucks: An interpretive history of Blacks in American films. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Continuum. Boime, A. (1990). The art of exclusion: Representing Blacks in the Nineteenth Century. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Boskin, J. (1986). Sambo: The rise and demise of an American jester. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Carroll, C. (1900). The Negro a beast or in the image of God. St. Louis, MO: American Book and Bible House. Caspary. V. (1929). The White girl. New York, NY: J. H. Sears and Co. Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and politics of empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

100

Chapter 4

D’Emilio, J. and Freeman, E. B. (1988). Intimate matters: A history of sexuality in America. New York, NY: Harper and Row. Devisse, J. (1979). The image of the Black in western art. Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dreschler, S. (1990). The ending of the slave trade and the evolution of European scientific racism. Social Science History, 14 (3). 415-450. Dyer, R. (1997). White. London: Routledge. Farrington, L. (2005). Creating their own image: The history of AfricanAmerican women artists. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Farrington, L. (2017). African American Art: A visual and cultural. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Faulkner, J., Henderson, R., Fabry, F. and Miller, A. D. (1982). Ethnic notions: Black images In the white mind: An exhibition of racist stereotype and caricature from the collection of Janette Faulkner: September 12-November 4, 1982. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Art Center. Frederickson, G. (1971). The Black Image in the White Mind: The debate of Afro-American character and destiny, 1871-1914, New York, NY: Harper and Row. Goldsby, J. D. (2006). A spectacular secret: Lynching in American life and literature. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Griffith, D. W. (1915). The birth of a nation. Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/birt.html Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Culture representations and signifying practices. London: Sage. Harris, M. (2003). Colored Pictures: Race and visual representation. Chapel Hill, NC: London: The University of North Carolina Press. Harris-Perry, M.V. (2011). Sister citizen: Shame, stereotypes, and Black women. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. hooks, b. (1981). Ain't I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston, MA: South End Press. Hurst, F. (1933). Imitation of life, a novel. New York, NY: Harper and Bros. Jay, G. (2005). Whiteness and the multicultural literature classroom. MELUS: Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic. Literature of the United States, 30(2). 99-12. Jewell, K. S. (1993). From Mammy to Miss America and beyond: Cultural images and the shaping of US social policy. New York, NY: Routledge. Jones, V. E. (2004). The angry Black woman: Tart-tongued or driven and nonsense, she is a stereotype that amuses some and offends others. The Boston Globe. Retrieved from http://archive.boston.com/yourlife/articles/2004/04/20/the_angry_Black_ woman/ Jordon, W. D. (1968). White over Black: American attitudes toward the Negro. 1550-1812. Raleigh, NC: UNC Press. Karenga, M. (2001). The ethics of reparation: Engaging the Holocaust of enslavement. Retrieved from http://www.africanholocaust.net/news_ah/ethics%20of%20the%20holocau st.htm

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Looking B(l)ack

101

Keen, S. (1986). Faces of the enemy: Reflections on the hostile imagination. New York: Harper and Row. King, T. (2014). Labor’s aphasia: Toward Anti-Blackness as constitutive to settler colonialism. Decolonialization, Indigeneity, and Society. Retrieved from decolonization.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/labors-aphasia-towardantiBlackness-as-constituitive-to-settler-colonialism/ Knight, W. B. (2014). OMG, I have a Black bitch as my professor. Wilson, S. A. and Johnson, N. E. (Eds.). Teaching to Difference? The challenges and opportunities of diversity in the classroom. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 69-82. Knight, W. B. (2010). Never again a (K)night with Ben. Arnold, A. Kuo, A. Delacruz, E. and Parsons, M. (Eds.). G.L.O.B.A.L.I.Z.A.T.I.O.N, Art, and Education. Reston, VA: The National Art Education Association. 126-134. Knight, W. B. (2006a). Using contemporary art to challenge cultural values, beliefs and assumptions. Art Education: The Journal of the National Art Education Association, 59(4). 39-45. Knight, W. B. (2006b). E(raced) bodies: In and out of sight/cite/site. Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, 26. 323-345. Kottak, C. P. and Kozaitis, K. A. (2003). On being different: Diversity and multiculturalism in the North American mainstream. 2nd ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Larsen, N. (1929). Passing. New York, NY: Albert A. Knopf. Mark, P. (1974). Africans in European eyes: Portrayal of Black Africans in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Europe. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Martin, M. (2004). Brown gold: Milestones of African American children’s picture books 1845-2002. New York, NY: Routledge. McClure, M. (2000). Sankofa one must return to the past in order to move forward: A film review by Michelle McClure. Black camera: A micro journal of black film studies.15(1). 9. Middents, G. (1990). Psychological Perspectives on Enemy-Making. Organization Development Journal. Summer. 44-48. Mills, C. (1998). Blackness visible. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Moody, M. (2012). Jezebel to Ho: An analysis of creative and imaginative shared representations of Black women. Journal of Research on Women and Gender. 3(1). 74-94. Pieterse, J. (1992). White on black: Images of Africa and Blacks in western popular culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pilgrim, D. (2015). Understanding Jim Crow: Using racist memorabilia to teach tolerance and promote social justice. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Pinar, W., Reynolds, W., Slattery, P. and Taubman, P. (1995). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Reuter, E. B. (1918). The mulatto in the United States. Boston, MA: Badger. Smith, W. (1856). Lectures on the philosophy and practice of slavery, as exhibited in the institution of domestic slavery in the United States: With the duties of masters to slaves. Nashville, Tenn: Stevenson and Evans.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

102

Chapter 4

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Stowe, H.B. (1985). Uncle Tom’s cabin. New York, NY: Modern Library. Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture. Oxford, UK: Oxford University. Weiner, M. (1998). Mistresses and slaves: Plantation women in South Carolina, 1830-1880. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. West, C. M. (2008). Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, and their homegirls: Developing an ‘oppositional gaze’ toward the images of Black women. Chrisler, J., Golden, C. and Rozee, P. (Eds.). Lectures on the psychology of women. 4th ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. 286-299. West, M. and Johnson, K. (2013). Sexual violence in the lives of African American women: Risk, resilience, and response. Retrieved from http://vawnet.org/sites/default/files/materials/files/201609/AR_SVAAWomenRevised.pdf White, D.G. (1999). Ar’n’t I a woman. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company. Wright, A. (1994). Black film review. (8)1. para12.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

5. Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: From Monstrous Threats to Rorschach Opportunities Vassilis Galanos University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract This chapter critically explores elements of the monstrous expressed within various contemporary discourses on Artificial Intelligence, contrasting them with historical examples of social monsterization. While an increasing amount of scientific experiments explores the production of autonomous, self-aware robots with relatively little or no success, future studies speak of the potential rise of superintelligent robots, which might be responsible for world domination, after completely outsmarting humans in their mental capabilities. Robots are further accused of being the main origin of future human unemployment. Undeniably, robotic, and AI technologies are undertaking a crucial developmental step; thus, debates on future speculation are expanding in an exaggerating manner. All arguments drawn against the potential evolution of artificial entities bare significant resemblances with argumentation against groups who have been monsterized and enslaved for being “others” (gendered or colored people, immigrants, children, animals, plants). I hereby question the ethical impact of enslavement and monsterization of the seemingly conscious inanimate and inorganic, drawing from lines of thought rejecting human and animate superiority, such as object-oriented ontology and the philosophy of information. Finally, I suggest that this climate of excessive hybridity offers an opportunity for responsible technical development and reflection upon what human desires, hopes and (mostly) fears are projected on AI and robots. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Social Monsterization, Robotics, Slavery

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

104

Chapter 5

5.1 Introduction and Chapter Overview: Of Human Genes and Unseen Machines “[…] but the monster is lurking in the background observing and learning, as you're walking through life you feel something in the air, something ain't right, appearing live in your dreams […] Beware of the monster! Are you aware of the monster?” (Strange U 2013)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Became a monsta, guess it's just the fury of men […] Abused and mistreated indeed” (Monsta Island Czars 2014)

Technological visions about robotics from the last decades appeared to suggest that robots will be the slaves of tomorrow. Should robotic enslavement be such an uncomplicated matter, today, humans should already live in the desired techno-utopia. However, robots appear before collective imaginaries as both exotic/fascinating and alien/horrifying. With effect: our behavior towards a possible human-robot society is similar to our days of past-future when historically predominant social groups encountered the possibility of cohabitation with the exotic (which literally means “outer,” “unfamiliar”), as when Europeans had to form societies with “savages,” heterosexuals having to live with homo/bi/intersexuals and humans having to respect animal rights. Now, organic (“living”), thinking beings confront the possibility of sharing their environments with non-organic, “artificially-made” thinking, entities: robots with artificial intelligence (AI). In other papers I have explored the role of prestigious non-experts in the distortion of public understanding of AI and robotics and the establishment of an AI-asexistential-threat narrative (Galanos, 2018a), the general impossibility of defining AI (both “artificial” and “intelligence” have been thoroughly criticised as very vague and impractical terms; Galanos, 2018b), as well as the collective psychological dangers of promoting a polarised pair of contradictory commands about AI/robotics (AI is good for you/AI will mark your end; Galanos, 2017). Primarily, this paper's central contribution to this line of argument is to express the ways our human understandings of the monstrous are projected onto the shadowy image of a future human-robot society, and, as I intend to show, that the greatest hazard entailed in the potential emergence of strong artificial intelligence (AI) is not the latter's domination over humanity, but conversely, humanity's repetition of morally unacceptable behaviors. Moreover, I am inclined to believe that this outlining of monstrous elements in AI will contribute to the general understanding of the “monstrosity” as a novel, and prior to the present volume, relatively under-

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

105

researched social (sociological, sociolinguistic, sociotechnical, sociopolitical, and so on) concept.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The paper consists of the following three sections: Chapter 1 functions as an introductory presentation of (a) my main hypothesis, namely that the current technical development of AI and robotics entails the possibility of it appearing as unethical enslavement of monsterized subjects whose imagined moral agency (and future technical development) is taken for granted; (b) my terminology and stance towards AI, drawing from contemporary critical theory ranging from Agamben's “bare life” and Braidotti's “zoē,” to ActorNetwork Theory's (ANT) counter-dichotomous ontological perspectives and Floridi's info-centric understanding of the world; as well as (c), my attempt to define the concept “monstrous” in relation to AI. Chapter 2 is a tripartite overview of the robotic monsterization process, explaining and defending the previous chapter's claims. Robots-becoming-monsters are traced in their appearances within (a) science fiction and popular culture, (b) factual scientific progress in AI which I associate to cyborg technologies for reasons thoroughly justified in chapter 3, and (c) academic speculation of future (mostly dystopian) potentialities, greatly responsible for the robo-phobic attitude I observe. Chapter 3 includes a brief concluding synopsis of the previous findings, as well as an attempt to argue against robotic monsterization through the proposal of a more pattern-oriented, instead of entities-oriented, worldview (if all is in an evolutionary continuum, nothing should be monsterized), and the opportunity of robot monsterization to act as a projecting screen for our own current hopes and fears, that being a call 1 for responsible development of the technologies .

1

I should hereby mention that for this paper's scope I make no semantic distinctions between terms like AIs (plural), artificial agents (forms of AI, sophisticated enough, allowing us to assign agency to them), automata (unintentional machines fulfilling programmed tasks), artificial general intelligence (AGI, or the distinction between “weak” and “strong” AI, categorizing between non-sentient forms of AI in the former case and self-aware, intentional forms in the latter), androids (a androcentric designation which means man-looking, almost same etymology with the self-referential anthropos, the “one that has the looks of a man”) and gynoids, or robots (literally meaning “slaves,” thoroughly explained in the next subchapter). There are several arguments questioning the validity of each and everyone of these terms; however, I will be using the terms AI/robots in a relatively interchangeable manner on the pragmatic basis that when monsterized, AI and robotics tend to be used in such a manner. When the rest of the terms are used, this is done to place emphasis on certain contexts.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

106

Chapter 5

5.1.1 The Slavery Hypothesis as a Sociopolitical Turing Test

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Most sociologists treat machines (if they see them at all) as second class citizens. They have few rights. They are not allowed to speak. And their actions are derivative, dependent on the operations of human beings” (Law 1991, 16)

Since the rise of Homo sapiens, human thought has been busy in maximizing all efforts towards the desired minimization of all efforts, i.e., the end of all (manual) labor, and the achievement of a utopian society inhabited solely by Platonic philosophers-kings. Given that “u-topian” (literally: ground-less) is nearly synonymous with the impossible, humans were incredibly inventive in finding erratic arguments for avoiding hard labor, such as working-class discrimination and labor differentiation according to sex, race, ability, age, physical appearance, or cultural background. These can be viewed as successors of Aristotle's peculiarly celebrated theory of “slaves by nature,” appearing in his Politics (Smith, 1983). The result was that according to some criteria established by dominant majoritarian groups, so-called minorities were treated like tools or objects (in Aristotelian terms) in order to fulfil hard and routinized tasks. A series of liberating political movements (feminism, Black Panthers, animal rights activism) or critical theory discourses (Queer Theory, Land Ethics, and so on) aimed at treating the totality of living beings (human, animal, plant) in somewhat equal terms. “It is a historical fact that the great emancipatory movements of postmodernity are steered and fueled by the resurgent 'others': the women's rights movement; the anti-racism and de-colonization movements” (Braidotti 2013, 37). The final frontier for lazy humans to skip work should then be the creation of non-living “others” (objects per se), that would think like humans or living beings, being slaves without being enslaved. The idea of a sophisticated robot was then born. Flusser's following passage is a synopsis of all the “traditional” rhetoric about the emergence of a robo-utopia, where humans will be liberated from frightful labor, having loyal, intelligent machines at their disposal: “It will ultimately be possible to build machines that will replace human work in all fields, and people will be 'free.' Machines will be the slaves of the future, and all human beings will become subjects of history, as they are freed from alienated labor.” (Flusser 2014, 15, written in 1991, expressing reflection formulated mostly throughout the 1970s and 1980s)

In the seminal article “Man-Computer Symbiosis,” Licklider describes his future image of human mental superiority and control over computers as a form of synergy: “Men will set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine the criteria, and perform the evaluations. Computing machines will do the routinizable work that must be done to prepare the way for insights and decisions in technical and scientific thinking” (1960, 5). Aaron Sloman's

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

107

concluding pages of his 1978 classic book “The Computer Revolution in Philosophy,” act as an early and yet deep philosophical counter-argument on the development of future human-robot societies as they were described above. The last page reads:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“History suggests that the invention of such robots will be followed by their exploitation and slavery, or at the very least racial discrimination against them. [...] Either they will be forcibly suppressed, or, perhaps worse, their minds will be designed to have limits” (Sloman 1978, 273)

Similarly, in his groundbreaking 1950 article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Alan Turing also pictures the probably negative attitude of human children towards their machine-learning robotic classmates in a future school: “one could not send the creature to school without the other children making excessive fun of it” (1950, 456). Both of the two presented stances towards robots, robo-phile and robo-phobe, express the origins of robotic monsterization within academic discourses. Hence, I hold that the potential negation of the taken-for-granted-ness of the robot-slave image in the name of an over-intelligent robotic entity appears to be horrendous and monstrous in the eyes of human beholders – who will lose their final opportunity for being served. Turing, in the aforementioned article, proposes his very famous test, eventually named after him, for studying the indistinction and performance of robots (and humans). The test is simple: A human interrogator exchanges typewritten messages with two entities while she is not able to see them. Of the two subjects, one is human, and the other is machine. If a time-point is reached when the interrogator cannot tell who is a robot and who is human, the machine has passed the test (Turing 1950, 433434). There have been numerous variations of the test throughout the years, specifying its conditions for equally numerous purposes, such as testing AI software limitations or even competitions in programming. Space limitations do not allow for a thorough presentation of such variations (also technical applications and misinterpretations) of the test. However, it should be noted that by presenting a way to challenge the indistinguishability between a human and an AI/robot, the test’s popularity, in fact, perpetuates the idea that humans and robots are members of a class which are comparable and potentially in conflict. This implicit potential exclusion of AI/robots from the class of “tools” and their placement in the class of “entities comparable to humans” through a seminal scientific publication is interwoven with the anthropomorphic image of robots in science fiction, thus fuelling an unjustified (in terms of actual technological capabilities) fear towards robots. The main ontologico-political stance kept throughout the paper is an antispeciesist one, based on ANT's flat ontology which continuously criticizes dichotomous explanations of phenomena – and more specifically as this anti-

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

108

Chapter 5

speciesist position was kept in the 1991 volume “A Sociology of Monsters.” In his introduction to the book, Law expresses laconically all questions about the social position of the machine: “Sociology may know about class, or about gender. But how much does it know about speciesism – the systematic practice of discrimination against other species? And how much does it know or care about machines?” (1991, 6-7). The inclusion of human-machine relation issues within the speciesism scope is genuine. Dominant humans have organic genes, and they have allied with anything alive, possessing genes – women, androgynes, animals, plants, planets. Machines remain unseen, for they have no genes, they are inorganic, “non-living,” “undead zombies.” They can be categorized within the various cults of monstrous curiosities showing traces of life, albeit they have none. Ghosts, vampires, mummies, demons, and robots, are all the monstrous images one receives when browsing for pulp/cult/vintage/horror online pictorial material. Robots as monsters, monsters as slaves, and (therefore) robotic slaves, offer a valuable projection screen for humans to understand what they desire and fear about their own mechanization and enslavement. However, blaming the technology for this does not help. The technological apparatus has been mistaken for a teratological apparition. Before proceeding with the analysis of monsterization and anti-monsterization, we should first attempt at understanding what AI is and what the notion of the monstrous is (notions equally difficult to understand). 5.1.2 AI does not Exist: From Zoocentricism to Infocentricism

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“'We only found it today. It's as large as life and twice as natural!' 'I always thought they were fabulous monsters!' said the Unicorn. 'Is it alive?' 'It can talk,' said Haigha, solemnly.'” Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There “But, surely, the interesting question is what entitles us to attribute intentionality to non-machines in the first place? What makes our description of human intentionality other than metaphorical?” (Woolgar, in Law 1991, 91)

To the extent that our current knowledge of what constitutes natural and artificial, or intelligence and non-intelligence, is dramatically insufficient, we may humbly proclaim: AI does not exist (Galanos, 2018b). As Braidotti puts it, the “human is a historical construct that became a social convention about 'human nature'” (2013, 26), ergo, I paraphrase saying that AI and robots are also historical constructs, and have become a social convention about “artificial culture” opposed to “human nature.” The more we delve into the ill-defined meaning of abstract conceptual pairs as natural/cultural, given/constructed, or authentic/artificial, the more they collapse semantically. The same is true for the slippery phenomena of “consciousness,” “awareness,” and “intelligence,”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

109

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

which, when studied in conjunction with the previous binary pairs become even more confusing (and context-based or subjective), but most importantly, they verify human's minor position in the game of uniqueness. As Sloman synopsizes cynically, “[t]he debate is silly because the correct answer is obviously ‘Yes and No’” because on the one hand humans’ so far known uniqueness is verified due to their abilities to prove “theorems about infinite structures“ or “make tools to make tools to make tools to make tools … to make things we use for their own sake” while, on the other hand, because of the vast amount of evidence on their alikeness to other animals, humans are not unique at all (Sloman 2013, 11-12). As he further asserts, we still know very little of our nature – even the subjects behind the pronouns “we/our” are debatable. For now, the vast majority of humans prioritizes “life” as the fundamentally protected value, so as long as something does not possess life, it instantly becomes devalued and degraded. However, several recent discourses have been criticizing the value of life per se, and as Braidotti says, “we may want to start by introducing some critical distance from the allegedly self-evident value attributed to 'Life' in our culture” (Braidotti 2013, 133). Agamben's differentiation between “bare life/zoē/zēn” and “life proper/bios/eu zēn” “(that is, between life in general and the qualified way of life proper to men), contains nothing to make one assign a privilege or a sacredness to life as such” (Agamben 1998, 42). Braidotti refers to zoē as well, as “the transversal force that cuts across and reconnects previously segregated species, categories and domains” (2013, 60). Agamben argues that this moral predominance of quantitative life (as in the cases of overpopulation) has dethroned the qualitative value of living properly. Building on Agamben's thinking, we may argue that we do not only witness the overproduction of bare life within the human sphere, but we also encounter the development of possible production of “life proper” (that is: intelligence) within entities who do not participate in the “bare life” of a zoo-sphere. As the world has allowed for participants of natural zoē without the cultural bios, it may also allow for the creation of beings partaking in bios without being participants of zoē. A monster! Luciano Floridi's oeuvre (1999, 2010, 2014) consists of a philosophical system, introducing a rich collection of neologisms for describing contemporary reality as it is readdressed through the increasing availability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Floridi proposes that despite our humans, robots, cyborgs, plants, or rocks, in a broader categorical designation, we are all inforgs, informational organisms whose value and identity is protected according to our informational exchange. Inforgs are inhabitants of the infosphere, a noetic habitat beyond the premises of zoo-centric biosphere, where intelligence is prioritized to life: “the whole informational environment

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

110

Chapter 5

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

constituted by all informational entities, their properties, interactions, processes and mutual relations” and also “synonymous with reality, once we interpret the latter informationally,” (Floridi 2014, 41). My view of intelligence as an (epi)phenomenal process also echoes Gregory Bateson's Ecology of Mind (1972, 1979), where within a given system (“ecology”) there is a general Mind (capitalized “M”) taking place and several connected minds (lowercase) constitute the whole. Intelligence does not exist within a human brain or a computer’s central processing unit but is the outcome of interacting subsystems. Intelligence does not exist: it happens, in the sense that it cannot be mine, yours, the tree's or the machine's, but a collective activity understood differently by each component. These two theories, Bateson's ecological perspective on system theory and Floridi's infocentricism, act as resonating arguments against the very nature of AI per se, and its discrimination on behalf of human intelligence. According to McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester, and Shannon's 1955 classic definition, AI is the “conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it” (McCarthy et al., 2006). Advanced AI, thus, should prove that our celebrated human intelligence might be perceived as replaceable. Haraway, referring to Marilyn Strathern, who “taught us why conceiving of 'nature' and 'culture' as either polar opposites or universal categories is foolish,” proposes to think “in terms of 'partial connections;' i.e., patterns within which the players are neither wholes nor parts,” calling “these the relations of significant otherness” coining the term naturecultures (Haraway 2003, 8). We could similarly witness the disappearance of the line separating intelligence from non-intelligence. If there is any intelligence at all, then all is intelligent – and if anything is natural, then everything is natural (and the same applies with the words “non-intelligent” and “artificial”). Any further marking with the “artificial” or “unnatural” stigmata becomes nonsensical. In Braidotti's posthuman predicament, machines play an important role as further inspiration to think of humanity's transcendence and disposition from its centrality. Echoing Guattari's machines, she is proposing a “radical redefinition of machines as both intelligent and generative” (Braidotti 2013, 94). Machines “have their own temporality and develop through 'generations': they contain their own virtuality and futurity. Consequently, they entertain their own forms of alterity not only towards humans, but also among themselves, and aim to create meta-stability, which is the precondition of individuation” (Braidotti 2013, 94). I will return to this human-machine amalgamating symbiosis in Chapter 3, while for now, we should explore the meaning of the monstrous in the light of AI.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

111

5.1.3 Deterritorializing Teratologies: Becoming-Monster, Becoming2 Nonrecognizable, Becoming-Omen “I said 'I think they might also be what are called “hopeful monsters”.' She said 'What are hopeful monsters?' I said 'They are things born perhaps slightly before their time; when it's not known if the environment is quite ready for them'.” (Mosley in Law 1991, 1) “The new discourse is no longer that of the form, but neither is that of the formless; it is rather that of the pure unformed. To the charge 'You shall be a monster, a shapeless mass,' Nietzsche responds: 'We have realized this prophecy'” (Deleuze 1990, 107)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Occasioned by the robotic monsterization, I hereby offer a patchwork of notions and perspectives that have formed my understanding of the monstrous. According to my view, this has gradually lost something of its traditional intrinsic evil, as shown in various aspects of popular culture and literature, in cases where the monster has a “good heart,” as in the movies Beauty and the Beast, Shrek, Monsters Inc. So, what is the quality of the monstrous? To capture the monsters’ shape-shifting concept, we need to encircle it from very many diverse sides. Skeat's etymological dictionary of the English language is a revealing point of departure: “MONSTER, a prodigy, unusual production of nature […] Lat. monstrum, a divine omen, portent, monster. To be resolved into mon-es-trum […] from mon-ere, to warn, lit. to make to think […] see Man, Mind.” (Skeat 1888, 376). Etymologically related to man and mind, and being a natural product (albeit, unusual), the monster is a verification of the previously mentioned proposals for the non-polarized naturecultural continuum. The unusual makes us think and warns us of ourselves, for being a product of nature, like us, it is nothing but an alternative version of us, one of our grotesque potential becomings. AI is monstrous because we see in it something by definition natural since nature allows its existence, still, unusual due to our profound association of intelligence with organic life, an omen for all the potentialities of the human project: mechanization, extinction, cohabitation with robots, enslavement. The Greek version of “monster,” “τέρας” (“teras,” recognizable in the prefix “tera-” as in “terabyte”) simultaneously

2

This chapter's title is an obvious reference to Deleuze & Guattari's chapter “BecomingIntense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible” (2013, 271-360), as well as a reference to the authors' concept of deterritorialization, the liberating transcendence from a previous ground settlement, both physically and metaphorically.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

112

Chapter 5

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

meant the monstrous, the deformed, the gigantic and huge, and again, the future sign. The more monstrous an entity, the more radical the social change will be, sooner or later, and, like the ancient monster Hydra, the more we try to decapitate it the more its repelling message will be emitted. The more ahead of its time is a monster, the more our attempts of be-heading it will end up in vain. Merleau-Ponty, who was very selective in each word used in his “Phenomenology of Perception” has used the term “monstrous” in one single passage, and I permit myself to propose this as a possible introduction to a phenomenology of the monstrous. Describing a hypothetical observer moving around a lying person, he analyzes the process as the observer switches positions around the bed. Meanwhile, due to the change of perspective, the whole appearance changes, until it becomes completely inverted: “the face becomes monstrous, its expressions become frightening, the eyelids and eyebrows take on an air of materiality that I had never before found them to have” (Merleau-Ponty 2013, 263). The monstrous becomes nothing but the consequence of a perspective shift. Perhaps monsters do not “appear” by themselves, they do not invade our world with dominating intentions. Instead, in a Copernican fashion of revolutionary displacement, we are the ones shifting positions, beginning to perceive our Kuhnian paradigmatic worlds differently. Non-recognizable materiality of the concrete expressions of our alternate selves, followed by a shift of perspective: that is the monstrous. Robots are made according to our intelligence's image; however, we now observe them from an alternative point of view, without focusing on our attributes projected on them, but their mechanizing traits projected on us. The more we become unable to recognize our own characteristics in them, due to our shift of perspective, the more frightful they become. Similar to the phenomenological visual nonrecognition, Paul Craenen explores what he denotes as sonar monstrosity, identifying monstrosity with transformative extraordinariness and ecstatic saturation. According to him, the “metaphors of monstrosity and diabolism share an aesthetic desire for the metamorphosis of the ordinary into the extraordinary. Another characteristic of the sound ideal of saturation is the destruction of instrumental identity“ because when “different instruments are played all at once with excessive energy, the individual identity of instruments sometimes becomes difficult to trace” (Craenen 2014, 214). Too many signals of information result in higher degrees of chaotic-yet-harmonious flat white noise. The replaceability between humans and robots, the sonar saturation of simultaneously heard robotic and anthropic voices results in yet another reason for perceiving the robot-human co-existence as monstrous, driving us to relate the monstrosity of the previously exiled woman from the human societies. In other words, the greater the confusion between different

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

113

categories, the more monstrous the results because one does not feel the comfort of easily classifying entities. The practical difficulties in classifying mixed-up entities at the institutional level have been explored by Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars such as Brown and Michael (2004) who speak of “risky creatures,” that is, species developed within institutions whose constant change of boundaries renders them uncategorizable, problematic, and monstrous. A recent example has been explored by Haddow et al. (2010), in the case of xenotransplantation cybrids. While, at first sight, monsters appear to be rejected by institutions, selves, or bodies, perhaps at a closer look, the notion of monstrosity is created when an institution desires to reject what is found unfitting to existing schemes. STS theorist Susan Leigh Star summarized the feminist perspective for understanding the concept: “Monsters are the embodiment of that which is exiled from the self” (Star in Law 1991, 54). In her brief observations of pairs comprising of monsters and females (a theme repeatedly occurring in the 1960s and 1970s pulp teratological culture), she concludes that the monster figure expresses the lost untamed expressions of the self, exiled in the form of monstrous scapegoats:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Some feminist writers have argued that monsters often represent the wildness which is exiled from women under patriarchal domination, perhaps the lesbian self, and that apparently dichotomous pairs as Beauty and the Beast, Godzilla and Fay Wray are actually intuitions of a healthy female self” (Star in Law 1991, 54)

To paraphrase: Robots-as-monsters is the embodiment of that which is exiled from the non-automated human. We may argue that automata represent the automatic, liberated, imaginative, unconscious, Freudian expression which is exiled from human under Cartesian rational domination. In a sense then, the cyborg (human+apparatus) self, and human-machine or organic-inorganic popular pairs (cooperating or hostile) as Sarah Connor and the Terminator, Pygmalion and Galatea, Jet Jaguar and Godzilla, C-3PO and Luke Skywalker are actually intuitions of a healthy cyborg self. Law draws the parallels between machines and other suppressed, monsterized minorities by explaining that the notion of gender constitutes a device for the distribution of pain; hurting the society as a whole (no matter which type of gender). Similarly, “the speciesism of our discrimination against machines hurts us just as much as it hurts the machines that we confine, in a second-order way, to the mechanical margins of our human civilisation” (Law 1991, 17). Monsterization is a process. Given that, it is expected to have an expiration date (or, better: a demonsterization period), only to be replaced by a novel process. Like intelligence, which as we saw, it just happens, there are no monsters per se, inherently disgusting, unsettling creatures, but only periodical monstrous patterns of changing agents, as long as something appears to be new

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

114

Chapter 5

and unfamiliar. Flusser offers a unique model, mixing laws of physics with aesthetic terms for creating a proportional analogy in describing the (r)evolutionary cycle of monstrous/ugly/terrifying/novel turned into attractive/beautiful/settling/commonsensical. He sees the emergence of terror as a circular succession of habit, an ugly-beautiful-pretty-kitsch-ugly infinite transformation chain of perceptions (2002, 56). Habit transforms anything new and unsettling to the novel value of beauty, which is turned into the commonsensical and canonical prettiness, until it finally degrades to the highly probable level of banality – fostering a new expression of terror: “Everything that is new is terrible, not because of what it is, but because it is new. The degree of terror may be taken as a measure of novelty: the more terrible, the newer” (Flusser 2002, 51). Later, Flusser relates this process to the second law of thermodynamics, that is, the tendency towards increasingly probable situations, suggesting that the feelings of terror and the monstrous are outcomes of this process (hence, bearing similarities to Craenen’s aforementioned assertions about sonar monstrosities). Ugliness and terror here can be taken as synonymous to the monstrous. The newer, or the more prophesying, a subject is, the more it will be received as monstrous and terrible. In their becoming-omen of what is to come, robots become frightful to the eyes of the human beholders, as they force us to navigate through previously uncharted areas of human transcendence. The acceptance of the novel is never an easy task, and “demanding” is probably a euphemism: “The transformation of terror into beauty demands effort” (Flusser 2013, 73). Law further suggests that monsterization is a social process involving a certain number of steps: (1) initially, “the dispossessed have no voice at all,” (2) until they eventually get a voice but become derided, (3) and then ”they are told that they are wrong, or they are told that this was something that everyone knew all along.” (4) Later on, the society labels them as endangered and makes efforts to protect them, until (5) they are actually ”heard and taken seriously. And it has been a struggle all the way” (Law 1991, 2). We should note here that in this passage Law does not speak of machines and that if we are to apply this series of steps with regard to the monsterization of AI/robots, the subject should be the redemption of what AI/robot images symbolize in human societies. Let us recapitulate the elements of the monstrous provided in our brief endeavor with the topic. The monster is the non-recognizable, the in-formative yet form-less, shaping the society by being shapeless. It is there, but you fail to describe it, for you are unaccustomed to its structure or your novel perspective. It is the unusual and the improbable, a warning about the possibility of a rearranged reality that will demand considerable effort to sustain than the amount we are willing to spend. Inescapable terror of the forthcoming. The invisible giant, the invincible oracle, the unknown monster, aka the teras incognitum. Keeping with the monstrum's etymology, that which “makes us

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

115

think,” AI appears to transform into a process making humans think about imaginary posthuman becomings, paths, and potentialities. Due to machinic computerized efficiency and precision, their prophetic properties becomes more frightful than any of the previous minorities. Yesterday's monsters are today's beauty pageants, and today's robots are tomorrow's dominant species. Or are they?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

5.2 Foundations of Robotic Monsterization in Science Fiction, Scientific Fact, and Scientific Fiction Li and Du (2008, 1-20) offer an inclusive and detailed history of AI in academic and scientific discourses, spanning from the 1950s to the present day, tracing its starting points at the 1956 Dartmouth Symposium and Alan Turing's seminal 1950 aforementioned article. The purpose of the initial AI workings was the experimental simulation of human intelligence by machines; hence, it is safe to claim that monsterization was not apparent as a phenomenon at this stage. However, in our hypercomplex sociotechnical web of relations, where the “aesthetic” and the “fictitious” are inseparable from the “scientific” and the “factual,” we need to trace robo-phobic symptoms beyond science and academia. Robotic monsterization can be observed since robotic AI's very early appearance in science fiction throughout the last couple of decades (late 1990s to 2010s) future and risk studies which present themselves mostly as science fact as opposed to science fiction. This chapter, then, is divided into three subsections of AI appearances: one is dedicated purely to science fiction, one is presenting a respectful amount of contemporary actual technological achievements in AI, and one containing future speculative teleological academic perspectives. I believe that these three categories, even if not exhaustive (mostly due to the continuous development of AI-related technologies paired to an overall hype surrounding it, and because of the monstrous amount of robotic appearances in literature and film), are the building blocks of contemporary monsterization or robots. 5.2.1 Science Fiction: From Čapek to CHAPPiE The notion of a constructed mechanized nonliving-yet-lively-looking simulation of a human originates in mythology and science-fiction. Wikipedia articles (List of Fictional Robots and Androids, n.d., Artificial Intelligence in Fiction, n.d.) offer very detailed, constantly enriched, listings of robotic characters in ancient legends, theatrical plays, literature, cinema, and television broadcasts. Robots, androids/gynoids as we know them, appeared in fiction roughly at the beginning of the 20th century. I say roughly, because the robots of the Čapek brothers were biological, but nevertheless “artificially” constructed human-like entities: “It was not until 1917 when Joseph Capek [sic] wrote the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

116

Chapter 5

short story Opilec [sic] describing automats [sic] and 1921 when his brother Karel Capek [sic] wrote the play Rossum’s Univeral Robots (RUR) that the concept of robotics entered the popular consciousness […] The term robot is derived from the Czech word, robota, meaning serf or laborer” (Hockstein et al. 2007, 113). Our artificial companions have almost, by definition, been baptized by the fire of enslavement. Braidotti puts it in a depressingly straightforward way: “The literature and cinema of extinction of our and other species, including disaster movies, is a successful genre of its own, enjoying broad popular appeal. I have labeled this narrow and negative social imaginary as techno-teratological” (Braidotti 2013, 64). Science fiction literature tattooed the mark of the beast onto the bodies of our technological reflections. The most classic example of robotic condemnation in science fiction is Isaac Asimov's development of the “three laws of robotics,” supported later by an extra “zeroth” law, appearing in several of Asimov's mid-twentieth century novels and short stories, and their purpose was to demarcate what robots ought and ought not to do, always serving humanity's interests:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Law zero: a robot may not injure humanity or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm. Law one: a robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. Law two: a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law. Law three: a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law” (Asimov in Challacombe et al. 2006, 121)

As said, now that robots become steadily more “reality” than “fiction,” these apparently well-constructed absolutes appear weak and contradictory. Simple questions arise: What if a human threatens another human, and it is up to the robot's choice to exterminate the former human? Who controls the robot? Does moral responsibility actually fall only within a single actor, human controller or robotic servant? It seems that Asimov's laws have generated a series of ambivalent expressions in fictions – to control the mechanic entities meant to have either potential loyal servants or vicious vengeful opponents of humanity: “Asimov conceived his laws of robotics to impose order on the free will of his fictional robots. Since then, robots have been widely depicted in literary and cinematic fiction, sometimes as man’s [sic] friend (Star Wars), but often as man’s [sic] enemy (The Terminator)” (Hockstein et al. 2007, 114, Hogan and Whitmore, 2015). In more recent examples of fiction, the technooutsider role of the robot becomes debatable. In the post-2000 era, blockbuster AI-related films are intriguing and challenging the audience, questioning instead of answering, with robo-protagonists as in Ex Machina or in The Machine. Robots and AI can now be subjects of Hollywood love either in human-robot relationships (as in Her) or in robot-robot affairs (as in Wall-

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

117

E), in the same way that gruesome monsters of medieval folktales have been progressively replaced by cute Pokémon (Pocket Monsters) and the characters of the Monsters vs Aliens film. We cannot yet tell whether such an image is all too anthropomorphic. Furthermore, until anti-speciesism is well-established as much as antisexism, it is too early to tell whether the stereotypical androcratic image of the “femme fatale” has now been reincarnated in the sexed mechanized female robot which has become a “her ex machina”. What we encounter in today's Hollywood could be the posthumanist passage from a sexist motion picture industry with the feminine body as an object of desire to a speciesist industry with the dispensable robotic body or AI application as an object of desire: “Wounded by flesh-and-blood women, Theodore needs a female voice designed to soothe and assure. For a man who signs his life with Xs and Os, a woman made of zeroes and ones. […] This is science-fiction OS 2.0: the app assistant as dream girl.” (From a review for the movie “Her,” Corliss 2013, see also Gilchrist 2013)3

One may assume that 21st century AI films open the field of possibilities for generating new redefined understandings of love, caring, and affection, beyond the human-human relation, reaching to the human-machine. I do believe, however, that if the overall message is perceived holistically, as inseparable from factual technological progress and theoretical speculation on the topic, the taste left is rather pessimistic and, nonetheless, monsterizing.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

5.2.2 Recent Advances: From Deep Blue to Google Atlas and from Conscious Robots to Everyday Cyborgs AI's technological evolution is accelerating, although presented in an exaggerated manner. The detailed and very-well organized volume by Markowitz (2015) is a great introduction to the contemporary variations of robot and AI technology and its social dimensions. To conduct an analytical review of the constantly renewed bibliography would be, if not aimless, at least beyond this article's scope. Instead, I have collected some recent exemplar constructing clusters, or building blocks, that if studied in conjuncture, pinpoint to the hype surrounding the autonomous robotic emergence; as shown elsewhere (Galanos, 2018a), while these advancements are parts of ongoing projects dating back several decades, the recent hype is an interesting amalgamation of small technological advances exaggerated

3

Although, I should mention that Her is probably a very realistic film, providing with no assumptions about the AI’s moral or ontological status, focusing just on the protagonist’s feelings towards the app.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

118

Chapter 5

through public influential commentators and science fiction. For reasons I will explain along the way, I include references to further advancements in the fields of cyborgization and prosthetics, despite the unorthodoxy in relating these technologies with AI.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

A crucial step in the establishment of technical robotic monsterization was taken when the Deep Blue chess computer defeated the chess world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 (Campbell, Hoane and Hsu, 2002). The humanly unique strategic decision-making could be fully mimicked and computerized, questioning humanity's predominance over the planet. After 1997, a large AI discussion followed comparing chess with its Chinese cousin game, Go, which is much more complicated and abstract, demanding semantic skills on behalf of the player in order to adjust to the game's unpredictable flexibility of movements. Google DeepMind's AlphaGo program recently defeated the European Go champion, based on a very advanced system of neural networks, currently one of the leading trends in AI (Silver et al. 2016, 57). Google Atlas (De Waard et al., 2013) becomes the massive human-like reflexive robot, prepared to be used as either a robotic helper or soldier. Facebook's deep learning server appears to be the most promising learning system, a “breakthrough“ in AI (Novet, 2015). As if they intended to reply to Turing and Sloman's passages regarding robots' social involvement in school (quoted in Chapter 1), Goertzel and Bugaj (2009) and Goetzel et. al. (2010) experiment with their OpenCogBot, an embodied automaton with learning abilities preparing to send it to preschool among other human children. Among the most fascinating aspects of AI technology, brain simulation has a very important place. The idea to perfectly simulate the brain is tempting and fearful for it simultaneously evokes humanity’s godly power to make images of themselves and at the same time our humbling position when it is proven that the precious “gift” of mental processes can be reproduced without any mystical force. The Human Brain Project (HBP) presented a simulation of a juvenile rat's brain, as part of an ongoing European Union-funded project aimed at the complete digital reconstruction of the human brain (Markram 2006, Markram et al. 2015, Costandi 2015), pretty similar to the United States-funded BRAIN initiative. On a similar, but not identical, track, Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (RAIR) Laboratory presented a “robot passing a simple selfawareness test” (Hooton 2015, Millward 2015). Based on the development of machine learning, the extended debate on the nature of self-awareness and consciousness reoccur. Albeit the test has been considered to be ambiguous in its terms, one should not forget, as I explained earlier, that the whole discourse about consciousness is equally ambivalent. My pragmatic proposition aims to

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

119

tackle the question of artificial consciousness via an alternative route, namely, the questions posed by the development of cyborgized humans. Similar hypes exist towards the other end of the spectrum, this is, not in machines becoming more human, but humans becoming more machine. Nigel Ackland, an amputee wearing one of the latest most advanced prosthetic arms appears as a perfect example for real-life hi-tech cyborgs who do not only enjoy the benefits of a fully functional replacement, but also of the ones of extended abilities (Kobie, 2016) – for instance, his wrist may rotate 360 degrees and can be removed and replaced with a single move. The impact of those two minor skills appear to be tremendous for a human's daily life – and thus make his YouTube videos increasingly popular. Moreover, cyborgization goes beyond the replacement of missing limbs like arms and legs, scaling to fields of brain prosthesis for restoring and enhancing memory (Berger et al. 2013, Astakhov 2008), artificial hearts (Joyce et al., 1985), and sensory extension or artificial synesthesia (Solon, 2013). Through cyborgization, humans will also escape the realm of the life-death dipole, being more technical creatures, therefore, less “human”:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“as heart failure no longer furnishes a valid criterion for death once life-support technology and transplantation are discovered, so brain death would, hypothetically speaking, cease to be death on the day on which the first brain transplant were performed. Death, in this way, becomes an epiphenomenon of transplant technology.” (Agamben 1998, 93)

A novel ethical dilemma concerns the right to become a cyborg intentionally, even if the prosthetics are not given as a solution to a bodily malfunction – for instance, if one wishes to replace her organic arm with an artificial one (possibly inspired by Ackland's or another cyborg's presentations), will she be allowed to do that? When asked about the topic, Ackland is categorical and straightforward: if one has the money and the will, one should do it (Kobie, 2016). What aspects of mechanized robo-monsterization lie behind such quandaries? Would the enhanced human become a monster for the rest of society? The question concerning cyborgian technologies and the indeterminate stance towards the right of becoming mechanized highlights another aspect of the monsterization process as related to the emergence of the “new” and unsettling. One of the most honest responses so far is Haddow et al.‘s concept of the “everyday cyborg” (2015), based on empirical case studies with patients wearing such devices. After examining cases of potential technological malfunctioning (something which is far more usual than the existence of a “perfect” technology), Haddow et al. conclude that the “willingness to become cyborg is contextually dependent” (Haddow et al. 2015, 486). Unquestionably, the current state of AI development concentrates chiefly on military practices, hence, to the human mind, intelligent machines have a good

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

120

Chapter 5

reason to be associated with fearsomeness. In its Heraclitan heredity, war is the father of all, so, as with most of the ICTs historical instances, war determines the goals for AI, and the current task is not the creation of cyber-philosophers, but the birth of the mechanical super-soldier. In her holistic presentation of human transcendence, Braidotti touches the machinic aspect mainly via the Economist's (2012) influential article on the impact of robots and AI in war, as in the cases of unmanned vehicles and robot sodiers (Braidotti 2013, 124-125). As she notes: “The Economist points out other advantages of posthuman warfare and argues that autonomous robot-soldiers could do more good than harm: they would not rape women, burn down civilian dwellings in anger or become erratic decision-makers under the emotional stress of combat” (2013, 126). Despite its realism, this view seems to be the opposite of the most predominant view, i.e. robotic militants of a future dystopian image, where robots have taken control – an image nurtured by the 20th-century classic catastrophological science fiction, inspiring the groundless robo-phobic speculations presented in the next chapter. 5.2.3 Academic Fiction: From Unemployment to Superintelligence

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Machinery, like everything else, can only teach what it practises. Order, exactitude, persistence, conformity to unbending law – these are the lessons which must emanate from the machine […] Variety is the essence of life, and machinery is the enemy of variety” (Hobson 1919, 351)

In the transdisciplinary intersection between AI's scientific reality and science fiction, lies the academic discourse of AI future studies. I hereby examine how robots become monsterized throughout the viral declarations of so-called experts – prestigious people from varying backgrounds (academia, business industry, science, and more) publicly stating their personal opinions (often taken as scientific facts) regarding the future of AI. I argue that their de facto acceptance as experts by the public opinion renders the image of the robot monstrous. This tendency has accelerated after 2010 due to the technical progress outlined above. As part of a longer narrative building on the hypothesis of humans being overruled by machines, several scholars prominent in fields other than AI/robotics practical applications, are promoting a negative image of the technology (more on this phenomenon of “expanding experts” and previous similar narratives in Galanos, 2018a). Physicist, cosmologist and Nobel-prize receiver Stephen Hawking predicted that the end of mankind will be marked by AI (Cellan-Jones 2014, Hawking et al. 2014). Philosopher Nick Bostrom foresees the “superintelligent” entity: “any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest,” possibly imposing a human existential risk (Bostrom, 2014). Müller and Bostrom (2016) estimated after surveying people of different expertise with interests in AI that the overall

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

121

human ability will be reached by 2040-50 (with a probability of 50%) and by 2075 (90%). The World Economic Forum's estimations of unemployment caused by the development of AI and robots by 2020 “assumes a total loss of 5.1 million jobs” (Reuters and Prigg, 2016). “Elon Musk, billionaire co-founder of PayPal, and the boss of boss of Tesla and SpaceX, fears that Artificial Intelligence is advancing so fast that humans may end up being house pets for robots” (Cook, 2016). Online and offline panic is expanding like a viral disease, and during this expansion, robotic monsterization escapes science fiction and becomes part of reality. The argument can be constructed very easily:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

A superintelligent robotic agent will constitute a rare-yet-easily-reproducible species, which will be way more interesting than a common human of our overpopulated civilization. It will logically become easier to substitute one human by a robot, as the latter will become increasingly cheaper. A human employer will tend to prefer a robot employee since the robot is (a) financially beneficial and (b) a “slave by nature.” It should then probably be expected that the demand for robotic slaves will increase – and the more accessories, gadgets, advanced software, and general potentialities will open for the robotic realm, the more complex tasks will become solvable. Humans then will fear the possibility of becoming incompatible within the environment's novel needs, outscored by robots – that might obtain free will and rebel against their taskmasters. And such a dramatic future vision, stemming from the growing expansion of AI academic fiction, consolidates the association of the concept “monster” with the concept “robot.” “Robo-apocalypse,” or, in Parisi's term, the robocene (2014, 25). The argument can be deconstructed very easily: The confrontation between proponents and opponents of AI has recently been exclusively analyzed and critiqued by Floridi (2015). He proposed the two poles as churches: Singularitarians on the one hand (believers in the singularity argument, i.e. the complete robotic autonomy and self-awareness in AI, which will soon be supposedly achieved, regardless the positive or negative quality of its consequences), and AItheists on the other (deniers of the argument). The aforementioned examples of academic AI fiction fall under the singularitarian category, and as I prefer to subdivide them further, they form a subcategory of pessimist Singularitarians. Despite the fact Floridi sympathizes with the AItheist stance, he cannot deny the possibility of robotic singularity. However, since humanity is still kept within a critical distance from such a hypothetical point, any further discussion of our future attitudes becomes pointless. As Floridi correctly remarks: “Singularitarians tend to prefer futures that are conveniently close-enough-to-worry-about but far-enough-not-to-be-around-to-be-proved-

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

122

Chapter 5

wrong” (2015, 8). More ethical discussions have been generated in recent years 4 which can be related to robotic monsterization. However, the incredible lack of empirical evidence in any of those proposals is indicative of the overly speculative nature of such debates. An emergent social/ontological complex condition of not-yet-robots-but-partly-mechanized-humans and not-yethumans-but-apparently-intelligent-machines, is on the horizon, raising questions about our self-projections in the future and how such imagined futures shape the human present. 5. 3 From Illusions to Conclusions and from Hybrid Monsters to a High 5 Breed of Cyborgs: To Have Done With the Human/Machine Dichotomy “Today monsters remind us of the exclusion of the human from life, of life that is more and more being divided from humanity; of the ways in which 'total humanization of the animal coincides with a total animalization of man'” (Agamben, quoted according to Kunst in Novak 2010, 101)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“[W]e are all monsters, outrageous, heterogeneous collages. And we will understand [...] how it is that we might work towards a form of modest, multivocal organisation, where all could be reborn as hopeful monsters – as places where the necessary incompatibilities, inconsistencies and overlaps come gently and creatively together” (Law 1991, 18-19)

So far, I aimed to explore (without claiming any complete exhaustion of the polyvalent topic) multiple levels of what is and what has determined robotic monsterization. This has been shown through (a), critical argumentation against the very concept of AI (as an ill-defined term, at least in its sociological and philosophical context) and its relation to the monstrous; and (b), by a number of examples in science fiction, recent developments in AI/robotics R&D, and academic disciplines who have targeted and stigmatized robots as (potentially) harmful; establishing a hegemonic Manichean distinction between humans and machines. This type of sharpness is the main adversary of this concluding chapter. Contemporary critical theory advocates inbetweenness and middle states, in its polemics against absolute distinctions and polarized oppositions. While the mainstream imaginary appears to monsterize AI and robots as something comparable, yet alien and harmful to 4

The growing amount of theoretical frameworks in regard to ethics in robotics (also know as Roboethics) is a very good start toward this direction (for instance, Capurro et. al. 2006, Capurro and Nagenborg 2009, Veruggio and Operto 2008, and especially Petersen 2012). 5 The present chapter's subtitle is a tacit reference to Antonin Artaud's book “To Have Done with the Judgment of God” (1975).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

123

humans, it appears more sensible to think of the two categories, as constitutive elements of the same ecology. Whether one will borrow elements from the other, or whether in various imagined futures there will be harmful differences between humans and robots, it is far too early to speculate. Pragmatically speaking (as in the pragmatism of William James, 2004), such a difference will not make any difference in any later event, so that any form of monsterization of robots on behalf of the human is senseless (unless it serves entertainment). Both humans and robots (but also every other conceivable entity) already coexist in context-based spectrums. What is needed, is more emphasis on AI/robotics practical specialists‘ views on these technologies‘ social dimensions, something which, as shown in the various bodies of literature used so far, is apparently lacking.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“You work like a machine.” “This machine thinks like a human.” Our transspeciesism is en route. As of today, the percentage of fuzzy/blurred representations of such entities is quite numbered, but this should logically be expected to change. “Not all of us can say, with any degree of certainty, that we have always been human, or that we are only that” (Braidotti 2013, 1). In conclusion: to overcome the monsterization caused by sharp dichotomies and its consequent repetition of our euro/andro/anthropo-centric mistakes, we should acknowledge the virtue of hybridity, and befriend the possibility of a progressive erasure of human/machine borders. Perhaps what strikes us the most during the emergence of hybrid human/robot agents is the loss of “pure,” “ideal,” “immutable” Platonic forms. Hybrids are, by definition, monstrous. A “hybrid” in ancient Greek cults symbolized the monstrous incarnation of “hubris,” the profanity against divine cosmic order. To be a hybrid meant to be cursed. Harris offers a historical account on hybridity’s shift of meaning. He showed how initially the word was used in a rather positive manner as a horticultural term referring to the ”deliberate crossing of different plants and crops to create entirely new species within agriculture”. Eventually it came to mean the very controversial racial intermixing between humans depending upon “(a) the assumption that human beings are all part of naturally separate and pure racial ‘streams’ (Caucasian, black, etc.) and (b) that, implicitly or explicitly, their mixing or hybridisation created unnatural or even monstrous new categories of people” (Harris 2006, 147). Hybridization, like stigmatization, becomes synonymous with monsterization at the moment when delineating pairs of dipoles are worshiped as immobile godly idols. Nicholas Rose, in his analysis of “life itself” (familiar to Braidotti's zoē and Agamben's bare life), describes the hegemonic regime's mechanism for locating and controlling the so-called “high-risk groups,”. He explained that such groups “emerge” only after the establishment of a binary set of “normal”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

124

Chapter 5

and “pathological” conditions of subjects: “The binary distinctions of normal and pathological, which were central to earlier biopolitical analyses, are now organized within these strategies for the government of risk. […] There are strategies for the management of high-risk groups” (Rose 2001, 7). Anything beyond normal is risky, in the same manner, that anything beyond human is a monstrous beast or pathological hybrid; risky for the rest of the population. To be considered risky is to be monstrous. And bidirectionally: I am monstrous; therefore, I am risky. For reasons shown in Chapter 2, robots and cyborgs satisfy both of the two propositions: due to the anti-robotic tendency, they can be seen either as risky-hence-monstrous or monstrous-hence-risky. The main difference between other monsterized (anti)social entities (gendered humans, animals, extraterrestrials) and robots/cyborgs is that their creators and designers are, nonetheless, playing a crucial role in their development. In the case of AI, we are not “invaded” by aliens (terrestrial or extraterrestrial), but we actually construct our companion species, with an implied intrinsic Saturnalian fear of being surpassed by the novel created species, devoured by our “artificial” children. We need to locate the “high-risk” quality in our human selves, before projecting it towards the emergent highbreed species. Hence, science fiction author Philip K. Dick's 1972 essay on “The Android and the Human” becomes more relevant than ever:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“But is not ourselves that we know first and the foremost? Rather than learning about ourselves by studying our constructs, perhaps we should make the attempt to comprehend what our constructs are up to by looking into what we ourselves are up to” (Dick 1995, 184).

The more we study our creations, the more we will learn about ourselves, and the more we know ourselves, the more responsibly our advanced tools will be constructed. Machine-learning applications are not machine but human-learning as they learn from human data input. This is the only feasible and foreseeable equilibrium to be reaced between humans and machines. “The posthuman predicament is such as to force a displacement of the lines of demarcation between structural differences, or ontological categories, for instance between the organic and the inorganic, the born and the manufactured, flesh and metal, electronic circuits and organic nervous systems” (Braidotti 2013, 89). Yes; but this is not an excuse for resentment, resignation, or extreme excitement. It is rather a call for responsible innovation. We should always be reminded of our responsibility as species of ecology but at the same time the primacy of the ecology over the species. Hence, instead of focusing on which entity is going to replace another entity, we should focus on the general demonsterization within the social for maximizing the prosperous conditions for all members. Upon accepting the taxonomically unsettling as the norm, we are invited to think of a constantly

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

125

renewable, demiurgeous high breed of cyborg patterns instead of monstrous, catastrophic hybrid entities. In 1981, Sherry Turkle showed through a series of empirical investigations that computers act exactly as Rorschach inkblots used by psychologists for patients to project their hopes and fears (Turkle, 1981). The same can be said about AI and robots and like Turkle suggested in her article, what we need is a critical reexamination of what our desires are before we let our projected futures of AI/robotic technologies be technically implemented into actual products.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer. Stanford University Press. Artaud, A. (1975). To have done with the judgment of God. Black Sparrow Press. Artificial Intelligence in Fiction (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved 25-04-2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_in_fiction Astakhov, V. (2008). Mind Uploading and Resurrection of Human Consciousness. Place for Science?. NeuroQuantology 6.3 Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University of Chicago Press. Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Dutton. Berger, T. W. et al. (2013). Reverse engineering the brain: a hippocampal cognitive prosthesis for repair and enhancement of memory function. Neural Engineering. Springer US. 725-764. Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford University Press. Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Polity Press. Brown, N. and Michael, M. (2004). Risky creatures: institutional species boundary change in biotechnology regulation. Health, Risk and Society, 6.3. 207-222. Capurro, R. et al. (2006). Ethics in Robotics. International Review of Information Ethics. 6.12/2006. Retrieved 05-02-2015 from http://www.i-r-ie.net/inhalt/006/006_full.pdf Capurro, R. and Nagenborg, M. (2009). Ethics and robotics. IOS Press. Cellan-Jones, R. (2014, December, 02). Stephen Hawking Warns Artificial Intelligence Could End Mankind. BBC News. Retrieved 12-05-2015 from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540 Challacombe, B. J. et al. (2006). The history of robotics in urology. World journal of urology, 24.2. 120-127. CHAPPiE (2015). British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 06-09-2015 from http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/chappie-film Cook, M. (2016, June 11). Unless We Act Quickly, Humans Will Be House Pets to Robots, Says Elon Musk. BioEdge. Retrieved 12-06-2016 from http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/unless-we-act-quickly-humans-will-behouse-pets-to-robots-says-elon-musk/11913

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

126

Chapter 5

Corliss, R. (2013, October, 12). Spike Jonze's Her: Falling in Love With the IT Girl. Time. Retrieved 12-05-2016 from http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/12/spike-jonzes-her-falling-inlove-with-the-it-girl/ Costandi, M. (2015, October, 08). Fragment of Rat Brain Simulated in Supercomputer: Blue Brain Project Announces Results of a Decade's Work. Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. Retrieved 25-10-2015 from http://www.nature.com/news/fragment-of-rat-brain-simulated-insupercomputer-1.18536 Craenen, P. (2014). Composing Under the Skin: The Music-Making Body at the Composer's Desk. Leuven University Press. De Waard, M. et al. (2013, April). Analysis of Flat Terrain for the Atlas Robot. 3rd Joint Conference of AI Robotics and 5th RoboCup Iran Open International Symposium (RIOS). 1-6. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense. The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2013). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Bloomsbury. Dick, P. K. (1995). The Android and the Human. The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick. Sutin, L. (Ed.). Pantheon Books. 183-210. Economist, The. (2012, June 2). Technology Quarterly: Robots on the FrontLine. 4-20. Floridi, L. (1999). Information Ethics: On the Philosophical Foundation of Computer Ethics. Ethics and Information Technology. 1.1. 33-52. Floridi, L. (2010). Information: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Floridi, L. (2014). The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality. Oxford University Press. Floridi, L. (2015). Singularitarians, AItheists, and Why the Problem with Artificial Intelligence is H.A.L. (Humanity At Large). not HAL. Sullins, J. (Ed.). Philosophy and Computers. 14.2. 8-11. Flusser, V. (2002). Writings. University of Minnesota Press. Flusser, V. (2013). Post-history. Univocal. Flusser, V. (2014). Gestures. University of Minnesota Press. Galanos, V. (2017). Singularitarianism and Schizophrenia. AI and Society 32.4. 573-590. Galanos, V. (2018a). Exploring Expanding Expertise: Artificial Intelligence as an Existential Threat and the Role of Prestigious Commentators. 2014-2018. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management (published online). Galanos, V. (2018b). Artificial Intelligence Does Not Exist: Lessons from Shared Cognition and the Opposition to the Nature/Nurture Divide. Kreps et al. (Eds.) 13th IFIP TC 9 International Conference on Human Choice and Computers. HCC13 2018. Held at the 24th IFIP World Computer Congress. WCC 2018. Poznan. Poland. September 19–21. 2018. Proceedings. Switzerland: Springer Nature. 359-373. Gilchrist, T. (2013, December 17). Her Review: Spike Jonze's Sci-Fi Love Story Rethinks Romance. The Verge. Retrieved 14-05-2016 from

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

127

http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/17/5218374/her-review-spike-jonzeimagines-what-its-like-to-fall-in-love-with-a Goertzel, B. and Bugaj, S. V. (2009). AGI Preschool: a Framework for Evaluating Early-Stage Human-like AGIs. Proceedings of the second international conference on artificial general intelligence (AGI-09). 31-36. Goertzel, B. et al. (2010). OpenCogBot: Achieving Generally Intelligent Virtual Agent Control and Humanoid Robotics via Cognitive Synergy. Proceedings of ICAI.Vol. 10. Haddow, G., Bruce, A., Calvert, J., Harmon, S. H. and Marsden, W. (2010). Not ‘human’ enough to be human but not ‘animal’ enough to be animal – the case of the HFEA, cybrids and xenotransplantation in the UK. New Genetics and Society. 29.1. 3-17. Haddow, G., King, E., Kunkler, I. and McLaren, D. (2015). Cyborgs in the everyday: Masculinity and biosensing prostate cancer. Science as culture. 24.4. 484-506. Haraway, D. (2003). The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Prickly Paradigm Press. Harris, J. (2006). Art History: Key Concepts. Routledge. Hawking, S. et al. (2014, May 01). Stephen Hawking: 'Transcendence Looks at the Implications of Artificial Intelligence - But are we Taking AI Seriously Enough?'. The Independent. Retrieved 12-05-2015 from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawkingtranscendence-looks-at-the-implications-of-artificial-intelligence-but-arewe-taking-9313474.html Hobson, J. A. (1919). The Evolution of Modern Capitalism. Walter Scott Publishing. Hockstein, N. G. et al. (2007) A history of robots: from science fiction to surgical robotics. Journal of robotic surgery. 1.2. 113-118. Hogan, M. and Whitmore, G. (2015, January 8). The Top 20 Artificial Intelligence Films in Pictures. The Guardian. Retrieved 06-09-2015 from http://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2015/jan/08/the-top-20artificial-intelligence-films-in-pictures Hooton, C. (2015, July 20). A Robot has Passed a Self-awareness Test. The Independent. Retrieved 25-07-2015 from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/a-robothas-passed-the-self-awareness-test-10395895.html James, W. (2004). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. Retrieved from Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5116/5116-h/5116-h.htm Joyce, L. D. et al. (1985). Summary of the World Experience with Clinical Use of Total Artificial Hearts as Heart Support Devices. The Journal of Heart Transplantation. 5.3. 229-235. Kobie, N. (2016, June 6). Inside the World of Techno-fetishism where People Suffer 'Prosthetic Envy': Wired Meets Amputees with High-tech Bionic Limbs to Discuss the Worrying Trend. Wired. Retrieved 13-07-2016 from http://www.wired.co.uk/article/techno-fetish-prosthetic-bionic-envy

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

128

Chapter 5

Kunst, B. (2008). Restaging the Monstrous. Bleeker, M. (Ed.). Anatomy Live. Amsterdam University Press. Law, J. (1991). A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. Routledge. Li, D. and Du, Y. (2008). Artificial Intelligence with Uncertainty. Chapman and Hall/CRC. Licklider, J. C. R. (1960). Man-Computer Symbiosis. IRE Transactions of Human Factors in Electronics. HFE-1. 1. 4-11. List of Fictional Robots and Androids (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved 25-04-2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_robots_and_androids Markowitz, J. (Ed.). (2015). Robots that talk and listen: technology and social impact. Walter de Gruyter GmbH and Co KG. Markram, H. (2006). The blue brain project. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 7.2. 153-160. Markram, H. et al. (2015). Reconstruction and Simulation of Neocortical Microcircuitry. Cell. 163.2. 456-492. McCarthy, J. et al. (2006). A proposal for the Dartmouth summer research project on artificial intelligence, August 31, 1955. AI Magazine. 27.4. Retrieved 02-02-2016 from: http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/1904/1802 Merleau-Ponty, M. (2013). Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge. Millward, D. (2015, July 18). Robot Passes Self-awareness Test: A Simple Experiment has Shown that Robots have Greater Self Awareness and Deductive Powers than Previously Thought. The Telegraph. Retrieved 25-072015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11748084 /Robot-passes-self-awareness-test.html Monster Island Czars (2003): Became a Monsta. Escape from Monster Island! [Audio CD] Metal Face Recordings. Rhymesayers. Müller, V. C. and Bostrom, N. (2016). Future progress in artificial intelligence: A survey of expert opinion. Müller, V. C. (Ed.) Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence. Synthese Library. Springer. 553-570. Novak, J. (2010). Monsterization of Singing: Politics of Vocal Existence. New Sound-International Magazine for Music. 36.2. 101-119. Novet, J. (2015, December 10). Facebook Open Sources its Artificial Intelligence Server. Venture Beat. Retrieved 13-12-2015 from http://venturebeat.com/2015/12/10/facebook-open-sources-its-artificialintelligence-server/ Parisi, D. (2014). Future Robots: Towards a Robotic Science of Human Beings. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Petersen, S. (2012). Designing People to Serve. Lin, P. et al. (Eds.). Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics. MIT press. 283-298. Reuters and Prigg M. (2016, 19 January 2016). Robots and Artificial Intelligence will Kill off Five Million Jobs by 2020 – and Women will be Worst Hit. Daily Mail Online. Retrieved 02-02-2016 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3404547/Robots-newworking-ways-cost-5-mln-jobs-2020-Davos-study-says.html

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Teratological Aspects in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

129

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Rose, N. (2001). The Politics of Life Itself. Theory, Culture and Society. 18.1. 1-30. Silver, D. et al. (2016). Mastering the Game of Go with Deep Neural Networks and Tree Search. Nature. 529.7587. 484-489. Skeat, W. W. (1888). A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Clarendon Press. Sloman, A. (1978). The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science and Models of Mind. The Harvester Press. Sloman, A. (2013). AI in a New Millennium: Obstacles and Opportunities. Retrieved 27-08-2015 from http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/papers/sloman-ijcai05manifesto.pdf Smith, N. D. (1983). Aristotle's Theory of Natural Slavery. The Phoenix. 37.2. 109-122. Solon, O. (2013, October 30). The Cyborg Foundation: We Urge You to Become a Part-Machine. Wired. Retrieved 25-11-2015 from http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/30/cyborg-foundation Strange U (2013). Monster. Aliens in Suits. [MP3 & FLAC Recording, Online release]. Par Excellence Music. Turing, A. M. (1950). Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind. 59.236. 433-460. Turkle, S. (1981). Computers as Rohrschach: Subjectivity and Social Responsibility. Sundin, B. (Ed.). Is the Computer a Tool? Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell. 81–99. Verbeek, P.-P. (2011). Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things. University of Chicago Press. Veruggio, G. and Operto, F. (2008): Roboethics: Social and Ethical Implications of Robotics. Springer handbook of robotics. Springer. 1499-1524.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

6. Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity. The Difference between Negative and Positive Consideration about Monsters Andrea Torrano CIECS-CONICET-UNC, Argentina

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract In this article, I will consider monstrosity as a political category from a biopolitical perspective. According to the most prominent thinkers on biopolitics, I can understand the monstrosity as an objective of biopower that 1 aims to control and eliminate it (Agamben, Esposito), or as subjectivities that resist appropriation by biopower and create life in common (Hardt and Negri), and produce powerful and insurgent ways of life (Haraway, Braidotti). I will analyze these two orientations about monstrosity and its relation with the power through the expressions: “Politics over monstrosity” –the subjectivities that are constituted as monsters by the biopower- and “Politics of monstrosity” –the capacity of some subjectivities to confront the biopower and create forms of life that do not reproduce the capitalist system and the gender hierarchy. I will emphasize the possibility of a “communality of monsters”, a way of common life where singulars are in permanent transformation and open to others. This means that in the communality life can be neither normalized nor neutralized; instead, life is conceived as potentia. Keywords: Biopower- Monstrosity -politics over monstrosity- politics of monstrosity –communality of monsters 1

Even though neither Agamben nor Esposito focus on the monstrosity concept, on the contrary, they seek to demonstrate the centrality of the animality; we will propose a reading of they works from a monstrosity point of view.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

132

Chapter 6

6.1 Monstrosity as a political category In the recently published Encyclopedia of Political Science (2011), it is possible to find an entry about teratopolitics, i.e., a composition between the term terato and politics: “The term terato, or monster (from Latin monstrum, Greek teras) in its wider meaning evokes the astonishment produced by an irregular and wonderful phenomenon. (…) In the modern age, the monster becomes the key figure to reflect on norm and anomaly, within both ontological and human order” (Del Lucchese 2011, 1649-1650). Even when monstrosity was always important to Western culture, this is the first time that this concept appears as a category of political thought. In summary, one can say that the concept of monster suffered some variations through the course of the History of Philosophy: for the Greeks, 2 particularly for Aristotle, monstrosity was associated with females. In the Middle Ages, the nexus between monstrosity and females continued, but the female body was related to the evil: women not only had monstrous bodies, 3 but they could also make deals with the devil. Yet, in Modernity, a conception about monsters emerges in direct relation to politics. From different traditions, monstrosity becomes the target of political reflection, as in

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

2

On Generation of Animals –the first work on embryology- Aristotle said that the emergence of monsters is a natural result of properties of matter that are not dominated by the form. For Aristotle, the matter is identified with the female while the form with the male, in this sense, monstrosity is a deviation from the (male) form. “For even he who does not resemble his parents is already in a certain sense a monstrosity; for in these cases Nature has in a way departed from the type. The first departure indeed is that the offspring should become female instead of male; this, however, is a natural necessity” (Aristotle 2014, 1187). “Monstrosity” is not part of the final cause but is an accident of nature. But, monstrous is also the feminine figure, it is a sort of genetic defect: “For the female is, as it were, a mutilated male, and the menstrual fluids are semen, only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul” (Aristotle, 737a: 25). 3 Sara Miller (2010) studies the nexus between women and monsters in the Middle Ages in terms of nature and societal boundarie transgressions. The monstrous female body takes the form of sister, mother, wife, lover, daughter, virgin, crone and corpse. The female corporeality is seen as a transgression of bounderies and social, religious, economical, sexual and reproductive device. Meanwhile Joan Gregg (1997) analyzes the demonization of women –and Jews too- in medieval sermons. He remarks the conception of women as sensual and malicious figures. The link between devil, woman and monster is represented by the witchcraft figure. See Russell (1972) and Ferreiro (1998). For others studies about monstrosity in the Middle Ages, see Bildhauer and Mills (2003), Cohen (1999), Williams (1999).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

133

Machiavelli with the centaur, in Spinoza with the multitude, and in Hobbes 4 with Leviathan and Behemoth. In recent years the political reflections about monsters acquire a new meaning. Monster ceases to be regarded as a metaphor and begins to be considered a way of life, or, in other words, a form of subjectivity. When I refer to monsters, I am not referring to the space of representation, but the figuration, that is, the regimes of visibility and distributions of bodies (Giorgi 2014, 17), and the production of subjectivity. Based on this point, I am interested in the insertion of monstrosity in biopolitical debates, the way in which some subjects are produced as monsters. Biopolitics was defined as a relation between biology and politics, i.e., the insertion of life in politics. In Foucault’s terms, “[the] modern man is an animal whose politics places his existence as a living being in question” (Foucault 1998, 143). However, monstrosity begins to be an essential part of 5 biology, specifically, in teratology. In this sense, according to Del Lucchese and Bove, “If the existence of biological monsters questions life order, the monster also interrogates the order and hierarchy in the political and ethical universe” (Del Lucchese and Bove 2008, 21, my translation).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

As we know, the label “monster” reveals a semantic ambiguity: horrifying character, beast, and prodigy. Monsters inspire terror, but also fascination. The ambiguity of meaning can be understood from a biopolitical perspective. On the one hand, monstrosity becomes an objective of biopower that aims to control and eliminate it, and, on the other hand, monstrosity can be taken in a positive sense, as a subjectivity that resists appropriation by biopower and create life in common. As one can note, both orientations of monstrosity are associated with the exercise of power. I am convinced that the monster category sheds light on expressions like “life unworthy of being lived” (Agamben, 1998), as well as on “immunitary paradigm”: 6 to preserve life, it is necessary to include that which denies it (Esposito, 2008). Yet, at the same time, it allows us to understand the classification of some lives as monstrous, that is, the lives that resist and fight against the biopower (Hardt and 4

Some reference for these topics are: Wolfe (2005), Ingman (1982), Del Lucchese (2009), Ruddick (2016) Stillman (1995), and Milanese (2016). 5 Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological and physical development. This science of monsters was developed in France, during the XIXth Century, by Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and his son Isidore. See Mazzocut-Mis (2014). 6 Even though neither Agamben nor Esposito focuses on the concept of monstrosity, they seek to demonstrate the centrality of the animality. However, in this article I will examine the works of these authors basing our approach on monstrosity conception.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

134

Chapter 6

Negri 2004, Negri 2008), or as a new ontology of the body and insurgent subjectivities (Haraway 1991, 1992, Braidotti 2009, 2011). These two orientations about monstrosity and its relation with the power will be analyzed from the following expressions: “Politics over monstrosity” 7 and “Politics of monstrosity” - stressing over and of in each case. The first expression involves a negative consideration of monstrosity, the subjectivities that are constituted as monsters by the biopower because they cannot be integrated into (or captured by) the normalization logic, whose aim is homogenization, and cannot be subsumed under binary classifications, such as male/female and capitalist/worker, white/non-white. The biopower produces separations in the continuum of the living, which draws a distinction between a life worth living and a life that is abandoned or even eliminated. The abandoned life can be understood as monstrous, a life that is perceived as a derealization of “human” life, a deviation of the valuable life.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The second expression, “Politics of monstrosity”, alludes to a positive reflection on monsters, the capacity of some subjectivities to confront the biopower and create forms of life that reproduce neither the capitalist system nor gender and racial hierarchies. Monsters challenge the dominant Western rationality, which is based on the unity and identity of the subject. By contrast, if we understand monstrosity as a different form of life, that is, as singularities, we can recognize the power (potentia) of life in its multiple manifestations. The monster enables us to imagine a community - which I will call, following Negri, commonality - where subjectivities are in permanent transformation and open to others, where it is possible to create a life in common. This approach to monstrosity allows conceiving the inherent relation between monstrosity and politics; in other words, the way in which biopower produces subjectivities and the possibility of resistance and creation of alternative subjectivities. In the following pages, I would like to center on the prominence of monsters as a key concept to gain insights into today’s politics. 6.2 Politics over monstrosity Monstrosity can be understood negatively, that is, as Politics over monstrosity. As we know, biopolitics centers on the concept of animality to question the effect of biopower on human life, while monstrosity does not arouse much interest. It is possible, however, to set forth an approach to this category based

7

The distinction that I put forward is associated with Esposito’s distintion between “politics over life” and “politics of life”, which refers to negative biopolitics - biopotere and affirmative biopolitics - biopotenza, respectively (Esposito, 2008).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

135

on Agamben and Esposito’s analysis on the Nazi regime. Here monstrosity emerges not as the common-sense view, i.e., Nazis being monsters, but from the biopolitical perspective, i.e., monsters being the biopolitical enemy - the Jews -, which must be eliminated to ensure the safety of life that Nazis claimed to protect. It can also be extended to the present day, in the case of the undesired immigrant population and its correlative criminalization. These are the new monsters for biopower, those who permanently put the stability 8 of political order at risk. Both monstrosity and animality problematize the normative and hierarchical politics over life. This can be seen in the constitutive biopolitical tension between bios, which indicated the way of living proper to an individual or group, that is, the qualified life of the citizen, and zoē, which expressed the simple fact of a living common to all living beings (animals, men, or gods), that is, a life without attributes (Agamben 1998, 1), or, in other words, between 9 protected life and eliminable life. Nevertheless, the novelty of monstrosity implies the capacity of accounting for the constitution of some lives as threat and risk (Torrano, 2016).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Monstrosity reveals the emergence of, within the biological continuum of human life, the distinction between what must live and what must die. Politics over monstrosity sheds light on the thanatopolitical orientation of biopolitics, the negative dimension of biopolitics. As Foucault argues: “the death of the other, the death of the bad race, of the inferior race (or the degenerate, or the abnormal) is something that will make life in general healthier: healthier and purer” (Foucault 2003b, 255). Death is a necessary effect for promoting the health and well-being of the population. Monstrosity emerges as a biopolitical (biological and political) problem when some ways of life (or bodies) are conceived as a danger. If, as George Canguilhem says, “it is monstrosity, not death, that is the counter-value to life” (Canguilhem 1962, 29), then, monstrosity can be understood as a biological threat to the population that biopower seeks to defend. The existence of

8

For a consideration of Agamben’s “bare life” in Migration Studies, see Bigo (2008). Furthermore, Esposito’s “immunitary paradigm” has been followed to understand immigration, see Vaughan-Williams (2015). 9 However, as Cary Wolfe sharply points out, the bios/zoē distinction does not always coincide with human/animal opposition. This means that some animals, such domestic ones, are more likely to be treated as bios than as zoē. By contrast, some human lives are considered as zoē. For that reason, bios and zoē are not always equivalent to human and non-human life (cf. Wolfe 2013).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

136

Chapter 6

monsters within the (bio)political body puts the whole population at risk, and these monsters become enemies that must be destroyed. Monstrosity allows conceiving strengthening life of population at the expense of eliminating the life of the “inferior race”. The monster is the antithesis of social order, and, at the same time, needed to justify this order (Neocleous 2000, 2005). By categorizing subjects in pejorative terms, such as monsters, the biopower ensures orderliness for the social, political, and economic relations of capitalism. The monster is an object and objective to the biopower; it is a target of the biopower that must be governed by the principle of death, including direct and indirect murder. In other words, it involves not only the elimination of some subjects but also “the fact of exposing someone to death, increasing the risk of death for some people, or, quite simply, political death, expulsion, rejection, and so on” (Foucault 2003b, 256).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The concept of thanatopolics can describe that even when biopolitics pretends to ensure life, simultaneously, produces annihilation. The production of life and the production of death are not opposite mechanisms; in contrast, both integrate the same rationality of power. For Agamben and Esposito, the Nazi regime expresses, in a paroxysmal way, the nexus between the production of life and production of death. From their point of view, animalization plays a central role in these mechanisms, but I will show that monstrification is also important to understand the exercise of biopower. The suppression of life shows that biopolitics turns into thanatopolitics, but it is life, and not death, the horizon of biopolitics, even when biopower exercises the right to kill. Thanatopolitics is a necessary complement to 10 reinforce the population’s life that the biopower tries to preserve. This allows us to understand not only the production of death - for example, the Nazi 11 extermination camps as an industrial death machine - but also another sort of figure that emerges as a side effect of the progressive dehumanization of 10

For an analysis of the dispositifs of thanatopolitics, see Campbell (2011) and Murray (2006). Agamben explores the semantic history of “Holocaust”, which refers to the sacrificial doctrine of the Bible, and, in vernacular languages, gradually acquires the meaning of supreme sacrifice. He concludes that the contemporary use of this term suggests “to establish a connection, however distant, between Auschwitz and the Biblical olah and between death in the gas chamber and the ‘complete devotion to sacred and superior motives’ cannot but sound like a jest. Not only does the term imply an unacceptable equation between crematoria and altars; it also continues a semantic heredity that is from its inception anti-Semitic” (Agamben 1999, 31). In a similar way, Esposito underlines the complete biologization of the political terms in the Nazism. In this sense, he adds that “the correct term for [Jewess] massacre, which is anything but a sacred ‘holocaust’, is extermination: something that is carried out against insects, rats, or lice” (Esposito 2013, 85). 11

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

137

man. This dehumanization is called, by Agamben, “bare life”, a life that can be 12 eliminated without committing homicide, as a result of the sovereign power. Esposito, however, refers to this with the “immunitary paradigm”, the negation of life that is not recognized either politically or socially, a biological 13 threat to life that deserves to be protected. According to Agamben, the Nazi regime exhibited “the fundamental biopolitical structure of modernity - the decision on the value (or non-value) of life as such” (Agamben 1998, 137), when “life and death are not properly scientific concepts but rather political concepts, which as such acquire a political meaning precisely only through a decision” (Agamben 1998, 164). The definition of life as “non-value”, or that is “unworthy of being lived”, enables the killing of it without the commission of homicide. The characteristic of the sovereign decision is that it does not depend exclusively on sovereign, but on an ambiguous dominion, both medical and political. The Nazi Euthanasia Program was an example of the intersection between “life that may be killed and the assumption of the care of the nation’s biological body” (Agamben 1998, 142). I want to focus on the Muselmann - Muselmänner - of Auschwitz, analysed by Agamben as the most extreme expression of bare life, because he lost his 14 capacity of speech, his volition, his history, and his face. The Muselmann is

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

12

The “bare life” - bloβ Leben - is a life deprived of its form (bios), and it becomes (or at least seems to become) zoē. But bare life is “not simple natural life, but life exposed to death (bare life or sacred life) is the originary political element” (Agamben 1998, 88). The bare life is related to the homo sacer - sacred man - of archaic Roman law, “who may be killed and yet not sacrificed” (Agamben 1998, 8). 13 For Esposito, the category of immunization reveals an “indivisible whole”, an intrinsic relation between bios and nomos, life and politics. “The hermeneutic advantages of the immunitary model lies precisely in the circumstance that these two modalities, these two effects of sense - positive and negative, preservative and destructive - finally find an internal articulation, a semantic juncture that organises them into a causal relation” (Esposito 2008, 46). The dehumanization process can be recognized also in the dispositif of the person. Esposito examines the category of person from legal, historical, and political perspectives, and shows how person functions as a dispositif, i.e., a way of arranging the relation between the human and the animal, between moral or rational part and biological body. Esposito shows how the term allows a subject to dispose of its animal part through the gift of grace in order to become a human person (Esposito 2012). 14 The Muselmann figure allows showing the desubjectification of human life, which is deprived of rights, and is reduced to a simple biological life. The muselmann shows that the essence traditionally attributed to man - the capacity for speech - can be subtracted by the sovereign power; in this sense, he survives merely as a biological organism.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

138

Chapter 6

on the threshold between life and death: it is not possible to say that he is “alive” because he “becomes an improbable and monstrous biological machine, lacking not only all moral conscience, but even sensibility and nervous stimuli” (Agamben 1999, 57), nor “death”, since he is someone “whose death cannot be called death, but only the production of a corpse” (Agamben 1999, 81). The Muselmann is a “living dead”, a “walking corpse”; he marks the threshold between life and dead, human and non-human. For that reason, he can be understood as a monster, a being that is a hybrid between living and dead, between human and non-human. The Muselmann has a human appearance, but he was denuded of humanity. He is a waste of the human: a non-man whose life is completely a counter-value to human life.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This consideration over the Muselmann can be interpreted as a process of dehumanization, which I understand as a process of monstrification. 15 According to Agamben’s analysis of the camp, the sovereign power produced humans (German subjects) and, at the same time, non-humans (the Muselmann). For him, “in both cases, what is called into question is the very humanity of man, since man observes the fragmentation of his privileged tie to what constitutes him as human, that is, the sacredness of death and life” (the Muselmann). Agamben proposes the “Anthropological machine” for explaining both sides of this process: “insofar as the production of man through the opposition man/animal, human/inhuman, is at stake here, the machine necessarily functions by means of an exclusion (which is also always already a capturing) and an inclusion (which is also always already an exclusion)” (Agamben 2004, 37). This machine exhibits the production of man through the sovereign decision, which is ceaselessly updated, and in which the caesurae and their rearticulation are always dislocated and displaced anew. The Anthropological machine presupposes what a man is - the sovereign power decides who a man is - and through the exclusion of non-man produces the man. The particularity of this machine is that which must be excluded, however, is included, which Agamben calls “inclusive exclusion”. The man is produced from the exclusion of the animal that inhabited him,

Paradoxically, the Muselmann can give witness, not through the language but through the experience of being stripped of the possibility of speech. 15 For Agamben “the camp” is central to understand the logic of power, it represents the form of contemporary power. Indeed it is important to note the spaciality of power, which allows us a better understanding of the production of (de)subjectification.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

139

and, simultaneously, the non-man is produced within the man: “it functions by excluding as not (yet) human an already human being from itself, that is, by animalizing the human, by isolating the nonhuman within the human” 16 (Agamben 2004, 37). In this sense, the monster can be interpreted as the non-man or the nonhuman, which is excluded by the human, but, nevertheless, remains within the human. On the other hand, Esposito also analyses how biopolitics became thanatopolitics during the Nazi regime; and how this mechanism remains today in our societies. Esposito lays out the coincidence of the “therapeutic attitude with the thanatological frame” (Esposito 2008, 115), i.e., a strong connection between the health of German people, and the threat of some groups, especially Jews. The consequence was the elimination of livings and 17 sterilization. Esposito highlights that the doctor “possesses the knowledge of what qualifies as a valid life endowed with value, and therefore is able to fix the limits beyond which life can be legitimately extinguished” (Esposito 2008, 114). Thereby, the Nazism applies the immunitary logic: “racial hygiene is the immunitary therapy that aims at preventing or extirpating the pathological agents that jeopardize the biological quality of future generations” (Esposito 2008, 120).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

For Esposito the immunitary paradigm is the key to understand the nexus between protection and denial of life: the “healthy life” - the German people that must be safeguarded, and the dangerous life, the “infectious disease” - the Jews, the Gypsies, the “abnormals”, the homosexuals, etc. -, which threaten to corrupt the “national body”. Dangerous life can be understood as a sign of monstrosity, which puts at risk the life that must be defended.

16

Agamben also refers to the anthropological machine of earlier times, which works in an exactly symmetric way in relation to the moderns: “If, in the machine of the moderns, the outside is produced through the exclusion of an inside and the inhuman is produced by animalizing the human, here the inside is obtained through the inclusion of an outside, and the non-man is produced by the humanization of an animal” (Agamben 2004, 37). 17 According to Esposito, the key for understanding the Nazi’s immunitary mechanism is “the anticipatory suppression of birth, which is to say not only of life but of its genesis” (Esposito 2008, 143). The birth was an object of political management: it should encourage the German procreation and eliminate the non-Aryan. As a consequence, the firt Nazi legislative measure was the sterilization law; paradoxically, the voluntary abortion was prohibited because it was considered a crime against Aryan race.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

140

Chapter 6

Esposito also examines the process of dehumanization suffered by Jews in the concentration camp. According to Esposito, “Nazism itself never renounced the category of humanitas, on which it awarded the maximum normative importance. More than ‘bestializing’ man, as is commonly thought, it ‘anthropologized’ the animal, enlarging the definition of anthropos” (Esposito 2008, 130). The Jews were persecuted not because they were considered simply animals - which indeed were respected and protected -, but because they were treated as “animal-man: man in the animal and animal in the man” (Esposito 2008, 130). The Jews, therefore, were not considered animals - pure otherness but “anti-humans”, “infrahumans”, “sub-race”, and, for that reason, they were eliminated. The immunization can describe the inclusion of death for the conservation of life; it “is a negative [form] of the protection of life” (Esposito 2008, 46). Under this paradigm, to preserve life, it is necessary to include that which denies it, a hostile force that slows down its development. The logic of immunity means “that an attenuated form of infection could protect against a more virulent form of the same type” (Esposito 2011, 7), i.e., it does not protect life in a frontal opposition, but rather through outflanking and neutralization.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The conception of the Jew as an “animal-man”, a hybrid animal and human, allows understanding the monster in the immunitary paradigm that Nazism consolidated. As can be noted, for the Nazis, the Jews were non-humans, or more precisely, anti-humans, who were seen as enemies against whom it was necessary to be on guard and ready to fight. In other words, the Jews were the monsters that stalked German people. This enables us to understand that monstrosity is immanent to the power; the monster is not external to the political order but included in it. As we can see, from my interpretation of Agamben’s and Esposito’s works, the monster appears as a negative reverse of the human, but this does not mean that the monster is completely exterior to the human or the political community; by contrast, the monster appears as an inclusive exclusion. The monster is produced together with the man; it is the denomination that some subjects received, those who did not acquire human qualities. The politics over monstrosity is a lethal power that selects and classifies life, which is destroyed and neutralized. The monster is opposite to the qualified life - the life that must be protected, maximized, multiplied by biopower -, it is a counter-value to life. Monstrosity bursts in the area of biology and politics; for that reason, it is a threat within the political order of life.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

141

As Foucault argued, the human monster “is essentially a legal notion, in a broad sense, of course, since what defines the monster is the fact that its existence and form is not only a violation of the laws of society but also a violation of the laws of nature. Its very existence is a breach of the law at both levels” (Foucault 2003a, 55-56). The monster is a criminal that transgresses natural and social laws: until the eighteenth century, monstrosity, as the natural manifestation of the unnatural, brought with it an indication of criminality, but toward the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century the relationship is reversed, and monstrosity is systematically suspected of being behind all criminality (Foucault 2003a, 81). This identification between monstrosity and criminality is used to justify the right of death over the monsters. Traditionally the monsters define the limits of the community; they are excluded from the human community. But, from Agamben’s and Esposito’s perspectives, monsters are not completely expelled from the community, although they are not part of it. The monsters reveal the inclusive exclusion of the biopolitics: they are fundamental to the constitution of the human and its community, yet, they are a permanent threat to the stability of this organization.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

6.3 Politics of monstrosity But, monstrosity can be understood, from another point of view, as an insurgent way of life; monstrosity is a subjectivity that resists appropriation by biopower and creates life in common. The politics of monstrosity is the potentia of monsters to emancipate themselves from biopower, the affirmation of the differences and the openness into powerful connections with others. One can find this positive orientation in Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, and Antonio Negri. Even though each author has a particular conception of monstrosity, all of them agree that monster is a figure of resistance: a political subject that breaks gender, racial and social class hierarchies. Haraway puts forward the term cyborg, which allows establishing a link between the organic and the cybernetic; this fusion creates a new ontology of the body that forges alliances and encourages coalition through affinity. Following Haraway’s lead, Braidotti suggests the notion of nomadic subjects as a new figuration of female subjectivity. The nomadic subjects express their creative potential and capacity for entering into further relations with others. Finally, Negri proposes the notion of multitude, which designates an active set of singularities that produce, act, and live in common.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

142

Chapter 6 18

Haraway explores the concept of cyborg - cybernetic organic -, which enables representing the co-constitution between bodies and technologies. Technologies are not mere appendages to the human body but are constitutive of the human. “A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction” (Haraway 1991, 149). The cyborg is not only an image of imagination but also a realness, “any possibility of historical transformation” (Haraway 1991, 150). Haraway recognizes the spatial, military and conqueror meaning of the cyborg 19 notion, but this term acquires a new sense. The cyborg refers to a new horizon of meaning, a postbinarian and postgeneric world, which blurs the boundaries between nature and culture, object and subject, machine and organism, animals and humans, men and women, the physical and the non-physical, 20 generated by technoscience. It is a confusion of the boundaries that “far from signalling a walling off of people from other living beings, cyborgs signal disturbingly and pleasurably tight coupling” (Haraway 1991, 152).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The cyborg is a new contemporary monster that questions the dichotomy that structures the Western phallogocentric thought and, at the same time, allows us to liberate ourselves from the old idea of Man, conceived as being identical to itself, reproductor in his sex and his work of a hierarchical social reality in terms of gender, race, and class. The cyborg strongly opposes “the traditions of ‘Western’ science and politics - the tradition of racist, maledominant capitalism; the tradition of progress; the tradition of the appropriation of nature as a resource for the productions of culture; the tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other - the

18

Wiener (1948) defined cybernetics as “the science of control and communication in the animal and machine”. The cybernetics is an interdisciplinary science at the intersection of mathematics, military engineering, telecommunications and computer science. Today it is closely related to artificial intelligence, robotics and information theory. 19 This notion was proposed by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in 1960: “The Cyborg deliberately incorporates exogenus components extending the self-regulatory control function of the organism in order to adapt it to new environments” (Clynes and Kline 1960, 27), i.e., the cyborg refers to an “extended” human body through medication and mechanism that allows man to live adequately in the space environment. 20 The relation between animals and humans is thoroughly examined by Haraway (2003, 2008). In recent works, Haraway focuses on Chthulucene - term comprising two Greek roots: khthôn and kainos; the first refers to a earth, and the second, to a temporality - to propose multi-species relations (2016a, 2016b).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

143

relation between organism and machine has been a border war” (Haraway 1991, 86). According to Haraway, the notions of gender, race and class describe the historical experience of patriarchy, of colonialism, and capitalism, and this is the reality against which the cyborg is opposed. For that reason, the cyborg represents a feminist, socialist, and materialist political position. It not only provides us with an emancipatory politics but with a new ontology of the body, in which technologies and organism “are no longer ontologically separated: their fusion is our ontology” (Dalibert 2014, 96). The cyborg represents a powerful fusion between technologies and bodies; this new ontology exhibits the power (potentia) of the body. The bodies are no longer either fixed entities or pure nature. By contrast, they are in permanent mutation and form a tight coupling. For Haraway, our bodies are a mixture of texts, technical artifacts, and biological processes; this “materiality of the body implies its own generative power and creates its own emphasis apart from all discursive and technical domination. Materiality cannot be reduced to something totally passive; it offers specifications and generates meaning, even apart from explicit communication” (Becker 2000, 363).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Haraway argues that “we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs” (Haraway 1991, 150). Yet, instead of using this assertion as an image of the apocalypse, she suggests the “pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction” (Haraway 1991, 150). The cyborg is conceived as a power of transformation and reinvention, and is our ethical-political force. The cyborg is depicted as a promise of emancipation; it is the possibility of making a hybrid world, i.e., an open world to the difference and the new fusions with other non-humans. As Haraway states: “Articulation must remain open, its densities accessible to action and intervention. When the system of connections closes in on itself, when symbolic action becomes perfect, the world is frozen in a dance of death. The cosmos is finished, and it is One” (Haraway 1992, 110). The monster allows the possibility of radical openness to 21 engage with “inappropriate/d others”. To be “inappropriate/d” does not

21

Haraway takes this notion from the Vietnamese-American filmmaker and feminist theorist Trinh Minh-ha. The phrase referred to the historical positioning of those who cannot adopt the mask of either “self” or “other” offered by previously dominant, modern Western narratives of identity and politics. The “inappropriate/d others” designates the network of multicultural, ethnic, racial, national, and sexual actors emerging since the World War II (Haraway 1992, 69).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

144

Chapter 6

mean “not to be in relation with” others, but to be in critical relationality, which allows making strong connections that exceed domination. Haraway encourages us to realise “the promises of monsters” (Haraway, 1992), the dream of a monstrous world without gender, race, and class. A monstrous world in which there is no hierarchical order subsumed under binary oppositions such as male/female, white/non-white, and capitalist/worker. Monsters challenge the dominant concepts of human identity that promotes Western phallogocentric thought. Only if we recognized that we are monsters, could we create a more equal world for every (organic and nonorganic) being inhabiting the earth.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Also, from a feminist theory, Rosi Braidotti explores the ontology of the body, assuming its metamorphosis against the humanism - a mechanism of control and exclusion. Metamorphosis refers to the productive desire, the intensification of affectivity, the affirmation of difference, the potentia of the body. It is, as Braidotti says, “a way of living more intensely and of increasing one's potentia and with it, one's freedom and understanding of complexities, but also an ethics that aims at framing, sustaining and enduring those very complexities” (Braitotti 2002, 148), which can be understood under the concept of monstrosity. Traditionally the monster is considered as the bodily incarnation of difference from the human norm. According to the normative political anatomy, modeled on ideals of whiteness, masculinity, normality, youth, and health, the monster appears as anomalous and deviant. Braidotti argues, “This morphological normativity was inherently anthropocentric, gendered, and racialized. It confirmed the dominant subject as much in what he included as his core characteristics as in what he excluded as other” (Braidotti 22 2009, 526). The challenge today is how to nomadize this political anatomy, and to recognize all other modes of embodiment (non-white, non-masculine, non-normal, non-young, non-healthy). The central question seems to be: how can we affirm the positivity of monster? For Braidotti, “the discourse on monster as a case study highlights a question that seems (…) very important for feminist theory: the status of difference within rational thought” (Braidotti 2011, 78). The Western thought operates under binary oppositions that treat differences in a pejorative way,

22 Nomadism “refers to the kind of critical consciousness that resists settling into socially coded modes of thought and behavior” (Braidotti 2011, 5). The nomadic style is opposed to a dualistic way of thinking; it is a process of de-identification directed to new imaginaries.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

145

which aims at justifying hierarchical order. In this sense, Braidotti adds: “Within this dualistic system, monsters are, just like bodily female subjects, a figure of devalued difference; as such, it provides the fuel for the production of normative discourse” (Braidotti 2011, 78). Monsters and women function as logical operators in discursive productions, as signs saturated with negative perceptions. According to Braidotti, the woman body always was seen as a sing of difference: “Difference, however, has been rendered in theoretical discourse in negative terms of pejoration. (…) This function is crucial to figures of negative difference such as the deviant or monstrous others. In fact, (…), it is in the language of monstrosity that difference is often translated. Because this difference-as-pejoration fulfils a structural and constitutive function; it also occupies a strategic position. It can consequently illuminate the complex and dissymmetrical power-relations at work within the dominant subject position” (Braidotti 2002, 175). 23

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Braidotti highlights the conjunction among the figurations of mothers, monsters and machines, which are related to the feminist theory, the history and philosophy of biological science, and technology. Although there is no apparent connection among these three terms, it is possible to find one in the field of biotechnology, particularly artificial procreation. According to Braidotti, this is an example of the power of science over the maternal body, and the exercise of discursive power over women. The dominant scientific discourse relegated women from knowledge and condemned them to silence. For that reason, knowledge expressing feminist experiences is needed, a “nomadic style of feminism that will allow women to rethink their position in a postindustrial, post-metaphysical world, without nostalgia, paranoia, or false sentimentalism” (Braidotti 2011, 94). Braidotti proposes the notion of “nomadic subjects” as a suitable theoretical figuration for contemporary subjectivity, which allows conceiving the subject differently, and inventing new frameworks, new images, and new ways of thought. As Braidotti argues: “Nomadic subjects are capable of freeing the activity of thinking from the hold of phallocentric dogmatism, returning thought to its freedom, its liveliness, its beauty. There is a strong aesthetic dimension in the quest for alternative nomadic figurations, and feminist theory” (Braidotti 2011, 8).

23

Braidotti takes Haraway’s notion of figuration which “refers to a style of thought that evokes or expresses ways out of the phallocentric vision of the subject. A figuration is a politically informed account of an alternative subjectivity” (Braidotti 2011, 1).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

146

Chapter 6

The nomadic subjects can be understood in the light of monstrosity: both reject the principle of adequation to and identification with a normative conception of the body, and the hierarchical relations. Nomadic subjects and monsters are figurations of otherness, and difference; in other words, they involve figurations of an alternative subjectivity. This subjectivity cannot be reduced to a reactive critique of phallocentric thought but must involve creativity: affirmative invention of a way of living. From this view, “the subject is recast in the nomadic mode of collective assemblage. The aim of deterritorializing the norm also supports the process of becoming animal, woman, (…) forming anomalous and inorganic alliances” (Braidotti 2009, 527), introducing a joyful insurrection of the senses, and expressing the materialist and vitalist force of life. From another perspective, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt conceive the monster as the multitude that resists the appropriation of life by the 24 biopower. “The multitude is composed of a set of singularities - and by singularity here we mean a social subject whose difference cannot be reduced to sameness, a difference that remains different” (Hardt and Negri 2005, 99). This concept not only refers to the singularities but also the common: “The multitude designates an active social subject, which acts on the basis of what the singularities share in common. The multitude is an internally different, multiple social subjects whose constitution and action are based not on identity or unity (or, much less, indifference) but on what it has in common” 25 (Hardt and Negri 2005, 100).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The multitude retains the singularities of which it is composed, and allows recognizing the unity of “common”. For that reason, it is important as an 26 alternative political organization against the biopower - the Empire. The multitude is characterized by its autonomy and its capacity for economic,

24

Negri and Hardt recover from Spinoza the notion of multitude. See specially (Hardt and Negri 2005, 2009). 25 Negri and Hardt distinguish the multitude from other tradicional concepts such as the People, the masses and, the working class. The People entail a unitary conception, the multitude, in contrast, involves many. The masses are characterized as indifference: all difference is submerged in the masses, but, in the multitude, social differences remain different. Finally, the working class has come to be used as an exclusive concept, not only distinguishing the workers from the owners, but also separating the working class from others who work. Instead, the multitude is an inclusive concept (Hardt and Negri 2005, xiii-xiv). 26 Empire is “a global order, a new logic and structure of rule - in short, a new form of sovereignty” (Hardt and Negri 2001, xi), composed of national and supranational organisms.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

147

political, social and cultural auto organization. As Negri says, “but in this case too the multitude, as a potenza of a political subject, is monstrous, because this common labour which sustains it is productive and excedent, innovative and constituent. Multitude is monstrous because it is always constituent” (Negri 2006, 66. My translation). It is possible to identify two aspects of the “monstrous multitude” that are inherently related. On the one hand, the multitude is monstrous because the labour relation and society have been caught up in the forces of production of biopower and exhibit themselves in indeterminate figuration. However, labour power and social activity are always powerful against repression or regulation. On the other hand, it is monstrous because they lack political organization and political hierarchy. The multitude resists itself to the way of living imposed by biopower, it “is a diffuse set of singularities that produce a common life; it is a kind of social flesh that organizes itself into a new social body” (Hardt and Negri 2005, 349).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

As we can note, the conception of the monster that Negri supports is contrary to the traditional concept of the monster in political thought. Western philosophy always excluded the monstrous, even in the Hobbesian 27 representation of the State as the “Leviathan”. Here, the monster appears as a metaphor for transcendent power, which defines a social order; however, according to Negri, the monster is society and life - not the sovereign -; in other words, the monster is the multitude (Negri 2008, 194-196). Consequently, modernity does not eradicate the monstrosity. By contrast, it is strengthened as a threat to the natural, social and political order. For Negri, the monster is the political subject, who resists biopower: the subject becoming monster when fights against the appropriation of its life. The political monster asserts its potentia, its capacity of creation, production, and subjectivization. The resistance of monsters is possible because

27

In The Labor of Job: The Biblical Text as a Parable of Human Labor (2009), Negri analyzes the mythological figures of Leviathan and Behemonth: the first is associated with the whale, while Behemonth is associated with the elephant. In general terms, Leviathan is identified with a sea monster and Behemonth with a terrestrial monster. Thomas Hobbes gives a political meaning to these two monsters. On the one hand, Leviathan represents the absolute power of the State, peace and order, while on the other hand, Behemonth depicts anarchy and civil war. Hobbes needed to oppose these mythological figures to create an indivisible and absolute power that mitigates chaos, and that enables establishing political order. For Negri the inclusion of the monster in political theory was possible from a metaphorical point of view, by contrast, for him the monster is the multitude, which should be considered as monsters in a real sense.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

148

Chapter 6

“monsters begin to form new, alternative networks of affection and social organization” (Hardt and Negri 2004, 193). The notion of monster is used to name a way of living that escapes control and resists biopower, and, at the same time, creates life in common. In this sense, the political monster is opposed to the “bare life” developed by Agamben, a fragile life that is only 28 able to survive. The Shakespearean Caliban allows Negri and Hardt to show the resistance, the potentia of life, exhibited by monsters: “The culture of Caliban is the culture of resistance that turns the weapons of colonial domination back 29 against it” (Hardt and Negri 2009, 98). Caliban represents the paradoxical life of the colonized; on the one hand, in small gestures, he resists appropriation by the power and, on the other hand, he is ineliminable because he is needed for supporting the economic order. He must be kept alive, despite being a constant threat to the colonial power. As Negri and Hardt add, Caliban not only exhibits “this savage power of monsters” but also “the monster’s power of transformation” (Hardt and Negri 2009, 98).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

To recognize the potentia of monsters, it is necessary to distinguish two concepts that generally appear undifferentiated: “body” and “flesh”. Even though the body acquires a fundamental importance in biopolitics, from Negri and Hardt’s perspective, life is not reducible to the body, but rather it is identifiable with the flesh, that is, “pure potential, an unformed life force, and in this sense an element of social being, constantly aimed at the fullness of life. From ontological perspective, the flesh of the multitude is an elemental power that continuously expands social being (…). From the perspective of political order and control, then, the elemental flesh of the multitude is

28

According to Negri: “There is no naked life in ontology, much as there is no social structure without rules, or word without meaning. (…) What precedes us in time, in history, always already presents itself as an ontological condition, and, as far as man is concerned, as (consistent, qualified, irreversible) anthropological figure. Thus we understand the ideology of ‘naked life’ (as much as the genome industry, biogenetic engineering, and the claims to dominate the species) as a mystification that must be antagonized” (Negri 2008, 208). For Negri to assume the nakedness of life means depriving its potentia, and does not recognize the historicity of struggles, the cooperation and the constituent process that our life embodies. 29 Caliban is a symbol of resistance in twentieth-century anticolonial struggles. Aimé Césaire rewrites Shakeaspeare’s play to highlight the liberation of Caliban from colonial chains, not only physical but also ideological chains. In Latin America, the writer Roberto Fernández Retamar take up this figure in the early 70’s to show the power of the native and their desire for freedom from (post)colonial oppresion.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

149

maddeningly elusive, since it cannot be entirely corralled into the hierarchical organs of a political body” (Hardt and Negri 2004, 192). For modern rationality, monsters and monstrous flesh are a sort of barbarism, cruelty, and violence. Monstrosity is a result of the collapse of the modern order; it promotes insecurity and chaos, and, for that reason, produces terror. But, from altermodernity, “these monsters possess the key to release new creative powers that move beyond the opposition between modernity and antimodernity” (Hardt and Negri 2009, 100). Monstrosity appears as a force of liberation that exceeds the domination of modernity and points towards an alternative. In this sense, “we can recognize these monstrous metamorphoses of the flesh as not only a danger but also a possibility, the possibility to create an alternative society” (Hardt and Negri 2004, 192). While the body reproduces the political structure of the global capital, the multitude’s productive flesh expresses life in common. 6.4 Transindividual commonality of monsters In light of the aforementioned, it could be said that the consideration of the power of monsters allows us to imagine new forms of life in common. The politics of monstrosity aims to rethink the future of common life, emancipates of all forms of subjugation; this is called by Negri and Hardt commonality 30 (Hardt and Negri 2004, 350). By commonality, I do not mean the social bond in terms of representation, membership, or identity, but in terms of 31 transindividuality. I take this last concept from Gilbert Simondon, to express

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

30

Negri and Hardt use the notion of commonality, on the one hand, in clear reference to the Paris’ Comuna, and, on the other, to take distance from communitarianism. For these authors, commonality refers to the state or condition of being communal, a feeling or spirit of cooperation and belonging arising from common interests and goals. 31 Agamben and Esposito also analyzed the community category from a critical point of view. See Agamben (1993) and Esposito (2010). I prefer to recover the notion of transindividuality because not only is it in accordance with Negri, but also in agreement with Haraway’s and Braidotti’s proposals. Likewise, this notion can be articulated with a positive conception of community or, as I call it, a commonality of monsters. Simondon introduces the concept of transindividual to explain the psychic - the interior - and the collective - the exterior individuation. As Muriel Combes clarifies, “the transindividual appears not as that which unifies individual and society, but as a relation interior to the individual (defining its psyche) and a relation exterior to the individual (defining the collective): the transindividual unity of two relations is thus a relation of relations” (Combes 2013, 26). However, for Combes, the collective is not to be confused with the constituted human community, in the sense that this last is understood as interindividual, but the transindividual represents the possibility of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

150

Chapter 6

which is with and between the subjects, i.e., which circulates among subjects but does not belong to anyone. “The transindividual does not localize the individuals: it makes them coincide” (Simondon 2007, 192), it is not a relation between two constituted terms; by contrast, it is a relation of relations. Politics of monstrosity refers to the potentia of monsters, that is, the resistance to the appropriation of life by biopower - stressed by Negri and Hardt -, and the resistance against phallogocentric reasoning and binary categories - stressed by Haraway and Braidotti. Yet, it also encompasses the capacity to create a commonality, which is possible because monsters share a common base: communication and cooperation networks, affective relations, information, knowledge, and so on. According to Negri and Hardt, the common is not only based on our life but also its result; in other words, the common is, simultaneously, a constitutive basis and an artificial result (Hardt and Negri 2004, 349).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Let me remark that by commonality, I do not understand a set of singularities that produce in common; i.e., when the multitude is only conceived in a productive sense. In contrast, I employ the concept of commonality of monsters beyond the commonality based on the production – whether material or immaterial goods -, I conceive a commonality in terms of the creation of a way of life open to the differences and without hierarchies, 32 which can be achieved by productive and non-productive subjectivities. In this sense, a commonality of monsters is the expression of the potentia of life. As Haraway and Braidotti indicate, the subject does not exhibit any fixed identity; by contrast, it is incomplete and open to others. With the cyborg notion, Haraway stresses the hybrid constitution of subjects and the possibility of creating coalition through affinity. Meanwhile, Braidotti, with her notion of the nomadic subject, shows a subject that is in permanent transformation. And Negri and Hardt, with their concept of multitude, allow us to conceive the multiplicity of subjects. Thus, while Haraway and Braidotti focus on the singular, Negri and Hardt pay attention to the plural subjects. These authors agree on the fact that subjectivity must be understood from a relational and procedural view.

producing a community (Combes 2013, 37-38). For a relation among transindividuality, the common and subjectivity, see Virno (2004). 32 For example, Karen Bray (2015) offers an alternate reading of Hardt and Negri’s multitude through the lens of crip (disability) theory; she employee multitude’s monstrosity to show its unproductive potency.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

151

This perspective is central to conceive the commonality of monsters. As I said before, monsters cannot be classified in terms of the normative principles of Western rationality, and those cannot be reduced to discipline or control. Monsters do not reproduce the hierarchy of gender, race or class, features that are a consequence of patriarchy, of colonialism, and capitalism. They are characterized by their hybridity and permanent transformation, and their openness. In this sense, the commonality that monsters create rejects any hierarchy or oppression. Therefore, commonality is the manifestation of a plenty life, a common life, which is strengthened through encounter with other monsters.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The commonality of monsters is not based on representation, property, or identity: “monsters always destabilized representation and identity in the diverse modes of presentation” (Peixoto 2008, 246, my translation). It is their capacity for variation, their metamorphosis, which allow them to be open to others. This commonality highlights the potential of transformation and its horizontality. Here the difference exhibited by each monster remains different; the common is not an identity or property shared by monsters, but a relation in the difference and through the difference. As Negri and Hardt say: “these various monsters testify to the fact that we are all singular, and our differences cannot be reduced to any unitary social body” (Hardt and Negri 2004, 193-194). The commonality of monsters is transindividual, a relation of relations, which must be understood in terms of articulation that must remain open, and its relations accessible to new coupling and creations. At the same time, it is an ongoing process; hence, commonality can never be closed, fixed, or reduced to One – such as the People for Negri or the Cosmos for Haraway. This process refers to the variability, or modulation, that amplified the vital force of monsters, introducing a joyful insurrection of the senses, and encouraging pleasurable alliances. As I said when analysing the politics over monstrosity, the monsters always were excluded from man’s community, but in the sense of inclusive exclusion. The production of man, together with the creation of monsters, allowed us to recognize the differential power relations and the exclusionary operations; i.e., the protection of some lives, and the annihilation of some lives and its justifications. The separation between human/nonhuman, between a life worth living and a life unworthy of being lived, is in agreement with the emergencies of an economical and juridical power, which manages the life of all livings integrally. The monster is excluded because (s)he is recognized as a deviation from the social norm; (s)he is the sign of difference that is considered in a pejorative way. As I showed through the thinking of Agamben and Esposito, for

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

152

Chapter 6

biopower, monsters must be eliminated or neutralized because they are considered a threat. This exclusion cannot only be found in the Jews of the Nazi regime but also in the present, in the subjectivities that are not useful for capitalism. One can find it, especially in the undesired immigrant. These are the new monsters, according to biopower; the subjectivities constituted as dangerous. Against a politics over monstrosity that creates monsters for excluding and eliminating it, let us go for a politics of monstrosity, which means a politics that contributes to the proliferation of monsters - alternative subjectivities and enables the creation of commonality. The commonality of monsters is our political task.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Agamben, G. (1993). The coming community. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Agamben, G. (1999). Remnants of Auschwitz. The Witness and the Archive. New York: Zone Books. Agamben, G. (2004). The Open. Man and Animal. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Aristotle (2014). Complete Works of Aristotle. Vol. 1. The Revised Oxford Translation. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Becker, B. (2000). Cyborgs, Agents, and Transhumanists: Crossing Traditional Borders of Body and Identity in the Context of New Technology. Leonardo. Vol. 33. No. 5. 361-365. Bigo, D. (2008). Globalized (In)Security: The field and the Ban-Opticon. Bigo, D. and Tsoukala, A. (Eds.). Terror, Insecurity and Liberty. Illiberal practices of liberal regimes after 9/11. Abingdon: Routledge. 10-48. Bildhauer, B. and Mills, R. (2003). The Monstrous Middle Ages. Toronto, Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Braidotti, R. (2002). Metamorphosis. Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming. Cambridge: Polity Press. Braidotti, R. (2009). Animals, Anomalies, and Inorganic Others. PMLA. Vol. 124. No 2. 526-532. Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic Subjects. Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University Press. Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bray, K. (2015). The monstrosity of the multitude: unredeeming radical theology. Palgrave Communications. 1. Campbell, T. (2011). Improper life. Technology and Biopolitics from Heidegger to Agamben. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Canguilhem, G. (1962). Monstrosity and the Monstrous. Diogenes. Vol. 10. No 40. 27-42.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

153

Clynes, M. and Kline, N. (1960). Cyborgs and space. Austronautics. No 1. 2627, 74-76. Combes, M. (2013). Gilbert Simondon and the Philosophy of the Transindividual. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Cohen, J. J. (1999). Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Dalibert, L. (2014). Posthumanism and Somatechnologies: Exploring the Intimate Relations between Humans and Technologies. Doctoral dissertation. Enschede. Del Lucchese, F. (2009). Conflict, Power, and Multitude in Machiavelli and Spinoza: Tumult and Indignation. London, New York: Continuum. Del Lucchese, F. (2011). Teratoplitics. Kurian, G. T. (Ed.). The Encyclopedia of Political Science. Washington, DC: Sage. 1649-1650. Del Lucchese, F. and Bove, L. (2008). Tératopolitique: récits, histoire, (en)-jeux. Multitudes. Vol. 2. No 33. 19-24. Esposito, R. (2008). Bíos. Biopolitics and Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Esposito, R. (2010). Communitas. The Origin and Destiny of Community. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Esposito, R. (2011). Immunitas The Protection and Negation of Life. Malden: Polity Press. Esposito, R. (2012). The Third Person. Politics of Life and Philosophy of the Impersonal. Malden: Polity Press. Esposito, R. (2013). Terms of the Political. Community, Immunity, Biopolitics. New York: Fordham University Press. Ferreiro, A. (ed.) (1998). The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Jeffrey B. Russell. Leiden: Brill. Foucault, M. (1998). The History of Sexuality. Vol 1. An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (2003a). Abnormal. Lectures at the Collège de France 1974-1975. London, New York: Verso. Foucault, M. (2003b). Society must be defended. Lectures at the Collège de France 1975-1976. New York: Picador. Giorgi, G. (2009). Política del monstruo. Revista Iberoamericana. Monstruosidad y biopolítica. Vol. LXXV. No. 227. 323-329. Giorgi, G. (2014). Formas communes. Animalidad, cultura, biopolítica. Buenos Aires: Eterna Cadencia. Gregg, J. Y. (1997). Devils, Women, and Jews. Reflections of the Other in Medieval Sermon Stories. Albany: State University of New York Press. Haraway, D. (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and SocialistFeminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. 149-181. Haraway, D. (1992). The Promises of Monsters: A regenerative Politics inappropriate/d others. Grossberg, L., Nelson, C. et al. (Eds.). Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge. 295-337.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

154

Chapter 6

Haraway, D. (2003). The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness. Vol. 1. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. Haraway, D. (2008). When Species Meet. Vol. 3 of Posthumanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Haraway, D. (2016a). Chthulucene Manifesto. Manifestly Haraway. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Haraway, D. (2016b). Staying with the trouble. Making kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2001). Empire. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2004). Multitude. War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: Penguin Books. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. Ingman, H. (1982). Machiavelli and the Interpretation of the Chiron Myth in France. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 45. 217-225. Lykke, N. and Braidotti, R. (1996). Monsters, Goddesses and Cyborgs: Feminist Confrontations with Science. Medicine and Cyberspace. London: Zed Books Ltd. Mazzocut-Mis (2014). Monstre. Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and the science of monstrosity. Med Secoli. Vol. 26. No, 1. 145-165. Milanese, A. (2016). The Beast and the Sovereign according to Hobbes. Philosophy Today. Vol. 60. No 1. 71-88. Miller, S. A. (2010). Medieval monstrosity and the Female body. New York: Routledge. Murray, S. J. (2006). Thanatopolitics: On the Use of Death for Mobilizing Political Life. Polygraph 18. 191-215. Negri, A. (2006). La multitud monstruosa. In Movimientos en el Imperio. Pasajes y paisajes. Madrid: Paidós. 65-70. Negri, A. (2008). The Political Monster: Power and Naked Life. In Praise of the Common: A Conversation on Philosophy and Politics. Minneapolis-London: University of Minnesota Press. 193-218. Negri, A. (2009). The Labor of Job: The Biblical Text as a Parable of Human Labor. Duke University Press. Neocleous, M. (2000). The Fabrication of Social Order. A Critical Theory of Police Power. London and Sterling. Virginia: Pluto Press. Neocleous, M. (2005). The Monstrous and the Dead: Burke, Marx, Fascism. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Ruddick, S. (2016). Governed as It Were by Chance. Monstrous Infinitude and the Problem of Nature in the Work of Spinoza. Philosophy Today. Vol 60. No, 1. 89-105. Russell, J. (1972). Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press. Simondon, G. (2007). L’individuation psychique et collective. Paris: Aubier. Stillman, R. E. (1995). Hobbes’s ‘Leviathan’: Monsters, Metaphors, and Magic. ELH. Vol. 62. No. 4. 791-819.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Politics over Monstrosity and Politics of Monstrosity

155

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Torrano, A. (2016). Werewolves in the Immunitary Paradigm. Philosophy Today. Vol 60. No. 1. 153-173. Vaughan-Williams, N. (2015). Europe's border crisis: biopolitical security and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Virno, P. (2004). A grammar of the multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life. Cambridge: MIT Press. Williams, D. (1999). Deformed Discourse: The Function of the Monster in Mediaeval Thought and Literature. Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen's Press. Wolfe, C. (2013). Before the law. Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wolfe, C. (2005). Monsters and Philosophy. London: Kings College Publications.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Life Sciences, Body & Self

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

7. Morphological Deviances: Figures of Transgression in Motility Disability and Exoskeleton Use Denisa Butnaru University of Konstanz, Germany

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract According to Georges Canguilhem, "the existence of monsters calls into question the capacity of life to teach us order. […] It is only because we humans are living beings that a morphological failure is, to our living eyes, a monster." (2008, 134). A concrete case of morphological failure is when we fail to move. Examples such as spasticity, as may occur in forms of cerebral palsy (CP), or the inability to walk and feel sensations, as is the case in spinal cord injury (SCI), affect both the form of the body and its concrete, practical skills. Both CP and SCI display visible forms of norm transgression. When movement is lacking or does not respond to biological and social prescriptions, the result is a deviant body, which in some cultural contexts was associated with forms of monstrosity. —This essay aims to show, while discussing the two examples of CP and SCI, how bodily deviance related to motility disability is categorically negotiated and transformed by recent biotechnologies as exoskeletons. The conception of the monstrous will be understood in the present analysis as a contravention to biological-anatomical norms and as a production of a deviant body image. The focus is on the corporeal morphological failure, and not on the social attribution of values. This phenomenon will be explored in parallel in relation to motility disability and the redefinition of disability by exoskeletons. Keywords: Bodily deviance, hybridity, body image, motility. 7.1 Introduction According to Georges Canguillhem, "the existence of monsters calls into question the capacity of life to teach us order. […] It is only because we humans are living beings that a morphological failure is, to our living eyes, a monster."

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

160

Chapter 7

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

(2008, 134). A concrete example of a morphological failure is when we fail to move. Examples such as spasticity, as it may occur in forms of cerebral palsy (CP) or the inability to walk and feel sensations as it is the case in spinal cord injury (SCI) affect both the form of the body and its concrete, practical skills. Thus both CP and SCI display forms of bodily norm transgressions. When movement is lacking or is not in line with biological and social prescriptions, the result is a deviant body, which in some cultural contexts has been associated with forms of monstrosity. This first understanding of the morphological deviance of the body has been challenged recently by a complementary corporeal form, which is technologically produced. While discussing the two examples of CP and SCI, the intention in this essay is to highlight how bodily deviance understood with respect to motility disability changes due to the use and application of recent biotechnologies such as exoskeletons. This process is related to two forms of corporeal boundary transgression, two forms of hubris. While taking distance from a conception of the monstrous as a contravention to biological-anatomical norms, the present essay will focus first on the practical construction of infirmity (Stiker, 2006) and its role in the production of a deviant body image. What will be considered in a first step is the corporeal difference produced in relation to anatomical norms and not the social attribution of values. This phenomenon will be explored in parallel in relation to motility disability and the redefinition of disability by exoskeletons. In CP or SCI the body image is affected and recognised as deviant because movement contractions affect muscles of the face, hands or feet, sometimes resulting in deformations of these parts of the body. Morphological deviance is therefore visually marked by such contractions. The second mode, in which the morphology of the body marks disability, refers to the presence and use of exoskeletons. And yet, despite their rehabilitative functions, exoskeletons can also be used to augment bodily capacities. In their rehabilitative function, exoskeletons help persons with CP or SCI recover some motility properties. Exoskeletons are suits, and thus they are external to the body. Walking, stretching of the hands, of the legs or the feet are concrete examples which can be rehabilitated by using exoskeletons. Given their exteriority, they influence the direct perception of the body image and also the morphology of the body. By their novelty, they challenge the presentation and representation of disability and sometimes ability, defying an implicit order of the body. In their quality of technological gadgets, they give reasons to consider new forms of bodily deviance, in that they associate biological functions of the human body with artificially produced technological functions. This combination gives concrete reasons to advance the conception of a hybrid body, in the sense of a techno-body.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Morphological Deviances

161

Given these transformations, a series of questions arise: how do the morphological failure in motility disability and corporeal-technological hybridity challenge the conception of a "normal" body? What forms of the imaginary are produced by the modification of disability through exoskeletons and how does this modification challenge the conception of infirmity? How is the deviance of the body marked by the discourse of persons having these forms of disability and what consequences for their identity do the implementation and use of exoskeletons have? To answer these questions, the notions of biological and technological double will be discussed and their contribution to the emergence of a form of bodily anomy related to disability and hybridity highlighted. To do so, empirical sociological material from narrative interviews carried with persons having CP and SCI will be used. Further, the importance of the body image as a bodily field, where the negotiation of bodily deviance is realised, will be stressed. This second issue is theoretically inspired by recent developments in the phenomenology of the body (Gallagher 2006, Gugutzer 2012). Finally, the production of bodily transgression concerning the examples mentioned above of CP and SCI will be considered in relation to biological and sociocultural norms, as well as to hybridisation processes between technological devices and the human body.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

7.2 The corporeal double Due to its exceptional character, corporeal disability is often associated to a form of radical alterity, which produces anxiety and fear precisely by its challenge of categories. Bodily contractions may affect the position of the hands, the feet or the muscles of the face. Not being able to walk and thus to take part in everyday social activities excludes and isolates the individual. These examples affirm an alternative form of corporeal dispositions: instead of displaying a commonly acknowledged model of “I can”, that is a set of capacities and capabilities which are contextually sanctioned, the motilitydisabled body has an alternative corporeal habit repertoire. This alternative display is in the chosen examples acknowledged first at a biological and anatomical level. The couple normal/pathological has a long history both in the philosophy of medicine, a field in which this typology is known especially thanks to Georges Canguilhem, and in the social theory of deviance (Anderson 1923, Goffman 1963/2010). However, as far as the relation between corporeal normality and corporeal deviance is concerned, the notion of pathological has other implications. In sociological theory, the correlation between deviance and disability is known, especially in relation to the typologies elaborated by Erving Goffman. He takes the analysis of deviance as related to disability a step further,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

162

Chapter 7

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

advancing a new concept which is that of “stigma”. In his view “an individual who might have been received easily in ordinary social intercourse possesses a trait that can obtrude itself upon attention and turn those of us whom he meets away from him, breaking the claim that his other attributes have on us. He possesses a stigma, an undesired differentness from what we had anticipated. We and those who do not depart negatively from the particular expectations at issue I call the normal” (Goffman 1963/2010, 132). The corporeal difference assigned by motility disability is a primary order stigma since it is based on primary perception. Mental disability or illness are also forms of stigma. However, they remain often invisible. Since movement is a major characteristic through which we define ourselves in relation to other human beings, any deficiency or incapacity related to movement is directly noted and sanctioned. Stigma, as previously recalled, is an important conceptual tool for the elaboration of the concept of corporeal double. A notion often found in literary fiction and studies related to Freudian psychoanalysis (Stiker 2000, Korff-Sausse 2000), the double refers to a hidden aspect of the human personality, mostly revealing an evil side of the human being. The example of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a novel written by Robert Lewis Stevenson, is classic in this respect. The reason why motility disability, on the one hand, and its technological transformation, on the other, may be related to the category of the double is first because visible disability confronts us with an undeniable form of vulnerability. Second, the transformation through technology introduces artifice in the natural body, copying biological, anatomical functions, a situation which raises specific problems. In the first case, the conception of the double surprises others because it introduces into the regularity of life forms an alternative one, which is less functional for some social contexts and situations. Hence its status of biological double. The second situation is just as complex in the sense that technology has nourished its own mythology. If machines have fascinated some, they have also sometimes been understood as being a sort of a competitor to an already given order of life. They were often associated with a possibility to defy life forms, or defying death. As Claude Kappler recalls “the human mind has always nourished the illusion of creating, by means of machines, an ideal, infallible and incorruptible version of the human being as such. The machine is an attempt to deny death, to organise chaos” (1980, 113, transl. mine D.B.). Through this capacity to challenge both the limits of life as a biological datum and death, the machine represents a form of technological double. If in the case of perceived disability, the double creates fear by its potential for vulnerability and inability, the confrontation with technology and especially with technology influencing directly such fundamental properties of the body

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Morphological Deviances

163

as movement, such as exoskeletons, challenges perception precisely because it pushes limits towards a conception of too-ability. The double is in this case that of too-ability, and thus the normality border of the corporeal is questioned by the passage towards another type of limit. As Martin Tropp argues in a well-known study on Mary Shelley’s famous novel, Frankenstein, “technology can never be more than a magnified image of the self” (1976, 55). And yet, despite their constellation of values, both biological and technological double should be understood in the present example as alternative forms of corporeal normality. Given the fact that the notion of normal and normality have frequently been associated with a normative characteristic, and therefore with a coercive stance, perceived disabilities such as CP or SCI were negatively defined. However, due to the development of such technologies as exoskeletons, this categorical separation is further negotiated, also affecting the conception of a biological or technological double. If disability could be understood in terms of a biological double and the machine as a technological double, due to their association, one reaches a new level of both corporeality and self. The morphological deviance which was separated into two epistemological and material conceptions is therefore redefined.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This association is also affirmed by an interviewed person who has SCI. According to him, “when you put an exoskeleton on, as in… you’re as a system. It’s more than just a machine. It’s the machine with the person. So the two have to really work together and work closely together. And of course, the person should feel in the control of the machine. And then, the machine should have sensors and things that the person’s missing. Like, you know, like all the sensory information from the legs that the person doesn’t have, the machine has” (A. male, 26 years old). The failure in movement is therefore redesigned, in the sense that what once represented two orders of being is now represented as being complementary and as being mutually responsive. The two forms of corporeal variation that the material double promote now change, advancing a different morphological structure. Despite such conceptions as those defended by George Canguillhem, who clearly stated that abnormal life-forms were in no oppositional relation to normality and the two types – normal and abnormal – were just different regimes of functions of life, the biological double in the form of disability or infirmity has frequently been associated to a negative system of values. This also happened due to how social structures function, in that individuals fulfil roles and statuses. As long as the codes for these roles and statuses are respected, there is no sanction. When disability is present, and especially when disability is visually demarcated as it is in cases of motility deficiencies, the specificity of the morphological deviance is obvious.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

164

Chapter 7

The look of the abled while confronted with this type of corporeal double is characterised by a mimetic crisis (Stiker, 2000); therefore, the moment of analogy which grounds our relations of identity fails. Intersubjective structures function because of our possibility to recognise ourselves in another human being. Identification, imitation and analogy are basic processes which contribute to the maintenance of our relations with one another. As Pierre Ancet notes, “the correspondence between the body of the other and my own body does not need to be realised: it is lived before being realised. It is especially lived via the mode of correspondence between possible actions […]. The anchorage point in the other is her action and the modalities of this action. The existence of a form is implied by this capacity to act; the corporeal form becomes a pretext for a corporeal experience” (2006, 75, transl. mine D.B.).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The corporeal double brought in by motility disability faces us with a moment of crisis precisely because what is affected is the mimetic effect. When noting a morphological discrepancy the abled persons experience a mimetic crisis and the motility congruence with which one habitually operates is questioned. Hence the emergence of the biological double. The presence of the machine and its rehabilitation capacities, its collaboration with the body configurations, introduces the second form of double, the technological, but also the third form of double. One can see the machine either as a pure product of a scientifically designed other, and considered in a binary view that opposes nature to culture, or the machine as a new form of existence and co-existence with given biological corporeal structures. It is this third form of corporeal double which represents an advancement both in practice and in representational terms since it allows, simultaneously, the redefinition of disability, ability and of our material consistency. Moreover, what the forms of corporeal double engender is anomie, a concept which in the classical sociological theory of Emile Durkheim associated with the break of social bonds between the individual and society. The morphological failure and its redefinition by technological means have a destabilising effect. Therefore, they are responsible for the breaking of what I would designate as a perceptive corporeal contract. However, if in the Durkheimian perspective, anomie is rather a negative phenomenon, in the present case, an anomic body is productive, in the sense that it helps redefine normality. Being an exception, it questions our everyday habits, practice repertoires and routines. An anomic structure, as it is the case of the corporeal double discussed, acknowledges the body as an operational form. Actually, what the merging between human dysfunction and technological adjustment shows is precisely that the double gradually lapses into everydayness. What seemed to be an ineluctable corporeal

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Morphological Deviances

165

condition, especially in the cases of persons with SCI, becomes a new form of capability, a new form of “I can” (Leder, 1990). 7.3 Body image(s)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Perception announces action and its possibilities. In the phenomenological paradigm, which represents an important resource for the analysis of such phenomena as the emergence of morphological deviance, perception represents a major characteristic of the human subject. It is particularly important in the realisation of meaning and our intersubjective relations. As is claimed by Alva Noe, who is one of the defenders of the enactivist paradigm, a recent theoretical development inspired partly by the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “perception is not something that happens to us, or in us. It is something we do. […] Perceptual experience acquires content thanks to our possession of bodily skills. What we perceive is determined by what we do (or what we know how to do); it is determined by what we are ready to do” (2004, 1). What happens then when we perceive a person having spasticity, a person using a wheelchair or a person using an exoskeleton? Given the fact that the rules of everyday life and everyday practices qualify the presence of such corporeal displays as being exceptions rather than the rule, the body image that these persons have is instead perceived with distance. It is precisely in this distance from a corporeal rule which characterises the body as healthy or perceptually non-problematic, which Merleau-Ponty calls “écart”, that an ontological distance emerges. Put in other words, the body of motility disability is therefore not only in the world, but it becomes a corporeal world in itself precisely by its exceptionality. A sociological phenomenological approach taken in the present essay investigates the formation of this difference, which is based principally upon the body image, and stresses its potential. The concept of anomaly, well known in both theories of disability and pathology, as well as in the more general discourse of teratology (Caiozzo and Demartini, 2008), does not privilege the normative aspect. It rather intends to show that “the so-called normal and natural body is then an achievement, a model of the proper where everything is in its place, and the chaotic aspects of the natural are banished. It is a body that requires unceasing maintenance and/or modification to hold off the constant threat of disruption […]” (Shildrick 1999, 80). The morphological deviance that emerges with the body image of persons having motility disability, as well as with the presence and use of such technological markers as exoskeletons, therefore challenges our habitual set of practical engagement with one another.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

166

Chapter 7

Perception is vital in our engagement with one another and for the maintenance of our common activities. It is also what legitimises the importance of the body image, since probably more than the body schema, which is first and foremost a subjective level – the body schema being our postural awareness, but not a fully conscious act – the body image is from the start a moment which is both subjective and intersubjective. In the enactive phenomenological approach, “a body image is composed of a system of experiences, attitudes, and beliefs where the object of such intentional states is one’s own body” (Gallagher and Zahavi 2008, 146). The body image has three further main aspects which constitute it: the perceptual experience one has of one’s own body, the conceptual understanding of the body in general and the emotional attitude that the subject has towards her or his body. As Gallagher & Zahavi further claim, conceptual and emotional aspects may be affected by cultural and interpersonal factors. This is actually the level where the morphological deviance in the sense of perceptual/image difference and differentiation emerges. The significance of morphology is primary in the qualification of the self by the others. It is the visual level which individualises an excessive subject, that is, on the one hand, the singularity of disability motility, and on the other of a body which is technologically assisted. This process of individualisation of motility disability and more generally of disability, is clearly affirmed by one of the interviewees having CP: “[…] disability is quite visible. You walk down the street, you will bump into someone in a wheelchair, or someone with a walking stick.” (M. male, 36 years old). The body image is, consequently sanctioned by the body schema, one of the basic components in the production of habits of meaning. If the body image is characterised, as was previously mentioned, by some explicit consciousness aspects, the body schema which is strongly affected in CP and SCI, is a more diffuse characteristic, yet of capital importance. In the phenomenology elaborated by Merleau-Ponty, it is actually the body schema which holds the predominant role in the more general theorisation of the role of the body as a centre of experience. For Merleau-Ponty, the body schema also represents an intentional engagement with the world, revising and questioning the primacy of consciousness in the phenomenological discourse on the constitution of meaning. The body schema needs to be considered in an intrinsic relation to the body image, since, especially in cases of motility disability, it is clearly transposed as image and therefore visually marked. Actually, what the body image translates in CP and SCI is differentiation; it is the anomaly that characterises the body schema of the disabled persons. Anomaly should, however, be understood here not as an opposition to the corporeal law that ensures the functionality of the body, but rather as a coexisting manner in which the bodily subject exists. An anomaly is “a difference in degree. The

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Morphological Deviances

167

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

anomal is simply the different” (Canguilhem 1965/2008, 126) and this difference is constitutive both for the visibility of the subject of disability as well as for the other person who interacts with this subject. What qualifies as the outside of the body, the outside of the corporeal normality, may become an encounter which is constitutive of the body image, a new form of the corporeal inside. The situation becomes more complex when considering the association between the body and the exoskeleton. If disability already represents a manner by which and through which bodily schematic resources are questioned and defined on a new basis, the association between the body and an external suit which is meant when used for rehabilitative purposes to restore former motility functions revises both the conception of disability, that of ability and of the corporeal consistence in general. The use of the exoskeleton is more than just simple normalisation for the persons having motility disabilities. It is a clear change in the way they are perceived. As one of the interviewees mentions, “when I sit in the wheelchair, I am the disabled. When I stand up and walk with an exoskeleton, then I belong again to the society. Then I am not the disabled anymore” (A. male, 40 years old). The same interviewee also realises the differentiation in the perception of his body image by other people when he walks on the street using this device. He mentions first the persons who ignore him, second the persons who come and talk to him about the technical details and who are interested in the pure scientific functioning of the gadget, and third, children who associate his image with a science-fiction model, in his case, with Robocop. The body image of disability therefore migrates by means of this technology, on the one hand towards normalising corporeality and on the other hand towards the assimilation of a special form of the imaginary, coming from the fictional domain into the real, factual everyday life. It also shows that what has been thought as being an exception to the functioning of the body as such, the difference, the anomaly is gradually transposed by technological means into a category which installs a new order of identity: that of the techno-body (Andrieu, 2010). In the phenomenological discourse, the lived body’s quality of extending beyond its biological limits has already been acknowledged (Merleau-Ponty 1945/2012, 153; Gallagher 2012, 146-147). What the interviews with persons having motility disabilities show is not only a confirmation of an experiential moment of extension, but that the body image is gradually accepted as a hybrid corporeal project. What exoskeletons do is to redistribute the morphological deviance in the sense that the deviance becomes normalised by something foreign to the body. If in the case of disability, the disabled person was and is still perceived as the other of radical otherness, what the technology realises is a new appropriation of the otherness into the structures

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

168

Chapter 7

of the lifeworld. By modifying parameters of experience in the first-person perspective and the body image, the exoskeleton provides a new corporeal habitus, a new form of practical knowledge.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In some phenomenological perspectives inspired partly by the poststructuralist tradition, “the developing body is always dynamic, growing and adapting” (Shildrick 1999, 80). As the interviews with disabled persons show, the body displays more than a fluid quality. They postulate new forms of identity which, despite their perceived deviance, gradually become the advocates of new forms of ability. As Minae Inahara argues, focusing more on the difference instituted by the motility disability, “physical disability is not the ‘Other’ to the able-bodied. Instead, there is a diversity of abilities and disabilities in all our negotiations of the world. This diversity challenges the logic of sameness in able-bodied understanding of ability and the fixed body it assumes” (Inahara 2009, 56). Moreover, the presence and acceptance of the machine supplanting bodily functions is a clear proof that the corporeal biological materiality changes and opens itself towards processes of incorporation. The body image of a disabled person using an exoskeleton affirms in an obvious manner this synthetic process and along with it the transformation in the perception of the morphological deviance as deviance. As Robert Gugutzer notes, the body image affirms a specificity on its own, that of the individual and its negotiation of bodily limits. In the hybridity process emerging between a technological and the biological part of the body, we witness a shifting of borders. If in some cases specific behaviour such as anorexia or strict control of diet when practising performance sports affirms corporeal limit experiences (Grenzerfahrungen) which individualise the subjects living them, in the case of CP and SCI the corporeal limit experiences gain another level. This refers specifically to the fact that they influence the development of actions, interactions and the practice habitus in which the persons with disabilities are concretely engaged. In Gugutzer’s view, limit experiences are self-experiences (Selbsterfahrungen) in which the individual is confronted with herself in a manner which is palpable (spürbar) (2008,185). They also include a conflictual dimension, which is set at a subjective level – a conflict between the actual dispositions of moving and doing, and the intention or the requirements of the situation (Gugutzer 2008, 185). The use of the exoskeleton seems for some interviewees to restore a feeling of normality, of belonging to the realm of the abled (Frank, 1990). Some, on the other hand, seem to be more sceptical about the efficiency of these gadgets and their normality-restoring properties, preferring the wheelchair, which corresponds better to some daily needs: “The advantage of the wheelchair is it's stable. You see, you don't have to balance all the time. Your hands are free, and that would be the first disadvantage of the exoskeleton. I

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Morphological Deviances

169

mean you use crutches to balance, so your hands aren't free. The wheelchair is a little bit faster. A lot faster, depending on how fast you want to go. And the exoskeleton it's about maybe half of the regular walking speed, maybe a third of the regular walking speed, so it's pretty slow compared to other means of transportation” (A. male, 25 years old). Thus, the body image oscillates according to the use of the gadget conceived for motility rehabilitation. If the use of exoskeleton brings a positive image, an image where the focus is on the exceptionality of the body correlated to that of the machine, the use of the wheelchair, despite its practical efficiency, brings back the perception of disability. Thus the association between technology and disability has many implications, revising the understanding of the limits of the subject’s corporeal field, altering categories of experience and challenging the couples normal/deviant, normal/marginal, and normal/abnormal. 7.4 The body in transgression

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The body image previously evoked leads the inquiry on morphological deviance towards another vehicle which is essential in the constitution of deviance. Whether morphological deviance is related to disability or the application and use of exoskeletons, in both cases, there is a form of bodily transgression. This process of transgression will be understood in the following as a mechanism through which the body, as an identity guarantee, redefines its corporeal consistency and articulates new levels of being and living. The corporeal transgression is not present in motility disability as an “insurmountable alterity” (altérité infranchissable) (Korff-Sausse 2005, 136) anymore. For decades morphological corporeal deviances have been associated with transgressions in the form and functions of the body which were primarily social. As previously mentioned, in the natural body, there are no anomalies. To recall once more George Canguilhem, “nothing can be lacking [manque] to a living being once we accept that there are a thousand and one different ways of living. Just as in war and politics there is no definitive victory, but only a relative and precarious superiority or equilibrium, so in the order of life, there are no successes that radically devalorize other attempts and make them appear failed” (1965/2008, 126). It is in a contextual body which does not assume what Erving Goffman names “face”, namely the set of attributes a person needs to respect in a certain context or circumstance, that the deviance emerges. The first experiential layer, which individualises the specificity of motility disability and its transformation using exoskeletons, obviously remains the perceptual one. The transgression of corporeal norms as social norms is realised via perception and praxis inventories, one of the characteristics crucial to the development of corporeal transgression being analogy.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

170

Chapter 7

Phenomenologically, the analogic mechanism in the constitution of otherness is well known. Husserl’s classical approach, according to which I apperceive the other as an other, gives grounds to explain our capacity of establishing intersubjective relations by identifying common models of being and practice (Husserl 1928/1973, §50). Later theorists interested in elucidating the constitution of intersubjective relations, and who drew on the Husserlian heritage, such as Alfred Schutz (1932/2004) or more contemporary phenomenologists such as Dan Zahavi (2009, 2010) restated the role of the apperceptive mechanism as direct access to otherness. If the abled subject is confronted with a person having a motility disability, especially disabilities which are quickly identified visually, the apperception process is strongly revised. It is through this gap that the morphological deviance starts to be recognised as deviance. The motility-disabled body escapes the everyday habitus and questions the relation to the abled human fellows by its unicity.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The perception of a body having strong muscle contractions or of a body being moved by an exoskeleton also challenges the moment of analogy mostly acknowledged by visual perception, the possibility to realise what Robert Gugutzer defines as corporeal understanding (leibliches Verstehen) (Gugutzer 2012, 64). Corporeal understanding is in Gugutzer’s view a form of understanding which is based on the structural-spatial similarity of the space of people’s own bodies (räumlich-strukturelle Ähnlichkeit der Leiber) (Gugutzer 2012, 65) and is one of the mechanisms which does not rely on an intentionality of consciousness. This feature recalls a principle defended by Maurice MerleauPonty in his phenomenology of the body, where the instance responsible for the institution of meaning is the intentionality displayed by the body as a living body, by the body as a motor project, as he calls it (Merleau-Ponty 1945/2012, 113). In the case of motility disability, the rupture and negotiation of corporeal meaning resources on another basis than what the abled dispose of, creating precisely one of the first criteria for the conception of the body in terms of a transgressive project. And yet, in the present case, transgression needs to be understood under a double perspective. More precisely, on the one hand, transgression could be understood as the perceived moment of the failure in the stock-of-motility-at-hand of the persons having CP and SCI. On the other hand, the corporeal transgression could be associated with a process of the institution of a biological-anatomical difference by means of a technological application. Some interviewees manifest their scepticism with respect to technological applications which may intrude too much into their physiological body or change their disability too much. Technological rehabilitation is understood as a transgression of the limits of their own individuality, and therefore they prefer to defend the corporeal transgression that distinguishes their motility disability. “[…] if I lost CP, I’d be completely lost because I would … I have got all my

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Morphological Deviances

171

friends. I might not be completely cured of disability, but I would lose this world that I had to build for myself” (S. female, CP, 30 years old). In some other cases though, technology is seen as a new possibility to redimension oneself and redefine one’s corporeal possibilities.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The machine is not only an attempt to deny the ultimate human limit, which is death, or to organise chaos, as Claude Kappler claims (1980, 113). It becomes an attempt to respond to and to organise life. And it is precisely this attempt, by which it is aimed to restore the possibility of a corporeal analogy that the individual lacks due to her disability, that creates a transgressive potential. This aspect brings a supplementary level into the discussion. The lived body is not challenged anymore by its inability to respond to social and contextual requirements. Exoskeletons are conceived in the medical field precisely to adjust the body so that the disabled person recovers at least partially some of the lost motility attributes. They copy natural processes like hand movement and walking to ensure further interactional possibilities which either did not exist at all, as in the case of CP, or were profoundly affected as it is in the case of SCI. What seems a transgressive characteristic in the case of a body accompanied by a machine or of a body readjusted by technological means is the principle of combining artificial functions with biological-anatomical ones. One order, namely that of technology, intrudes and corrects the second order, that of nature. This convergence of habitual models elaborated upon different materialities is further responsible for the emergence of new forms of corporeality. The question in the present analysis is not any more “up to what point do we accept alterity?” as Simone Korff-Sausse (2005, 137) addresses it in the context of an inquiry about the acceptability of disability in general. The question is up to what point we accept the adjusted other, who is precisely adjusted in order to respond to a set of rules and social expectations. The corporeal transgression emerges first in the disability cases discussed due to an impossibility of superposing a model of living, acting, and last but not least, of being oneself to a set of models contextually and culturally acknowledged to be valid and functional for that specific time and space where the concerned individuals happen to live. What is identified as an exception in the display of the motility-disabled body is a form of corporeal event. The body, by its singularity, becomes an event-body, as Eve Gardien notes (Gardien 2003, 177). In the case of the persons having CP, the event is represented by the condition they happened to experience at their birth and which led to motility deficiencies. In the case of the persons having SCI, the body they acquired after they experienced an accident openly shows the event of the accident by becoming a deficient body. Actually, the body of the SCI persons is marked in a stronger manner by the aspect of the event; it transmits further by perceptual

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

172

Chapter 7

means the biographical cut. Unlike the CP body, which transgresses motility habits from birth, the SCI body acquires the transgression later in life. Its singularity is represented by the fact that anatomically and biologically, it becomes someone else. It is redesigned biologically, but also socially in that the perception of the machine adjusting the body has specific consequences than in CP.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The transgression and the change from ability to disability in the case of the SCI persons are clearly acknowledged in their material aspect and the practical negotiations with oneself. According to one of the interviewees having SCI and who describes the first months following the accident, “One has to learn basically everything new by himself: standing up, getting dressed, going to the toilet, sitting and moving from the wheelchair into the car. One needed basically to learn everything anew. And in these three, four months or maybe two and a half, since I had to lay in bed for so long, I had to learn everything anew. I had to relearn to work it all anew so that I may then later be able to go home” (A. male, SCI, 40 years old). In a first step, the transgression therefore concerned the lived body. It is first the normality of the lived body that needs to be understood and accepted after the accident. The second step concerns the confrontation with the other’s view, in which the lived body, when one’s own body faces the real body, the visible body which is that of disability, of a heavy gaze (Ancet 2006, 77). This gaze is further complicated by the association between the machine part and the body as such, because it affirms the exception of disability but also another form of corporeal exception, due to the presence of a new form of ability. The morphological deviance changes thus its status in this case from a negative perception to a perception, which despite its strangeness and capacity to surprise the abled persons, has a high normalising pretention. 7.5 Conclusion The above-discussed cases of motility disability help not only to understand the necessity and possibilities that an exceptional body image induce, but also how this exceptionality is lived and negotiated at various levels by those who are it. They also show that there is an obvious tension between the affirmation of two bodily models: one striving for unicity and defence of disability as a corporeal project on its own, the other longing for integration. The morphological deviance simultaneously challenges the rehabilitation politics promoted by the medical world and that of social contexts. If rehabilitation tends to make identical, erase and assimilate disabled people, as HenriJacques Stiker claims (Stiker 2000, 128), the growing presence and visibility of the application and use of biotechnologies shifts this representation to a further level. By inventing new forms of corporeality, exoskeletons affirm the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Morphological Deviances

173

“undecidability of exteriority” (Wills 2006, 244), reformulating the reality and consistency of the lived body both in its understanding as a body-for-oneself as well as a body-for-others. Moreover, what both models (disability and exoskeleton use) acknowledge is the constant process of negotiation and re-making of the corporeal relations upon which both intersubjectivity and acting and interacting possibilities are elaborated. What is admitted by the presence and existence of such forms is the very fact that “normality is a shortage (carence)”, as Claude Kappler recalls (Kappler 1980, 202). Under such circumstances, the mimetic crisis, that longing for stabilisation of the analogical principle upon which social and intersubjective models are grounded, needs a revision. Corporeal transgressions in the sense of divergence need to be integrated as models of life, as models of people’s own living possibilities which may function in parallel to what society and contexts validate. The goal of this essay was to draw attention to the possibility of constructive integration of such corporeal models, which develop on the study of tensions with the mimetic requirements of the social life, or analogic crises due to the definitions of disability in social, medical or technological environments. Hence, instead of stressing negative aspects which distance and circumscribe motility disability as a corporeal dissociation and as a social challenge, the aim was to stress such categories as the double, the body image or the corporeal transgression, while defending the existence and active corporeal potential of an “excessive subject”. It is this new subject which, by its active affirmation of motility disability and integration of biotechnologies in the own body schema, establishes new corporeal realities and contexts.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Ancet, P. (2006). Phénoménologie des corps monstrueux. Paris: PUF. Anderson, N. (1923). The Hobo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Andrieu, B. (2010). Se 'transcoporer'. Vers une autotransformation de l'humain? La pensée du midi. 1. No 30. 34-41. Caiozzo, A. and Anne-Emmanuelle D. L’histoire des monstres: questions de méthode. Caiozzo, A. and Demartini, A.-E. (Eds.). Paris: Creaphis. 4-25. Canguillhem, G. (2008). Knowledge of Life. New York: Fordham UP. Gardien, E. (2003). La déficience esthétique comme distance sociale singulière. Le handicap en images. Blanc, A. and Stiker, H.-J. (Eds.). Ramoville: Eres. 175-188. Husserl, E. ([1928] 1973). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. Husserliana I. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Inahara, M. (2009). This Body which is Not One: The Body, Femininity and Disability. Body and Society. Vol. (15) 1: 47-62. Gallagher, S. (2005). How the Body Shapes the Mind. Oxford: Clarendon.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

174

Chapter 7

Gallagher, S. and Zahavi, D. (2008). The Phenomenological Mind. New York: Routledge. Gallagher, S. (2012). Phenomenology. Basingstoke. New York: Palgrave. Gugutzer, R. (2006). Leibliches Verstehen: zur sozialen Relevanz des Spürens. Rehberg, K.-S. (Ed.). Soziale Ungleichheit, kulturelle Unterscheide: Verhandlungen des 32. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in München. Teilbd. 1 und 2. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verl. 4536-4546. Gugutzer, R. (2008). Alter(n) und die Identitätsrelevanz von Leib und Körper. Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie. Vol. 41. No 3.182-187. Gugutzer, R. (2012). Verkörperungen des Sozialen. Bielefeld: Transcript. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall. Kappler, C. (1980). Le monstre, Pouvoirs de l’imposture. Paris: PUF. Korff-Sausse, S. (2000). D’Oedipe à Frankenstein. Figures du handicap. Bruxelles: Desclée de Brouwer. Korff-Sausse, S. (2005). Un exclu pas comme les autres. Handicap et exclusion. Cliniques méditerranéennes 2005/2 No. 72. 133-146. Leder, D. (1990). The Absent Body. Chicago: Chicago, UP. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012) [originally 1945]. Phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge. Noe, A. (2004). Action in Perception. Cambridge Mass. and London. England: MIT. Schütz, A. (2004) [originally 1932]. Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Konstanz: UVK. Shildrick, M. (1999). This Body which is Not One: Dealing with Differences. Body and Society. Vol. (5) 2-3: 77-92. Stiker, H.-J. (2000). A History of Disability. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Stiker, H.-J. (2006). Monstruosité et infirmité. Monstre et imaginaire social. Caiozzo, A. and Demartini, A.-E. (Eds.). Paris: Creaphis. 237-251. Tropp, M. (1976). Mary Shelley’s Monster: The Story of Frankenstein. Houghton. Wills, D. (2006). Technology or the Discourse of Speed. In The Prosthetic Impulse. Marquard, S. and Morra, J. (Eds.). Cambridge Mass.and London. England: MIT. 237-263. Zahavi, D. (2009). Is the Self a Social Construct? Inquiry 52, 6. 551-573. Zahavi, D. (2010). Empathy, Embodiment and Interpersonal Understanding: From Lipps to Schutz. Inquiry 53, 3. 285-306.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

8. Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile: The Body in Orthodontic Treatment in Turkey Hande Güzel University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract This chapter will focus on the experience of orthodontic treatment in Turkey. Although in theory, the state offers free treatment to children (under 18 years of age), most patients seek private treatment as they are required to wait for 45 years to be seen by a specialist due to an imbalance between supply and demand. While free treatment’s being offered to children hints at the meaning(s) the state attributes to orthodontic treatment, it also marks ‘correctly aligned’ teeth as a symbol of socioeconomic status. Gender and beauty ideals also cut across socioeconomic status within this realm. Orthodontic treatment, or lack thereof, generates discussions around shortand long-term monstrosity as well. Within contemporary Turkish culture, ‘correct’ alignment of teeth is seen as necessary to avoid long-term monstrosity, while the child or adult with braces is considered to be monstrous as well. This traps potential patients in choosing between two monstrosities. Based on auto-ethnographic experience and semi-structured in-depth interviews with people who have undergone orthodontic treatment, this study will dwell into the experience of orthodontic treatment. It is important to note that orthodontic treatment cannot be confined to the dentist’s clinic. It seeps into the everyday life of the patient, thus radically altering one’s sense of self and everyday way of doing things, which forms an integral part of the experience of orthodontic treatment as well. Keywords: Orthodontics, medicalization, technologies of the self, teeth, Turkey

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

176

Chapter 8

8.1 Introduction

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

My father and my cousin, -an orthodontist-, at my door, knocking, and waiting for me to come out. Silence. I’m 12, and am protesting against wearing braces. I think I will be bullied at school. I don’t want it. I don’t get it. Fast forward to age 22, I’m at my cousin’s clinic, willingly waiting to wear my braces. This is the story of my and other fellow patients’ experience of orthodontic treatment.

Orthodontic treatment in Turkey is a largely privatized service. Although public hospitals also provide this treatment, it is highly difficult to benefit from this. The state pays only one-third of the expenses and does so only if you are under 18 when you start the treatment (Sosyal Guvenlik Kurumu 2016). Furthermore, once one applies to receive treatment, as a result of the imbalance between supply and demand, most patients should expect to wait a few years to be seen by an orthodontist. Therefore, orthodontic treatment becomes a marker of socioeconomic status. Picard’s assertion that “increasingly, orthodontics provided physical manifestation of one’s possession of disposable income and aspirations to a ‘bright future’” (2009, 162) within the context of the USA during the 1960s and 1970s holds true for contemporary Turkey as well. Many participants in this study have stated that when they see a person whom they believe requires orthodontic treatment, they immediately think that they have not received treatment either because the person was not able to afford it, or as a result of lack of education on behalf of the person or their parents. This shows that orthodontic treatment works as an important resource for acquiring “physical capital” (Shilling 1991). Chris Shilling develops this notion moving from Bourdieu’s conceptualization of it as a “sub-division of cultural capital”, and into “a form of capital in its own right” to capture “the importance of the body” (1991, 654). Although Shilling focuses mainly on physical education and sporting activities to elaborate on this form of capital, I contend that orthodontic treatment can be added to the resources one might turn to accumulate it. This physical capital, with a near-perfect smile, can be converted into economic capital, as companies tend to hire employees that are “presentable”, and into social capital, among others. As Khalid and Quiñonez put forth, “the body as physical capital represented through appearance, dress code, style and behavior becomes a symbolic metaphor of a person’s social class” (2015, 790). This happens especially when the means to accumulate this capital is market-based. As Horton and Barker argue, “market-based health care systems can create embodied differences that in turn reproduce a system of social inequality” (2010, 199). This inequality is then reflected onto the everyday lives of the receivers and non-receivers of this treatment, as identified by Onur, one of the interviewees for this study that “social interaction is really something that is done by looking at the face of the person opposite. In any case, most probably better-aligned teeth give you a leverage within social interactions.”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

177

Orthodontic treatment lies somewhere between medical and aesthetic concerns. Discussions surrounding the medical necessity of this treatment persist (Ackerman et al. 2007). Most participants in this study find it hard to distinguish between surgeries that are accepted as cosmetic in common sense and orthodontic treatment. Yet, being led to treatment through the guidance of a doctor leads participants to at least partially accept this as a medical necessity. How participants position themselves within the dichotomy of medical versus aesthetic concerns requires a lengthier discussion for which there is not enough space here. Nevertheless, I resort to a concept here that can incorporate the two dimensions. Monstrosity can be used as a concept to encompass both the medical and the aesthetic. Aesthetically, a person’s body or body part could be regarded as pretty or ugly, whereas aligned teeth might be perceived as healthy or unhealthy. Monstrosity, on the other hand, encompasses both of these dimensions, which are core to orthodontic treatment. Furthermore, monstrosity also allows us to look into the experience of the treatment, as it refers to people’s perception of their own bodies or body parts, as well as the impact of the treatment on daily interactions. Within this framework, this text refers to the monster as the abnormal. In other words, when I use the term monster (or monstrosity), I refer to people whose appearance is not regarded as normal by the society, by the immediate surrounding of the person, or the person themselves. This does not necessarily mean that the person is regarded as ugly, nor that every person has the same opinion on the same person. More than that, this refers to the idea that the body or the specific part of the body can be further improved to reach normality. Shilling talks about the idea of “the unfinished body” and argues “that the body is most profitably conceptualized as an unfinished biological and social phenomenon which is transformed, within certain limits, as a result of its entry into, and participation in, society” (2003, 11). It is this idea that further work is necessary on the body or a body part that ties in with monstrosity at the social level. “The unfinished body” concept also tells us that it is not only how our teeth look, how they are treated, and the pain we endure to get the “perfect smile”, but also how the social perceives the physical that needs to be considered. In this study, I focus on the relationship of receivers of orthodontic treatment with their bodies, or body parts. This relationship is personal and subjective, but at the same time, it is shaped through and within society. I contend that orthodontic treatment is not only a radical intervention into one’s body but also one’s relationship with their body. Through a reconsideration of the individual, the physical, and the social, one’s perception of one’s body faces challenges and resolutions throughout the treatment. It has been possible to trace this relationship in four dimensions that have come up from the narratives that define and shape how one relates to their body in relation to orthodontic treatment. These dimensions are the conflict between long- and short-term

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

178

Chapter 8

monstrosity, (un)homelikeness throughout the treatment and afterwards, pain and pleasure emanating from the treatment, and finally technologies of the self as defined by Michel Foucault. Before starting this analysis, it is necessary to review the social scientific literature on orthodontics and teeth in order to locate my research.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

8.2 Mouth and Teeth in the Literature Within the sociology and anthropology of the body, and health and illness, the mouth in general, and the teeth, in particular, have been understudied. As Graham remarks, “sociology has shown relatively little interest in exploring the mouth, or in engaging with dentistry itself: a sociology of the mouth remains absent” (2006, 53). Earlier social scientific work on the mouth and dentistry dates back to the 1980s, when Sarah Nettleton drew attention to technologies of power and the creation of a dental subject from a Foucauldian perspective (1989a, 1989b). Following this theoretical perspective, Nettleton later argued that “mouths, dental diseases, and teeth are not pre-existent natural entities, but rather objects realized through the discourse which surrounds them” (1998, 74). Although this social constructionist view on the body in general, and teeth in particular is useful to make sense of the power relations that emanate from the clinic and orthodontic treatment, it treats the patient as a mere receiver of the authority of the orthodontist, as well as of the discourses surrounding health and aesthetics of teeth. Therefore, in this study, I perceive patients as agents in the production of aligned teeth and the reproduction of the ideal mouth. This also allows me to pay attention to the embodied experience of orthodontic treatment, which involves pain, as well as pleasure. This perspective that brings together two seemingly opposite theoretical standpoints is referred to as “the dialectical approach” by Chris Shilling, and it perceives the “body as a material object located in nature, but subject to social change” (1991, 665). Within the scarce but emerging literature on teeth and orthodontic treatment, one of the prevailing themes has been their relationship with socioeconomic status. Earlier studies have focused on the “importance of dental appearance in certain social situations” (Linn 1966, 290), and on the social importance of orthodontic treatment (Rutzen 1973). More recently, Turbill et al. have studied the link between social class and the discontinuation of orthodontic treatment (2003). In their work on “oral health disparities for Mexican American farmworker children”, Horton and Barker utilize “Margaret Lock’s term, local biology, to illustrate the way that biology differs not only because of culture, diet, and environment but also because of disparities in insurance coverage” (2010, 199). Similarly, Khalid and Quiñonez study the North American society to trace the historical, cultural, and social formations that have led to an obsession with straight white teeth. They assert that parents seek orthodontic treatment

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

179

for their children, as “despite partial-to-none orthodontic coverage by insurance providers in North America, paying for braces has become a regular part of the investment associated with raising children” (2015, 789–790). Therefore, being able to afford braces becomes the sign of good parenting as well. Khalid and Quiñonez also draw attention to the obsession with white teeth, and its link to “the symbolic meaning attached to the colour white. In Western cultures, white has traditionally been associated with purity, cleanliness, goodness and perfection” (Khalid and Quiñonez 2015, 784). The relationship between racism and dentistry needs to be further studied, as does gender, exemplified by Odabaş’s study on Turkey (2012). Odabas focusses on the division of labour in dentistry and links it to traditional gender roles, which also shape patientdoctor interaction. However, her argument that dentists, through dental disciplinary techniques, reconcile patients with their mouths, and hence with their faces and bodies (Odabaş 2012, 188) needs to be questioned. As this study will show, the link between the techniques applied to the teeth and one’s relationship to the body is much more complex than Odabas has illustrated.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Research shows that orthodontic treatment has become not only a marker of socioeconomic status but also a way to build self-esteem, although the two are interlinked. As Exley puts forth, “oral health and the appearance of the mouth and teeth are important to both an individual's perception of self and their social interactions” (2009, 1094). In their research on adult dental care patients in Sweden, Hallberg and Haag also present this link, as “participants in the present study experienced that having healthy, relatively straight, white and clean teeth optimized their self-esteem and contributed to well-being in public as well as in private“ (2007, 88). Orthodontic treatment’s impact on everyday life has, therefore, drawn researchers’ interest (Abed Al Jawad et al., 2012). Research in the field also questions whether or not it is possible to define ideal teeth or occlusion. Hence, Ackerman et al. state that “the 'science of occlusion' emerged from a pseudoscientific tradition" (2007, 193). Following this lead Wickström addresses the construction of normality, and criticizes the process through which dentists and orthodontists decide whether or not a patient requires treatment. She argues that “on the one hand, orthodontics is charged with setting the standards for children's occlusal development and esthetically evaluating the appearances of the bite. The general dentist informs young people that they have teeth divergences and that an orthodontist should evaluate their need for treatment“ (2016, 286). The constructed nature of normality in terms of the mouth and teeth are also apparent in Demirtas’s study in Turkey, where she concludes that the perception of the aesthetic smile is subjective (2015). Within the limited literature on orthodontic treatment, research on the impacts of this treatment on one’s perception of the body is understudied. As

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

180

Chapter 8

documented, most of the studies tend to focus on social status instead. Although one’s relationship to and perception of their own body cannot be thought separate from social status, it has been necessary to bring the former to the front. Furthermore, orthodontic treatment in Turkey as a case study requires more and more attention. Although the market-based system resembles that in the USA, the differences in the historical, cultural, and social background make Turkey a unique case. As a result, I chose to focus on the dynamics of the relationship one develops with one’s body through orthodontic treatment in Turkey. 8.3 Methodology

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

I employed mixed qualitative methods for the purpose of this research. The first method I used is conducting in-depth interviews. A total of ten semistructured in-depth interviews were carried out for this research, of which five were men and five were women. Interviews were conducted either face-toface or over the phone. Participants were asked to reflect on their past experiences regarding orthodontic treatment except for one interviewee, Gizem, who was wearing braces at the time of the interview and talked about both her past and present. Interviews lasted an average of 33 minutes. The mean of the interviewees’ age at the time of the interview is 27.4, while that of the age at the time of beginning orthodontic treatment is 14.7. Two outliers exist in this variable. One of them is Gizem, 26 years old, who was in the third year of her treatment during the interview, while the other one is Eren, 33 years old, who received treatment the previous year following an accident that required re-alignment of his teeth in his dentist’s opinion. On average, participants received 3.56 years of orthodontic treatment. Three participants received orthodontic treatment twice. The interviews did not aim to get an accurate picture of the treatment experiences of participants. More important and valuable was how they perceive their treatment at the time of the interview; in other words, how they reflect back. “Creating a narrative, as well as attending to one, is an active and constructive process—one that depends on both personal and cultural resources” (Mattingly and Garro 2000, 3). Participants’ current “personal and cultural resources” shaped their narratives as they constructed them anew as they talked to me. In addition to these interviews, I used auto-ethnography to incorporate my own experience of orthodontic treatment. Often, auto-ethnography can be confused with autobiography. However, “autobiographical research is mainly concerned with placing the ‘I’ within a personal context and developing insights from that perspective. (…) On the other hand, autoethnography, although ‘an autobiographical genre of writing and research’, is all about placing the ‘I’ firmly

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

181

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

within a cultural context and all that implies” (Ettorre 2016, 2). Taking an autoethnographic approach rather than an auto-biographical one, I employed similar strategies that I use in my in-depth interviews to make sense of my own experience. As Ellis et al. argue, “when researchers do autoethnography, they retrospectively and selectively write about epiphanies that stem from, or are made possible by, being part of a culture and/or by possessing a particular cultural identity. However, in addition to telling about experiences, autoethnographers often are required by social science publishing conventions to analyze these experiences” (2010). Therefore, rather than just narrating my own experience of orthodontic treatment, I treated myself as I would a participant, and took a critical approach to my own narrative. I was able to generate my narrative using two methods: critical auto-interviewing, and journaling. To reflect on my experience from 4 years ago, I employed critical auto-interviewing, which “is a process method which presupposes spontaneous reflexivity and critical awareness” (Boufoy-Bastick, 2004). This can be done only by being aware of what causes one’s attention from one’s history, what one chooses to report, and that these are tightly linked to one’s background and subjectivity (Boufoy-Bastick, 2004). Therefore, I was able to recall, narrate, and critically analyse my own experience, and think it together with other participants’ narratives. As I still occasionally wear my invisible retainers, I kept a journal to reflect on my thoughts and feelings regarding this latter part of the treatment. I wear the retainers while I am asleep, so I journaled as soon as I woke up and removed them. Having gone through orthodontic treatment myself, I found it easier to talk to participants, share experiences, and talk about the similarities and differences in our treatments. This made it easier for them to open up, to dig deeper in sharing, and also for me to re-consider my own experience. As objectivity is neither attainable, nor desirable in social scientific research, I have been fully aware of my experience’s impact on this research as a whole, and sharing this experience as part of this study will make the reader understand my own subjectivity and my perspective on orthodontic treatment. As usual, all the interviews and this chapter would have been fundamentally different had I not gone through orthodontic treatment. In the next section, I start discussing the first dimension or theme that arose from the narratives, which is the conflict between long- and short-term monstrosity. 8.4 Long-term vs short-term monstrosity For the purposes of this study, and within the conceptual framework of monstrosity, I have identified two kinds of monstrosities concerning orthodontic treatment. Long-term monstrosity refers to the period during

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

182

Chapter 8

which the feeling that one requires treatment, yet has not received it permeates. One perceives oneself as abnormal, and in need of correction of the appearance of the mouth and teeth. Short-term monstrosity, on the other hand, refers to the period during which orthodontic treatment is received. As being bullied or ridiculed as a result of using the appliances is not uncommon, this again may make receivers of the treatment feel deviant, abnormal, or as a short-term monster. As the monstrosity deriving from the treatment is temporary by its nature, it is regarded as short-term monstrosity. Of course, neither of these are given, a person who has received the treatment might have never felt like a long-term monster.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Similarly, one may have never received any negative comments or behaviors regarding wearing the appliances, hence never being a short-term monster. However, what is usually at play in the narratives of orthodontic treatment is the fear of being a monster as a result of the perception of friends, family members, and/or people with whom one interacts. This fear translates into a dilemma for many potential patients who are in a position to decide whether or not to go through with the treatment. Many of the participants recalled that they did not have much say in the decision-making process regarding whether or not to have their teeth and mouth treated, as they were obedient children at the time of decision-making, as a result of the common sense belief that orthodontic treatment at a younger age is more efficient. The treatment was generally a collaborative decision taken by one or two of the parents and the orthodontist. Nevertheless, my story was a bit different. What I was experiencing was indeed a dilemma between short- and long-term monstrosity. I had to either choose to be a monster for a short-term, whose duration was not pre-determined, -and even if it were, it is pretty common for orthodontists to extend the duration of the treatment even by a few years such as in the case of Gizem-, or would opt for long-term monstrosity. Although my orthodontist’s concerns seemed to be more aesthetic than medical in the longterm sense, short-term aesthetics seemed more important around the time of entering puberty. This led me to abstain from short-term monstrosity at the age of 12 because I believed that the short-term one had a higher degree of monstrosity. I did not visit my orthodontist’s clinic for years in order to escape treatment. When I finally felt like I could be at peace with wearing braces, at the age of 22, I started my treatment. This was a moment when I could accept shortterm monstrosity to avoid long-term monstrosity; being ready for this trade-off made my “treatment” possible. The perception of what is monstrous, and what is not, changes radically according to one’s age and the existence of other, fellow (non-)monsters. Especially if it is a child before or at early teenage years, wearing braces does not feel like it changes much. Hence, it becomes easier for children to opt for

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

183

short-term monstrosity. Ufuk, a 28-year-old psychologist who wore braces before teenage years recalls a statement on the wall of his orthodontist’s office, which read, “I am beautiful even with my braces”, and remembers that he found this very funny, because he thought, “Why wouldn’t I be anyway?”. Nevertheless, he mentions how his friends made fun of him for being bucktoothed before the treatment, and that he “can’t imagine being buck-toothed now. It would be a nightmare”. Therefore, for Ufuk, the degree of long-term monstrosity was so high that he did not have much of a dilemma in choosing between short- and long-term variations.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Similarly, for some participants, there was no short-term monstrosity to talk about. This was particularly true for those who had classmates who were already wearing braces. Therefore, orthodontic treatment had been already normalized in these settings. However, the idea that wearing braces equals monstrosity was sometimes so ingrained that it was difficult to escape it. For instance, Ruya, as a 10-year-old, felt like she had to feel ugly if she was wearing braces, as she recalls that “it was actually not a problem for me in the beginning. However, in popular culture, a girl with braces is an ugly girl with ugly teeth. Because there is such a stereotype in popular culture, I thought whining was a social necessity. And so I whined”. This also depended on the age of the participant when they started the treatment. For instance, Seda, a participant who wore braces twice, recalls her first time in secondary school when she thought “wearing braces was something nice. Therefore, I didn’t have any troubles. I wanted to wear braces; it seemed different and pretty to me”. However, when she wore them the second time, she was at the high school, and “wanted to remove them immediately. They were bothering me because I can’t smile with my mouth closed, I don’t like smiling with my mouth closed. I have to smile with my mouth open, and the braces are a bit blackish, and they darken the face”. Smiling or speaking with braces was an issue for many of the participants, causing them to be ridiculed by their friends. Ruya shows how she used to speak when she had braces on by covering her mouth with her hand, which she did, as she “scattered spittle from her mouth. I remember talking like this with my teachers in the sixth or seventh grade. There was a kid who made fun of me for this”. Similarly, Gizem remarks how she tried to hide the tooth extraction holes in her mouth as a result of her teeth getting extracted to prepare for orthodontic treatment, to no avail: “I was already feeling different for some time, because my [two] teeth had been removed and the sides were open [there were holes on both sides]. Therefore, I practiced in front of the mirror in order to see how I could smile so that I wouldn’t show the holes in my mouth. It was impossible, so I gave up. But I told everyone my story”. Gizem’s telling everyone “her story” is a solid indicator of how short-term

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

184

Chapter 8

monstrosity needs justification to be normalized within friendship circles. As in the case of Ufuk, this was not a problem, because of his friends’ already wearing braces and other appliances such as headgear. Nevertheless, starting her long-term treatment at 24, after earlier unfinished attempts, Gizem felt the need to explain why she looked like the way she did. Even for her, receiving treatment as an adult did not seem normal, as she states, “I could not imagine getting my teeth extracted, having holes in between, or being 24 and wearing braces. I thought it was better not to do it. Aesthetically, it was worrying me”.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Aesthetics, hence thinking twice or more about short-term monstrosity, are a frequent concern for adult patients. Similar to Gizem, Yagmur feared that she would look ugly with the braces as a young adult in her 20s, and decided to wear lingual braces, which are cemented at the backside of the teeth. This was her second treatment, and in the first one, this was not a concern for her. She had to repeat the treatment, as her teeth started turning back to their original state. Yagmur gave in to neither short- nor long-term monstrosity and was able to choose a method in which she did not have to compromise. However, this is not viable for most of the patients, including me, as lingual braces are not suitable for all teeth. The inner conflict one experiences before and through orthodontic treatment between types of monstrosity lead one to critically think about one’s relationship with one’s body, mouth, and teeth. This relationship is tightly linked with social perceptions of monstrosity and orthodontic treatment. Potential patients critically compare their degree of (potential) monstrosity without and during treatment by considering the response they (will) get from their environment. To this social aspect, we can add a more individual one that manifests itself through the direct physical contact with the appliances, which is to be discussed in the next section. 8.5 Not home with the teeth The change in patients’ relationship with their own bodies through the process of orthodontic treatment takes form also through the intimate relationship one has with the body parts, particularly the mouth. As part of the “technologies of the self” (Foucault 1988), which will be discussed below, the various appliances patients are required or recommended to use become part of their daily routine. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that they have internalized the appliances, although literally speaking many of them have had to. On the contrary, the appliances used for treatment are never seen as a part of the patients’ bodies by patients themselves. It is almost always an outsider, whose term is being awaited by the patient to be over as soon as possible. As Graham concludes from her study, “the denture is a

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

185

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

foreign object, introduced to the inside of the conscious body on a routine basis, and it is clear from the data collected that one of the things patients find the hardest is tolerating the presence of this foreign object in the mouth” (2006). The same can be seen in the use of prosthetic devices, dialysis equipment (Sanal, 2008), and transplanted organs (Hamdy 2012, Sanal 2011). My research reveals that the same is true for orthodontic treatment appliances. All participants stated their relief at the end of the treatment as this “foreign” substance left their mouth for good. Eren expressed his feelings at the moment of finishing the treatment as a “big relief because you constantly walk around with an aligner in your mouth. Of course, I adapted myself a bit after three months, but the difficulty with eating and drinking… Before every meal, I had to remove it and then wear it again [after the meal], I wasn’t supposed to lose it etc. etc.” Eren’s statement suggests that there is a level of adaptation to the foreign substance, but it is never complete. Similarly, Seda felt like she regained her freedom after her braces were removed, as she says, “I seriously felt a big difference when [my braces were] removed, I felt more comfortable and free. Of course, you get used to them, your tongue gets caught up on the braces. After they were removed, there was an emptiness; my tongue [didn’t] get caught. It was a bit weird, but I was very happy.” The level of freedom during and after the treatment depends on whether the appliances are fixed or not as well. Onur recalls that he “did not use fixed braces, but removable braces. I think this had an impact on not having too bad an experience as a kid. Many children are not happy with the fixed appliances, both socially and because they constantly have a metal structure in their mouth”, and that “I very clearly remember that I was happy it wasn’t fixed. I liked the idea of being able to remove it whenever I wanted to. Because there is something in your mouth. The idea of having it there constantly wasn’t [nice].” Unlike the other participants, Ruya still uses a fixed retainer. Ruya’s orthodontist jokingly told her that he would remove her retainer when she gets married. “He is kidding; he will probably never remove them. 10-12 years. There has been something in my mouth for 12 years.” As both Onur’s and Ruya’s wording supports, participants refer to their appliances as “something”, which reinforces the idea that they did not internalize it throughout the treatment. The externalization of the appliances also stems from the fact that they change the patient’s personal interactions, as Gizem displays, I am sick [of the braces] at this point. This will be my second year. No, the second year ended in July! I have entered the third year. I’m sick of it because I feel that there is constantly something in my mouth and that it makes my mouth sweat. It also started to feel heavier, which I did not feel before. I definitely and definitely think that the way I talk has changed. Although people I talk to don’t mention it, how I pronounce some letters, how I roll my tongue have changed.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

186

Chapter 8

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

As a result of having a “foreign” substance in their mouth, patients lacked the feeling of being at home with their bodies, or their mouths to be more precise. Fredrik Svaneus dwells on being at home with one’s body in his study on the phenomenology of illness (2000). By taking a stroke as a case study, Svenaeus theorizes that Heidegger’s notion of unheimlichkeit (unhomelikeness) can be applied to the diseased body. He argues that “to be ill would consequently mean to experience a constant sense of obtrusive unhomelikeness in one's being-in-the world” (Svenaeus 2000, 126). A similar perspective is laid out by Kathy Davis, who studies female cosmetic surgery patients. According to her, these women “had cosmetic surgery because they did not feel at home in their bodies; their bodies did not fit their sense of who they were” (1997, 175). Based on these two studies, it can be argued that medical conditions created by illness (e.g. stroke) or by patients (e.g. cosmetic surgery patients) disrupt one’s relationship with their bodies. I contend that the notion of unheimlichkeit can also be used to understand orthodontic treatment patients’ experiences. On the one hand, patients may feel not-at-home with their teeth prior to the treatment, what I have termed as long-term monstrosity in the absence of the treatment. If the treatment brings them the results they wished for, this would mean that they have returned to or acquired homelikeness as a result. Nevertheless, there is an interim period of treatment, which I have termed as short-term monstrosity, that readily provides or provided unhomelikeness for all participants in the study, including me. In orthodontic treatment, this shows itself especially through the constant feeling of a foreign substance in the mouth. Returning to the body, or possibly acquiring the sense of homelikeness for the first time is also dependent on the result of the treatment. As the public advertisements of orthodontic treatment or any dental product, such as toothpaste and toothbrushes showcase “perfect” teeth, interviews reveal that 1 patients tend to expect to have an Ipana-smile as they usually call it in Turkey as a result of this lengthy treatment. However, expected results do not always match the acquired results. In my case, one of the things that I realized after my braces were removed was that not all of my teeth were the same length, which made them imperfect according to my view. It took me some time to perceive my teeth as beautiful despite the differences they have in length, or in other words to feel at home with my teeth. This concern stemmed from what was endorsed as perfect teeth in mainstream media. Having entered her

1

Ipana is one of the oldest toothpaste brands sold in Turkey. As it has been on the market since 1956, it has been ingrained in the cultural memory. Hence, white and aligned teeth are associated with the teeth showcased on Ipana advertisements.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

187

third year with braces as an adult, Gizem is now aware that one does not necessarily get the advertised, perfect teeth as a result of the treatment: Interestingly, I am obsessed with one thing, and this is what I learned through wearing braces: The size of your teeth, the structure and shape of your teeth, these are so important that braces do not create miracles for you. What I mean by miracle is that it doesn’t provide you with standardized orthodontically treated teeth. You need big teeth for that. You need to have your gums upwards and not to be seen. Big teeth and mouth. We forget that teeth are not at an outof-nowhere place, teeth are inside the mouth and very related to that. […] Because I don’t have such large teeth, or because I don’t have eye teeth, rather than perfect teeth following the treatment, I expect to have teeth that are compatible with my mouth, that can fit in my mouth, and to be able to close my mouth. I tell everyone this, don’t [expect] wonderful teeth and a perfect smile after the treatment. Whatever your mouth and teeth are, they turn into a more sculpted, designed version of that, that’s it.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

With this awareness, Gizem also advocates that we should stay away from what she believes will be the standardized, thus unnatural look as a result of the treatment. This line of thinking is seen mostly in participants who did not suffer from a high level of long-term monstrosity prior to the treatment, and thus see the key to feel homelike following the treatment only through a connection with the pre-treatment appearance. Gizem is a case in point. She defines “normal” as how she looked like before the treatment, while at the same time, she is voluntarily receiving the treatment on both medical and aesthetic grounds. As a result, she does not want to look entirely different from her pre-treatment days. Braces are very mathematical. You wear them, and unless you shape them through rubber bands, they push the teeth back. (…) If your lip is towards the front, mine is, and I used to be buck-toothed, my teeth went far back with the braces and when I smile you can’t see my lips and teeth at the same time. Teeth from way back are visible [now], and this is not organic. At least it is nothing like how I am normally, how I used to look before the treatment. Therefore, I don’t want this [my mouth] to look sculpted. I mean, it can be very straight and orderly, but I don’t want to have a dentition that doesn’t fit my mouth. Secondly, I don’t want to say that one thing is natural and the other is not, but I have had a particular dentition and mouth build-up for 23 years, and one keeps thinking, because the mouth is something that changes the shape of the face and the chin, so are my teeth okay or not, thinking about before and after [the treatment].

At the time of the interview, Gizem was worried about the possibility of a radical change in the way her face looks as a result of the treatment. Therefore, she was negotiating with her orthodontist to arrive at a look which was at least reminiscent of her pre-treatment appearance. Eren, similarly suggested that “If you ask me, people should not have very aesthetic teeth, because just like

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

188

Chapter 8

everyone has their own character, they also have their own tooth-character.” Eren argued that a standardized aesthetic look was not desirable, as different teeth should have different end-results following the treatment. Unlike other medical or aesthetic treatments whose results can be seen instantly or shortly after the intervention, orthodontic treatment is usually a long process that takes months, or in most cases, years. Therefore, one’s relationship to their body during this process is significant, as it is affected by the pre-treatment period, and affects the post-treatment period. Patients’ relationship with their bodies, and particularly their mouths is significantly changed with the treatment, and during the treatment, they do not feel at home with their bodies. 8.6 Pain or Pleasure?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

To comprehend the meaning of pain for orthodontics patients, it is necessary to see pain as not only a biological response to certain stimuli but also as the result of “cultural shaping and patterning of beliefs and responses to pain” (Bendelow and Williams 1995, 139). As a result, how patients respond to or experience pain is diverse, as they give different meanings to similar physical sensations, leading to a discussion across pain and pleasure in this study. Memories of most participants regarding orthodontic treatment swirl around pain. The first thing many participants said when asked what they remember from their treatment was that it was painful. When I told Ruya that I would like to interview her about her experience of orthodontic treatment, the first words she said were, “it hurt a lot”. Seda, similarly, stated that “there was too much pain. I wasn’t able to bite anything for 2-3 days. I consumed only fluids. (…) It was a very troublesome period for me. I felt pain, a lot of pain”. For some patients like Ufuk, there were even more vivid and troubling memories regarding not only the teeth but the whole mouth: “[It was] troublesome, I have to say that it hurt a lot. I was a kid who wouldn’t say anything even if I was hurt; I would feel the pain, I would cry but would sit with it. The flesh in my palate got folded, stalactites were formed, flesh stalactites because all the flesh gets tangled as the teeth move. (…) In terms of pain, it was extremely painful, that was a problem.” Patients have usually tried or are trying to avoid pain, even if it may mean to stagnate or slow down the treatment. As Ahmet recalls, “of course the doctor would tell me when to wear it [the headgear], but for instance, they would expect me to wear it every night, but it wasn’t possible because it gave me so much pain. I couldn’t wear it every night; I gave up after one or two nights.” This and similar experiences meant that the patient would have to come against the orthodontist’s authority, which is unshakeable for some patients,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

189

but when the intensity of pain overrides the respect for the treatment and the authority, patients may prefer escaping some routines. In a similar vein, Seda stated that “I actually have clear removable aligners at home, but it still gives me too much pain when I wear them because it lapsed a bit. That’s why I don’t use it much.” Sometimes, the anticipation of pain shows itself as fear from visiting the doctor, from which the patient could not escape. Ahmet recalls, “I never got over it, there would always be fear as I entered the clinic. That was a bit disturbing. Actually, I guess the reason of the fear was knowing that I would feel pain because no matter what, it gives pain when you remove and reinstall the wires. The wires hurt the insides of my lips too.” Although it may be expected that pain would be the most commonly and frequently visited theme in the interviews, and despite the tendency of many patients to evade pain, I claim that pain also has an indispensable function in the process of orthodontic treatment. On the one hand, it proves that the treatment is progressing; on the other hand, it helps to prove to oneself that one is in control of the treatment. I will now break these functions down.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

My orthodontic treatment can be divided into two periods. The first one is a period of eleven months with braces, and the second one is a never-ending period with clear removable aligners. I was supposed to wear the aligners for six months after the first period, followed by retainers. As I did not wear my retainers and sporadically wore my aligners, my teeth started to lapse. At this point, I am wearing the aligners once every two or three nights, and my experience with them oscillates between pain and pleasure. When I started journaling as I wore my aligners, I realized that after I remove them in the morning, the first thing I do is to touch every tooth to check which ones are hurting. This gives me an idea about which teeth have been moved or have benefited from the treatment overnight. No pain means not having placed the device correctly, whereas pain means progress; thus pleasure derives from pain. The second function of pain during orthodontic treatment is about feeling in charge of the treatment. This becomes challenging, as the orthodontist’s involvement is the sine qua non of the treatment. As the patient is forced to remain within the boundaries drawn by the doctor, they feel less in charge of their own body. Some patients hand over the authority of their body more willingly to the doctor, as this feels safe and secure as a result of the prevailing discourses on the institution of medicine, which claims it as the highest authority over any body. For instance, Rana asserts that the dentists constantly portray a disaster scenario regarding the teeth (sürekli felaket senaryosu kuruyorlar). Nevertheless, she claims that the dentists should say the last word, as they are “the medical experts”. Similarly, Onur recalls that he preferred to spend less time thinking about his treatment because his orthodontist “knows what she is doing”. He argued that his doctor was “very

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

190

Chapter 8

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

accomplished and knowledgeable about her job, which makes her an authority in her field. You get that she knows what she is doing from the language she uses, from her approach. Therefore, you say, okay, she obviously knows it. I don’t need to think about this much, because I’m not the expert on this.” This pre-determined expertise of medical professionals creates a sense of authority over especially younger patients in orthodontics. Nevertheless, adult patients tend to negotiate this transfer of power and authority over their bodies, as opposed to taking it for granted. An example of this is Gizem, who was two years into her braces when I interviewed her, at the age of 26. She found it difficult to do everything under her orthodontist’s terms. She claims that after the doctor gave her a list of food items she was allowed and not allowed to eat, “I was wearing the braces, I was trying to prove myself that this wouldn’t change my routine; therefore I was trying to eat everything. (…) It hurt like crazy, but I was still trying to eat.” This example shows that pain is the symbol of resistance to medical authority, and the reinstatement of one’s control over one’s body. As I was 22 when I started my treatment, I had a similar experience. Especially after the lower braces were installed two months later than the upper, I had a lot of pain when biting even the softest food. Nevertheless, I felt like I needed to prove to myself that on the one hand, I can put up with this pain, and on the other that I can still eat what I want. Therefore, I went to a cooking class the day after I wore my lower braces, and as we were supposed to eat what we cooked after the class, I had to endure immense pain. Nevertheless, I felt like I succeeded in taking control of my own life and did not live according to my orthodontist’s standards. Therefore, pain had the function of proving success, control, and ownership of the body from which derives pleasure. This passing of authority of the body onto a medical professional is of course not limited to orthodontics but is spread across the medical realm, as a symptom of medicalization. Medicalization can be defined as “the social processes whereby social activities come under the control of medical institutions” (Turner 2004, xiv), and these processes involve “the use of medical thinking across different areas of society” (Turner 2004, xiv). With the orthodontic treatment, one’s eating and sleeping habits are re-defined by the medical realm, as a result of which the everyday life of the patient becomes medicalized. The implication of this will be discussed in the next section. 8.7 Technologies of the self: Being in or lacking control? Orthodontic treatment expects the patient’s involvement at a much higher level than many other treatments, perhaps closest to this can be physical therapy, as exercises are supposed to be carried out outside the clinic as well. On a similar vein, the patient is supposed to take on an active role throughout

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

191

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

orthodontic treatment, even if they do not volunteer to do so. The contents of this role range from changing eating habits to a more regulated dental cleaning, and even adjusting appliances as instructed. Some of the basic instructions given to the patient are summarized by Ruya as follows: “When they first put on your braces, they give you a special toothbrush that gets into the braces, you need to clean well with that. You also need to keep your appliances clean; you need to wear your [anterior crossbite] appliance before going to bed. Coke was forbidden because it has acid”. Yagmur was also instructed to enlarge her palate every week by tightening the palate-screws, which caused so much pain that she could not sleep on those nights. Patients’ time is redesigned by orthodontists as well, as Ufuk recalls, his orthodontist “told me to brush every tooth for a minimum of 7 seconds. I calculated that as I brushed. I would first brush normally, and then, because I’m crazy, I would go over them again by brushing each tooth for 7 seconds”. Through giving patients instructions on how to behave, spend and divide time, and eat, orthodontists’ clinic seeps into the everyday lives of the patients. The extension of the clinic to the everyday lives of patients’ homes and schools and even their parents’ offices can be explained by Michel Foucault’s “technologies of the self”. He defines these technologies as those “which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” (1988, 18). Orthodontics require operations especially on the body in order to achieve perfection, be it in health or aesthetics. Moreover, as children, many orthodontics patients seek help from their parents to employ the technologies on themselves. Rana states that as she was in primary school when she was wearing braces, her mother observed her brush her teeth after every meal. After Rana was done, her mother brushed Rana’s teeth with the interdental brush. Although it might seem that patients take an active role throughout their treatment through “technologies of the self”, the patient is not constructed as an active agent per se by the orthodontist, as they are supposed to follow the orthodontist’s instructions only. Nevertheless, patients deconstruct this imagined obedient role by escaping the instructions when they see fit. This is, on the one hand, a new and freer avenue for patients to go down, as they partially take control of the treatment by refusing to restrict all kinds of food or to wear the removable appliances every day. As a child, it might be more difficult to follow these instructions, as Gizem recalls, “for about three years, I wore removable braces. It’s so difficult during childhood that they tell you not to chew gums, you chew gums, and the braces come out with the gum”. She

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

192

Chapter 8

also recalls that she had no problem brushing but she didn’t one thing at all, removing the braces before the meal with a [disturbing gesture and sound]. It had this case. I always tried to eat with the braces to see if I could, which is probably why I broke it. Then it was a problem, things got stuck in it, but I brushed it all the time. But you forget it in the school cafeteria, you look for it in the trash bin, too many things like that. We looked for it in Mc Donald’s”. This is very common among people who used removable braces, especially during childhood. Although patients willingly test the limits of the limitations, in many cases, this results in feeling that they are not in control of their own bodies and that they have failed the treatment. As most of the participants in this study were children when they received the treatment, their memories of “technologies of the self” are populated with failing to follow instructions to their fullest, which some term as traumatic. Ruya’s narrative below is an example of how powerless she felt as a result of not being able to comply with the instructions:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Because I was a kid, I would eat a bit strongly. I would always break those things, you know, transparent [brackets]. Of course, when you break them, they need to be made anew. That would disturb me a bit. I mean, when I’d break [them], I’d feel a bit bad. Because I’ve eaten either greedily, or too fast, or I didn’t eat carefully, why am I careless? I’m receiving a treatment, so I need to be more careful.

Ruya believed it was her fault that she broke the brackets, made her mother or father drive her to the orthodontist although the regular visit was yet to come, and made the orthodontist make a new bracket, about which she was embarrassed because he did not receive any payment as he was a family friend. Breaking appliances was a very common problem among patients, of which another example is Ufuk. His experience, as he terms it, was traumatic, as he saw himself as the cause of pausing the treatment by damaging the appliances: As I played a lot with the removable braces, I’d break it a lot and would be upset. I had my actual trauma around orthodontics because of breaking the braces, because I was scared to tell my parents that I had broken it again. I would play [with it] and couldn’t stop it. I am a little bit obsessed. I was very scared to tell that [I had broken it]. That was a real trouble for me because then your treatment stops. My [parents] wouldn’t say much, but it was still a problem for me to tell them.

As Ufuk and Ruya exemplify, patients, especially as they were kids, blamed themselves for disrupting their treatment, their parents’ lives, and/or the orthodontist’s working as a result of breaking the appliances, although this is a very common issue for all interviewees. Feeling that they have failed properly employing “technologies of the self” by themselves, children feel inferior, and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

193

further transfer their ownership of their body to the orthodontist. Consequently, “technologies of the self” become ways to simply amplify technologies of power employed by the orthodontist onto the patient, ingrained in medicalization in this case. Coming full circle, it is important to note that technologies of the self are also means through which idealization and normalization of “perfect teeth” and “perfect smile” are manifested. Khalid and Quiñonez state that “socialisation agents such as peers, strangers, and the media, once interspersed with the dental gaze and social relationships” serve to act as a panopticon that contributes to the self-monitoring and self-disciplining of mouths. This control is practiced through habitual self-examination of teeth, toothbrushing drills, regular visits to the dentist, control of sugar intake and purchasing of whitening products. Just as a prison guard need not be constantly present in the tower, an authority figure is not required to ensure that disciplinary regimes of oral care are properly carried out. In a sense, individuals become both the examiner and the examinee. They conform to norms not because they are afraid of the power itself, but because of the possibility of facing a penalty, namely, negative stereotyping of individuals with ‘bad’ teeth. (2015, 790)

As suggested above, the social discourses on the teeth and the mouth are one of the fundamental ingredients that shape the process of orthodontic treatment, as “technologies of the self” are intermingled with and feed technologies of power. One’s relationship to one’s body and body parts, the decision to go through the treatment, and the painful or pleasurable experience of the treatment come together through seeing oneself through the society’s gaze. “Technologies of the self” then become tools for the reproduction of this gaze.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

8.8 Conclusion This research has demonstrated that a treatment which is taken for granted among many circles, especially among parents with middle to high social status generates novel understandings of the body for the researcher and the patient, both at the level of the social construction of the body and the level of embodiment. Of particular importance here was the evolution of the relationship between oneself and the body through orthodontic treatment, as the treatment moulds this relationship across various dimensions, such as space, time, and pain. Orthodontic treatment thus invades the body, as well as the relationship one has with the body. Of course, there are many ways this research can be deepened and expanded. One way to do this is to introduce orthodontists’ views into the research. How they relate to their own bodies, to the bodies of their patients, and their narratives on patient-doctor relationship can provide new insights into this research. Similarly, parents who have given the decision to have their

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

194

Chapter 8

children’s teeth orthodontically treated can be potential contributors to this or a similar study. Methodologically, in addition to in-depth interviews, ethnographic research in the orthodontists’ clinic during patients’ treatment and asking them to journal about their experiences at home regarding the treatment process can bring a new angle. Looking at orthodontic treatment through the lens of other literature can be helpful too. In addition to that on orthodontic treatment, dentistry, and the mouth; beauty studies, as well as the literature on cosmetic surgery, might inform further research on orthodontic treatment. By bringing together new and/or relevant literature and methods, much-needed contribution to social scientific research on orthodontic treatment can be made.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Abed Al Jawad, F., Cunningham, S. J., Croft, N. and Johal, A. (2012). A qualitative study of the early effects of fixed orthodontic treatment on dietary intake and behavior in adolescent patients. The European Journal of Orthodontics 34. 432–436. doi:10.1093/ejo/cjr032 Ackerman, J. L., Ackerman, M. B. and Kean, M. R. (2007). A Philadelphia fable: how ideal occlusion became the philosopher’s stone of orthodontics. The Angle Orthodontist 77. 192–194. Bendelow, G. A. and Williams, S. J. (1995). Transcending the dualisms: towards a sociology of pain. Sociology of Health and Illness 17. 139–165. Boufoy-Bastick, B. (2004). Auto-Interviewing, Auto-Ethnography and Critical Incident Methodology for Eliciting a Self-Conceptualised Worldview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 5. Davis, K. (1997). My Body is My Art. Cosmetic Surgery as Feminist Utopia? Davis, K. (Ed.). Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body. London: Sage. 168–182. Demirtas, H. K. (2015). Ortodontistler, diş hekimliği öğrencileri ve hastaların ortodontik tedavi görmemiş bireyler üzerinde gülümseme estetiği algısının karşılaştırılması / A comparison of the smile esthetics perceptions of orthodontic patients, dental students, and research assistants on orthodontically untreated individuals. Selcuk University. Ellis, C., Adams, T. E. and Bochner, A. P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 12. Ettorre, E. (2016). Autoethnography as Feminist Method: Sensitising the feminist 'I.' Routledge. Exley, C. (2009). Bridging a gap: the (lack of a) sociology of oral health and healthcare. Sociology of Health and Illness 31. 1093–1108. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9566.2009.01173.x Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Architecting the Mouth, Designing the Smile

195

Graham, R. (2006). Lacking Compassion – Sociological Analyses of the Medical Profession. Social Theory and Health, 4. 43–63. doi:10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700063 Hallberg, U. and Haag, P. (2007). The subjective meaning of dentition and oral health: Struggling to optimize one’s self-esteem. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being 2. 86–92. doi:10.1080/17482620701320786 Hamdy, S. (2012). Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam, and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt. Singapore: University of California Press. Horton, S. and Barker, J. C. (2010). Stigmatized Biologies: Examining the Cumulative Effects of Oral Health Disparities for Mexican American Farmworker Children. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 24. 199–219. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1387.2010.01097.x Khalid, A. and Quiñonez, C. (2015). Straight, white teeth as a social prerogative. Sociology of Health and Illness 37. 782–796. doi:10.1111/14679566.12238 Linn, E. L. (1966). Social Meanings of Dental Appearance. Journal of Health and Human Behavior 7. 289. doi:10.2307/2948777 Mattingly, C. and Garro, L. C. (Eds.) (2000). Narrative and the cultural construction of illness and healing. Berkeley, Calif., London: University of California Press. Nettleton, S. (1989a). Power knowledge and the production of dentistry : an analysis of the mouth and teeth as the objects and effects of dental practices between 1850 and the present day (Ph.D.). The University of London. Nettleton, S. (1989b). Power and pain: The location of pain and fear in dentistry and the creation of a dental subject. Social science and medicine, 29. 1183–1190. Nettleton, S. (1998). Inventing Mouths: Disciplinary Power and Dentistry. Jones, C. and Porter, R. (Eds.). Reassessing Foucault: Power, Medicine and the Body. Psychology Press. 73–90. Odabaş, S. (2012). Diş Hekimliği Dünyası: Mersin’de Bir Hastane Etnografisi / The World of Dentistry: A Hospital Ethnography in Mersin. Journal of Faculty of Letters / Edebiyat Fakultesi Dergisi 29. 183. Picard, A. (2009). Making the American mouth: dentists and public health in the twentieth century, Critical issues in health and medicine. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Rutzen, S. R. (1973). The Social Importance of Orthodontic Rehabilitation: Report of a Five Year Follow-Up Study. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 14. 233. doi:10.2307/2137115 Sanal, A. (2011). New Organs Within Us: Transplants and the Moral Economy. 1st ed. Durham N.C.: Duke University Press Books. Sanal, A. (2008). The Dialysis Machine. Turkle, S. (Ed.). The Inner History of Devices. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. 138–152. Shilling, C. (1991). Educating the body: Physical capital and the production of social inequalities. Sociology 25. 653–672.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

196

Chapter 8

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Shilling, C. (2003). The body and social theory. 2nd ed. Theory, culture and society. London, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications. Sosyal Guvenlik Kurumu. (2016). Sosyal Guvenlik Kurumu Saglik Uygulama Tebligi / Social Security Institution Communique on Healthcare Practices. Svenaeus, F. (2000). The body uncanny - Further steps towards a phenomenology of illness. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 3. 125–137. Turbill, E. A., Richmond, S. and Wright, J. L. (2003). Social inequality and discontinuation of orthodontic treatment: is there a link? The European Journal of Orthodontics 25. 175–183. Turner, B. S. (2004). The new medical sociology: social forms of health and illness, Contemporary societies. New York: W.W. Norton. Wickström, A. (2016). I Hope I Get Movie-star Teeth. Doing the Exceptional Normal in Orthodontic Practice for Young People: The Exceptional Normal in Orthodontic Practice. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 30. 285–302. doi:10.1111/maq.12247

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

9. "Help, the Monster is Eating Me!" Loss of control of the technical vs. harmonically acting cyborg1 Melike Şahinol Orient-Institut Istanbul, Turkey

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract The dependence on medical technology of impaired patients who have acting constraints is often linked to the degree of their health status. To execute actions by medical technology, for example, a problem-free adaptation of human and machine has to be guaranteed – which was the case of my observations of neuroscientific trials focused on in this article. My contribution will illustrate how the mutual adjustment of human and machine is performed by the practices and techniques in such therapy trials, and what consequences does it have for the research subject and its actions. A special element lies in the consideration as failed interaction/cooperation with the machine. If the adjustment of the machine is disturbed, technology is perceived as the monstrous. However, when the human-machine interconnection runs failurefree, so that "human and machine are in perfect harmony" (quote of a stroke patient), the acting can be defined as process-related-synchronous action. If this action is performed circular, then the subject can be considered as an acting Cyborg, since circularity is the first principle and central concept of

1

The presented results are mostly based on my qualitative study of practices and techniques of neuroscientists in the framework of my dissertation published in 2016. Personal information has been made non-personal and anonymized (observed persons and interviewee are given fictive names; patients named by colour names; other parties are anonymized by fictive names with indication of their occupational group, e.g. "neuroscientist Mr. x").

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

198

Chapter 9

cybernetics. In this case, the acting Cyborg is not perceived as the monstrous, but as a harmonically acting bio-technical form. Keywords: Bio-technical Form, Cyborg, Experimental Neuroscientific Therapy 9.1 Introduction Like the creation of Frankenstein’s monster, who is never entirely brought under control, control seems to be the keyword, what makes especially technology entwined with an organism as monster and monstrous, or not. To understand the (non-)monstrous regarding the adjustment of human and machine, particularly in the case of Brain-Computer/Machine Interfaces (BCI, 2 BMI) , this article argues in favour of the practices of adjustment by the Neuroscientists. Drawing on the theory of socio-technical constellations (Rammert, 2007) and the techno-cerebral subject (Şahinol, 2016) as a form of the cyborg (Haraway, 1991), the chapter illustrates how the mutual adjustment of human and machine is performed by the practices and techniques used in neuroscientific therapy trials. This adjustment embodies

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

2

Human Brain Machine Interfaces (BMI) are used to connect human beings and machines, especially the brain and the computer. Non-invasive Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI), consisting of external electrodes, are mainly used for reading electrical signals. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive method to measure brain activity. The measurement is carried out by attaching electrodes to the scalp or by placing a cap into which such electrodes are incorporated. The EEG then records the fluctuations of the brain potentials, which are read out by these electrodes. Invasive BCI directly implanted into the brain, produce the highest quality signals of BCI devices. BCI allows external devices to be operated without the involvement of the spinal cord or the peripheral motor system. In doing so, the execution of an action is ensured by means of the imagination, presented in brain signals, which, for example, could not perform stroke patients or ALS patients without the aid of the BCI. Currently, however, there is no binding definition of the terms "Brain Machine Interfaces" or "Brain Computer Interfaces". The terms BCI / BMI are used differently in the literature, whereby the different definitions are broadly defined. According to Craelius (2002), BMI is intended for paralyzed persons who benefit from mechanical assistance systems, such as robot arms controlled by the test subjects. BCI, on the other hand, are designed to enable and / or extend the communication of paralyzed patients. Thus, the patient can move a cursor over a monitor in order to communicate with the outside world in this way. In this article, I use the term BCI, when brain processes and computer-related processes are in the focus. The term BMI, on the other hand, is used when the control of external devices by means of BCI is the focus (e.g. the robotorthosis). In addition, I use the term BCI / BMI system, analogous to the term Human-Machine System, in which the division of labor between human / brain and machine / computer during an execution of a certain task is the focus.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

"Help, the Monster is Eating Me!"

199

the crucial factor whether technology is perceived as monstrous or not. Concerning human-machine acting/interaction, the process-relatedsynchronous action has to be controlled. If this action is performed circular, the subject can be considered as an acting cyborg, since circularity is the first principle and central concept of cybernetics. In this case, the acting Cyborg is not perceived as a monstrous but as a harmonically acting bio-technical form. 9.2 Society of Hybrids = Society of Monsters?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The word "monster" derives from the Latin mōnstrum, mōnstrī, meaning a divine omen, supernatural appearance, but usually a (biological) anomalous occurrence, with an abnormal shape or unnatural growth, which has a horrible sight and is seen as a pernicious thing and an object of dread. The concept of the monster incorporates fictive and fantastic elements with actual deformity. In contrast, monstrosities are actual physical deformations or abnormalities. Stammberger (2011) specifies the monster as mythological concept, a fiction and something hybrid (Stammberger 2011, 21). She shows that in the Nineteenth Century people with physical peculiarities and abnormalities were viewed as monsters and were exhibited as freaks in shows (e.g. Sarah Baartman, the "hottentotvenus"). Monstrosities have been depicted and reported in medical texts or ethnographic reports as deviations and at the same time as scientific objects (Stammberger, 2011). The abnormal shape often refers to a hybrid creature and its body. One characteristic of hybrid creatures is a form of in-betweenness, which makes its classification and categorization difficult (e.g. Dracula). This hybridity and in-betweenness are also characteristic for cybernetic organisms (the figure of the cyborg). As Haraway posits: "Monsters have always defined the limits of community in Western imaginations. (...) Unseparated twins and hermaphrodites were the confused human material in early modern France who grounded discourse on the natural and supernatural, medical and legal, portents and diseases—all crucial to establishing modern identity." (Haraway, 1991)

According to Haraway, cyborg monsters reveal various political possibilities and limits, for example, making boundaries between men and women obsolete. This view would have consequences on our self-perception and on the perception of our body, as socially constructed and contested space, hance on the conception of power and identity. Haraway’s definition allows for the question about which (parts of ) entities we can control, e.g. hybrids with properly functioning parts, even if they appear unnatural or supernatural. Cyborgs, or "the monsters of the 21st Century" (Orviz, 2013), point to a certain cybernetic mechanism, the feature of which can be

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

200

Chapter 9

considered a type of control. Considering the aspect of the body in cybernetics, a "cyborg exists when two kinds of boundaries are simultaneously problematic: 1) that between animals (or other organism) and humans, and 2) that between selfcontrolled, self-governing machines (automatons) and organisms, especially humans. The cyborg is the figure born of the interface of automation and autonomy." (Haraway 1989, 138)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In this description, an essential component comes into play, which is crucial to modern societies and cultures: technology. Already we are faced with a life in a society full of "mixtures between entirely new types of beings, hybrids of nature and culture" (Latour 2012; for a "sociology of monsters" see Law, 1991). For the analysis of the mixture of bodies and/or subject forms within medicine, knowledge, and technology, the concept of the cyborg has been considered as a reference in many Science and Technology Studies (e.g. Åsberg 2010, Downey and Dumit 1997, Mialet 2012, Pickering 1995, Pickersgill, Cunningham-Burley, and Martin 2011, Spreen 2010). A detailed description on the micro-level of the interaction between the organic and inorganic as an ensemble was conceptualized as "techno-cerebral subject", a bio-technical form of the cyborg (Şahinol, 2016). Constituting the human and machine symbiosis as techno-cerebral subject this does not entail an irreversible amalgamation between the organic and inorganic into an entirely new being. On the contrary, it is my understanding that if something or someone can be understood as a cyborg, his or her control and regulation (of actions) must be achieved in a programmable circular process (the socio-bio-technical synchronization process) in which the organic and inorganic parts interact. If actions are based on the circularity of the biological and the technical aspect, then one can also speak of an "acting cyborg". This acting necessitates a close investigation of the elements of socio-technical constellations, distributed agency (Rammert, 2007) – and socio-bio-technical adaptation processes (Şahinol, 2016). According to Rammert (2007), socio-technical constellations consist of interactions ("Interaktion") between human actors, the intra-action of technical objects ("Intra-Aktion"), as well as the interactions ("Interaktivität") between humans and technical objects, and ultimately "physical routines, factual designs and symbolic control dispositions" (Rammert 2007, 35). This definition implies not only the importance of human actions but also of designs, software programs, and information and communication technologies. To understand a human-machine hybrid, we need to detect, follow and understand the distributed actions, partly dependent of technology. Şahinol (2016) expanded the concept of socio-technical constellations insofar as biotechnical constellations play a significant role in cyborgical action(s). In general,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

"Help, the Monster is Eating Me!"

201

technology which we do not understand is often declared as miracle or supernatural appearance – healing or destroying human life – considered as good or evil.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

As initially remarked upon, control appears to be entwined with technology in perceiving an organism as monster and monstrous, or not. Hence, it is obvious that the main issue for control is an understanding of working mechanisms and (technical) functions. In the case of cyborg monstrosities, we have to focus on the successful and failed situations of the adjustment of human and machine and therefore on the symbiosis of human/machine (relation/interaction) and the socio-bio-technical synchronization process. In the field of medicine, there are several forms of socio-technical constellations and symbiotic relationships between the human and the machine. For example, the ability of stroke patients to perform an action/activity is heavily dependent on medical technology. The neurosciences directly attend to these patients with the aim of (re-)enabling their ability to act through neuroscientific and neuro-technological procedures. The neuroscientific 3 studies I analyzed based on a laboratory study (Latour and Woolgar, 1979), were concerned with the restoration of cerebral processes by neurofeedback (via BMI) of patients who had to regulate their brainwaves and were thereby able to control the external orthotic device for the opening and closing of their paralyzed hand. Therefore, the acting of these stroke patient in this clinical trial is dependent on an organic component (human, brain and neuronal expressivity) and an inorganic component (computer, robotic device). In a praxeological reading, the cyborg figure has both, organic and inorganic components. This composition can be analyzed through the practices and techniques of neuroscientists in clinical trials. If the cyborg is a technically modified biological entity, it appears stringent to view the HumanMachine System also in this way. In the following, I will illustrate the (non-)monstrous about the HumanMachine System, particularly in conjunction with the case of these trials. Before doing so, I would like to present the two main machines that have been integrated within the body and body parts of the stroke patients: an exoskeleton and a neurofeedback training with a rehabilitation robot. Physiological expressivity was also recorded and an important element for the neuroscientists in order to firstly gain a view on muscle activity and thus to

3 I observed several project teams of neuroscientists, physical therapist, physicists and bioinformatician, who developed an integrated physical rehabilitation robot system combined with a BMI system, physiotherapy and neuronavigated (non-)invasive brain stimulation (e.g. TMS) for stroke patients.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

202

Chapter 9

control the rehabilitation progress of the stroke body parts, and secondly to visualize brain waves and to process brain wave data to control an orthotic device (rehabilitation robot). 9.3 The neurofeedback training with a rehabilitation robot The neurofeedback training with a rehabilitation robot can be imagined as follows: The research subject sits in front of a monitor. His/Her left (paralyzed) arm is fixed with two hook-and-loop bands to the arm of the robotic orthosis. His/Her fingertips are fixed via magnetic fingertips to a mechatronic hand orthosis. The opening of the hand orthosis (and thus the hand of the paralyzed patient) is controlled by the (invasive or non-invasive) BCI. The subject is asked to fulfil a task that is carried out in three successive parts, which is repeated for a total of three minutes. The three sub-tasks are announced in a chronologically defined audio-visual sequence via the monitor in his/her front. Initially, the command "left hand ..." occurs, to which the patient has two seconds to implement. Then the command "GO" follows, which is to be implemented for six seconds. Finally, the subject has to "Relax!" for eight seconds. A complete task, therefore, takes 16 seconds in total. In a three-minute round, 11 tasks are completed.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In the same way, the patient must act on orders: first prepare for the task (preparation or order), secondly initiate the opening of the left hand (opening or control command) and then relax (relaxation or resting request). The sequences are repeated fourteen times within a training session so that a complete session with the research subject attached to the robot takes about 45 minutes. So, human and robot interact together as a BMI-system. In order to repeat a run, the assigned researcher who controls the task, activates a button using the BCI software program (BCI2000). This button is located on a second monitor, which is positioned to the right of the patient’s monitor. On this right monitor, the digital EEG measured values, that is, the current brain patterns that the patient produces during the task execution, are displayed simultaneously (in real-time). I refer to this representation of the derived brain current patterns in real-time on the screen as "simultaneous representation". 9.4 The rehabilitation exoskeleton in combination with physiotherapy The remaining motor functions of the left arm of the research subject are trained with a rehabilitation exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is equipped with an adjustable mechanical arm orthosis with an integrated spring mechanism. Thus, it allows variable levels of gravity support. In order to be able to work with the device, the research subject is set between a monitor that displays

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

"Help, the Monster is Eating Me!"

203

tasks and exercises to be performed and the (rehabilitation) exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is located directly behind the research subject, the arm orthosis of the exoskeleton extends from the left into the vicinity of the research subject so that its arm can be inserted and fixed with hook and loop fasteners into the machine. The arm mechanism of the orthosis acts against the gravitational force of the arm. Furthermore, the arm orthosis has five degree-of-freedom (three in the shoulder, one in the elbow, one in the forearm). As it has no robotic actuators, it is a so-called passive system. The front end of the arm orthosis is equipped with a pressure-sensitive handgrip. During the training, both the EEG and the EMG signals are recorded.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Similar to the neurofeedback training, physiotherapists supervise the patient during the training with the rehabilitation exoskeleton. They sit on the left side of the research subject and observe their exercise of movement. Among others, the exercises include grasping exercises ("Assessment Center"). During the execution of the tasks, the person is sitting in front of the monitor; his/her upper body is represented at the lower edge of the monitor in the form of a 3D simulation. The monitor displays the movements of the arm orthosis and the patient’s real-time touching and releasing the joystick. The simultaneous representation is based on an intra-action, which is triggered by the interaction of human and technology. These movement exercises are not merely displayed as tasks or commands but take the form of a game. For this purpose, a basket and a ball, which are located at different points in the monitor, are displayed on the monitor in addition to the representation of the arm and upper body of the research subject. The task is to stretch the arm to reach the ball, then grab the ball with the hand, move it to the basket, and release the ball when it is over the basket. When the ball has been moved into the basket, the basket and ball will appear again at a different location on the monitor, and the research subject must again grab the ball and move it towards the basket in order to drop it into the basket. The "basket exercise" implies all individual exercises of movement (e.g. stretching, bowing, gripping movements) performed in the Assessment Center. Each exercise is limited in time, and the duration depends on the speed and success of each research subject (summing up to about 45 minutes). 9.5 Adjustment of the Human and the Machine The adjustment of the human and the machine to one another is important for successful actions of Human-Machine Systems, or successful cyborgical actions. I showed that human-machine adaptation in this context can be

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

204

Chapter 9

divided into three phases (Şahinol, 2016). The first phase is the bodilymaterial adaptation. In this phase, neuroscientists are taking various measures that are mainly concerned with physical and material adaptation: the preparation and purification (skin, muscle, hand, and brainwaves), the coordination and the interaction of the biological/physical (body) and the technical/mechanical (robotic device, etc.). These adaptation processes are constitutive for the production of the bio-technical form (Lindemann, 2002) as a type of the cyborg, which produces expressions that are useful to neuroscientists. For this phase, I specifically question the preparation and localization processes in which neuroscientists define biological elements and, depending on their state or shape, transform them into the inscription devices (Latour, 2005) or integrate them into the machine devices. The last refers to the integration of the stroke patient into a robotic orthosis or a robotic exoskeleton. In this context, I demonstrated that in the next adaptation step, biological and technical co-ordination must be synchronized to stabilize the human-machine connection. Within this connection, the inscription of the biomechanical produced movement – as a part of the imagination of movement – is incorporated via the robotic orthosis into the "Leib" (MerleauPonty, 2002). I will first demonstrate the case of disturbed adjustment of the humanmachine adaptation. In this case, when technology is seen as something embarrassing within the neuroscientific clinical trials, then technology is perceived as the monstrous.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

9.6 "Help, the monster is eating me!" The training with the exoskeleton brings several difficulties with it. These difficulties arise from the great efforts stroke patients have to make, in order to move their paralyzed arm – even with the help of the exoskeleton. As stroke patients cannot move their paralyzed arm on their own, they often make compensatory movements (later more on this problem) with their upper body, particularly when they have to execute the given tasks. The exercises are recorded and compared with the scores of the other patients, by showing the results listed on the monitor at the end of the exercise. The neuroscientists who were involved in these trials claimed that the implementation of this form of contest increases the patients’ motivations to execute the exercises with as much movement as possible. However, these records and comparisons often upset patients:

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

"Help, the Monster is Eating Me!"

205

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Mr. Blue laughs loudly: "Self-controlled, that's such a thing. So look there (pointing to the exoskeleton, MŞ). There is nothing self-controlled. Here, I feel strangely controlled (BCI training with the robot, MŞ). In the BCI training, I feel that I control it by myself. But here (exoskeleton, MŞ), I have to do everything the thing wants me to do. And look, there’s even a list (score list, MŞ). So THIS (exoskeleton, MŞ), THIS is the CAPITALIST system. And the back (BCI training with the robot, MŞ) thiiis is the SOCIALIST system. HA HA HA.” MŞ laughs, too. Mr. Blue moves closer to MŞ and whispers (with a loud voice, MŞ): “Mrs. White, who even came in last and said that I had stolen her first place (Mrs. White took the first place form Mr. Blue, MŞ). MEEE, her FIRST place and then STOLEN. So ... tststs ... .” A Neuroscientist, who has noticed what Mr. Blue said, asks: “What is the capitalist system? The exoskeleton?” Mr. Blue: “YES. The thing there. Since I feel totally strange. I have to do what the system requires of me. I'm not asked. And there are also POINTS that you can get. This is torture.” The Neuroscientist smiles: “But there you have the opportunity to train the freedom of movement of your arm. You have found out that there is a learning effect. ... The BCI training is different. The hand only opens and closes.” (laboratory study notes)

Sitting in the exoskeleton, doing the movement exercises in the HumanMachine System and therefore interacting with the machine seems to pressure Mr. Blue. He feels “strangely controlled” and deprived of his autonomy and self-determination. During the interaction with the machine, it is thus important that the subjects still experiences a sense of self-control – or even that he/she is the part of the system that controls the machine. Mr. Blue compares the situations in which "he has to do everything the thing wants" him to do with a capitalistic system and explains that it is the system that determines him what to do and count each point, which ultimately makes the achievement highly competitive. In an interview, Mr. Blue explains the distinction between the capitalist and the socialist system as follows: "Yes, and in the beginning, it did not work at all and then it worked better and better. This was an interesting story and made me laugh and say, ‘This is a democratic machine, and the other is a capitalist machine.’ Because the extent of what happened there (BMI, interaction with the robot, MŞ) was out of my own productive power up there (tips on his head, MŞ). On the other (machine), it is a matter of tact units. It was prescribed: I have to do so, and so. At the exoskeleton. This is the difference between the two machines. (…) The people, who are from the land, come and say, ‘This is just like that.’ They take it as Godgiven, which is immovable and unchangeable. The fact that people have made these machines and that people also determine the unit of measure (Takteinheiten), you have to think about it, and then you can change

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

206

Chapter 9 something, everywhere, and they take it as God-given and the doctors in white, who also demand that you submit to it, so they think. A patient, what is called a patient, because he is suffering. This is their job in the hospital."

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Being integrated into the BMI system, Mr. Blue does not feel in control of the robotic orthosis by his brain and on his own ("what happened there was out of my own productive power up there"). Even if the exercise is predetermined, in that he only needs to prepare for the task, to open the device with his left hand via his thought, and close the device by resting. In the case of the exoskeleton, he has to fulfil several tasks, which appear on the monitor. He explains that this situation makes him uncomfortable, describing people taking technology for granted and not questioning it, that technology itself is dependent on human beings, etc. Furthermore, he states that the unit of measures are determined by human beings and therefore, could be changed. Naturally, doctors/physicians/therapists are in a dominant position in the physician-patient relations want to push patients to adapt to the training. However, it appears also natural that doctors should avoid burdening patients beyond their physical and mental abilities. As recorded in the laboratory study notes above, Mr. Blue clearly expresses his discomfort by declaring the procedure as torture. The patient perceives the exoskeleton as an instrument of "torture", other patients describing the instrument as an "electric chair", for example, Mr. Green or Mrs. White saying: "I still have to go on the electric chair." The patients describe the practicing exercises with the exoskeleton as torture, because of the great effort they have to make, what makes the patient suffering. Even if or because they have to use compensatory movements, the exercises were heavy, intensive and exhausting. And the fact, that neuroscientists fix body parts of the patients to avoid compensatory movements, is an unpleasant experience for the patients in order to adapt to the technological device and procedure. It is considered as an act of causing physical (and mental) discomfort in order to persuade the patient to do the tasks. That makes technology even more “evil” and the patients’ tasks with the exoskeleton are taken as “torture”. For patients, compensatory movement is often a strategy to solve the stressor of competitive comparison. As the orthosis also moves by straightening up the upper body, the patients often favour compensatory movement. Despite this preference, this is unwanted by neuroscientists because they intend to increase the muscle strength and range of motion; and as neuroscientists would like to be able to evaluate the process of improving motoric function, the focus lies on the actual movement of the paralyzed arm and hand. To avoid compensatory movement, I observed the fixation of patients’ body parts to the chair. The laboratory study notes below show the difficulties concerning compensatory movement.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

"Help, the Monster is Eating Me!" Mr. Pink still sits at the exoskeleton and is moving restlessly. He supports moving his paralysed arm, which is in the exoskeleton, by his "healthy" hand and by compensatory movements. The physiotherapist asks Mr. Pink whether he should fix his right "healthy" hand, Mr. Pink uses to support to move his left (paralysed) arm. This "help" and the compensatory movement helps Mr. Pink to perform the task, and to throw the ball into the basket (shown on the monitor, MŞ). Neuroscientist Purple, who keeps an eye on Mr. Pink, goes out of the room. Mr. Pink asks the physiotherapist to massage his neck and shoulder a little bit. Physiotherapist: "Now stop!" The input box falls down, as Mr. Pink makes a compensatory movement with his right ("healthy") arm and accidentally bumps against the cables and the input box placed on the right sight. Neuroscientist Purple looks at Mr. Pink angrily and says, that is not the right way. Mr. Pink: "Are you going to threaten me?" Neuroscientist Purple: "I look at your other hand." Mr. Pink: "As you like, Mr. Purple!" Neuroscientist Purple: "This is already the 10th run and 2/3 are accomplished. Continue." Neuroscientist Purple goes out of the room. Mr. Pink says he needs a tissue. Mr. Pink sweat runs down his forehead. MŞ gives him a tissue. Neuroscientist Purple comes into the room and looks at Mr. Pink. Neuroscientist Purple to Mr. Pink: "That was really good. The hand has closed. ... you have to slow it down." The physiotherapist clamps the foot of Mr. Pink between his legs to fix Mr. Pink's foot (during the exercise, MŞ). Neuroscientist Purple: "It will not help you if you move your head (which is a compensatory movement in this case, MŞ). You must move your arm. If you move your head, he (the machine, MŞ) does nothing." Neuroscientist Purple looks at the monitor. Mr. Pink continues to make compensatory movements. As he moves his left arm, I observe how he lifts his chest and his head and how he additionally supports his body with his right arm and his right hand. Neuroscientist Purple: "We have to tie him up." Mr. Pink just sat down, "I'm waiting for the basket to come." Neuroscientist Purple: "No. Above. Come on! You have to do that. (...) We're done. " Neuroscientist Neon is coming. Mr. Pink looks at him: "20 minutes." Neuroscientist Neon: "Good." Neuroscientist Neon asks how far we are. Neuroscientist Purple says we're done. Mr. Pink performs now the supination and the pronation exercise. Neuroscientist Purple: "I'll fix that now. You must listen to me now. You have to make that more controlled, not fast. If you have water and drink everything at once, then you have no more water. (...) Ah, now it's on the leg. (...) I know I'm not a nice man, that's all for you." Mr. Pink nods: "Yeah, sure! "

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

207

208

Chapter 9 Mr. Pink, who is now doing the Assessment Center on the exoskeleton, asks the physiotherapist: "Now you're annoyed, huh?" Physiotherapist: "This is exhausting, also for me." (laboratory study notes)

The situation above displays a discrepancy between the contest on the exoskeleton, in which fast movements are only possible by compensatory movement, and the patient care. The neuroscientist does not avoid compensatory movements by cancelling the contest and changing the type of exercises. Here the problem is not solved by adjusting the "technical" and "mechanical" side of the equation but the "social/organic". However, therapists usually avoid compensatory movements by threatening patients with or actually fixing their body parts, e.g. by holding their body parts as this example shows. In other cases, the right leg of patients has been bonded on the chair leg (e.g. Mr. Green) so that the patient is unable to lift their paralyzed arm to the left and move the ball in the basket. As Mr. Blue already mentioned implicitly that this contested exercise burdens patients rather than improving their motor functions, this laboratory situation and Neuroscientist Purple’s comments appear complicated. The therapist is aware of the fact that the movements are not easy for the patient, but still insists on Mr. Pink to control the machine, notwithstanding that the effectivity of the exercise decreases significantly if Mr. Pink makes wrong movements, e.g. by moving his head.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

As a consequence, Mr. Pink gives up and waits for the basket to come by its own ("I'm waiting for the basket to come."). Mr. Pink is made to believe that controlled movement guarantees success; still, neuroscientist Purple insist that the patient moves his arm. As Mr. Pink cannot execute the movements, he gives up. Moreover, as a consequence of compensatory movement, the neuroscientist also records "flawed data", which is full of artifacts and does not provide statistical evidence on the real muscle activity in the paralyzed body parts. Thus, they cannot effectively control the rehabilitation progress of stroke patients. Again, they do not change the exercises but fix the body parts of the patients to control and suppress the compensatory movements – also an "evil" situation for the patients. My findings clearly point to a tension between the patients’ care and the needs of the patients on the one hand and the "force" of the production of artefact- and error-free data on the other. The desired data is thereby not only produced by the fixation and amplification of motor brain regions via BCI, but is also based on patient disciplining during the trials and measures. The neurosciences attempt to render neuronal states controllable by forcing a behavior of the research subject adapted to the requirements of the researcher to gain insights about the brain and to achieve treatment success through experimental trials.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

"Help, the Monster is Eating Me!"

209

The "capitalist system", which is a contested environment, suggests a loss of self-control and is seen as evil, not healing but burdening the patients. This monstrosity is taken the situation to extremes, as technology did not work and captured the patient:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Mr. Pink makes very restless movements. Mr. Pink: "Help, the monster is eating me!" MŞ: "What happened?" Mr. Pink: "Yes, look, my arm!" MŞ: "Just a moment ..." MŞ is going to Mr. Pink. An Assistant Neuroscientist Mrs. Berry comes to the aid. They look at the arm of the exoskeleton. MŞ can see that the gravity support system, in particular, a part of the arm apparatus controlling the movement ranges has slipped behind the stopping device. This should actually be prevented by the stopping device. The robot arm is thus clamped at a position which should be prevented. MŞ tells Mrs. Berry she should look here (at the stopping device, MŞ), there would be something wrong, the arm has slipped in there. MŞ cannot release the jammed robot arm from the device to free the patient from the exoskeleton. Mr. Pink is trapped in the device. Mrs. Berry pulls on the robot arm. Mr. Pink out now. Mrs. Berry: "The thing was trapped. That was not the point. Is everything okay?" Mr. Pink: "The machine does not mind." MŞ asks Mr. Pink, what does not matter to the machine. Mr. Pink says the machine has almost eaten him, and the machine did not care about his arm. (laboratory study notes)

As the patient describes the machine, the monster showed a ruthless behavior by capturing his arm. Mr. Pink felt helpless and screamed for assistance. Therefore, the action was not perceived as human-machine interaction, since the performance of the movement was not a processrelated synchronous action performed by human and machine in a cybernetic way. In this case, the patients’ movements initiate the machine to counterbalance, which again initiates the patient to readjust his or her movement. As the patient gets "wrong feedback", is stuck in the machine, and also cannot move the exoskeleton by compensatory movements, the patient had the feeling of a loss of control. In addition to eliciting a sense of external control, the patient also interprets the machine as a monster that is not taking care of his arm. This is an attribution directly connected to the evil and the loss of control. So, Mr. Pink awards a monstrous character to the machine. Despite, Mrs. Berry re-adjusts the machine. The fact that the robot had to be readjusted makes it clear that it had not previously been properly adjusted to the patients’ body. However, the adaptation of the machine to the patients’

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

210

Chapter 9

body is essential in order to avoid potential injuries or discomfort for the patients. Moreover, the (re)adaptation cannot be provided by the patient but 4 by a social mediator. As mentioned by Mr. Blue regarding the BMI system being a "socialist system", the notion of self-determination and control also seems to be the key issue. In contrast to Mr. Blue, who describes the opening of his hand by the voluntary control of the orthosis as self-determined by his brain, Mr. Pink complains the lack of self-determination in a conversation like the following: MŞ is asking Mr. Pink: “Do you move your hand or does the machine?” Mr. Pink: “The evil machine is doing it.” MŞ: “Why, evil?” Mr. Pink: “Because it suggests something you cannot do.” (laboratory study notes)

Mr. Pink’s response points to where the problem lies: the suggestion of a non-existing motoric capacity, which is an equivalent to a "lie" or a simulation, a deception, which is evil. I will now further detail the suggestion of a non-existing motoric capacity, the simulation, and the processual-related synchronous action within the BMI system.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

According to the general state of knowledge in neurosciences, there is a correlation between the activity of the motor area in the brain and the movement activity of the hand before a stroke. After the stroke, the motor area is characterized by functional disturbances. Although motor areas can show activity by the mere imagination of movement in the paralyzed (left) hand, the left-hand remains motionless. In other words, although the body suffering from 5 paralysis still possesses the "intellectual capacity" of movement, its 4 In my study (2016), I make a distinction between technical and social mediation authorities. In order to ensure the contact between the biological and technical elements and to initiate the transformation and inscription, further social and technical intermediary bodies, such as information technology or researchers, are placed in between. The preparation for the human-machine adaptation therefore involves the definition of the epistemic objects and the inscription devices, as well as the localization of epistemic objects via a docking procedure, which combines the biological and technical elements by means of social and technical mediation instances. 5 Merleau-Ponty (2002), for example, describes that "the patient has his body only as an amorphous mass into which actual movement alone introduces divisions and links. In looking to his body to perform the movement for him he is like a speaker who cannot utter a word without following a text written beforehand. The patient himself neither seeks nor finds his movement, but moves his body about until the movement comes. (...) But if the order has an intellectual significance for him and not a motor one, it does not communicate anything to him as a mobile subject; he may well find in the shape of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

"Help, the Monster is Eating Me!"

211

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

implementation into physical exercise is disturbed and thus also its correlation with the motor areas. Via the EEG, which is often called the "Dracula bear", because "it looks terrible (and, MŞ) is creepy" (e.g. Mr. Pink, Mrs. White), the movements are transformed, and the brain activity becomes visible. The digitization allows the processing of the performances in real-time. A BMI system is produced from the EEG signals of the research subject (based on the figure of the cerebral subject, Hagner, 1997) in connection with the robot. The cerebral processes are isolated and classified by the neuroscientists, commands are generated, and the opening of the hand is thus delegated to the orthosis. Through the biomechanical-physical opening of the hand by the orthosis, the movement activity of the research subject is simulated biomechanically. However, this biomechanical-physical opening of the hand, despite the characteristic of simulation, flows into the body experience of the research subject. Throughout his observation, watching his hand, and experience concerning his cerebral-controlled biomechanical hand opening in sociotechnical constellation, this is done in such a way that this must influence the structure of the self-experience and reflection of the research subject. In other words, a subject thinks and activates the machine, so that it opens his hand which means nothing else but that the machine as an intermediary represents the connecting element of the biological and technical and the bio-technical execution, both physically and biomechanically, as an iterative experience in the corporeality. The research subject learns to control his or her thoughts according to the required task, whereby the feeling of control decisively depends on the feedback of the robot orthosis. The opening and closing of the robotic orthosis helps the research subject to orientate itself or to adapt its thoughts to the biomechanical opening of the hand. Actually, however, this embodiment is a techno-cerebral action in which the control of the machine is regulated via the cerebral conditions. The integration of the machine movement a movement performed an illustration on the order given, but he can never convert the thought of a movement into actual movement. What he lacks is neither motility nor thought, and we are brought to the recognition of something between movement as a third person process and thought as a representation of movement – something which is an anticipation of, or arrival at, the objective and is ensured by the body itself as a motor power, a ‘motor project’ (Bewegungsentwurf), a ‘motor intentionality’ in the absence of which the order remains a dead letter." (ibid. 126f.). Regarding the situation of the research subject, an intermediate entity is switched inbetween the "Leib" and the body by the BMI: the machine. At this point, I can convey from personal experience, that using a robot equipped with a BCI induced the feeling, that I was performing an action that is separated from my motoric action with my hand and that I was actually controlling the robot with my brain. So, I sensed a dissociation between my thoughts and actions, which caused a disturbing physical feeling.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

212

Chapter 9

into the corporeality of the subject adds to the faculty of imagination, which is "trained" by the unknown variable "experience". In conjunction, the cerebral subject with its body as an epistemic medium and the orthosis driven and moved by cerebral processes, both enable the execution of the techno-cerebral action. If this action is not disturbed by a failure of the adjustment of both the human and the machine, patients like Mr. Blue have the feeling of selfdetermined control of the machine. When all parts work together, patients also feel a harmonious synergy with the machine. In turn, this translates into curative progress, even if stroke patients cannot perform the simulation by themselves: Mr. Pink (during the neurofeedback trainings at the robot) tells MŞ: "You can sit next to me, it works. Machine and human in perfect harmony." (laboratory study notes)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

9.7 Conclusion In this article, I discussed how technology entangled with an organism is perceived as monster and monstrous. Particularly when understanding the monstrous about the adjustment of the human and the machine and the evil of technology, we could see that the notion of self-determined control of the machine is the most important aspect. The strangeness (of some technical equipment), the torture (by technical devices and procedures making patients suffering), the uncontrolled, in particular, the loss of control of the machine, all this is directly connected with and described as the evil and the monstrous. A condition of control is the successful adjustment of human and machine by a social mediation authority, in our case, by the neuroscientists. Thus, it is important that human-machine interaction is not disturbed by difficulties and inappropriate circumstances. If the research subject (within a HumanMachine System) feels like it is controlling the process-related synchronous action, which is performed circular and without distributions, the subject feels self-control and comfortable. Since circularity is the first principle and central concept of cybernetics and the BMI system involves organic and inorganic parts, the subject can be considered as an acting cyborg. In this case, the acting cyborg – particularly its technological part – is not perceived as the monstrous but as a harmonically acting bio-technical figure: "Machine and human in perfect harmony". References Åsberg, C. (2010). Enter cyborg: tracing the historiography and ontological turn of feminist technoscience studies. International Journal of Feminist Technosciences.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

"Help, the Monster is Eating Me!"

213

Craelius, W. (2002). The bionic man: restoring mobility. Science. 295, (5557). 1018–1021. Downey, G. and Dumit, J. (1997). Cyborgs and citadels: Anthropological interventions in emerging sciences and technologies. 1st ed. Santa Fe, N.M.; [Seattle, WA]: School of American Research Press. Distributed by the University of Washington Press. Hagner, M. (1997). Homo cerebralis: Der Wandel vom Seelenorgan zum Gehirn. Berlin: Berlin Verlag. Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of women. London, New York: Routledge. Haraway, D. J. (1989). Primate visions: Gender, race, and nature in the world of modern science. New York: Routledge. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-networktheory. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Latour, B. (2012). We have never been modern: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: the social construction of scientific facts. Beverly Hills: Sage. Law, J. (1991). A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology, and domination: Routledge. Lindemann, G. (2002). Die Grenzen des Sozialen: Zur sozio-technischen Konstruktion von Leben und Tod in der Intensivmedizin. München: Fink. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002). Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge. Mialet, H. (2012). Hawking Incorporated: Stephen Hawking and the anthropology of the knowing subject. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Orviz, E. T. (2013). Cyborgs, the monsters of the 21st Century. Retrieved from https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/cctp-725fall2013/2013/12/11/cyborgs-the-monsters-of-the-21st-century/ Pickering, A. (1995). Cyborg history and the World War II regime. Perspectives on Science, 3(1). 1–48. Pickersgill, M., Cunningham-Burley, S. and Martin, P. (2011). Constituting neurologic subjects: Neuroscience, subjectivity and the mundane significance of the brain. Subjectivity, 4(3). 346–365. Rammert, W. (2007). Technik, Handeln und Sozialstruktur: Eine Einführung in die Soziologie der Technik. Rammert, W. (Ed.). Technik - Handeln - Wissen. 11–36. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften / GWV Fachverlage GmbH Wiesbaden. Şahinol, M. (2016). Das techno-zerebrale Subjekt: Zur Symbiose von Mensch und Maschine in den Neurowissenschaften. Bielefeld: transcript. Spreen, D. (2010). Der Cyborg: Diskurse zwischen Körper und Technik. Esslinger, E. (Ed.). Die Figur des Dritten. 1st ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. 166–179. Stammberger, B. (2011). Monster und Freaks. Eine Wissensgeschichte außergewöhnlicher Körper im, 190 Jahrhundert.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

10. The Assemblage of the Skull Form. Parental Decision, Surgery and the Normalization of the Baby Skull Andreas Kaminski High Performance Computing Center (HLRS), Germany

Alena Umbach High Performance Computing Center (HLRS), Germany

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract Historical forms of perception and valuation are linked to human skull shapes: the character of a person, its intelligence, beauty, trustworthiness, belonging to humanity and alongside its normality. Demarcations between the normal and the monstrous – which are difficult to code but not the less effective – can be found in phrenology, anthropometry, intelligence research as well as in folks anthropology. These forms of perception and valuation are deeply connected with technical forms of reshaping the human skull. Therefore, medical projects of reshaping the skull become very complex. A project of this kind is at the center of our chapter: Certain head shapes, such as positional plagiocephaly or shapes caused by craniosynostosis, a premature ossification of one or even more sutures, can be treated, and that means “deformed” and “normalized”. In this context, technologies (statistics, simulation and operational method) and forms of perception and valuation of the communication between parents and doctors, play a crucial role. As head deformations aren´t necessary, in a narrow sense, this contribution is about the border between normality and monstrosity. We will investigate the form of normality as well as the type of monstrosity which occurs in this context. Additional, the triangle consisting of doctor – parents – technology, which enclose the skull of the children shall be taken into account.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

216

Chapter 10

Keywords: Head and skull shape, skull surgery, normality vs. monstrosity, standards vs. forms of nature 10.1 Introduction Different historical forms of perception and evaluation are associated with the shape of the human skull: the character of a person, the intelligence, beauty, trustworthiness, the belonging to humanity. The dividing line between the human and the monstrous therefore often runs along the skull and its shape. The dividing line is subject to historically great changes; in the modern age, it is defined by a new form of "normality", which is closely related to statistical techniques. Not everything abnormal is monstrous, but abnormality is at least under suspicion of being monstrous. This also applies, for example, to the above-average intelligent. Between genius, madness and monstrosity, the idea of abnormality is increasingly being conveyed.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The skull is repeatedly considered to be the (seemingly) natural place where the mind shows itself in the physical. For this reason, the question of the normal skull, more precisely the normal shape of the skull, gains (dramatic and tragic) significance in the 19th and 20th centuries. Repeatedly is assumed: Whoever doesn't have a normal skull is suspected of being monstrous. Attempts to draw a demarcation line between normal and abnormal occur in phrenology, anthropometry, intelligence research as well as in folks anthropology. These forms of perception and evaluation are closely related to technical attempts to change the shape of the human skull. This makes medical projects to change or correct the shape of the skull a complex undertaking. Their motives and judgments are embedded in a history which is difficult to access and to assess. A project of this kind is at the center of our chapter: Certain head shapes, such as positional plagiocephaly or shapes caused by craniosynostosis, a premature ossification of one or even more sutures, can be treated, and that means “deformed” and “normalized”. In this context, technologies (statistics, simulation and surgical method) and forms of perception and valuation, in parallel with communication between parents and doctors, play a crucial role. There is no specific medical need for surgery and correction of the baby's skull. The decision to subject the skull of an infant to extensive surgical intervention seems to be based on questions of abnormality and, according to our assumption, takes place in the context of defense against being perceived as monstrous. In the context of this chapter, we present the (section 2) medical project itself, and on the other hand, we want to expose (section 1) the historically complex constellation in which this medical practice is inevitably embedded.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Assemblage of the Skull Form

217

Informative, important studies on the history of normality have been written in recent decades. The works of Jürgen Link on normalism and Michel Foucault on the abnormal stand out in particular. However, we do ask ourselves (section 3) whether these already have turnkey analytical concepts ready to understand the medical practice and the parental decision to correct a baby's skull. Our thesis is that neither of the two theories is adequate to understand the web of (threatening) abnormality and monstrosity that embraces the skull. Our proposal is, therefore primarily a negative one: to examine the conceptual analytical tools employing the same means as the cultural and social sciences to examine the history of normality and monstrosity. Perhaps – we suspect – the grip on established analytic tools is too reflexive when it comes to monstrosity and abnormality. 10.2 The assemblage of skull form There are only a few parts of the human body that have such a rich and intricate history as the head. This is due to its indicated location between mind and body. On the inner side, there is the brain with its significance for mental abilities and actions; on the outer side, there is the human face with its rapidly changing expressions and relatively stable traits that are the subject matter of extensive interpretation. 1

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The skull functions in this history often like a hinge: It is understood as the interface between the face on the one side and the brain (and the mind) on the 2 other. It is likely for this reason that the skull has been taken as an indication for several approaches to decoding personality traits, mental abilities, and population properties. The wide variety of issues and the range of applied approaches stretches from measurements techniques to interpretative patterns, from psycho- and anthropometrics to “folks phrenology”. Therefore, we understand the skull as an assemblage of differences. It interlocks (1) nature and culture. Obviously, the shape of the skull is given by nature; but its meaning is the subject matter of cultural patterns. Moreover, cultural attempts to shape and modify the skull were repeatedly developed in history. The assemblage of nature and culture is fueled by another difference, 1

Cf. Hagner’s discussion of “homo duplex” and it’s decline (Hagner 1997, 39-53). Hagner states that brain was ascribed the hinge function. We think that the skull was part of this complex or that at least the brain was at the center of that and its meaning “radiated” to the skull. See also Hagner 2005. 2 Cf. Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics in which he discusses this interposition (Hegel 2008, 385) and his famous critique of physiognomy and “Schädellehre” in Phenomenology of Spirit (Hegel 1986, 233-262.)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

218

Chapter 10

the distinction between (2) perception and valuation. The differences in shapes, pattern, and measures are important because they were treated as indications of cultural values: good and bad character traits like intelligence, sincerity, etc. As these properties and values demonstrate, the skull mediates (3) body and mind. Properties of the skull are considered not only as physical values but as that of the mind; therefore, they define the personality. Partly because of this special role, it was assumed that the skull is providing insights into what is (4) normal and abnormal. Because skulls are highly comparable (allow standardized measurements), they open up spaces for differences within a range. There the differences mentioned above are bundled or lapped: degrees of a skull are properties/values that are normal/abnormal in relation to nature/culture and body/mind.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

These differences predestine the skull to embody (human) monstrosity. Our hypothesis is that, for the differences 1-3, there is a unidirectional indication: one deviant, abnormal side determines the monstrous meaning of the other. The natural deviation of form, in the sense of unproduced, not decreed, determines the attributed monstrous cultural significance, the deviant perception determines the monstrous moral abnormality, the deviant physical one determines the assumed monstrous mental abnormality. This assumption is more far-reaching than it may seem. Because it implies that there are no monsters in the realm of nature. Monstrosity – as proposed here – always affects the realm of mind and values. The seemingly natural deviation (a goat with two heads, etc.) only appears monstrous when it violates the spiritual world (the ordered classes and their values). Just as an injury is always more than material deformation, monstrosity is always more than the mixing of two separate areas of nature. The "injury" is also an intellectual and moral one. Obviously, these differences are not exclusive to the history of the skull. They are forms of observation and therefore not limited in their application. Accordingly, the term “monstrosity” proposed here is not limited to the skull. That is why we introduce the term “assemblage”. An entity acts as an assemblage only if it attracts and gathers (assembles) the use of different forms of observation. In the case of the skull, the different differences are coordinated as we could see. This facilitates the application of different forms 3 of observation. The medical issue of cranial deformation faces the

3

As is known, the notion “assemblage” is used in art history. Deuleuze and Guattari coin the term for a different use (Deuleuze and Guattari 1987, Deleuze and Parnet 1987). They emphasize the role of heterogenous elements. Without going into excessive details, this marks a minor difference to our concept of assemblage since the skull gathers forms of observations and not elements.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Assemblage of the Skull Form

219

complexity of the skull assemblage. It responses to this history, although more or less tacitly: The desire for cranial deformation, the idea of how a skull should be like, the perception of abnormity form the background of a medical treatment we would like to present in the next section. 10.3 Current practice of cranial deformation (with example of craniosynostosis) Craniosynostosis is a disturbance of growth, in which at least one cranial vault suture closes prematurely. As Virchow already recognized, this leads to an inhibition of growth of the skull perpendicular to the affected suture, and at the same time to a compensatory growth expansion in the direction of the affected suture (Virchow, 1851). This is why the skull inhibits abnormal and unusual forms (see Figure 10.1).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 10.1: Normacephalus and different assorted characteristics of craniosynostosis (very simplified illustration).

The prevalence of craniosynostosis occurs one in 2,000 to 2,500 live births (Marchac et al., 1989), which is one of the most frequent craniofacial 4 anomalies. The diagnosis of craniosynostosis structured based on cephalometric measurements and sonography of the cranial sutures, which should only be carried out in justified cases (Freudlsperger 2013, 301). One of these exceptions is the differential diagnosis of lambdoid synostosis and a positional plagiocephaly, which can not be distinguished from the outside: The

4

Assuming a total incidence of one per 2,250 (mean value) and calculating with the birth rate of 2015 (737,575 births) (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2015), there are approximately 328 newborns with craniosynostosis in 2015.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

220

Chapter 10

child has a flattened occiput in both cases (Jane 2005, 448). However, plagiocephaly does not arise as a result of synostosis but can occur due to an enduring supine position. As a child with plagiocephaly doesn’t need a surgery at all, a conservative treatment, such as helmet therapy, is absolutely sufficient. Sagittal craniosynostosis is the most common form (40-55%) followed by coronal (20-25%), metopic (5-15%) and lambdoidal synostosis (0-5%) (Freudlsperger et al., 302). Since the last two decades, however, a significant increase in metopic as well as a decrease in sagittal craniosynostosis can be determined, but the aetiology is still unknown (van der Meulen et al., 2009).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

There is a clear distinction between syndromic and nonsyndromic craniosynostosis: In the case of syndromic craniosynostosis, genetic defects, including the Crouzon, Saehthre-Chotzen, Apert, Pfeiffer or Carpentersyndrome, can be identified (Cartwright et al. 2007, 76-81). It is a secondary form since it is associated with other abnormalities, such as bony deformities of the arms and legs or the internal organs (Universität Heidelberg, 2016). Since, as a rule, a plurality of sutures are affected, an absolute indication is generally present. In almost all cases, there is a medical need and urgency to give children surgery with syndromic craniosynostosis. Without surgery the skull wouldn´t probably have enough space to grow and intracranial pressure (ICP) can increase (Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 2016). In contrast to such complex synostosis, isolated, nonsyndromic craniosynostosis occur much more frequently; this means approximately four out of five children are affected by craniosynostosis (Ärzteblatt, 2012). In this primary form, only one of the six sutures is affected (see Table 10.2). Furthermore, their causes are still unclear. While almost all children with complex synostosis need surgery, most patients with simple synostosis, don´t necessarily need one for medical purposes. Most affected persons could, therefore, lead a life with their deformities without having a loss of functional performances such as mental impairments. Almost all parents opt for medical treatment, however, which aims at normalization of the skull shape and is associated with certain risks and consequences, including severe disabilities and deaths in rare cases. There are two operational methods for craniosynostosis in general: Early endoscopic on the one hand and late open surgical techniques on the other hand. Early endoscopic procedures, including minimally invasive procedures (often combined with helmet therapy), are being performed on children who are less than three months old. During this time, the skull bone is still thin and can be shaped easily (Freudlsperger et al. 2013, 308). Endoscopic procedures were developed in the 1990s to reduce the morbidity of open surgical techniques that resulted in reduced blood loss and operating time (Freudlsperger et al. 2013, 308). In addition to these advantages, disadvantages must also be taken into

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Assemblage of the Skull Form

221

account: Due to lower bone stability, there is a risk involved in recurrence of cranial deformation (Zöller 2003, 26). Table 10.2: Isolated nonsyndromic craniosynostosis. Fused suture Schematic representation of the fused suture; shown in blue (highly simplified) Sagittal suture

Coronal suture

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Metopic suture

Lambdoid suture

Term for deformation (skull deformity)

Description of the external appearance (clinical description)

Scaphocephaly - Frontal bossing (or - Prominent occiput Dolichocephaly) - Palpable keel ridge - OFC normal and reduced biparietal diameter Plagiocephaly - Flattened forehead on affected side - Flat cheeks - Nose deviation on normal side - Higher supraorbital margin leads to harlequin sign on radiograph, and outward rotation of orbit may result in amblyopia Trigonocephaly - Pointed forehead and midline ridge - Hypotelorism

Lambdoid/ occipital Plagiocephaly

Prevalence

1:2,0001:5,000

1:12,000 (incl. bilaterale craniosynostosis)

1:15,000

1:40,000- Flattening of occiput - Indentation along synostotic 1:100,000 suture - Bulging of ipsilateral forehead leading to rhomboid skull - Ipsilateral ear is anterior and inferior - Trapezoid head - Most important differential diagnosis: Positional plagiocephaly

Data taken from: Moskopp 2015, 960; Freudlsperger et al. 2013, 303-306; Ridgway and Weiner 2004, 366.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

222

Chapter 10

In contrast to early endoscopic procedures, late open surgical procedures are generally applied for children between the fourth and twelfth months of life (Freudlsperger 2013, 308). They aim for active shaping of the desired skull bone and maintain standard procedures for craniosynostosis (Freudlsperger 2013, 308). Common in both techniques is that surgeons operate based on their own “feeling of beauty”. In response to this decision-making authority, a new method called framebased reconstruction was developed just a few years ago. This method enabled getting objective goal criteria. For achieving these criteria, developers proposed to create a database consisting of children´s heads who don´t have any growth disturbances (Haberl 2004, Hochfeld et al. 2014). Briefly, it works like this: First of all, basic dimensions, length and width of the skull base get collected. Then, an appropriate head form gets searched either by an exact copy of already existing data from the library or by a simulation of a virtual form with these data. The variation range of these skulls can be understood as a standard collective (Haberl 2004, Hochfeld et al. 2014). Finally, the calvaria is opened, the malformed cranial bone is removed, adapted on the individualized model and finally implanted.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

10.4 Notions of normality Obviously, abnormality or normalization plays an important role in the medical practice that has just been outlined. However, it may seem as if this framing does not contribute much to the understanding of the decision to have your child corrected. Isn't normality a universal concept? Some kind of anthropological constant? Isn't it normal to want to be normal? And how does normality relate to monstrosity, which was not mentioned in the medical practice just described? Recent studies have taught us to see the historical change of normality. Although modern individuals are so preoccupied with the question of whether they, their behavior, appearance, thoughts and desires are normal, so that orientation towards normality may seem like an anthropological constant, normality is a strictly historical category. This does not only apply to the definition of what is considered normal and what is considered abnormal. Not only the boundaries between the normal and the abnormal are subject to historical change. Normality is historic in at least the following dimensions: 1.

Historical rise of the category “normality”: Does normality play a role when it comes to the question of understanding, evaluating and dealing with deviations (in whatever form)? Historical studies have shown that only in the modern age, more precisely since the beginning of the 19th century; a term of normality which is specific to modernity emerge and gain dominance for the understanding of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Assemblage of the Skull Form

2.

3.

223

deviation. Previously, the description and understanding of deviation (from nature) were primarily oriented towards the category of “monstrosity”, as we will show in a moment. Form change of “normality”: The form, which normality (and not only its content) is subject to change, as we will show immediately. The change of form consists, among other things, in the fact that the construction method of normality (cosmos, taxonomy, statistics), tolerance and the handling of deviation change historically. Also, the relationship between normality and normativity is subject to change. Contents of "normality": The content of normality is to be understood historically in at least two ways. On the one hand, modernity becomes "normality" into a category that is equally universally applicable. But this cannot be taken for granted. The areas which were to be described as normal or abnormal, i. e. to which the category was applicable, seem to be limited at all. On the other hand, the border between normal and abnormal is historically changeable.

We turn to two such studies that trace this change: Foucault's lectures "Abnormal" and Jürgen Links "Theory of Normalism".

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

a) Michel Foucault: From monstrosity to normality In his lectures “Abnormal” (1974-1975), Foucault follows the emergence of the techniques of normalization and its corresponding form of power (Foucault 2007, 45f., 61, 69). The genesis of normalization follows three figures: the human monster, the individual to be amended, and the masturbating child (Foucault 2007, 76ff.). According to Foucault, the "Archaeology of the Anomaly" will show that the abnormal of the 19th century will emerge from these three figures (Foucault 2007, 82). In Foucault's depiction, these three figures are initially relatively independent of each other. Each of them has its own frame of reference. The human monster is related to law and biology. On the one hand, it combines two natures that are otherwise separated from each other; however, through this connection, according to Foucault, it becomes a problematic legal case (Foucault 2007, 86f.). Foucault introduces the ensemble of the various human monsters that appear in history, such as the animal-human, the Siamese twins, the hermaphrodites, the moral monsters, etc. His interest is markedly focused on how psychology, psychiatry, criminology and sexual theory change the figure and turn it into the problem of abnormality (Foucault 2007, 91-110). Nature's disturbance is now no longer limited to the monster but manifests itself in the "finest, most general, everyday behaviors" (Foucault 2007, 213). In the form of archaeology, Foucault shows us (1) how normality/abnormality occurs in history, (2) how it

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

224

Chapter 10

changes its form and (3) makes all possible elements observable under its condition. The observation of deviation as well as how it is dealt with changes. However, Foucault's focus is clearly on psychology and sexual theory. As much as he opens up historical eyes to normality, his curiosity is directed towards another area of interest. b) What is the relationship between normality or abnormality and monstrosity?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Foucault uses the following formula: the abnormal is the banalized monster (Foucault 2007, 78). The transition from classical monstrosity to abnormal monstrosity in the 19th century seems to be accompanied by two changes in particular. (1) Classical monstrosity represented something extreme, whereas the 19th century began to seek the abnormality in everyday life. (2) Early modern era monstrosity was also extreme in the sense that there was a hard cut, a gap between the natural and the monstrous, whereas abnormal monstrosity allows different degrees of intensity. In this sense, the abnormality picks up the monstrosity and changes it. Jürgen Link: From Proto- to Flexible Normalism Jürgen Link, a literary scientist, published a “theory of normalism“ developed in discourse-analytic methodology in 1994. He examines the historical development and the development of the form of normality in Western societies. In his theory, he assumes that the form of normality has changed significantly since the eighteenth century. Due to modern mass production and static survey, as well as evaluation of mass data, normality based on such empirical data has branched off normativity, to which it has an etymological kinship. In this way, it has achieved a kind of independence (Link 2013, 19f., 357). In contrast to norms and normativities, which have always existed in all societies and cultures, and are pre-existent in action due to known sanctions; normality is a historically specific achievement of modern occidental societies (Link 2010, 539, Link 2013, 7). That´s why normality is not existent in all cultures. It rather presupposes massive prediction and statistical predispositions defined by averages and mean values, and is, therefore, post-existent to action (Link 2010, 539, Link 2013, 7). In this respect, Link sees a very close relationship between the normal and the statistics, since the normal is not only represented by a normal distribution or bell curve but is also interpreted (who or what is already normalized and who or what needs normalization?): The essence of the essence is the mathematical-statistical tactic of normalization by means of the Gaussian distribution curve. It is a matter of will (…), an intervening tactic rather than objective, purely descriptive science.“ (Link 2013, 358)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Assemblage of the Skull Form

225

Link expresses this change in the form of normalism, which has been observed for about 200 years, by means of two ideal-typic and contrasting normalistic strategies (see Table 10.3): The protonormalisitic strategy on the one hand and the flexible normalistic strategy on the other hand. Protonormalism dominated especially at the beginning of normalism and is mainly based on normativity; this means, norms are defined in advance (Link 2013, 54, 57). Limits of normality which can also be regarded as stigma limits are extremely tight, fixed, stable, and valid for a long time. Furthermore, a binary scheme becomes apparent due to a compact normal-block structure of the normality spectrum: Either an individual is normal or not. Finally, individuals are directed or normalized in an authoritarian sense from the outside in order to remain in the normality field (Link 2013, 58). Flexible Normalism, by contrast, has developed in the course of the modern age and is particularly characterized by a maximum expansion and dynamization of the normality zone (Link 2013, 54). Only on the basis of data, a normality field, which often appears in the form of a bell curve, is specified. In this respect, characteristics or behaviors are considered normal, which are observed most frequently. Especially tolerance zones are characteristic for Flexible Normalism, rather than strict demarcations. Since the normality field can shift within a very short time due to changing data, individuals can drift imperceptibly into the abnormal area. As a result, a fear of denormalization occurs, which is a concern of not being normal. Finally, individuals can adjust their behavior to the available data material in order to normalize themselves.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“In its entirety, this normalistic “archipelago” as major historical innovation produces a data-driven signal-, orientation-, and control-level, on which the social view can be directed as on a screen. This signal-, orientation-, and control-level is materially identical to the surface of socially produced objects as "facts", more precisely, with their dispersion and distribution.“ (Link 2013, 453)

Link describes the relationship between Protonormalism and flexible Normalism as “aporetic siametic bifurcation“ (Link 2013, 59); this means two strategies which can not be separated but must be differentiated. They are ideal types, which operate in the same time frame. In this respect, neither the protonormalistic nor the flexibility normalization strategy will ever occur alone. The weighting is rather context-specific, which can be illustrated by the example of the emergence of industry norms. At first glance, it may seem as if industry norms have been fixed in advance. At second glance, however, it will be seen that these norms relate to mass objects and are being subjected to massive comparisons (Link 2013, 330).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

226

Chapter 10

Table 10.3 Comparison of Protonormalism and Flexible Normalism. Protonormalism

Flexible Normalism

Dependence

Normativity

Normality

Description

Prescriptive

Descriptive

Structure/scheme

Block-type

Bell curve

Binary scheme

Tolerance zones

Limits

Fixed, stable, strict “Border of stigma“

Soft, dynamic, variable “Border to pass“

Denormalization

Irreversible

Reversible

Tactics

Dressage, authority, repression, drill, external steering

Autonomy of subjects, (self)therapy, self-normalization

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

c) Need for a deeper understanding of normality Foucault and Link follow how the thinking of the monstrous changes in the context of normality/abnormalism. A process of change that began in the 18th and 19th centuries, caused by secularization, scientificization and rationalization (Hagner 1995, 73), led to shifts in the definition and meaning of monstrosities. While the monstrous or extraordinary body before the 18th century was still regarded as the result of moral or religious misconduct and triggered a fascination, over time, there was a "naturalization of the monstrous", i.e. the attempt to integrate monstrosities into an (existing) natural order and thus biologically establish them and assign causal chains to them (Dederich 2007, 85, 90). From a scientific-historical perspective, however, this did not necessarily proceed smoothly, since the sciences were confronted with the challenge of correctly classifying the curious and peculiar phenomena (Dederich 2007, 90). Previously, the opposition system of "health" and "disease" was modern, but now it has been replaced by the opposites of "normality" and "pathology". The medical influence and the underlying guiding principle of normalism from the 19th century onwards cannot be overlooked here: Monstrosities were put in relation to the normal; they stand for the other, for the other side of the normal (Stammberger, 90). Thus, through processes of dissection, fragmentation and reconstruction, the body became a knowledge object in which social notions of normality and pathology manifest themselves (Stammberger, 88, 92). However, it is no longer

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Assemblage of the Skull Form

227

the entire body that forms the basis of the monstrosity – as Duvinage tried to show in his experiments – but the deviation can be localized to individual areas (Stammberger, 112). The studies on the history of (ab)normality show that assumptions which were taken for granted are prejudices. However, now we should not be subject to prejudice – especially as a humanities and cultural scientist, who acquired a new view of abnormality and monstrosity through the studies of Link or Foucault. Their wise considerations and suggested terms help us little in understanding the correction of infant skulls. Foucault's dominant psychology and sexual theory play no role in the medical projects addressed. The distinction proposed by Link between protonormalism and flexible normalism does not apply either. A deviation in the shape of the skull seems to be of tragic importance precisely because it puts the person as a whole in the light of the abnormal. In any case, this is the obvious conclusion from the fact that almost all parents decide to have a serious operation on babies. However, the normalization that is carried out as a result of this is by no means related to a simple standard. For this reason, it seems that further empirical and conceptual research is needed to adequately understand the history of normality in modernity.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References American Academy of Pediatrics. (2005). The changing concept of sudden infant death syndrome: Diagnostic coding shifts, controversies regarding the sleeping environment, and new variables to consider in reducing risk. Paediatrics. Vol. 116. No 5. 1245-1255. Ärzteblatt. (2012). Kraniosynostose: Gene erklären vorzeitigen Schädelverschluss. Retrieved (11-14-2016) from http://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/52455 Cartwright, C. C. and Chibbaro, P. (2007). Craniosynostosis in Nursing Care of the Pediatric Neurosurgery Patient. Cartwright, C. C. and Wallace, D. C. (Eds.). Craniosynostosis. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. 67-89. Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Kraniosynostosen. Retrieved (22-10-2016) from https://kinderneurochirurgie.charite.de/patienten/krankheitsbilder/kranio synostosen/ Collmann, H. and Schweitzer, T. (2012). Diagnostik und Behandlung der Kraniosynostosen. Zeitschrift des Bundesverbandes der Kinder- und Jugendärzte e.V. Vol. 41. No. 7. 428-436. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Dederich, M. (2007). Körper, Kultur und Behinderung. Eine Einführung in die Disability Studies. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. Deleuze, G. and Parnet, C. (1987). Dialogues. New York: Columbia University Press.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

228

Chapter 10

Freudlsperger, C., Castrillón-Oberndorfer, G., Hoffmann, J. and Engel, M. (2013). Isolierte, nichtsyndromale Kraniosynostosen: Aktuelle Diagnostikund Therapiekonzepte. Der MKG-Chirurg. Vol. 6. No. 4. 301-313. Haberl, H., Hell, B., Zöckler, M., Lamecker, H., Sarrafzadeh, A. and Riecke, B. (2004). Technical aspects and results of surgery for craniosynostosis. Zentralblatt für Neurochirurgie. Vol. 65. No. 2. 65-74. Hagner, M. (1995). Vom Naturalienkabinett zur Embryologie. Wandlungen des Monströsen und die Ordnungen des Lebens. Der falsche Körper. Beiträge zu einer Geschichte der Monstrositäten. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag. 73-107. Hagner, M. (1997). Homo cerebralis. Der Wandel vom Seelenorgan zum Gehirn. Darmstadt: WBG. Hagner, M. (2005). Anthropologische Objekte. Die Wissenschaft vom Menschen im Museum. te Heesen, A. and Lutz, P. (Eds.). Dingwelten. Das Museum als Erkenntnisort. Köln, Wien: Böhlau. 171-186. Hegel, G. W. F. (1986). Phänomenologie des Geistes. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Hegel, G. W. F. (2008). Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik II. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Hochfeld, M., Lamecker, H., Thomale, U.-W., Schulz, M., Zachow, S. and Haberl, H. (2014). Frame-based cranial reconstruction. Technical note. J Neurosurg Pediatrics. Vol. 13. 319-323. Jane, J. A., Dumont, A. S. and Lin, K. Y. K. (2005). Craniosynostostosis. Moore, A. J. and Newell, D. W. (Eds.). Neurosurgery. London: Springer. 445-473. Link, J. (2010). Normal/Normalität/Normalismus. Barck, K., Fontius, M., Schlenstedt, D., Steinwachs, B. and Wolfzettel, F. (Eds.). Ästhetische Grundbegriffe. Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag. 538-562. Link, J. (2013). Versuch über den Normalismus: Wie Normalität produziert wird. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Marchac, D. and Renier, D. (1989). Craniosynostosis. World Journal of Surgery. Vol. 13. 358-365. Ridgway, E. B. and Weiner, H L. (2004). Skull deformities. Pediatric Clinics of North America. Vol. 51. 359-387. Stammberger, B. (2011). Monster und Freaks. Eine Wissensgeschichte außergewöhnlicher Körper im 19. Jahrhundert. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. Statistisches Bundesamt. (2015). Bevölkerung: Eheschließungen, Geborene, Gestorbene 2015 nach Kreisen. Retrieved (15-12-2016) from https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Bevoelkerung/Bev oelkerungsbewegung/EheschliessungenGeboreneGestorbene512600115700 4.pdf;jsessionid=FEA3AC801B34A20E3C8B7A334966574C.cae3?__blob=publ icationFile Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg. (2016). Angeborene Fehlbildungen, kraniofaziale Anomalien. Retrieved (02-12-2012) from https://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/Angeborene-FehlbildungenKraniofaziale-Anomalien.118559.0.html van der Meulen, J., van der Hulst, R., van Adrichem, L., Arnaud, E., ChinShong, D., Duncan, C., Habets, E., Hinojosa, J., Mathijssen, I., May, P., Morritt, D., Nishikawa, H., Noons, P., Richardson, D., Wall, S., van der Vlugt, J. and Renier, D. (2009). The Increase of Metopic Synostosis: A Pan-European Observation. The Journal of Cranifacial Surgery, Vol. 20. No. 2. 283-286.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Assemblage of the Skull Form

229

Virchow, R. (1851). On dwarfism, particularly in franconia, and on pathological skull shapes. Verh Phys Med Ges. Vol. 2. 230-270. Zöller, J., Kübler, A. C., Lorber, W. D. and Mühling, J. F. H. (2003). Kraniofaziale Chirurgie. Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag. List of tables and figures

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Table 10.2: Isolated nonsyndromic craniosynostosis. Data taken from: Moskopp 2015, 960, Freudlsperger et al. 2013, 303-306, Ridgway and Weiner 2004, 366 Table 10.3: Comparison of Protonormalism und Flexible Normalism Image 10.1: Normacephalus and different assorted characteristics of craniosynostosis (very simplified illustration)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Aesthetics, Art, Media & Literature

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

11. From Golem to Cyborg: Symbolic Reconfigurations of an Ancient Monstrum Barbara Henry Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy

Abstract

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Throughout this contribution, the author analyses and interprets firstly the original significance of a symbol of Jewish identity - Golem - and secondly its successive translations into new and multifaceted contemporary symbolic universes. In all of these symbolic constellations (from Talmudic times to ours) the features of the ‘humanoid of clay’ step by step assume mostly sinister or uncanny traits and come under the label of the monstruosity. The figuration named ‘Golem’, originally the unravelled Adam, changes its meanings across the centuries; eventually it embodies the obscure threat with respect to the difficulty of controlling what man has created ‘beyond natural constraints’ and with the use of esoteric knowledge. The crucial hypothesis is as follows: across the centuries, the figuration of the Golem has been transferred by generations of pious rabbis from the semantic context of the homiletic interpretations of the Scriptural episodes (Haggadah) to the imaginary of the contemporary age. In the past six decades, this has happened not by chance, but through the mediation of the term cyborg. The noun alludes and refers to a new kind of artificial humanoid: cyborgs are in fact a type of anthropoid that is neither totally organic nor totally mechanical. This kind of humanoid could be labelled as ‘monster’ just as the Golem (a living ‘being’ made of clay) has been in the past because it awakes a common type of fear or ‘uncanny’ sensation. This is to do with the negatively hyper-reactive sensitivity regarding the ‘hybridisation’ between organic body, matter and machine, a reaction which is more typical of the western hemisphere of the globe.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

234

Chapter 11

Literary, philosophical, Talmudic and Kabbalistic sources will be exploited in an 1 original combination with some mythographic, iconographic and filmographic repertoires of contemporary imaginary, including Science Fiction and pop culture as a whole. This has a normative goal. New thresholds of tolerance must be traced and carefully implemented in scientific, social and political arenas in order to contrast new forms of specism and racism targeting these post-human, artificial and hybrid beings. Keywords: Golem, Talmud, Haggadah, Kabbalah, Mythography, Iconography, Contemporary Imaginary, Cyborgs, Hybridisation, Science Fiction, Posthumanism 11.1 The scriptural and Talmudic meaning of the term ‘Golem’.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The following pages constitute a respectful, even sympathetic, hermeneutical incursion into a religious/cultural heritage, which possesses enormous relevance for the contemporary post-human dimension of life and experience, but which is external to the personal beliefs of the author. Having said that, the first step to take is to go back to the scriptural origins of this symbolical thesaurus. The established conviction, according to those familiar with the specialist 2 literature, is that the Hebrew term ‘Golem’ according to Psalm 139, verse 16, of the Bible indicates a mass or some kind of unshaped form. In a free transcription of Talmudic origin, it can be cited that “Your eyes saw the Golem 3 of my body, and in your Book all the days destined for me were written.” This formulation, traditionally referred to Adam, justifies the similar terminological choice of Luther, who many centuries later translated the word into German with the past participle ‘unbereitet’ (‘unreadied’, unravelled). This confirms the uncertain characteristic of the same condition, material-spiritual, of the first human being, in the phase in which it is still uncontaminated because it is 4 material and incomplete, but is already aimed at assuming a perfect form. The formulation ‘golmi’, an adjective that means ‘unaccomplished’, has also been compared to the typical state of a needle not perfected in its definitive features, it still lacking the eye at its apex. However, this is not a comparison with a needle

1

What is related to, or produced by, the activity of writing myths. The citations are from the Catholic Bible, if not differently declared, and put in correspondence with the critical edition of the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible. 3 Here it should be mentioned that the ‘Book’ is the Torah, definable as the mystic body of God. 4 www.biblestudytools.com/lut/. “Deine Augen sahen mich, da ich noch unbereitet war (…)” 2

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

235

whose eye has been removed, and neither with one that has been deprived of the eye forever (Held 1927, 20). Given that it refers to a non-Aramaic root, Golem could describe the embryo (Idel, 1990). In the interpretations of the Holy Scripture (Haggadah) which are part of the Talmudic comments, the term ‘Golem’ effectively described something not dissimilar to this. The sense is that which has the potential to gradually unfold, starting from the internal energetic nucleus of a clod of matter, and which follows a prearranged structural plan, already in the womb. We need to consider that within the Talmud there is an attitude of mute respect for the unfathomable, mysterious creative action of God as regards all that exists, but in particular concerning the creature most similar to Himself, Adam, the first human being. This similarity, first of all, for Adam, consists in the condition of having a living spirit (ruach) firstly, and finally an immortal soul. This potential conformation is revealed without there being a clear dualism between the material component intended to be formed, mouldable and ductile like clay roughly shaped in the hands of the potter, and the final outcome of the process of formation.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In the womb, the navel is first formed and from this roots spread out, until the child is fully developed. According to others, the head is formed first. The two eyes and two nostrils resemble the eyes of a fly; the aperture of the mouth is like a barleycorn. (…). The two arms are like two pieces of string; the other members are combined in a mass (Talmud, Nidda 25a, Sota 45b, Held 1927, 24-25).

Adam is, therefore, the prototype of every human being, and this is paradoxically true from the structural, functional, spiritual point of view, but not only from a strict genealogical point of view, he having been shaped from the earth and not from the union of two sexes, as is the case after his coming 5 into existence. This is a pre-human/non-human feature, pointing out one of the first kinds of hybridisation; it is a feature which Adam possessed at the highest degree in his golemic (unravelled) stage. The creation of Adam is thus described according to an authoritative and ancient Talmudic transcription. The day has twelve hours. In the first hour the earth was gathered (needed to shape Adam), in the second he (Adam, n.o.a.) became an unshaped mass (therefore, Golem), in the third his members were formed, in the fourth his soul was breathed into him, in the fifth Adam stood on his two legs, in the sixth, until the twelfth he gave a name to all living beings (Sahnredin, Paragraph 90, 38 a, b).

5

He is the first among the ‘not natural born of woman’ , the class of real and/or fictional beings who crowd the contemporary imaginary and contemporary real life.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

236

Chapter 11

It is worth noting the similarity with the Talmudic passage describing the foetus (human embryo) in its evolutive stages, from a mass of contracted and coherent members into an extended and unfolded being in all its parts. It is like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. A marvellous thing is this, with no trace at all of sinister, ominous or uncanny traits. We should note that ‘uncanny’ is the emotional/mental outcome of intellectual uncertainty regarding a state of things whatsoever. A symptom of this mood is a lack of orientation in understanding how things really are. Emblematic is the role of lifelike artificial humanoids in ‘tackling’ and identifying this mood, feeling, or 6 state of conscience (Jentsch, 1906). ‘Golem’ has thus nothing to do with monstruosity in its negative, perhaps more trivial, sense. On the contrary, it is the symbol of the archetypical, 2 marvellous process of “life blooming” (Henry 2016 , 60-63). If we go back to the meanings of the words, Monstrum, (Latin) denotes something marvellous, extraordinary, excessive, exorbitant and directly connected with the Divine. At the same time, a monstrum can induce in our human hearts fear and hideous feelings just as any holy manifestation does. In this original duplicity, the Golem is a monstrum.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

11.2 Telluric components and pneumatic components of Adam Talmudic wisdom narrates that “God took the dust of the four kinds of existing earth coloured red, black, white and brown and put it in the midpoint of the Earth; in a pure place, in the site of the Temple, there he built Adam”. This meticulous attention on the part of God to the choice of matter has been univocally interpreted as an indisputable sign of maximum attention paid to the outcome of the procedure. It was the thinnest, the lightest, the purest, the most elected soil, suitable due to its essential and archetypical form that should be configured. Therefore, Adam, as Golem is pure and uncontaminated. We have the purest Earth, in order to emphasise how ‘extraordinary’ the outcome of its manipulation is. This is Adam, firstly, as unravelled, and secondly, as an archetypical human being. More than this, Ādām as name is directly connected a to ‘ d āmā, to the earth, by means of a root common to the Semitic languages ‘ dm: to be red. It means earth of the soil, clod, cultivated field. In the biblical texts, there is reference to āfār (Jenni and Westermann 1971, II, 353), dust, a volatile earth, the notion being however directly related to a ‘ d āmā (Gen. 2, 7; 7 8 3, 19) and also to the term æ´ræ. (Gen. 13, 16; 28, 14).

6 7

The reference is explicitly to Jentsch (1906) and not to Freud (1947). With dot under the alef.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

237

Adam himself, before reaching the spiritual perfection that makes him an animated creature and possessing features (both intellective and fully generative) that are fully human, is referred to as Adamah – earth – Golem (Scholem, 1980). For Moshe Idel (Idel, 1990), following and developing Gershom Scholem’s insights, this figure should be interpreted as a humanoid corporeal form, incomplete in the sense described by the psalmist - but nevertheless androgynous - when Adam is made to speak for himself, in the stage after the moment in which God bestowed on him perfect human characteristics. The Golem was still vital, animated by means of the ruach (spirit, breath), but speechless, Adam, on the contrary, is able to recall his own previous level of development thanks to the same divine Spirit who made him, in the post-golemic phase, completely human. The same Spirit expands and unfolds by modelling the matter. Adam, as Golem, represents a fundamental model for all the human species in its entirety. The descent of this primeval being is certainly revealed, and he is attributed cosmic dimensions, androgynous characters when he/she is still a roughly formed figure without speech. According to these Talmudic sources, the Golem shaped by God is speechless as a premature, not as a defective or corrupted being. In addition to this, the overwhelming cosmic features make the Golem a monstrum, (Latin: something marvellous, extraordinary, excessive). As unravelled prototype of the first Human, it is in direct correspondence with the Creator as far as the divine exorbitant features and dimensions are 2 concerned (Henry, 2016 )

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

From this indisputable and relatively consolidated basis, further meanings can be found in the Talmudic tradition as regards the specific stages of Adam’s formation. There is a process that is a) at the same time telluric and pneumatic and b) acts as a model for the genesis of each and every newborn child. This double register remains in the Talmudic period with reference to the reflections on the possibility of taking the subsequent step, of going through the stages of Adam’s creation in order to form ‘new’ artificial creatures still in strict observation of the rules of the Supernal Wisdom. This insight is inherited by a specific and later current of the practical (theurgical) Kabbalah from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. This combines ancient mysticism

8

The third relevant term here, associated with the first two is then: æ´ræs. It is a noun originally declined in the feminine, because it related directly to the earth goddess, Mother Earth, who in various mythologies has different names; to give just two examples, Ninhursag or Gea, the first from Sumerian culture, and the second from Greece (Jenni and Westermann 1971, II, 228).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

238

Chapter 11

with modern sensitivity towards the increasing social role of science and the technical manipulation of physical matter. 11.3 The two interpretations of the creation of a Golem in the Kabbalah; practices of contemplation (theosophy) or ‘technical’ procedures (theurgy)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

According to the sagas of the mystics of both the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age, the rabbis who intended to build a Golem spread among their respective synagogue congregations the idea that this task was aimed at creating a new Adam and this was for pious reasons. This inference was justified by the fact that they proposed, or were persuaded, to pronounce the same formula and the same cadences used by God in the creation of the first human being. This took place with the explicit awareness that the process and its outcomes occurred in a structurally weakened form. The whole endeavour is imperfect, and its outcome is doomed to be an artificial creature with reduced potential, due to the original sin that had corrupted humanity, to the point of making even the products of the most enthusiasts defective, those of the pious, the just rabbis. What has been said th should clarify the semantic shift and symbolic tenor by which, from the 11 century on (see later), ‘Golem’ became a synonym for imaginary being, (proto)-human and inferior, speechless, unable, dull, or clumsy (tolpatch, in German, the language familiar to Yiddish speakers). It was capable only of carrying out manual tasks because his/her human makers were inevitably imperfect, limited in their skills and outputs so far as ontologically burdened with the original sin. This golemic ambiguity, that is to exhibit an incomplete humanlike shape, an abnormal force together with a fundamental linguistic/mental deficiency and failing self-control is one of the primeval configurations of what will be considered during the centuries as the sinister appearance of the Golem. Monstrum tends to assume gradually the second meaning of the word, something horrific provoking fear, disgust, and even the sense of uncanny and arcane. The first meaning, as stated above, denotes something exorbitant, exceeding normality, worthy of admiration and devotion because of its nexus with the Divine. This positive acceptance does not disappear at all. In this respect, the pious rabbis were the elected, the only subjects bestowed with the power necessary to trigger and maintain the spark, the spirit of life, in masses of matter, shaped in the form of a humanoid; this was in their eyes nothing less than a sacred opus blessed by God. So far, the first great question of fundamental relevance for mystics such as the pious rabbis, was, and still is: what is the meaning and nature of the most secret of the divine Names, hidden and unpronounceable by definition, the Hashem?

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

239

On the one hand, theurgy is a holy practice, a poietic activity performed by a restricted group of wise initiates to the divine secrets. On the other, theosophy is a modality of sapiential contemplation, sometimes interconnected with theurgy through the Name. The mystics, irrespective of their more contemplative or practical attitude, have this second main question in common: how can the recondite Name be conceived, and how can it be reached? This was a way considered practicable by pious officiants of sacred rites and symbolically filtered by the original and sacred language, in which the divine Word/Law was to be expressed and articulated. The letters, the symbols (otot) are ‘the elements’ of the secret Name, and, consequently, also the ‘bricks’ of the Creation of the world. This more complete and rich meaning is of a ritualistic (theurgical) and contemplative (theosophical) kind at the same time. It is faithful to the most long-lasting accredited source, the Book of Formation (Sefer Yezirah), attributed to Abram according to the Kabbalistic view. This is, in fact, a valuable and famous text of comments to Sefer Yezirah, and attributed to El’azar by Worms. It is, on the one hand, transmigration still within Talmudic tradition which interprets the Golem as an embryo or as a ball of yarn, to be unravelled. It has the function of a rite of theosophical-spiritual elevation, oriented towards the disinterested contemplation of the archetypical structure (through spheres and circles) of the cosmos.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

On the other hand, this variant of the golemic tradition already contains clear theurgical elements, that is to say, specific manipulative practices of different types of matter (earth and water) in order to make a humanoid of clay and give him/her life. Three years of intense study of the work were necessary for the mystics, before being able to use the prescribed ritual for modelling and animating inert matter thanks to the use of the Sacred Name. He that dedicates himself to the Sefer Yezirah must purify himself by wearing white dress. It is not opportune that he does it by himself, but there need to be two or three (…). He must gather virgin earth from a mountainous location in which no person has dug before; mix the earth with running water and make a Golem. He will begin to rotate the alphabets of the two hundred doors” (El’azar da Worms 1888, in G. Busi 2006, XL-XLI).

In parallel, we must make reference to paragraph 19 of the Sefer Yezirah, which regards the formation of everything created. Twenty-two letters: He incised them, He engraved them, He weighed them, He exchanged them, He combined them and with them shaped the soul of all the universe and the soul of all that is destined to be made. How did he weigh and invert them? Alef with all and all with alef; bet with all and all with bet; gimel with all and all with gimel. All go into a circle and exit from two hundred and twenty-one doors. All that has been formed, and each and every speech, all come out of a single Name (El’azar da Worms 1888, in G. Busi XVI)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

240

Chapter 11

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The mystical artificer shapes with earth and water each ‘epigonal’ Golem, triggering a virtuous circle with the experience, this time mental and neither perceptive nor material, of the opening of the circular movement of the 220 (or 231, according to different sources) doors of creation. In this way, the mystic contemplates operating, elevating himself to the shared vision ‘in sanctity’ of the divine process, which took place at the beginning of time, but is ever-lasting and repeatable thanks to the bridge between God and humanity constituted by the letters-signs–causes (otot) of the created phenomena. The process, which should be interpreted as a mythologem, (a mythic plot open to multiple variations), narrates to us how an inspired disciple can construct a human model from inert matter. Then, through the original poietic power, enclosed within the letters of the Hebrew language, he can animate that image. In doing this, the disciple returns to the stages in which the divine power flows into the world and initiates the creative force. The myth at this point sends us a symbol of redemption. It evokes a time in which perfect order has been restored, and matter has been reunited with its spiritual source. Through holy symbols and rites, the endeavour of reshaping a Golem is simultaneously a sign of distinction and a tool of spiritual elevation for the pious artificer. To summarise: the main procedural pathway for the mystics involved in theurgical rites is the combination of the letters of the Hebraic alphabet. These letters/signs (otot), as has already been mentioned, assume with time an increasingly accentuated poietic character and value, both as regards the modality and also the aim of creating the Golem. Such a being appears as a humanoid forged by a special kind of human being, enabled and elected with this aim by a community of companions, the disciples of the most concealed divine truth, custodians of esoteric knowledge. It should not be forgotten how this shift occurred within the context of Kabbalistic myths and mythographies (the written myths and sagas); they are still respectful of some fundamental axioms of the Talmudic faith, and with less verisimilitude within the context of explicit poietic practices, effectively put into action with manipulative and instrumental aims. In this last case, nevertheless, one would have faced an extremely difficult, if not insurmountable, obstacle. It involved the radical prohibition, punished since Moses, with the penalty of death due to its unholy and sacrilegious character, of carrying out acts of magic. The scriptural source of the legislative prohibition is Deuteronomy, 18:10-11, the passage that forbids magic acts together with pagan human sacrifices carried out for propitiatory aims: divination, prediction, enchantment, intermediation with the dead, necromancy. In the Book of Exodus, it is written: “You shall not let the witch (and the magician, n.o.a.) live”. From a logical/historical point of view, Hebraism does not diverge from many other religions, in primis the monotheistic, because it distinguishes between miracles and theurgy. The

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

241

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

extraordinary events operated by the real God or by the agents of the real God – and magic, extraordinary facts carried out only presumptively by false gods 9 and by those operating in their name with unblessed instruments. The Talmud (bSan, 67b/15-18) establishes the distinction between who produces effects utilizing demons (intermediate beings among God and the humans) due to the use of specific and precise means and who, not doing this, produces illusionary effects utilizing magic. Here we have the difference between demonology/theurgy and magic. This confirms that magic alone was the object of specific and severe prohibitions. It is precisely because of this prohibition that magical practices are to be identified, exorcised and erased ab initio on the part of the circles of mystical faithful at the theosophical-theurgical ‘pure’ root of Talmudic tradition. This circumstance is to be considered at the same time in the light of the progressive materialisation of the Hashem, the hidden (the most secret) Name of God. The clear-cut distinction between prohibited rites (magic) and theurgy (blessed sapiential practices) was not at all a mere matter of definitions, it was a crucial existential and ideal watershed for the adepts of the Kabbalah, to be maintained rigorously for the sake of their lives and their moral integrity. As from the 13th century of the Christian Era, it progressively starts to become in legends and popular rites, beyond the circle of initiates, the amulet. This is a type of product already possessing positive ancestral characteristics for the Jews (Hastings 1908-27, 439-41), as for all the Mediterranean peoples, and not only. In this particular circumstance, and as a distinctive element, it contains the mysterious inscription of one of the possible combinations of the Tetragram (the simplest of God’s Names made up of four letters). In this respect, being the material substrate or the container of a supreme poietic or creative formula, this product shows paradoxical ‘recursive’ analogies with Hellenistic and late ancient traditions, in which magic amulets were used, through imposition of hands on inert material. This was in order to animate speaking statues, but also to restore life, even if ephemeral, to dead children (Idel 1990, X), or to give eyesight back to children made temporarily blind, by means of the combination of apotropaic rites with 10 the use of mirrors (Apuleius by Moreschini 2000, 41). In fact, ‘amulet’ is of 9

Only within the Christian context, markedly Augustinian, in fact is there established the exact equivalence between magic and the work of the devil, of the fallen angel, of Lucifer, and his followers. 10 As C. Moreschini informs us, based on a passage from the Historia Augusta, the emperor Diodio Giuliano (192 d.C.) indulged in magical practices among which: “ea, quae ad speculum dicunt fieri, in quo pueri praeligatis oculis incantato vertice respicere dicuntur [those practices which, it is said, are carried out in front of a mirror, when

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

242

Chapter 11

Greek etymology, αποτρόπαιος; this term became extremely widespread in the Mediterranean region, and if we simply consider its meaning, well beyond these cultures. The amulet can be any and everything. In fact, theurgy (similarly in this respect to white magic) can charge anything with supernatural power; therefore, the amulet is all that can exercise a protective effect against every danger, hardship and evil influence that threatens every kind of living being (Hastings 1908-27, 419-20). The amulets carrying the Hashem, the hidden Lemma (the most recondite among God’s Names), are no exception to the rule, and they already possess a rich background of mythographic production in the Mediterranean area. This prompts us to briefly consider some changes and some persistent customs in terms of magical and theurgical rituality, between the late ancient period, the Middle Ages and the modern age.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

11.4 Magic and monstruosity in some modern golemic sagas. Miracles and dangerous events. There are two main branches of the reception, which enabled the mystics and interpreters of Eastern Europe to consign the Talmudic and medieval Golem to the successive modern and contemporary periods. We ought to distinguish the Polish-German tradition from the Prague tradition of this transformative reception, even though both lines intertwine in a dense and polychromatic fabric that indissolubly embraces perhaps the entire linguistic body of Yiddish, both western and eastern. Judel Rosenberg, Polish rabbi, elaborated in Hebrew, based on unpublished manuscripts, a version that is very detailed from a ritual and procedural point of view, albeit within the context of a specific medieval tradition - the Hasidic (Rosenberg 1909, Bloch 1920). This is 11 the tradition in which the convolutions and dance, also for destructive aims, are analogous with the mortuary practices of purification of the corpses laid in the earth. The non-human feature of the artificial creature is nevertheless admitted in both variations (Polish and Prague) of the myth, but in the second version this feature is charged with an ultimate negative stigma. Accordingly, the Golem becomes intellectually inferior, subaltern (clumsy, speechless) and at the same time in need of continuous control and limitations because he/she is

blindfolded adolescents regain their eyesight (it is said) following the spell cast on their heads] in Apuleius, (Moreschini 2000, 41). 11 As illustrated by the biblical antecedent of the fall through theurgical means of the walls of Jericho. This is relevant for making the final elimination of the Golem feasible, each time the dangerous elements win over the others.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

243

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

potentially dangerous like any other irrational being, but more than this, doomed to obey in the end its indomitable essence (because of the divine origins of the enchantment). The unstoppable growth of the humanoid of clay was the sign of damnation for the artificer, who, having played the role of God, inevitably becomes the victim of his own imprudence, blasphemy and arrogance, and ends tragically together with his/her creature, according to the Polish sagas. Thus, the Polish tradition exhibited more sinister homiletic intention aimed at labelling the Golem univocally as a ‘bad’ monster. This version of the myth has been exported into German linguistic communities by none other than J. Grimm (Grimm 1808, Held 1927), and it owes its fortune mostly to this circumstance. Despite this ‘influential and prejudicial bias’ regarding the Golemic plot 2 (Henry, 2016 ), the so-called ‘Prague tradition’ reveals itself to be the most symbolically fruitful in a diachronic perspective and nevertheless in a certain continuity with the Polish-German context, as far as the menacing growth of the Golem is concerned. This ‘Prague tradition’ will be considered with exclusive attention from now on, because it is multifaceted and closer to the contemporary post-human cognitive and ethical approach. We should recall the mythic narrative according to which Rabbi Löw, known as the Maharal, managed to persuade Emperor Rudolph, his Sovereign, that his incantations had blown the breath of life into the Golem of clay (Wiener, 1963). The reference is to Rabbi Löw of Prague, whose legendary aura as master of wisdom and theurgy has continued to permeate the narrow streets and hidden corners of the ancient city (so precious for the east-European Jews) since the XVII century, a site characterised by stone bridges laid over arcane, deep-sleeping islands. Let us not underestimate the importance that the Talmud scholars, and their pre-modern followers such as the Maharal, gave to a “strong” and articulated conception of “life-giving principle”, the ruach (Spirit, God’s breath). In particular, Rabbi Löw tried methodically to erase the roots of the blame (blasphemy) burdening the artificer and his creature, through a protoprecautional operationalisation of the amulet, the embodied Hashem. How did he proceed? In order to remedy his own initial procedural error, the same which had not impeded the menacing growth of the creature, the Maharal created for each day of the week a special amulet (Wiener, 1963). Putting together with the first one, a parchment with the Hashem inscribed, in the Golem’s mouth, in order to limit its progressive growth in strength and dimension. Seven artifacts in all. This expedient worked for several years, without any procedural or working errors. Fatally, however, the disruptive event occurred just the same, although not caused by irresponsibility or foolishness on the part of the pious maker. The

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

244

Chapter 11

event in its homiletic significance evokes the awareness of the finitude of any human endeavour and reminds us of the structural limit of any human prediction. In this complex meaning, this version of the myth has been translated/transferred into various symbolical frames and historical contexts.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This line of reception, passed down as a legend with wide-ranging and longer lasting effects, was codified at a literary level rather late, around the 18th century in the Prague milieu. According to the mythography of C. Bloch, the Golem was capable of moving from place to place at great speed, of invisibility, of changing his appearance like a quick-change artist, and also of having telepathic and generically psionic powers (Bloch, 1920). He needed this supernatural equipment in order to defend better the Jews, victims of oppression and injustice. A certain role was played in this climate by the mythical plot of the possession of the artificial creature, or of the coprotagonists of the story, by a ‘soul’. This soul could be that of a person, deceased but not passed on (the Dybbuk), of an entire oppressed people (the Praguer Jews) or a living alter ego (the Doppelgänger) (Rank 1925, Held 1927, 2 Henry 2014, 2016 , 192-99). Idel dwells on these themes within primary and secondary rabbinic literature, whilst he says nothing, in his seminal work, about the novelty of modern transmigration: that is to say, about the contrast between Rabbi Löw and his rival Christian magician Taddeus, in a situation of political-religious menace that originates from outside the Ghetto and makes the community very vulnerable. The Ghetto walls certainly “separate” the inhabitants, but they by no means defend the community from aggression originating from the surrounding hostile society. Above all, the barriers do not protect the inhabitants from the decree of expulsion from the city of Prague. This possibility is foreshadowed and backed by certain Jesuit accusers and persecutors of the Jewish community, active at the court of King Rudolph, according to whom the Jews were in odour of heretical practices and magic and blasphemous rites (Neusner, Avery-Peck and Scott-Green 2000, 832-844). What happened confirms through historical evidence that which follows (and confirms what has been said above): “Scholars of religion (and Apostles, N.o.A.) who draw (scientifically, N.o.A.) a distinction between religion and magic have fallen into a political and unfair bias in favour of their own religion; whatever is not close to their religious viewpoint is considered witchcraft, magic, and idolatry.”

To be on the wrong side of the barricade should not be the ultimate argument to absolve or to blame a whole typology of rites and manipulative/transformative practices for being blasphemous and sacrilegious. In particular, it is extremely relevant to come up with a response regarding the good or bad meaning of the label ‘monstrum’ for the Golem and golemic creatures as such. These are all the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

245

various intermediate beings between the human species and the Divine (spirits, angels, demons, etc.) depicted in the past and in contemporary times by the different myths and mythographies proliferating on the earth. What they have in common according to the transcultural imaginary is that they are made up of intelligent matter or material capable of self-organization and the pursuit of specific objectives. (Tagliasco, 1999). The basic hypothesis for the broadening of the scope of the analysis is the following: insofar as we consistently use rigorous definitions, the category of golemic beings should appear comparatively as more inclusive and manifold than the other classes of imaginary/futuristic beings, such as cyborgs. This acquisition will help us to shed new light on the two meanings of ‘monstruosity’.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

11.5 Some provisional intermediate reflections From Golem to cyborg What has come before enables us to settle on a provisional acquisition according to which it is possible to legitimize some technological transformations, opposing the accusation of being a ‘witch’ or an ‘adept of blasphemous practices’. This is with the help of the Talmud and the Kabbalah, which separated clearly theurgy from magic. This helps us to identify those that shift the borders of human identity beyond its customary context, starting from the noble ascendant that the Talmud and the Kabbalah have given us across the centuries. Narrating and prescribing the building of a Golem – made of earth and divine breath, being partly material, partly spiritual – is never an act of blasphemy, but is rather an act of the greatest religious compassion and moral probity. The shadow of failure and the unforgettable reminder of Talmudic and Kabbalistic wisdom, as regards the inevitable fragility and fallibility of human constructions, should certainly not be forgotten, but at the same time should not be interpreted as an ultimate refusal of more innovative practices. This is true provided these are characterized by reason, sense of responsibility, both collective and environmental, respect for living forms, caution and sense of limit. In this way, the architects, with ancient but renewed sensitivity, can ideally repudiate and NOT come to terms with the ‘supermanistic’ demiurgic violence of certain modern and contemporary scientific projects. For the sake of clear distinction, theurgy is able to maintain the Golem in the intermediate realm between the extraordinary and the marvelous, by attributing to him the positive sense of the term ‘monstrum’. To sum up, firstly the duplicity of the monstruosity (good and bad) never ceased to affect the ‘Golem’; the second meaning prevailed gradually by overloading him/her. Secondly, increasingly menacing, uncanny and/or sinister elements based on the fear against something both ‘strange’ and familiar created by humans, something which can someday elude control or

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

246

Chapter 11

make control of itself impossible. This is probably one of the factors of the undisputed fascination that interpreters have, from antiquity through modernity till today, of the mythic plot based on the telluric anthropoid, the humanoid of clay. Because of the above points, the Golem embodies an emblematic case when we speak of textures or cultural set exhibiting symbolic meaningfulness and symbolic pregnancy. These textures of meaning ‘shape’ a scenario, a historically well-characterised scenario, but in the meantime, they go beyond the original historical context. Such a set (or texture) of meanings are the symbolic repertoire on which the imaginary relies. Through the plots/images/figurations included in this symbolic tank, it is possible to build a typological classification. This can then justify a post-human cognitive and ethical approach, even if somewhat provisional, to robotic/cyber issues to which we can aspire and whose outline will be progressively illustrated in the course of the next paragraphs.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

11.6 ‘Golem’, bionic subjects, cyborgs, androids/gynoids; a precious classification According to a well-made clarification of concepts in the imaginative repertory, on the one hand, the golemic class includes a range of intermediate beings: spirits, angels and demons, imaginary creatures made up of material capable of self-organization and the pursuit of specific objectives. On the 2 other hand, the class of cyborgs (Henry 2016, Caronia 2008) comprises human or humanoid subjects which are partly organic and partly inorganic whose hybrid conformation is functionally cohesive. Since cyborgs reflect the kind of anthropoids that are neither totally organic nor totally mechanical (more precisely, mechatronic), their manifold configurations are located along a continuous line. This set of meanings is an open structure, but typical with respect to the style of the symbolic productions it prompts. From this side, the characters who could profile the cyborgs and their golemic ancestors as omnipotent/uncanny monsters, menacing the future of mankind, should be considered from a specific post-human perspective, making the picture rather more shadowy and multifaceted. From now on it must be taken for granted that the post-human horizon/dimension is that which, in the field of gender studies, transcultural philosophy, and the works of Donna Haraway and cyberpunk literature, ‘seizes’ the cognitive/anthropological cyber-challenge as a chance to contrast those who endorse the sacral purity of an exclusively biological origin of the ‘born of woman’ in rigidly defined sexed bodies by means of mating with natural 2 methods (Haraway 1991, 1997, Braidotti and Ferrando 2016, Henry 2014, 2016 ). The latter, the enemies of the ‘not natural-born of woman’, can be considered as

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

247

the renewed disciples of the ideology of ‘limpieza de sangre’. This requisite in itself would be a factor of ontological and moral superiority of the ‘original’ humans with respect to all the beings that are organically spurious, metamorphic or hybrid. The ‘rejects’, according to the traditionalists of biological and specist purity, range from the constellations of transgender humans to those of artificial/hybrid humanoids. This type of attitude (limpieza de sangre’s view) is to be firmly contested. Why? Because in such a context it is the purity of biological pedigree, the genealogical belonging to a category, and not the good intentions or actions of ourselves and our interlocutors, that counts as an ultimate and distinguishing division between what is acceptable and what is deplorable in the intersubjective relations among reasonable and responsible agents. To oppose rigorously this cluster of ideas and programs, which numbers many pernicious examples in the history of intolerance and racism, not only in the West, the negative notion of monstruosity as such must be challenged/rephrased through a new theoretical approach and a new practical attitude. In this respect, the fundamental work of Donna Haraway (1992, 299-305) is the inescapable point of reference, but nevertheless, it is still in need of an intercultural/hermeneutical enrichment and sharpening of both the cognitive and pragmatical frames.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

11.7 How to enlarge the community of practical agencies to include hybrid and artificial interlocutors? The additional interpretative line I refer to should show, together with the breaks, a line of continuity and thus extend the theme of the Golem towards symbolically similar contents, comparable and also clearly distinct from a theoretical point of view. Firstly, we have the theme of the cyborg (and the bionic subject) which defines bonds and contaminations of the human with the nonhuman, for beneficial purposes of rehabilitation, of support, of socially shared responsible requalification of the forms of life that have been made disabled, halved, and vulnerable to nefarious circumstances. Secondly, the reference is to a class of not only imagined beings but those which are partly produced by experiments of rehabilitative grafting of bio-robotic limbs onto human beings. In their ideal and inclusive form, the class comprises human or humanoid subjects – partly organic, partly inorganic – whose hybrid conformation is functionally cohesive. Therefore, a human being that has been strengthened, with no modification of DNA, but with an implant somewhere in its organism – including the brain – of organs or organic mechanical and/or electronic components, is a cyborg. Since cyborgs reflect the kind of anthropoids that are neither totally organic nor totally mechanical (more precisely, mechatronic), their manifold configurations are located along a continuous line. At the two extremes we can find, on the one

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

248

Chapter 11

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

hand, the maximum degree of dominance of living tissues, with only limited electronic and bio-mechanical (prosthetic) additions: for example, the individual rehabilitated by prosthesis. On the other hand, we have the minimum degree of organic component, the artificial device provided with organic components. In the first case, we could be tempted to speak of bionic beings. Bionics (otherwise called “biomimetics”) is the interdisciplinary science dealing with the systems whose functioning is based on natural systems or on systems that have analogies or specific characteristics with the former. It enables the creation of artificial organs that are perfectly exchangeable or even strengthened with respect to natural organs, given that the subject involved in the treatment has undergone pathological impairment or loss of limbs or organs. The contacts with electrophysiology and neurophysiology enable an increasingly improved interaction between bionics and medical and rehabilitative research, which is aimed at the restoration of motor and cognitive functions. It is this disciplinary branch, not by chance, through the bijective relation between science and the imaginary that we have thoroughly discussed, which in the 1980s generated some very “realistic” fantasy characters. These were protagonists of television series – such as The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman – cult series that are still available on the Internet today. In the world of comics, a precursor was Iron Man (also a superhero), who is saved from death thanks to sophisticated armour equipped with a plate covered in sensors and electromagnetic devices that prevent pieces of grenades and explosives from reaching his vital organs. In this way, the prosthesis used to save a life becomes at the same time an instrument of enhancement. It is therefore difficult to accept a ‘supermanistic’ (hideous) connotation even for these figures, which, if anything, are symbolic proof of the structural and insurmountable creatural fragility that living beings have in common. The straight alternative is a clear leap beyond the human condition of common mortals or physical or cerebral death. ‘Human Enhancement’ can sometimes be a necessity accepted unwillingly, not an act of arrogance or cruelty. If anything, it is a symptom of profound ontological weakness or courageous, perhaps to be criticised, attachment to life. One of the main sources of the contemporary interest in cyborgs and bionics on the part of intellectuals, scientists, politicians and common citizens is exactly the crude awareness of our inescapable vulnerability (Coeckelberg, 2013). Returning to the typology, only in the case of living beings with prevailing mechatronic features can we say that we are dealing with cyborgs (in reality the two terms – being bionic and cyborg – are equivalent in the structure of category). This distinction has the advantage of helping us to disentangle at a phenomenological level the concrete cases, which are otherwise not reproducible in terms of their specificity. In the case of cyborgs, the devices of activation and control, just like the structural components, are almost totally electronic and mechanical

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

249

(mechatronic), whereas the biological and neurophysiological have only a residual role.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In both cases, bionic human beings and cyborgs, the ‘coverings’ of the limbs are increasingly imagined and designed to have configurations that are ever closer to the original organ, the human skin. In the near future, there will be fewer and fewer of the disquieting ‘metallurgical’ forms, which still disturb western citizens/users. The uncanny is here at home as a symptom of uneasiness, of discomfort from the standpoint of the observer, who is confronted with new forms of bodily reshaping and modelling, which make the distinction between artificial and natural fuzzier than ever. In our hemisphere, there is still widespread deep and irrational repulsion towards the possibility of uniting human biological purity (an individual) with artefacts (a prosthesis of steel or other metal) deriving from industrial mechanical or mechatronic manufacturing. A prosthetic device without imitative biological covering is seen as the most unashamedly unnatural and inorganic res extensa, a modality of 12 material that is so clearly artificial because it is ‘machinal’. Furthermore, it is the thing that is furthest away from the incorporeal and rarefied enlightenment of human thought. This is true according to the negatively hyper-reactive sensitivity mostly typical of the western capitalistic societies regarding: a) the ‘machinal’, if imagined/perceived as something possessing an autonomous ontological/moral status (Weidenfeld 2014, 96); b) the uncontrolled, subversive ‘hybridisations’ between body and machine, when cyborgs may “become posthuman monsters” (Brinken 2014, 58-64). Let us recall how only a few decades ago ‘external’ prostheses were perceived, as visually and structurally alien and abnormal with respect to the organicity of the human body. They were perceived, in the worst cases, as hideous/uncanny, and in the best cases as ignominious, both by the person who had to ‘suffer’ in order to stem the effects of a disabling trauma and also by the family and the social context. Only the most subdued and softer versions of these ‘vile’ devices were, let us not forget, the hooks and wooden legs of ‘always negative’ figures belonging to our adolescent imaginary (Peg Leg Pete, Captain Hook, Lord Darth Vader). Coming to terms with some of these ‘uncanny’ nightmares through narratives and myths should enable us to accept a socio-cultural therapy against ‘contact phobia’ of any type. The comparison with the in-between class of ‘not natural-born of woman’ is extremely appropriate at this point.

12

This neologism, from Latin roots, is preferred to the term ‘machinic’

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

250

Chapter 11

11.8 Proto-human (Golem), human (Adam), post-human (‘we cyborgs’ and the others): why Terminator is not a cyborg and why it is relevant. We can legitimately distinguish among old and new classes of hybrid beings, which are a special genus among the ‘Not natural born of woman’: talking statues, golems and golemic creatures, chess players, androids/gynoids, robot-exoskeletons from the Japanese Manga and cyborgs as mecha-organic 2 hybrids (Henry, 2016 ). As opponent to any kind of racism/specism (Henry, 2014), I refuse to stigmatise as inferior the various and wide-ranging kinds of humanoid beings “not natural-born of woman” (Poe 2009, Tagliasco 1999, Caronia 2008, Fadini 1999), only because of a merely presumed ontological 13 superiority of us, the natural-born beings. Golemic creatures, in that they are (when it is the case) artificial humanoids, made out of finalised matter, are an autonomous section among the “not natural-born of woman”, which however entwines at a certain point with that of human beings, and cyborgs, as human hybrids. This is clearly on a deeplyrooted mythographic basis. What cyborgs share with the Golems of the Talmudic and Kabbalistic traditions is humanity. Golem is proto- and posthuman, whereas cyborgs are human and post-human.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This passage once again occurs, primarily thanks to the figuration of Adam, in the proto-phase at which he is in the condition of being a Golem. Also, Adam is the first among the ‘not born of woman’, as he is shaped by an external power, starting from an originally inorganic material, a matter which is organised according to a structural purpose. All this work is aimed at showing how this phase was fundamental for the symbolic history of the West(s) (Tagliasco 1999, 41-42). Different to the far more famous “Frankenstein’s monster”, with whom the golemic beings are sometimes and unfairly compared with denigratory intent, the latter is not derived from biological limbs and organs extracted from human corpses of varying origins and then assembled, then to be animated by a material energy source - electricity. Firstly, this has nothing in common with the divine spark, blown with blessed words into the ‘holy monstrum’ of clay by the Maharal. Therefore, it is not at all possible to compare electrical energy with the ‘breath of life’ (ruach), whose metaphysical and homiletic role has been well investigated elsewhere 13

See the Introduction to E. A. Poe, 2009; together with the various talking statues of literature, history and technology, as Poe illustrates in his essay, the Chess Player is a mechanical device, often of suspicious workmanship, that is not really autonomous, but presumably worked by someone hidden in the machine.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

251

2

(Henry, 2016 ), as regards both the primigenial Adam and also the same Golem of the Maharal.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Secondly, in Frankenstein’s case, the matter itself in which the electrical current is inserted is not at all finalised or structured in itself. It is a disconnected series of limbs, a random patchwork, which is assembled ex post by the maker according to his own vision of how an artificial humanoid should be designed and shaped. Having made these clarifications, let us remember that the golemic category includes a range of intermediate beings. These include spirits, angels, demons, all imaginary creatures made up of intelligent matter or material capable of selforganization and of the pursuit of specific objectives (Tagliasco 1999, 42) and which are all positioned in the order of beings between humans and the supernal divinities of various cultures. The Golem mentioned by the Talmud and by the Hebrew mythography of mystic-theurgical tradition is therefore one of the creatures, if not the “artificial” creature (angels, demons and spirits have an ontological status greater than that of human beings and their products) which is apparently the most ancient, at least in the cradle of the Western cultural heritage. This affinity alone should legitimise comparison and contrast between the Golem and other artificial beings: with respect to these the cyborgs are biomechanical beings. For cyborgs, the human “purity” of their origin is not at all a fundamental requisite, while the stable presence of a distinctive human element like the brain certainly is. One can become a cyborg by means of bionics, from the human that one was, or through mechatronics, from the machine that one was. One significant “mythographical passage” among 14 others is that leading from ‘Golem to cyborg’, even if the so-called cyborg (Terminator, T-800) is a mere ‘prima facie’ human-mechanic hybrid. Indeed, the whole Terminator saga is a multifaceted outcome in need of decodification. The reference here is to the whole Terminator quadrilogy, the androids (sometimes mistakenly called cyborgs) coming back from the future to kill (or protect, according to the different plots) he who would have become, or would have generated, the head of the resistance against the empire of the machines, Skynet. The specific reference is to T-1000, the example of Terminator which is most evolved compared to the artificial humanoid named T-800 (Tagliasco

14

It is a case of almost perfect mimicry – but only as regards the exterior appearance – with the Hebrew Golem, what is more taken from the world of cartoons: this is Concrete, the character of Paul Chadwick, published in 1986 by Dark Horse. It is a body of concrete in which aliens have transplanted a human brain. On the basis of the classification adopted here, it is a hybrid golemic being, due to the procedure of transplant of the main human organ in a typically telluric form.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

252

Chapter 11

1999, 189) T-800 is the predecessor and irreducible rival of the artificial killer of the latest generation, that is T-1000, in the second film of the saga. T-1000 should not, however, be considered simply the “negative character”, “the villain” of the plot, as he appears in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. On the contrary, he represents a significant evolution of category type within the class of artificial 15 humanoids. What is still to be done in fact is to make a comparison between T-1000 and the golemic creatures. In the second film of the saga, despite being referred to as a cyborg, T-1000 is not only a ‘not natural’ - born killer, but is similar to a golemic being (even if programmed to bring about evil). An artificial mimetic skinwalker, like any artificial killer, can be considered extremely dangerous, therefore a monster in the negative sense (menacing, uncanny and aberrant); a bad Golem.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

But not a cyborg. Why? Because his material is finalised to the maximum degree since it enables him to take on the physiognomy of whoever is useful to him in carrying out his homicidal objectives (Tagliasco 1999, 182). But he has nothing to do with a free decision whatsoever of his own. Thus, given that - in order to legitimately speak of cyborg - we must include the conditio sine qua non for which the brain, as a site of selfhood, of memory, of memories and preferences, in short of the personal identity, must be of human biological matter, then in this case NOT even T-800, the previous model, the creature (killer/defender), is a cyborg. If anything – as mentioned before – it is a special type of mimetic android, apparently (not morally) similar to the famous humanoid robots of the latest generation created on paper by Isaac Asimov, whose automatons were imagined to be indistinguishable from humans. As already said, an android is a positronic (or electronic) brain inserted into an artificial body, made up of porous silicon, or steel skeleton, on which external biological components have been grafted. The films’ human protagonist, Sara Connor, calls him correctly “machine” or “robot”, confirming that a machine clothed in organic tissue, with a hard-coded mega chip in its cranium is not a cyborg. More probably, in the near future, ‘we humans’ will become ‘we cyborgs’, and bear the burden of a real hybrid identity, without losing by that our dignity. In hypothesis, a humanoid machine, in order to be a cyborg, should, therefore, undergo a human brain transplant, to acquire a spark of human identity. It is, in fact, the “wet” biological brain that makes the difference and makes the distinction from the “dry”, positronic version (iridium 15

The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) were directed by J. Cameron, whilst Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and Terminator Salvation (2009) are the work of other directors.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

From Golem to Cyborg

253

sponge) masterfully hypothesized in the configurations Asimov gave to his 16 robots. 11.9 Some provisional conclusions If what has been said so far were universally accepted, the class of cyborgs would be reduced a great deal. More than this, the menacing monsters that we often consider cyborgs, are mostly something else; they are mimetic robots in the hands of the programmer, not obeying, in this case, Asimov’s three laws, thus being beyond good and evil and potentially dangerous if the artificer/programmer is bad.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

On the contrary, the class of golemic creatures, especially the ones which are created by blessed practices, could very well include, not without stretching things a little, those specific biomechanical beings (Mega Robots like Mazinga, Jeeg Robot, Goldrake) that are totally dependent: a)

on their own organized material structure;

b)

on the program put into their circuits;

c)

on the orders given by a human being that is the object of their total dedication as raison d’être of their design and their very existence.

Only by following this path is it possible to have a juxtaposition, if somewhat hazardous, between all the previous golemic creatures as ‘blessed’ monsters and the well-known bio-metallic beings already cited, the gigantic entities, devoted to Good given that this is the configuration written in their design code. The Mega robots are beings with metamorphic steel armour that can be assembled in the guise of increasingly powerful warriors and who are cybernetically controlled, in which a human, although dominant, is their companion of adventures and misadventures, operating them, by free choice, in such a way as to share their sufferance, together with their victories.

16 Coming back to Terminator’s quadrilogy: in the last of the series (directed by MCG), the interpretative and narrative schemes are clarified in more detail in favour of the prevalence of a non-ascriptive code, to define the belonging of any humanoid being, capable of feeling, suffering, wanting and choosing, to the human dimension. The distinguishing factor is who one decides to be, whose side one takes in the conflict, what value is given to life and to the dignity of others. Only from the content and meaning of the option does the identity of the subject originate. Markus Wright, the coprotagonist of the fourth picture (2009), is therefore the only real cyborg of the saga.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

254

Chapter 11

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The homiletic sense of the mythic plot that can justify this classification is, therefore, the same as that of the golemic typology. At the same time, it anchors the Golemic class of being to the positive meaning of the term ‘monstrum’. This happens not only thanks to an innovative neo-Marxist/feminist/post-human cyberutopia (Haraway 1992, Braidotti 2005, Ferrando 2016) but even by recurring to the Talmudic blessing of any exorbitant (marvellous) divine intervention for the sake of the innocent, for the blooming of life and against Evil. The sense is clear: it is that according to which all the creatures, more so the most powerful, are companions in the sharing of pain, and also in sharing the aim of limiting the impact of evil ill-doings on living beings and on whoever is animated and moves in the worldly horizon. This opening, for the sake of coherence, should be even wider as regards humanoid hybrids, that is as regards what ultimately “we moral subjects” are or become whenever we oppose the hardships of fate with the grafting onto our bodies of artificial rehabilitative or substitutive devices, becoming to all intents and ‘purposes’ cyborgs. This mutation implies per se a hypothetical broadening of the horizon of inclusion of morally qualified subjects, or as Braidotti, says, of non-unitary subjectivities (Braidotti 2005, 172). This is going far beyond the icon of the mute, obedient artificial servant as could be the adequate emblem for the automata and hybrids of the future (Wiener, 1963). This will fully come about, perhaps, in a not too distant time from now; whenever we consider as our interlocutor, in the pragmatic context of coexistence and social life, every hybrid or artificial quidditas capable of foreseeing and accepting the consequences of its decisions regarding other subjects involved, although modified or altered with respect to the presumed original human model. «It does not count “what” you are, but “who and how” you decide to be». This could become the legislative principle of an infraspecist society of free, equal, irreducible beings. References Apuleius. (2000) La Magia. Introduzione, traduzione e note di C. Moreschini. Milano: Classici Bur Bloch, Ch. (1920). Der Prager Golem. Berlin. Braidotti, R. (2005). Metamorphoses: Towards a materialistic Theory of Becoming. Cambridge: Polity Press. Brinken, J. (2014). Cyborg or the posthuman monster. Battaglia, F. and Weidenfeld, N. (Eds.). Roboethics in Film. Robolaw Series. Pisa: PLUS. 49-64. Busi, G. (2006). Mistica ebraica. Testi della tradizione segreta del giudaismo dal III al XVIII secolo. Torino: Einaudi. Caronia, A. (2008/3). Il Cyborg. Saggio sull’uomo artificiale. Milano: ShaKe edizioni. 25. Coeckelberg. (2013). Human Being@Risk, Enhancement, Technology, and the Evaluation of Vulnerability Transformations. Berlin: Springer.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

From Golem to Cyborg

255

El’azar da Worms. (1888). Commento al SeferYezirah. Przemysl edition. 15d. Fadini, U. (1999). Principio metamorfosi. Per un’antropologia dell’artificiale. Milano: Mimesis. Ferrando, F. (2016). Il Postumanesimo filosofico e le sue alterità. Pisa: ETS. Freud, S. (1947). Das Unheimliche. Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 12. A. Freud at al. eds. London: Imago. 227-68. Grimm J. (1808). Die Golemsage. Id., Kleinere Schriften. Vol. IV. Dümmler, F. (Ed.). Haraway, D. (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Haraway, D. (Ed.). Simians, Cyborgs, and the Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. 149-181. Haraway, D. (1992). The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others. Grossberg, L., Nelson, C. and Treichler, P. A. (Eds.). Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge. 295-337. Haraway, D. (1997). Modest_Witness@Second_MillenniumFemaleMan_Meets_Onco_Mouse, London: Routledge. Hastings, J. (1908-1927). Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. Part 5. Edinburgh: T and T Clark, New York: Charles Scribner’s Son. Held, H.L. (1927). Das Gespenst des Golem. Eine Studie aus der hebräischen Mystik mit einer Exkurs über das Wesen des Doppelgänger. München: Allgemeine Verlaganstalt. Henry, B. (2014). Human Enhancement and Post-Human; The Converging and Diverging Pathways of Human, Hybrid and Artificial Anthropoids. Humana.mente. 1, 35. 59-77. Henry, B. (2016/2). Dal Golem ai cyborgs. Livorno: Belforte. Idel, M. (1990). Golem. Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. Jenni, E. and Westermann, C. (1971). Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum alten Testament. München: Kaiser Verlag. Vol. II. Jentsch, E. (1906). Zur Psychologie des Unhemlichen. Psych. Neurol. Wschr. 8.22 (25 Aug.). 195-98, 8.23 (1st Sept.). 203-05. Neusner, J., Avery-Peck, A. J. and Scott-Green, W. (2000). Encyclopaedia of Judaism. Vol. 3. Vol. II. 832-844. Poe, E. A. (2009). Maelzer’s Chess Player. Kimble Edition. Dado publisher. Rank, O. (1925). Der Doppelgänger. Eine psychoanalytische Studie. Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalitischer Verlag. Rosenberg, J. (1909). Nm. ifla’ ot ha-Maharal, Petrokov. Readapted in German by C. Bloch. Berlin: Der Prager Golem. Scholem. (1960). Zur Kabbala und ihre Symbolik. Zürich: Rhein Verlag. Tagliasco, V. (1999). Dizionario delle creature fantastiche e artificiali. Milan: Mondadori. Völker, K. (1969). Künstliche Menschen. Ǖber Golems, Homunculi, Andreiden und lebende Statuen, Phantastische. Berlin Biliothek. (1994). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

256

Chapter 11

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Weidenfeld, N. (2014). Lessons in Humanity: What happens when Robots become Humans. Battaglia, F. and Weidenfeld, N. (Eds.). Roboethics in Film. Robolaw Series. Pisa: PLUS. 93-106. Wiener, N. (1963). God and Golem, Inc., A Comment on Certain Points where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Yuval, H. Religion, Witchcraft, and Incantations. Da'at, issue 48 [5762]. 43-44.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

12. Citizen Dead: Aesthetical, Ominous and Rotten Zombies Adrián Pradier Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), Spain

Abstract

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Why zombies attract us so much? The purpose of the contribution is to analyze their success from two perspectives: one aesthetic, for which we will present a detailed analysis of the aesthetic category on which the monster is built fictional and artistically; the other, tentatively, to both analyze the ideological background behind the zombie narrative and help explain some key ideas of the contemporary world and, consequently, the perception we have of it. The idea is to study the sources of the aestheticization of violence through that aesthetic category and how this strategy simultaneously serves to reinforce a kind of moral response in the viewer in which fear is aroused by the loss of humanity itself in the fight against zombies, rather than by an exaltation of the use of violence in itself. Keywords: Zombies, Aesthetics, Uncanny, Violence, Subversion/Containment My corpse was struggling up the second step, her legs too small, and too stiff, to make the climb easily. I went back down, wrapped my arms around my corpse, and carried her up the stairs. Will MacIntosh. Followed (2006). Save me! –said the executioner. Joaquín Sabina. Mentiras Piadosas Album (1990).

12.1 Zombies everywhere A few years ago, I taught a seminar on poetics of horror to my students of Performing Arts. After evaluating and reviewing the basic conditions for the emergence of a scary atmosphere, the conferences came to their end with an analysis of a short repertoire of monstrous creatures. When the subject of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

258

Chapter 12

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

zombies appeared, a young actor raised a question about the necessary artistic keys to play the living dead, according to the archetype designed by George A. Romero. We decided to start the dialogue by establishing a comparative with other celebrities from the genre of horror. I remember the 2008 Twilight series was at its peak, so we started the comparative by pointing out several notable differences between both classes of undead and beyond; the fact that Romero’s zombies, by definition, are under putrefaction. Considering that love requires empathy, we noted, to begin with, zombies cannot fall in love. Actually, they do not care who is who. Nor did they like music, not even The Who. At one point, we let our imagination run on its own and brainstormed ideas. For example, music seems to be something that moves them, not in the sense that it makes them dance, but in the sense that it attracts them, as any noise would. We imagined that we went to a party and a group of zombies were attracted by the music. We concluded that they would not care about their appearance; they would come with their rotten faces, their faded eyes, their wobbly steps. They probably would not ask for a glass of punch. Nor they would ask for food. In fact, they would likely try to eat the waiter. We came to a provisional conclusion, the first step to help my actors: when you are a zombie, life is not complicated. Neither is death. In contrast to soft and pink romanticism of contemporary trends in the genre of horror, zombies will always show the same, cold and silly rictus to the poshest vampire. Regarding their working life, zombies were long the Oompa-Loompas of the wicked, destined to the perennial wandering in an inhospitable world or, at best, to the service of other demonic creatures, such as vampires (Fright Night, Holland 1985) or mysterious and fatal subjects, such as witches, wizards or priests of ancient and nameless religions (White Zombie, Tourneur 1932). The truth is that as servants, they have numerous advantages: due to the lack of autonomy, a zombie could face any task, including those that threatened his physical integrity, because “he does not complain about his working conditions, which would result deplorable for any human being” (Llopis 1980, 35). In other words, zombies are the big losers. They are not able to embody, like the werewolf, freedom of the wild and the uninhibited condition of the beast in opposition to the frustrated contemporary urbanite, as it is argued, for example, in the film Wolf (Nichols, 1994). As far as Frankenstein is concerned, despite sharing a few characteristics -both are ugly, deformed and have come back from the dead-, the reconstructed monster is able to arouse pity, compassion, sadness and profound ties of sympathy in us since we recognize in him some human traits that transcend his mere appearance. For example, the feeling of abandonment in a world that we do not understand and for which we find no loving guidance, neither consolation in any place. At last, zombies have nothing to do in a personality contest, because vampires are the kings. Actually, “as well as the vampire

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

259

represents the elite, the absolute self with thousands of years of wisdom, a zombie does not represent a powerful presence, not an admirable I” (Moreno Serrano 2011, 490; Russell 2007, 7).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

These were the circumstances of zombies until a group of cinema lovers and friends sat down for lunch at the Samreny's Restaurant (Pittsburgh) on a happy day of January 1967, including the producer Russell Streiner, the amateur cameraman Richard Ricci, the writer John A. Russo and the young cinema director, George A. Romero. The first three were co-owners and cofounders of the advertising agency Latent Image from 1963. However, they not only focused on technological innovation projects in the field of audiovisual communication, but also in the realization of film productions; having a recording studio on the second floor of a building where they also had a main office located on the sixth floor. In a playful study, the screenwriter Ben Harvey sums up the situation: “So over provolone sandwiches they resolved to make one (film) for $6,000, with ten investors kicking in $600 apiece. This time they’d play it safe with an exploitation picture; their unpretentious working title: Monster flick” (Harvey 2008, 9). Romero recalls that “one of the premises was to avoid devouring aliens and ridiculous monsters” (Lardín 2007, 219), for which there were two good precedents: first, the magnificent novel by Richard Matheson, I Am Legend (1954); secondly, the film adaptation Last Man on Earth (Ragona and Salkow, 1964), starring an efficient Vincent Price, and a film that was the precedent for two later versions: Omega Man (Sagal, 1971) and I Am Legend (Lawrence, 2007). These slow-moving and implacable creatures are certainly the archetypes for our contemporary zombies, whose fictional presence we know so well (Flint 2013, 53; Harvey 2008, 10). The zombie was reborn to arouse a deep fear in viewers from some exhibition circuits, especially drive-ins from rural areas, to gradually occupy a privileged place in urban cinemas, television and other media, such as comics, novels and videogames. The keys to explain the incredible success of the new horror icon were associated, on the one hand, to the disruptive and tumultuous historical moment that the United States would live over the following years; a scenario where situations raised by zombies channelled effectively and fictionally the fears about a political and social disintegration. On the other hand, the success of the creature also rests on its expressive power to be reinterpreted as the symptom of profound cultural malaises, in those stages in which their media omnipresence becomes indisputable. In other words, the media success of the zombie is not continuous and persistent, but eventual and intermittent, linked to those periods in which the Western way of life –or, better, the American way of life- is threatened by external agents who represent the Other, as hungry as determined to consume us… in every sense. This is why some authors like José Antonio

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

260

Chapter 12

Navarro have categorized the film as a “typical product of counterculture” (2007, 18-20); a feature that endows the zombie with a trope dimension that makes him the holder of symbolic power. Thanks to this, it can be thought as a distorting mirror, repository of all kinds of social and political concerns, operating as a thinking vehicle and becoming an instrument of cultural reflection and, not infrequently, ideological; this circumstance means, inter alia, the collapse of its condition as a mere literary or folkloric artefact (Bishop 2009, 68-86).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Even though Romero did not get tired of explaining “that his intention was never a sociopolitical parable”, this one did not avoid the creature’s versatility for embodying “all metaphors that might be”, proposing “a philosophical look” and legitimizing the gender through its transition to adulthood (Lardín 2007, 219). Zombie’s allegorical power has generated a huge amount of suggestive and funny individual and collective works (Bishop 2009, 2010, Boluk and Lenz 2011, Fernández Gonzalo 2011, McIntosh and Leverette 2011, Moreman and Rushton 2011, etc.). For example, some researchers have seen the dangers of capitalism in a scenario in which zombies are just our distorted reflection, as if the inner rottenness had surfaced (Newitz 2006, Datta and MacDonald 2011). The human flesh search would be equivalent to a synecdoche of the desire for material possessions. The post-apocalyptic framework becomes the opportunity to satisfy the urge to achieve material objects –it is classic, in this respect, the role of the mall as a place of refuge, but also for looting and consumer satisfaction in the 1970 film Dawn of the Dead (Wood 2003, 106)–. In the end, the cannibalism is just a way to turn our bodies into a picture of how possessions and a wealth dream devour us (Ochando 2013, 91). But we can also consider, at least, five artistic reasons for understanding the success of this film(s) and the subsequent influence of the archetype: (1) The night of the Living Dead is a brilliant case of “dramatic heterogeneity” (Navarro 2007, 18), mixing motifs from Sci-Fi, vampirism or horror comics, with other new issues in movies, such as cannibalism, hitherto treated only in Z or gore movies –e.g. the horrendous classic Blood Feast (Lewis, 1963) or the funny The Undertaker and his Pals (Swicegood, 1968)-; in turn, (2) the movie was filmed under a truculent naturalism, evident in its “aggressive documentary style” (2007, 19), which occasionally approached it to the mockumentary genre, an aesthetic strategy that Romero will use again in both Dawn of the Dead (1978) and especially Diary of the Dead (2007); (3) there is a novel treatment of violence, in which the grotesque imagery was combined with themes of the EC comics of the fifties, such as social disease and arbitrary violence, closely connected with the political body (Ochando 2013, 56-65, Williams 2003, 23); (4) there is an inevitable “aesthetic turn” on this monster figuration, based on the manifestation of its ruinous material condition, the irreversible decline of its

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

261

physical dimension and the inappropriate visibility of the process: suddenly, mysterious, awkward and unwilling walkers from previous versions now gave way to the rotten, dragging their guts on the asphalt… and it seems that they didn’t care; and (5) the storyline substantially modified some items of apocalyptic subgenre; “permeating movie practice in various subgenres” (McIntosh 2008, 8) and redrawing the cataclysm of such enormous and irreversible dimensions. Unlike other classic productions about the end of the world, there is no place here to be safe, and there is no way to destroy the threat because they are legion. The new situation is that not only have zombies lost their humanity, but the catastrophe has also defeated survivors; threatening to collapse their moral conscience. According to Bishop, there was a transition from a “monster narrative” towards a narrative of “monsters en masse" (Bishop 2009, 153-156, Mahoney 2011, 113-129), in which zombies materialized a more effective nightmare in American culture than the image of the solitary feudal vampire: “the community as a threat, the anonymous and aggressive mass that wants to drag the modern man to a regression towards arcane ways of survival” (Cueto 2007, 103). In turbulent times, films of this genre collaborate in the drawing of possible global scenarios where no one is safe somewhere, an idea that serves as a dramatic engine for the 1978 sequel Dawn of the Dead (Waller 1986, 303) and many other productions, most notably the television series The Walking Dead (2010), a successful adaptation of the eponymous comic books by Robert Kirkman. In the words of Peter Dendle, author of The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia (2001, 6):

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

[Romero] invested his zombies not with a function (a job or a task such as zombies were standardly given by voodoo priests), but rather a drive (eating flesh). […]; they are no longer robotic machines, but gluttonous organisms demanding representation in the food chain.

The creature’s renewal was complete. But we must not delude ourselves. From numerous points of view, Night of the Living Dead was and still is a complete disaster. Its documentary tone slows down the dramatic pace, sometimes even causing boredom; except the notable case of Duane Jones, the acting work (mostly amateurs) is more than doubtful; post-production routines are irregular, with abrupt changes, where high artistic quality sequences alternate with other that are filmed with certain carelessness. But despite the problems posed by the movie, the film was a great success, leaving an indelible mark on the Gothic American, a thematic and stylistic trend, by which “a stay in the countryside would never be as before” (Fernández Valentí 2007, 117): suddenly, Little Red Riding Hood could not only be eaten by the wolf, but also by her granny.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

262

Chapter 12

The first conclusion we reached –my students and myself- was that the naturalist and empathic approaches in the line of Stanislavski, Meisner and Strasberg for the dramaturgical construction of zombie do not work, because the inner life of the zombies is absurdly simple: its consciousness is intentional, but is not able to turn on itself. The objectives in the short, medium and long term are confused in a single task for zombies: to eat, namely, eating everyone. Underdone. Even better raw. Therefore, we can ensure that zombies do not think, in the sense of reasoning. They simply move by a basic imitative impulse: where a zombie goes, there go all others; probably because some of these fellows know where there's food. We enjoyed putting into practice some aesthetic categories on which we worked. But some questions were still in the pipeline: Why do we need to go to zombies for telling certain stories? Why do we tell stories of zombies? Why are films of zombies so successful since they first appeared in 1968? And why are they so hungry? To these questions, we want to add the following, from a light-hearted perspective, but also academic: is it possible to live with the grandmother, when she wants to pull our guts away for eating them? Is it possible to integrate the zombie in our society, in a way that does not suppose a threat to our physical integrity? And, perhaps most importantly, what dimensions of our humanity can be affected by the presence of the zombie, by their way of life, or their manner of death?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

12.2 The existential impossibility of living with zombies… or why my tears are so important The experience of the death of others puts us in predisposition to feel or to understand our own death. But this is only possible in a poetic and fictional dimension that could never be ontological because the possibility of living my own death is closed. Martin Heidegger was particularly insistent on this point, opening an interesting topic in the framework of the philosophy of existence. His analysis of this item could be summarized in five points from Sein und Zeit (1927): (1) it is possible to affirm that one could "be with" the dead person, but only in a corporeal sense, as a body, while corpse is beside me; on the contrary, it is impossible “being with” the dead person in any other way, because that would imply the stay of both in the same world, which is what the existential “being one with another” indicates and, more essentially, the “being with” structure; (2) the death always reveals itself as a "loss", unique to those who remain in the world of the living: we cannot ensure, certify or verify whether the deceased actually wins or loses something from a strict existential perspective, while we cannot be sure what is in that beyond of existence; in this sense, (3) it is not possible to experience the other’s death, but to attend it, as it is indicated, for example, in St John's text on the death of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

263

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Lazarus, when Thomas says to his companions: “Let us also go to die with him"(Ἄγωµεν καὶ ἡµεῖς, ἵνα ἀποθάνωµεν µετ 'αὐτοῦ); the verb form "we die" (ἀποθάνοµεν) only figuratively means "to die with Lazarus" in the ontological sense of "being one with another" in the process of dying, pointing rather "being or be present" at the time of death or mourning; (4) the death is the most peculiar possibility of man, involving no longer to be, it is also unsurpassable, while I cannot dodge the death, neither overtaking it nor moving aside from it, and it is something without reference, so I cannot talk with sense about death, except poetically (1944, 273-274, 287-289); finally, (5) “death is in every case mine” (1944, 262). This characterization determines a metaphysical limit. This is the reason by which the return of the dead generates such a collapse, summarized in this question: what now? When our dead friend leaves the world in which “we were with him”, we, the “survivors”, “can be with him yet”, but only in the mode of a presence in the absence. What causes pain and what we have to accustom is not so much the idea of death, as the idea of the loss of those who left us, whose permanent movement has to be incorporated into our daily lives. In other words, pain is not by death, but by the deprivation of the other and by the prospect of our own life taken as something to be lived without him, without it, without them. In this line, “death certainly is revealed as a loss, but rather as a loss experienced by survivors” (Heidegger 1944, 261, Dastur 2008, 46). The idea of a return from death opens a substantial loss of direction in those who have to face it and, sometimes, in those who have to live it personally, as some productions have explored. And this is also a theme that addresses the core of the category of the uncanny detected by Ernst Jentsch, talking about those objects, people or situations that bring us a lack of guidance linked to the idea of strangeness of a thing or event (Jentsch 1906/2010, 2). Provisionally, maybe we could name this problem as the returned castaway syndrome: when Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks in Cast Away, 2000, Robert Zemeckis) comes back home after several years lost on a desert island, his ancient fiancee, Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt), has completely remade her life, assuming Chuck’s death. So the new situation is not fair for Kelly, but it fits inside imaginable: his return was a mere possibility, and it implied a very small probability, but it was not impossible. Obviously, Kelly does not know what to do, what to say, how to act under the new circumstances, especially when she had already been forced to change her world from top to bottom at least once. According to Zizek, the return of the living dead implies “the reverse of the proper funeral rite” and the rupture of a “certain reconciliation, an acceptance of loss” (Zizek 1992, 23), because those who return should not do it under any circumstances, especially when the world of the mourners has already settled into the idea of their permanent absence. This return disorients and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

264

Chapter 12

incapacitates us to make decisions; after the burial, not only would it break the newly installed, but it would also collapse the whole structure, and the very sense of its construction: in fact, this new structure would not only imply an existential, cultural or religious bankruptcy, but properly metaphysical. Perhaps that is why the mere possibility of this return is, to some extent, insulting, because it turns our sadness into lost time; emptying the meaning of our tears, turning mourning and its ritual expression on an unnecessary, useless and absurd task. The idea of remaking our life is now perceived as an aimless chore, a senseless question, a kind of pseudo-pain, if not as a burden or a fault. The castaway returned effect would be completely destructive in the case of a Z-Apocalypse. Moreover: will we be able to continue living in a world where doubts about the afterlife become the tragic certainty that there is nothing else, that all stories about the Kingdom of Heaven, Yanna, Walhalla... were white lies? Will be able to face that not even the joie de vivre is a resistance guarantee of survival in a world in which there is only catastrophe and abundant excess of cruelty?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

12.3 The aesthetic ambivalence of zombies… or the problems of coexistence when the guts of your roommate fall to the ground, and he does not care about it The question about how to live with zombies could seem a bit late: after all, they have been living with us for a long time. But nothing could be further from the truth. There was a woman called Martha in the chapter on the raising of Lazarus who already did it, raising the issue instead of expecting the miracle. It is no wonder: the zombie, while dead and not dead creatures, lives the death: “he has succeeded in appropriating his own death and extending it in time as an event” (Fernández Gonzalo 2011, 36). And this event repels, frightens and disgusts. Let’s be realistic: if I see someone coming out of his grave, “with linen bands folded tightly about his hands and feet, and a cloth about his face” (Jn. 11 44), is a scene that barely would move my devotion to Christ’s triumph over death. Rather, I think it would run in the opposite direction, wondering if my years of studying Philosophy could be useful in an apocalyptic scenario where zombies will take over the world. There is an aesthetic tension very difficult to be solved, and this is because the raising of Lazarus contains a distinguishing feature compared to other biblical passages about miraculous resurrections, as the case of the daughter of Jairus, who wakes up from a long dream (Mk. 5, 21 -24.35-43), or the son of the widow of Nain, whose corpse is still very recent (Lk. 7: 11-17). This essential difference is noted by Martha, Lazarus’ sister, at the very moment when Jesus gives the order to remove the stone from the tomb: “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days” (Jn 11: 39). This is

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

265

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

a splendid case of eloquent prosaism, which has nothing divine, but a lot of humanity. It also reveals the question of the aesthetic ambivalence of zombies, even when they were our relatives. And the problems that arise from this circumstance can be located, for example, in the History of Art, in particular when the artists had to fight for awakening Christian faith, devotion and a certain joy feeling when the miracle occurs, even when it involves the resurrection of Lazarus… a little rotten. Martha’s fear, who had earlier confirmed her full confidence that Jesus was the Son of God, “the resurrection and the life” (Jn. 11, 25), suffers a momentary and absolute loss of her faith, dependent largely on that aesthetic ambivalence. She notes and initiates with her question an inner struggle where the expected beauty of the resurrection, the sublime triumph over death and the long-awaited reunion with the deceased Lazarus are opposed to the confirmed ugliness of death and the dominant splendour of the grotesque. Putrid flesh, dirty rags, strange looks or sleepy walking are elements that aesthetically pose an enormous resistance to opening a path to the divine, ballasting any transcendent experience. There is a deep repugnance with moral projection activated by returning of dead since the basic existential problem the living dead generates, discussed in the previous section, joins the aesthetic ambivalence created by the joy of meeting and its physical effects; namely the death in its ostensible dimension. Even if we managed to overcome the deep shock generated by the mere presence of zombies, their bodies would testify continuously and impertinently the work of putrefaction, something that constantly updates their strangeness. The writers of the TV series In the Flesh (Campbell, 2013) have thought about this subject. They offered an interesting twist to the initial approach: four years after the Rising, a term with which the population refers to the resurrection of the dead a few years before, the government of England draws a rehabilitation program to reintroduce those affected by the Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) into society. Recognised as a rare disease that keeps them alive, but incapacitates their ability to eat or drink – as a result of their passage through the decomposing process - the pathology makes them unable to maintain normal chemistry of their own brains. As a result, this leads them to madness and to eat the brains of others if they do not receive certain injections from the authorities. This examination is deeper than that made in 2004 by Robin Campillo and Brigitte Tijou for the movie Les Revenants. The film proposes an analysis of those who have to take care of returnees, but in this case, there are very few elements that mark the ravages of death: their temperature is slightly lower than normal, their skin a little paler, their movements a bit slower. Here, the problem is mostly existential. By contrast, the writers of In the flesh imagine a world in which Romero’s zombies could be healed almost completely and fully reintegrated among us (something that the director had already explored as a possibility in his film

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

266

Chapter 12

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Day of the Dead, 1984). No wonder, in this respect, that the same authorities who make the cure also provide contact lenses to conceal the tremendous discoloration of their eyes and huge amounts of makeup to disguise their skins: white, shriveled and, in some cases, with terrible wounds. Martha's concern is not reprehensible. In fact, her position reveals the deep fear, the taboo condition of what must remain hidden, namely, the ostensible evidence of death, the physical degradation and the aftermath of putridness. Dracula uses perfumes; he dresses with dignity, wearing the best clothes, in the work of Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price or Gary Oldman; in short, he hides his death in a decorous way. But zombies, however, are opaque to shame, they do not worry about what others think, especially when those others are identified as a snack. Actually, they are creatures that do not care at all show the ravages of death or the horror of their own deaths; hence they often appear mutilated, showing their bloody stumps with gangrenous bites of other zombies, with terrible and swollen wounds and irreversible consequences for their own bodies. The existence of zombies becomes the care of the corpses in a futile concern because the zombie will not be aware of its nakedness, its dirt or our embarrassment. Famous is the sequence from Night of the Living Dead (1968; also in the remake of 1990) where a nude woman walks toward the house where survivors are hiding, undaunted and indifferent to any sense of shame, decorum, or projection of her nakedness. As a further example, in the 1978 film Dawn of the Dead, a zombie violently pulls his arm, trapped under the wheel of a truck, and then he hits the bloody stump against the door behind which there is one of the characters. As the last example, in the 1985 movie The Day of the Dead (George A. Romero) we see a zombie, tied to an autopsy stretcher and getting to sit up, causing his intestines fall to the ground and without showing any concern. In sum, “the body of the zombie disgusts because the mechanisms of its concealment are not well channelled”, so that those things that were not objects of perception have been returned to the angles of the visible: “the interior, the putrid, the liquids and the splashes” (Fernández Gonzalo 2011, 84). We have already seen that it is not possible to live with zombies, at least for two reasons: first, because they would collapse our metaphysical way of understanding the world and, to that extent, our sanity; secondly, because the revelation of their rottenness is disgusting, nasty and unseemly. But there is still a final reason why it is impossible to live with the zombies. They are, from a Freudian perspective, uncanny: “many people experience the (uncanny) feeling in the highest degree in relation to death and dead bodies, to the return of the dead” (Freud 1919, 241). Living dead, zombies, walkers or rotten, all of them gather in their bodies the unduly animated with other images that allude or show the results of violent amputations or irreversible damages

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

267

invaluable and delicate organs. Under the uncanny perspective, they are generally conceptualized as carriers of hexes and evil omens: a meeting with them implies a misfortune (Trías 1982/2001, 43). Actually, the third reason why coexistence with zombies is not possible is their essential condition of ominous citizens. We have also seen that they are repulsively strange by their death and vaguely familiar in their humanity, we know that they arouse a compulsive rejection by the mode of their appearance, rather than feelings of joy. In the end, we have to analyze the inventory of elements and behaviors that conform that solid anxiety that incapacitates us to live quietly and comfortably with them.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

12.4 The ominous zombie… or the suspicion that my roommate is not exactly a human, but almost (among other things, because he wants to eat my brain) Masahiro Mori is a specialized engineer in Robotics and pioneer in working on the emotional response of humans to non-human entities. In 1970, he published a famous short article, The Uncanny Valley (Bukimi no tani) for the research journal Energy, where he defended a thesis that attracted attention not only in the field of Robotics but in the field of Psychology, Theory of Emotions and Aesthetics. The idea is simple: if we relate the rate of the emotional response of a subject with the likeness index of an entity with human features, taken as a specific pattern of comparison movements and human appearances, it is expected that the curve should have a constant tendency to upward. In this way, the maxim the more similarity to the human, the higher rate of positive emotional response would be fulfilled. However, Mori found that, far from it, there was a deep and mysterious depression just before reaching the fully human appearance, an accident by which the graph sank below the level of emotional neutrality until a visceral rejection of the control subjects, who showed a high level of negativity to these almost human entities. After those experiences, as human-like objects approached better results, subjects were able to make the leap to the upward trend noted above, as if the earlier negativity had been the result of a bad dream. This abyss represented a limit: those quasi-human forms were understood not only almost human, at least in appearance, but in an extremely vague and fuzzy way that situated them in a perspective where strangeness emerged from the middle of the familiar. These entities, among which zombies are usually located, were felt intensely familiar, but also inevitably stranger. The problem was determined in that almost, as if the subtle difference between what takes human behavior, still far from the human, would suddenly become baffling, dangerous and threatening, as if it represented to mock humanity arousing profound fears of usurpation. In Mori’s own words (1970/2012, online):

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

268

Chapter 12

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

[…] I think this descent explains the secret lying deep beneath the uncanny valley. Why were we equipped with this eerie sensation? Is it essential for human beings? […], I have no doubt it is an integral part of our instinct for selfpreservation.

Mori’s merit was essentially clearing the mystery of this emotional response by opening an aesthetic reflection for illustrating his own robotics studies. According to him, the distinctive details of this human simulacrum, sometimes simple nuances that allow us to distinguish them as distorted copies of ourselves, might seem insignificant, but disturbing enough to overlook them: somehow, the more approximate entities are to get the external form of humanity, the lower the tolerance that exists towards the differences identified by the almost. In this regard, the subjects of the experiment identified certain repetitive behaviors and a characteristic and singular automatism of inanimate objects with animated appearance, for example, waxworks, mechanical puppets, and automata. Thus, the appearance of the entity determines the emergence of an aesthetic response based on uncanny in those cases where the object almost looks human, but not yet enough: this is where lies the aesthetic ambivalence of the uncanny, halfway between familiarity and strangeness. And this is where the definitive rejection of the zombie is located: certain automatoned movements, which in the initial section of the upward curve would be tolerated, for example, spasmodic movements of joints or a fluency lack in the lower limbs, would be viewed with tolerance and even with humor, except when they appear increasingly closer to the human appearance, where our reaction will be severely negative. Simultaneously we should talk about the repetitive behaviors of those automata that do not enjoy the implementation of freedom, forcing them to trace movements seemingly meaningful that collapse in a mere illustration of what could be, but not it will be… again and again, ad nauseam. These two are the thematic sources of the uncanny category in zombies: both the automatism and mechanical and repetitive behavior, whose effects are especially seen in that discontinuous, broken and non-human movement of their bodies, which lies halfway between humanity and insects. We can certify that zombies, despite being closer to human beings, sometimes take the dynamics of an automaton, an aspect that keeps us from recognizing his past as members of humanity and leads us to reject their way of being. In this line, since Romero placed them around a typical middle-eastern farmhouse, knocking on doors and windows in a furious attempt to catch and eat their inhabitants, the zombie, a contemporary icon of the absurd, is profiled in our imaginary banging entries, moaning and screaming, and always without fatigue, feeling of defeat, acceptance or appeasement. His insistence falls outside the human resistance and takes the form of a continuous, maniac and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Citizen Dead

269

eternal loop, exactly like automata dolls, as strange as close. They sometimes repeat their actions obsessively, actions whose meaning is only granted for the living, who do not cease to marvel at the remnant of a lost humanity, lost for good. Their lives in death have been reduced to repetitive and obsessive behaviors, meaningless, broken fragments from a suspended life in the groan and despair, in a liminal world where objects are isolated from each other and where there are no states of affairs for inserting them into a meaningful whole. This is the reason why we view a zombie picking up coins from a wishing well, surprised and stunned by their brightness... or perhaps by memories which he is not capable of associating with that place. We view another in an ice rink, awkwardly hitting a rubber disc, with obvious traces of recognition of the basic elements of hockey (both in Dawn of the Dead, 1978), but unable to do anything but hit, again, and again, and again. Every time one of the walkers from film Land of the Dead (Romero, 2005) passes in front of a gas station, accidentally stepping on the warning bell, we see the huge zombie ‘Big Daddy’ (Eugene Clark) leaving the establishment and addressing fuel dispensers, taking the supplier… and only at that moment, staying blank, as if wondering what to do next. The opening sequence of this film provides us with a final example, halfway between the sinister and the ridiculous: in a music kiosk, there are three zombies, one playing a tambourine (Jasmin Geljo), one a tuba (Wilbert Headley) and the other a trombone (Ross Sferrazza). Each time the last living dead blows through the mouthpiece, making a brief and detuned sound, the other two respond immediately, beating the tambourine and blowing the tuba, spasmodic and automatically, in a broken, absurd and endless symphony. The group forms a bizarre and disturbing music box of automata, a singular band that makes us smile, until the grin freezes on our lips. We feel they are almost human beings, and after a while, it emerges in us a deep desire them to return to their lost humanity… a return that, actually, would only make things worse: because it is not possible in the living mode; because it is only possible in the living dead mode; and because when zombies do not try to play instruments, they only want to eat (us). This uncanny condition is also incarnated by their eternal, hungry and aimlessly pilgrimage: the zombie is a perennial wanderer, for whom there is no fixed course, and there are no attainable goals that satiate its appetite. It is evident that they are not hunters, lacking the sense of foresight and planning; quite simply, they are absurd “walkers” that seek and destroy, that search for eating everybody (or everything). But even this cannibalism is absolutely absurd and meaningless: although there is always something to snack on somewhere, they do not have a useful stomach to digest it (sometimes, there is not even a stomach). That is why this hunger is different.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

270

Chapter 12

In reality, these creatures represent the purest determination of the Schopenhauer’s will to live, even in death; consisting of quenching an appetite whose origin seems to be of a metaphysical order. They represent a distorted image of ourselves, when we anchor our life in the momentary satisfaction of desires and needs, without seeing beyond, without seeking beyond, without transcending the limits of the transient and the fleeting. That is the main reason why there is a pulsating sadness beyond the swollen carcass and the scattered guts, and the reason why zombies cannot be seen as “embodiments of pure evil, of a simple drive to kill or revenge, but as sufferers, pursuing their victims with an awkward persistence, colored by a kind of sadness” (Zizek 1992, 22). Not only they want to usurp our bodies and destroy our personalities, but they want to do it by eating our flesh and our brains and transforming us into others like them. This is why zombies represent a radical dissolution of humanity in an absolute determination of the will with the sole aim to satisfy an irrepressible, blind and senseless desire, which allows him to divide the world into two dimensions: the edible… and everything else. It is then an essential, crazy and conceptually extreme reduction of Kierkegaard’s aesthetic life, an eternal dissatisfaction which cannot be solved by food, but whose form of manifestation is that of hunger. In his analysis of the Hegelian concept of “habit”, Zizek gives the key to the matter, by turning the zombie into a “pure habit, of habit in its most elementary, prior to the rise of intelligence (of language, consciousness, and thinking)” (Gabriel and Zizek 2009, 100). And his disease is contagious: thus, this eternal walker becomes the most intimate enemy of the survivor when he “wants to carry him off to share his new life with him” (Freud 1919/1955, 242).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

12.5 The threats (of the story) of the (Z-)Apocalypse … or the risks of presenting the comic in terms of good guys and bad guys We live in a world regularly threatened by several forms of apocalypse. But a Z-apocalypse is special because the coexistence with zombies would become impossible since (1) they destroy the existential conviction of death as singular, distinctive and, essentially, last possibility within the human life, turning our tears for loved ones in lost time and our grief and mourning in a meaningless ritual; on the other hand, (2) the aesthetic ambivalence posed by the living dead cannot be resolved, so that the combination of joy at the return and disgust because of the aesthetic mode of that return turns impossible the sublimation of the latter in favor of the first; at last, (3) the ominous condition of zombies relocates them in a liminal ontology that reinforces our own human dimension and the feeling that goes with it, pressing in the opposite direction when what seems strange, weird and disgusting appears simultaneously so familiar, so close and friendly. This is

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

271

the uncanny condition we were talking about in the precedent chapter. So, this new and total disaster is brought by our dead, brought to the doors of our houses for a new misfortune that tests the limits of (our) humanity: it is the ZApocalypse, wherein the zombie puts us in such limit positions that we have no choice but to accept their existences and incorporate them into our lives... or annihilate them, in a continuous attack against the remnants of anxious, repetitive and automatic (in)humanity that resists in them.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Zombies present life in the form of an evident tragedy, where an aesthetic of resistance and solidarity is no longer necessary to overcome the hardships of life, once the catastrophe is here to stay and precludes any form of artistic evasion: no future, no exit, no death. Suddenly, the idea of a life beyond death is somewhat meaningless, and life itself, lacking a metaphysical foundation, becomes an absurd time until (first) death. In other words, against the tragic philosophies and their hypothesis that the world is essentially cruel and horrible, but in which we can still admire things, simply and plainly, rejoicing to live, etc. (e.g. Rosset 1960, 1976), the phenomenon of zombies embodies the tragic reality in a way that supersedes philosophy and reconstructs a tragic wisdom (φιλοσοφία vs. σοφία): unlike the combat tricks and survival methods, comforting or consolation stories are useless, as well as the joie de vivre or the philosophical admiration of the world… since the resistance is not an existential possibility, an option, but an obligation if one is to live. This type of dystopia usually ends in an extreme scenario. And zombies, like any global threat, attack anything man-made, forcing us to return to the stone age where everything is to be done and redone, and where such situations can lead us to the adoption of irrational behaviors, already liberated from any type of inhibition. Otherwise, there is the possibility that social and political chaos bring warlords, community tyrants, leaders of evil who threaten, from the human troops to humanity itself, sacrificing basic and inalienable rights – such as, for example, civil liberties… or the simple right to error- in favor of a hypertrophic conception of security, close to the practices of mafia or the worst military dictatorships. This is the case, for example, of Captain Rhodes in the 1985 film Day of the Dead; the unscrupulous businessman Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) in the 2005 film Land of the Dead (both under Romero’s direction); or, more recently, the supervillain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in The Walking Dead (from 2016). But this risk reveals precisely two defining features of every healthy system: on the one hand, its capacity to react with chilling forcefulness in the face of all that poses a threat, even if this means on many occasions to act against its own individuals; on the other hand, the power to generate, at the same time, its own harangues around the values of the community and the benefits of personal sacrifice, even surpassing the limits of the call of duty, and its own hosts of champions and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

272

Chapter 12

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

heralds who carry their banners. Following this logic, if we could establish the basis for a dialectical relationship here, zombies would symbolize the negation of the subject, destroying the system through the assumption (or digestion) of its members, or facilitating the emergence of other tenebrous subjects (the warlords) who also disintegrate the bases of the system. And we cannot forget the consequences of existential order that characterization of the zombie brings (paragraphs 2 to 4), whose mere presence in the world supposes a check in the most intimate convictions of humans and, consequently, in their sanity. Their cannibalism is the most obvious phenomenon of regression towards states characterized by a social and complete disintegration (Sanday 1986, 1018), as it is shown in other post-apocalyptic dystopias as the 2009 production The Road (John Hillcoat), adapted from the novel by Cormac McCarthy (2006), where the main problem of coexistence between groups of human beings who have survived after the carnage seems to have been reduced to who eats whom. In this sense and according to Alarcón, zombies, residual deposits of degraded humanity, pose, with their eternal desire for human flesh, “the cruelest possible aggression to that reverence for the otherness in which our objective morality is underpinned”, implying a violent death, but also an “aggressive assimilation of the essence of the Other”, in this case, “ignoring his empathic characteristic” (Alarcón 2007, 177). And this ignorance is what allows them to conceive man as food. Or even as fast food. Moreover: somehow, while zombie cannibalism is presented as the most complete and fearsome destruction of the other in the realm of fantasy, the pulsatile fear of the whole system to its own consummation takes root in some stratum of the underlying fictional discourse. The enemy seeks to supplant the foundations of the preceding system by the bases of another system. Against this background and under the same dialectical perspective that sets the rules of this fictional game, it is obvious that the negation of the zombie would be equivalent to the negation of the subject's negation, that is, the heroic and romantic affirmation of the subject against the barbarism that these disruptive and repugnant others bring with them. It is a barbarism against which our hero can offer no other way than the destruction of the enemy. Something that also includes the possibility of causing or favoring collateral damages, which will be easily integrated into the previous harangues, as part of a superstructure that seeks, in any case, to preserve the structure, even at the expense of some, many or almost all of its individuals. This is a normal price every time the machinery of the systems is launched in favor, precisely, of their own integrity… as systems. Accepting the hypothesis that perhaps the “zombie narrative” may harbor the foundations of a containment discourse against possible dangers, it seems

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

273

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

that the very core of this way of narrating the Z-Apocalypse contains at the same time an affirmation of heroic individualism, of the single and positive hero, faced antagonistically to the threat of the formless horde, of the massified and negative zombie. Curiously, the fictional discourse that unfolds under this narrative responds to the interests of the system itself when it comes to defending its survival. We do not deny its capacity for entertainment, nor its aesthetic potential or, in some cases very specific, its artistic value. What we are indicating is that most of these films, comics, books, etc., are often more successful in those times of great anxiety. The system finds its own means of transmitting to its individuals, also through the genre of zombies, traces of a superstructure of thought that serves to convey the sense of threat and the consequent need to survive. It may be noted that the three main “revivals” of the genre occurred in three very significant moments: (1) during the first phase of the Cold War, (2) during the great sociopolitical crises of the 1960s and 1970s (the JFK, Martin Luther King or Bob Kennedy murders, the Vietnam War, the fierce social struggles in the United States for civil rights, the Middle East crisis over the Six-Day War and the consequent Oil Crisis 1973, etc.); and, finally, (3) during the first decades of the new century, taking as a background the new world that remained after 9/11 (since 2001). In this regard, Becki A. Graham has studied, for example, the emergence of new post-9/11 narratives both in the media and in the construction of news, taking as an example the 2004 film Dawn of the Dead and, in particular, the initial sequence of credits, where viewers see “fragments of 'news broadcasts' attempting to cover the zombie outbreak”. We are talking about a certain visual texture similar to that used by reporters in the field; video scenes whose content refers to panic, bewilderment and frenzy; in the end, images that present some certain family resemblances with other “scenes which may call the mind television reports of 9/11 (Graham 2011, 131). The fundamental idea is that the system tries to filter through these narratives –not only, but also- some new aspects of the new state of affairs, for example, the unpredictability of destabilizing events and the need to always live on a permanent alert (2011, 136). However, it may be necessary to remind that as dangerous as the real threats are, in fact, the fear of citizens and their desperate quest for total safety, especially if it would mean to sacrifice their own essential rights, their natural freedom and even their granted liberties. We live in a horrible world, but the idea of the threat of zombies can make it even more horrible. An example of this can be found in the video game The last of us (Straley and Druckmann, 2013), where humans have to live in heavily militarized communities to protect themselves. It is not strange that the scenes and landscapes of greater beauty and color take place, precisely, outside such ghettos, where also occur

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

274

Chapter 12

the most dangerous situations (on the influence of the zombie in videogames, Weise 2011, 151-168). The moral is clear: it is preferable to risk losing life, but living in freedom, than losing oneself in the comfortable limbo of a sick and false security. Alive, but a prisoner of fear; secure, but imprisoned for safety. 12.6 A moral conclusion … or the responsibility on our present, past and coming living dead

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The resonances with our present time are sadly evident. But perhaps for this very reason, we must persist in the way that identifies our history better than others: this requires recognizing our essential vulnerability, our capacity for error and, however, a determined commitment to freedom, even if this means a reduction of our security. As far as the genre of zombies is concerned, there are in fact some interesting proposals that specifically revert to the need to alter the dominant discourse and devalue precisely the idea of the heroic subject, enhancing aspects that make him less rational, but more reasonable. For that task, Romero's zombie, especially in the Z-series tendency, makes it difficult to create another discourse: its aggressiveness and inhumanity exceed that essential ambivalence we talked about earlier, and that properly retains us in the impasse of reflection, instead of placing ourselves in blind action. The absolute demands an absolute answer, so the circle would never be broken and would be permanently denial. Some proposals are in the opposite direction to the usual presentation of that very pessimistic background, almost Manichaean, where there are only heroes and opponents. Even George A. Romero was the first, for example, to open the door to the idea that the peaceful salvation of the world lies in the integration of those individuals who are presented as a deviation to neutralize in the non-fictional world. Deepening that theme, there are researches who have wanted to see, for example, that it is no coincidence that in four films of his famous saga, the protagonist heroes are always black people who take charge of the situation, usually facing the white man (who feels that he has been robbed of his role of hero) (Bruce, 2011). However, a black man can also become a good representative of the system. Ben's character represents the best American values in catastrophic situations: he is practical, determined, willing to take risks and, of course, a man of action willing to sacrifice (not just his own). Against this, however, Romero wanted again to reduce the pretensions of subversive readings around his 1968 film, insisting that Duane Jones was chosen for the role, not because of his race, but for he was the best: “He simply gave the best audition” (Moody 2016, 41). It is true that “while the filmmakers may have achieved a perfect liberal color-blindness, the same cannot be said of the film’s viewers” (Bruce 2011, 62). Anyway, by virtue of the reading we are doing and the purposes we are looking for, the characters of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

275

Bub and Big Daddy are more interesting. They are two zombies that, in Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead (2005), respectively, face humans and destabilize their system, making it succumb, but passing over their hunger and, therefore, recovering some of their lost humanity. In the first case, Bub (Howard Sherman) pursues revenge for the death of Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty), the only living man who had treated him with affection and consideration; in the second case, Big Daddy seeks revenge against humans who, during a search for supplies, have destroyed their other zombie comrades.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Under this new perspective, the hero, the real subject, is not presented to viewers as someone who assumes as personal responsibility the destruction of a global threat, but rather as someone who seeks above all to nullify such deviations; because all systems need an enemy clearly identified, defined, and positioned as the absolutely other and negative of the real subject. A hungry zombie is not a problem, because it is the problem; a conscious zombie represents a problem, because the starting position is staggered, as the fear/safety dialectic is shaken as well. For that the hero treats them as authentic problems for the system, since the moment he approached all zombies as a plague with whose unconscious members neither communication nor dialogue nor forgiveness is possible. Seen under the magnifying glass of the containment discourse, “integration is disintegration” (1981, 257). Individuals such as Bub or Big Daddy, who have renounced their indiscriminate gourmet status and who revolt against a treatment of themselves that makes them negative or massified -to a certain extent, they cry out for a singular ontic recognition- are at risk of being, under Adorno’s perspective, anomalies that serve the purposes of testing not only the system’s own integrity and strength but its own self-legitimating discourses: The more powerful they become, the more they seek to bring existing reality under a single heading, the more they oppress it, and the farther they remove themselves from it. Precisely for this reason, the slightest “deviation” becomes a threat to their basic principle, (…) (Adorno 1981, 256).

Let's put it another way: the essential difference between the insect Gregor Samsa and the zombie is that the first one is just strange, it appears as threatening, but it is not. He demands human treatment, demands care, a care that is sometimes denied, and that will awaken our guilt if we turn our backs on him, because, deep down, we know that Gregor Samsa lives there. It is necessary, therefore, for activating a subversive discourse to devalue the hunger of the zombies, to give back some of their original individuation and to open the door to their essential weakness, their characteristic fragility, as a version of ours. In other words, the mere possibility of coexistence with that one who has returned from death is not contemplated. It may be remembered

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

276

Chapter 12

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

that the “returned” from In the Flesh are pressured socially and politically to cover the ravages of death in their bodies with large amounts of makeup. They are denied in their condition of being, simply, as they are: conscious, different, strange, disturbing… but also subjects of rights. What was a problem of global threat against humanity, becomes a much better-known problem, global, but usually of private action and linked to the exercises of tolerance, inclusion, understanding, forgiveness, friendship and family. Moreover, the option of eliminating those false subjects, who have deviated from the idea of a real subject represented by the living men, is not viable for those others who persist in a humanitarian way, that is, plenty of doubts that relativize both integrity and legitimacy of that system. In this regard, I completely agree with Kim Paffenroth when she confirms that, apparently, zombies are not the only ones who have lost their souls (Paffenroth 2011, 25). Neither the first nor the only option to address the problem should be annihilation of zombies, but the great concern should be not to lose ourselves in barbarism. What is at stake is our humanity, which, like the hunger of zombies, must be denied as a closed and complete idea, and must open to errors: only such a position can alleviate the burden of fear in favor of compassion, piety and fraternity, twisting the aesthetic ambivalence in favor of that which unites us to the zombies. In this sense, I believe that the pragmatic defense of our vulnerability as a specific human value (Marcos, 2016), especially in situations of catastrophe, has to prevail over the closed integrity of the system, which is often integrist. We cannot fall into the fundamentalism of security against the insatiable hunger of zombies, but we have to oppose our ability to doubt, our fund of hope, our reflective force. Their destruction could imply our own dehumanization, as Barbara certifies in the 1990 remake George A. Romero’s: The night of the living dead (Tom Savini): seeing how a group of hanged zombies serves as fun for some drunken bikers, the character played by Patricia Tallman whispers that, in fact, “they're us, we're them and they’re us”. In this regard, the destruction of zombies is something much more serious than breaking a robot, a doll, an automaton: after all, the first one has been, at some point, a human being. Today, it is only partially human, in a distant memory, still in a recognizable quantity –maybe not quality-, but the same quantity that we use to refer a corpse as “the remains of someone”. Unlike our way of handling the remains of a robot or a doll, we always think of someone when we see a zombie. This is the reason why, in The Walking Dead series, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) takes the wallet of a zombie and reads data on the identity card, after taking his viscera to hide his own body odor from the zombies that roam the streets of Atlanta. The purpose is to bring him to the memory of survivors and to restore his lost identity. It must not be fogotten: that is the question. But what

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

277

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

is it that I would not want to forget? Otherwise, what does the annihilation option seek to forget? The last question leads us to another subversive path of the zombie narrative, once devalued the hunger of the monsters. Those who want to forget something, or someone, are often the ones who want or even order to hide something or someone. This is the case, for example, of Creon in Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone. The princess is impelled by tradition, the rites and the gods to bury her brother, Polynices, contravening the decree of Creon. There is a law above the humans to which Antigone is appealing, but above all, there is a debt contracted with her own blood. Creon, on the contrary, only wants to annihilate that one who renounced his Theban status at the very moment when he revolted against the Thebans themselves and, consequently, who became an “unknown other”. I am confident that the savviest Hellenists will not be angry when I suggest that Polynices is in some way revealed as an undead, under this logic –as amusing as it is suggestive-, to the extent that he risks becoming the insistent shadow of a pure unsatisfied impulse “that persists even beyond the grave” (Rutherford 2013, 15), at least for his sister. In fact, the suffering of the corpse is hers. Zizek considers this to be the “basic lesson drawn by Lacan from Antigone and Hamlet” (Zizek 1992, 23). Who are our zombies, those suffering corpses who shout from the silence of death, beyond life, in our memories, devouring our patience, our integrity, our sanity? Who is our Polynices? I suggest that, maybe, they are all those corpses who hope to be compensated, in the lives of their descendants, by means of a dignified burial. For example, in the case of those who were victims of reprisals during and after the Spanish Civil War, whose bodies lie in ditches, in mass graves, in oblivion; they are also all those corpses that appear and, predictably, will continue appearing in the European coasts, evidencing the ineffectiveness of the Union authorities to deal with the refugees movements; they are also all those citizens who believed in democracy and feel that the number of unfulfilled promises (Bobbio, 1984) is excessive and, maybe, (patriot) extremism can be an efficient, useful, quick and comfortable solution to their problems. We can verify that the containment discourse presents three traits for reflection: (1) it defines zombies as “the bad guys” and survivors as “the good ones”, not admitting intermediate characters, in short, half inks, deviations that could undermine the basis of the system; (2) it is woven of great –not good- reasons, absolute solutions, enduring freedoms, infinite justices, in short, punches at the table to the rhythm of the bombs; and (3) it also expresses the clause of forgetting and looking always forward. In these three reasons lies the seductive force of its containment. However, zombies have a special ability to point out that human life is much more complicated than

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

278

Chapter 12

some politicians and prophets –or both- claim to make citizens believe. If it is not possible to live with them, maybe because zombies are ultimately our distorted reflections, our dystopian caricatures: if they resemble us so much, if their mere presence scares us, if their guts and their gaze, melancholically hungry, are so disturbing, it is because they are, in a way, the double of ourselves in our most rotten and abominable facet, one in which it is incredibly easy –here is the charm of the speech of the real subject, of the true hero- to judge others, to realize divisions between friends and enemies, to build quick analysis of reality, usually with the form of a punch on the table, usually beginning with the words: “this can only be done like this”. So zombies are the deforming mirror of one-dimensional societies, economic systems that only look at the beneficial outcome and do not tolerate errors, deviations, problems, burdens… and much less the need to understand, to forgive, to take charge of complex situations, to flee easy solutions: the zombie puts difficulties to an approach of the reality in more than two dimensions. In that sense, the zombie is the ruthless monster that is to come and will be irreversible, and the one-dimensional man is the monster that is already here and lives in each one of us. It is easy, in that sense, to trace in our own lives the small acts of daily cannibalism, driven by a selfish, aimless hunger, based on a will to live blindly and deliberately stupid. There is no more dangerous form of a zombie than that conscious, but ignorant of being. And that is why, to a large extent, the subversive bases that unfold under the umbrella of zombies open an uncomfortable door that opens the need to walk, surrounding the core of this two-dimensional truth, thus opening the deep complexity of human reality when it is seen in perspective. In other words, the fictional figure of the zombie demands the existential confrontation of our most rotten weaknesses, the revelation of our most hidden miseries, the putting on the table of those sources of the uncanny that arise from within ourselves. In conclusion, it reveals that any system that does not care of such structural failures, explicitly recognizing them as irreducible elements of the human norm itself, will end up generating, precisely, zombies. The dystopian zombie is thus a fictional trope on which to build human utopias. The monster is thus the doom that we can reach, but also the salvation in which we can embark. The only way to avoid the coming of the dystopian and absurdly hungry zombie coincides with the need to take charge of those other undead who wait in our memory, in the lost boats at sea, in the closed borders of our countries. In this line, the writer Will McIntosh proposed in 2006 that the only option to save ourselves is to carry our dead on our backs, once they have returned to (our) life, assuming that they are part of our world. In his story, the living dead come to represent heavy burdens on the conscience of the citizens. Any citizen can be the object of one of those dead, as if it were an

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Citizen Dead

279

undesirable mailing, while it cannot be rejected. When the friend of the protagonist learns that they are being followed by a corpse, she does not hesitate to say: “I do not understand. You do not deserve a corpse.” It is indeed a burden. A problem. And it also appears irreversible. But she is wrong: we all deserve it, because, in a specifically Adornian sense, we are all responsible for the functioning of the system. In fact, the system offers him an incredible amount of possibilities for distraction, for divertissement to escape from that concrete, rotten and specific reality, but none seems to satisfy him. The living dead which accompanies us everywhere, devouring our patience every day, is neither more nor less than a powerful figure of our moral conscience in which each member of the privileged world recognizes its share of responsibility for the state of affairs in which world moves on. In other words, McIntosh’s zombie comes to represent the shadow, the nebula, the dense fog made of dead and killed people who die every day unfairly, inappropriately, cruelly, by land and sea, because of wars and genocides, all of them because of resolvable social differences, because of West’s blindness. The hunger of the zombie would be the hunger for justice, charity and solidarity. Maybe consciousness. Or perhaps it is simply the deep fear of awakening our moral conscience in favor of the most disadvantaged. This also means to save, protect, and help those who cannot fend for themselves in the world of the catastrophe… in the catastrophes of the world.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Adorno, T. W. (1983). Notes on Kafka. Prisms. Cambridge, US-MA: The MIT Press. 243-271. Alarcón, T. L. (2007). Hambre de hombre. El acercamiento del terror Americano de los 70 al tabú del canibalismo. Navarro, A. J. (Ed.). American Gothic. El cine de terror USA 1968-1980. San Sebastián: Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror de San Sebastián. 175-185. Bishop, K. W. (2009). Dead Man Still Walking: a critical Investigation into the Rise and Fall… and Rise of zombie Cinema. University of Arizona: UMI Microform. Bishop, K. W. (2010). American Zombie Gothic. The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. Bobbio, N. (1984). Il futuro della democrazia. Torino: Giulio Einaudi. Boluk, S. and Lenz, W. (eds.). Generation Zombie. Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company. Bruce, B. S. (2011). Guess Who’s Going to Be Dinner. Sidney Poitier, Black Militancy, and the Ambivalence of race in Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Moreman, Ch. M. and Rushton, C. J. (Eds.). Race, Oppression and the Zombie. Essays on Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Caribbean Tradition. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. 60-75.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

280

Chapter 12

Cueto, R. (2007). Terrible nuevo mundo. Navarro, A. J. (Eds.). American Gothic. El cine de terror USA 1968-1980. San Sebastián: Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror de San Sebastián. 69-106. Darby, K. (1992). Hollywood Holyland: the Filming and Scoring of The Greatest Story Ever Told. Lanham, US-MD: Scarecrow Press. Dastur, F. (2008). Death. An Essay on Finitude. London, Atlantic Highglands, US-NJ: Athlone. Datta, R. P. and MacDonald, L. (2011). Time for Zombies: Sacrifice and the Structural Phenomenology of Capitalist Futures. Moreman, Ch. M. and Ruston, C. J. (Eds.). Race, Oppression and the Zombie. Essays on CrossCultural Appropriations of the Caribbean Tradition. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. 77-92. Dendle, P. (2001). The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. Fernández Gonzalo, J. (2011). Filosofía zombi. Barcelona: Anagrama. Fernández Valentí, T. (2007) La cuna del horror. Precedentes del gótico americano. Navarro, A. J. (Ed.). American Gothic. El cine de terror USA 19681980. San Sebastián: Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror de San Sebastián. 107-117. Flint, D. (2013). El libro de los muertos vivientes. Los zombis en la cultura pop. Barcelona: Robinbook. Freud, S. (1919). The Uncanny. Strachey, J. (Ed.). The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XVII (1917-1919). An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. 219-253. Gabriel, M. and Zizek, S. (2009). Mythology, Madness and Laughter. Subjectivity in German Idealism. London, New York: Continuum. Graham, B.A. (2011). Post-9/11 Anxieties: Unpredictability and Complacency in the Age of New Terrorism in Dawn of the Dead. Moreman, C. M. and Ruston, C. J. Race, Oppression and the Zombie. Essays on Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Caribbean Tradition. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. 124-138. Harvey, B. A. (2008). Night of the Living Dead. London: British Film Institute. Heidegger, M. (1944). El ser y el tiempo. Madrid: FCE. Lardín, R. (2007). Un vistazo a la serie Z norteamericana. Navarro, A. J. (Ed.). American Gothic. El cine de terror USA 1968-1980. San Sebastián: Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror de San Sebastián. 217-236. Liu, L.H. (2010). The Freudian Robot. Digital Media and the Future of the Unconscious. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Llopis, R. (ed.). (1980). El novísimo Algazife, o, Libro de las postrimerías. Madrid: Hiperión. Lowder, J. (2011). Triumph of The Walking Dead. Dallas, US-TX: BenBella Books. Mahoney, P. (2011). Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Zombie: From Suggestion to Contagion. Boluk, S. and Lenz, W. (Eds.). Generation Zombie. Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company. 113-130.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Citizen Dead

281

Marcos, A. (2016). Vulnerability as a Part of Human Nature. Masferrer, A. and García, E. (Eds.). Human Dignity of the Vulnerable in the Age of Rights. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. McIntosh, S. and Leverette, M. (2008). Zombie Culture. Autopsies of the Living Dead. Lanham, US-MA: Scarecrow Press. McIntosh, S. (2008). The Evolution of the Zombie: The Monster that Keeps Coming Back. Leverette, M. (Ed.). Zombie Culture. Autopsies of the Living Dead. Lanham, US-MA: Scarecrow Press. 1-18. McIntosh, W. (2006). Followed. The Living Dead. Retrieved from http://www.johnjosephadams.com/the-living-dead/free-storiesexcerpts/followed-by-will-mcintosh/ Moody, D.L. The Complexity and Progression of Black Representation in Film and Television. Lanham, US-MA: Lexington Books. 35-44. Moreman, Ch. M. and Rushton, C.J. (2011). Zombies are Us. Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. Moreman, Ch. M. and Rushton, C.J. (2011). Race, Oppression and the Zombie. Essays on Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Caribbean Tradition. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. Moreno Serrano, F. Á. (2011). El monstruo prospectivo: el otro desde la ciencia ficción. Signa. Revista de la Asociación Española de Semiótica 20. 471-495. Mori, M. (2012). The uncanny Valley. (1970). IEEE Spectrum Blog, Jun 12, 2012. 11:36. Retrieved from http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/the-uncannyvalley Navarro, A. J. (2007). American Gothic. El cine de terror USA 1968-1980. San Sebastián: Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror de San Sebastián. Newitz, A. (2006). Pretend We’re Dead. Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture. Durham, London: Duke University Press. del Olmo, A. (2012). El eterno retorno del no-muerto como arquetipo fílmico: una aproximación a la figura del zombie en la cultura popular contemporánea. Tesis Doctoral. Barcelona: Universidad Ramón Llull. Paffenroth, K. (2011). Zombies as Internal Fear or Threat. Boluk, S. and Lenz, W. (Eds.). Generation Zombie. Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company. 18-26. Pérez Ochando, L. (2013). George A. Romero: cuando no quede sitio en el infierno. Madrid: Akal. Pollick, F.E. (2010). In Search of the Uncanny Valley. Daras, P and Mayora, O. (Eds.): UCMedia, 2009, LNICST 40. 69-78. Riley, B. (2011). Zombie People. Lowder, J. Triumph of The Walking Dead. Dallas, US-TX: BenBella Books. 81-98. Rosset, C. (1960). La philosophie tragique. Paris: PUF. Rosset, C. (1976). Lo réél et son double: essai sur l’illusion. Paris: Gallimard. Ruíz Baños, S., Cervera Salinas, V. and Rodríguez Muñoz, A. (1998). El compás de los sentidos (cine y estética). Murcia: Universidad de Murcia. Russell, J. (2007). Book of dead. Surrey, UK-EN: FAB Press.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

282

Chapter 12

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Rutherford, J. (2013). Zombies. London, New York: Routledge. Sanday, P. R. (1986). Divine Hunger. Cannibalism as a Cultural System. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Waller, G. A. (1986). The Living and the Undead: From Stoker’s Dracula to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Urbana, US-IL: University of Illinois Press. Weise, M. J. (2011). How the Zombie Changed Videogames. Moreman, C. M. and Rushton, C. J. (Eds.). Zombies are Us. Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead. Jefferson, US-NC: McFarland and Company, Inc. 151-168. Williams, T. (2003). The Cinema of George A. Romero. Knight of the Living Dead. London: Wallflower Press. Wood, R. (2003). Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan… and Beyond. Expanded and Revised Edition. New York: Columbia University Press. Zizek, S. (1992). Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan Through Popular Culture. Cambridge, London: MIT Press.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

13. Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality: Conspiracy Theory as Critical Technical Practice Alex Gibson University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Leonardo Impett Max Planck Institute for Art History, Italy

Anders Thrue Djurslev University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Alan F. Blackwell

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Abstract In this chapter, we seek to challenge the dominance of science-fiction in technological thought-experiment; arguing that conspiracy-theory, in its confrontation with the political Real, often offers a more critical narrative. We explore parallels between conspiracy and theology - specifically the role of the apocalypse which, like the scientific thought-experiment, sits between fact and fiction. Following Agre’s paradigm of a Critical Technical Practice, we seek to critically examine an advanced technical prototype of The Monster (The Mephistophone): an implementation of the Devil for a technologicallyaugmented production of Goethe’s Faust. We reinterpret the technological Faust as a performative thought-experiment in the cyborg Real, moving from sciencefiction to critical political conspiracy. Finally, we apply our analysis to the two major contemporary monsters of Artificial Intelligence: that robots will take over the world (sci-fi), or that global machine-learning corporations (Google,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

284

Chapter 13

Facebook) are already extracting cognitive rents from the global poor (conspiracy). Keywords: Conspiracy theory, Apocalypse, Critical Technical Practice 13.1 Introduction It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality. (Deleuze and Guattari 1983, 112)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Conspiracy theory, both as a practice and a pejorative label, has historically been instrumentalised most effectively by the political forces of the far right. Whether as anti-governmental resistance or weapon of state ideology, this has led to the current dominant understanding of conspiracy theory as a discourse of paranoia: a combination of collective pathology and malicious manipulation. This conception is symptomatic of a general failure in studies of conspiracy theory to engage with it as a mode of discourse; casting it instead as a monstrous aberration of the acceptable political or social critique propounded by, for example, academia, the media, or fiction. Our analysis seeks to move beyond dismissing seeing conspiratorial discourses simply as corruptions of normative discourse, looking instead towards how they can function as a nexus of alterity, sometimes even as violent and necessary corrections to more conservative discursive forms. Though there have been some significant attempts to redress this issue see, for example, Knight (2000, 2002), Melley (2000), Fenster (1999), and Dean (1998) - the assumption that conspiracy theory belongs exclusively to a fringe, under-educated, paranoid and delusional minority are still a prevalent feature 1 of writing on this topic. Conspiracy becomes not only a pathology but a rhetorical attack: if something can be thought of as belonging to conspiratorial modes of thinking, it must be untrue (Pidgen, 2007). Such denunciations also have a long history of use by powerful groups or individuals to discredit their (often under-privileged) critics. On the most basic level, this attitude directly contradicts the apparently obvious fact that some conspiracy theories have been proven true. Before knowledge of the abuses of MK Ultra, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, or the Hillsborough Disaster was made public, those who raised concerns could

1

The number of people who believe in conspiracy theories is perhaps surprisingly large when polled: for example, around a quarter of British people believe Princess Diana was assassinated, and over 10% believe the moon landing was faked (YouGov, 2012).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

285

easily be dismissed as conspiracy theorists, especially those in positions of relative powerlessness. Dragging ourselves away from the cultural caricature of the conspiracy theorist, we ought to remember how commonplace it has been historically for people to suffer profound abuses of their rights from organisations who can then act to deny or hide evidence. Sometimes such abuses are even justified through the ruling classes’ own conspiracy theories: the 2001 Patriot Act in the US, for instance, was at least in part justified by the suspicion of WMDs in Iraq. This prevalent cultural attitude is also reflected in psychological studies which, while stopping short of treating conspiracy theory as straightforward pathology, view it as the result of a sort of coping mechanism which 2 compensates for lack of control over one’s environment. The implication is that the construction of counter-hegemonic narratives (or, one might go so far as to argue, of any thought-systems which diverge from Enlightenment positivism) reflects an underlying mental deficiency which prevents people 3 from taking a view more in-line with the given consensus. If conspiratorial thinking is a personal, mental deficiency, it is one that operates at the level of the social whole - a problematic if not paradoxical formulation.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

We aim instead towards building a more nuanced conception of conspiracy theory, particularly in terms of how it functions discursively. In particular, we will attempt to explore conspiracy theory as a monstrous discourse whose very alterity enables a sometimes fruitful, often playful, relationship between accusation, metaphor, and critique. Consider the following refrain from rapper Immortal Technique’s song ‘Bin Laden’ (2004): Bin Laden didn't blow up the projects It was you nigga, tell the truth nigga Bush knocked down the towers (tell the truth nigga!) Bush knocked down the towers (tell the truth nigga!) 4

Here, ‘the towers’ are cast as the double-voiced signifier at the heart of the discursive nexus between the immediate struggles of African-Americans in New York (having their homes knocked down) and the broader politicaleconomic systems which work to shape those experiences (the machinations of the military-industrial complex), the latter referenced through a specifically 2

For example, Van Prooijen and Acker (2015), Kay et al (2009), Van Harreveld et al (2014). This perspective perhaps inherits a more general problem of contemporary psychology: the attempt to explain what is a social, communal mode of discursive enquiry and to diagnose it at the level of the individual. 4 A discursive strategy that falls under Gates’ concept of ‘Signifyin(g)’ (1988) in African American discursive cultures, itself based upon DuBoisian notions of double consciousness. 3

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

286

Chapter 13

conspiratorial lens. Whether the towers in question are the world trade centers or the housing projects, the critique rests on the common question of how far an oppressive government would go in using violence against its own people in order to preserve a corrupt political-economic status quo.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Immortal Technique’s use of conspiracy theory in this context points towards the fact that, for African-Americans, as for many other groups, there is little to suggest that they shouldn’t adopt a conspiratorial view of US politics and society at large. It becomes not only useful but necessary to break through the boundaries of what constitutes ‘legitimate’ discourse and critique, boundaries themselves policed by the ruling classes and dominant society. United in their consistent capacity to elicit moral panic and consternation from the US media, the discourses of hip-hop and conspiracy theory are combined by Immortal Technique in a way which embraces their ‘monstrous’ aspects; instead of struggling directly against the ideological constraints set down by dominant culture, Immortal Technique instead embraces the symbolic excess of conspiracy theory to add discursive fuel to an already potent social critique. Conspiracy theory should therefore not be viewed as a straightforward aberration of conventional political discourse, but instead as part of a grouping of varied alternative modes of dissent and critique based upon a justified suspicion towards those in power and skepticism of the narratives they endorse. It is crucial that we look at how this discourse functions as a dispersed but communal expression against what Deleuze and Guattari call, after Goya, “insomniac rationality” (1983, 112), a term we invoke to describe the processes that drive the dominant, neo-liberal narratives used to explain away the fundamental inequalities of society. These well-worn narratives are increasingly found to be insufficient to explain the lived experiences of many and conspiracy theory is just one general mode through which this dissatisfaction is expressed. If rather than the absence of reason, it is the ‘insomniac rationality’ of the dominant society that produces monsters, as Deleuze and Guattari claim, we hope to gain an understanding of how those monsters might be redirected towards uncovering the corrupt political realities of our world; and perhaps even revealing alternatives. Academic treatment of conspiracy theory has hitherto been found wanting in comparison to other cultural discourses involved in the construction of alternative realities: science fiction, in particular, has been studied extensively. We claim that the quality, content, and variety of the approaches taken towards this particular subject can be replicated to some extent in the case of conspiracy theory; and that there are valuable insights to be gained about the subject, its propagators and believers, and the cultures of which they form a part. We seek to both expose and challenge the ubiquity of science fiction in technical and scientific research: particularly in relation to technological thought-experiment.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

287

We propose that conspiracy theory could offer a potentially fruitful - and more politically useful - complement and counterbalance. By way of demonstration, we read both science fiction and conspiracy theory as forms of Critical Technical Practice, assessing their respective ability to in some way ‘try out’ an idea, concept, or worldview behind technical research, and through this process to then provide a form of reflexive and practical critique. Through its playful and metaphorical monstrosity, conspiracy theory has the potential, we claim, to offer a true Critical Technical Practice in the sense that it supersedes the 5 hindsight of hermeneutics, infiltrating the praxis of technical research itself. Whereas science fiction operates almost exclusively in imagining (and 6 generating) ‘spaces of possibility’ for potential futures, conspiracy theory operates by attempting to uncover the supposedly hidden possibilities of the present and the recent past, constructing alternative realities where the dominant or mainstream metanarrative is found lacking. Wild speculation towards the present, then, is not just science fiction in a different tense: it is the prism through which we dissect the ideological ether.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

13.1.1 Conspiracy theory and the political Real In some sense, conspiracy theory is always attempting to fill the void opened up by the discord between hegemonic cultural narratives and lived experience of material inequality and oppression. In order to do this, the theorist will posit alternative narratives designed to counter and undermine the apparently inadequate hegemonic consensus. In doing so, as in forming any kind of symbolic representation, the theorist is brought into confrontation with the Real, if obliquely. As Lacan says, any symbolization makes a ‘cut’ in the Real, projecting differentiation onto that which is entirely undifferentiated in an attempt to make sense of the fundamental and unrepresentable trauma at the heart of an apparently imbalanced society. In his Structural Anthropology (1963), Lévi-Strauss offers an account of the social organisation of a Winnebago tribe community in the USA. After asking residents to draw a map of their village, he receives two types of answer: the first represents the village as a circular arrangement of buildings with a smaller central circle of houses placed concentrically within; the other ignores this 5

By which we mean specifically: cultural criticism of technology long after, and intellectually divorced from, the scientific development of the technology itself. 6 Here we recycle DeLanda’s formulation (2011) on the epistemology of simulation, and not without reason: technical research often starts with a combination of the human (science fiction) and computational (simulation) Imaginary, which Blackwell (2010) has called the ‘Prosthetic Imagination’.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

288

Chapter 13

supposed central circle and instead adds a line which bisects the main circle through the middle. What Lévi-Strauss was witnessing, he theorized, was the emergence of a class-based society, in which the lower-class group saw a clear demarcation between their group of houses and the others, while the higherclass group placed themselves at the natural centre of the larger social whole.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

As Žižek (2006) points out, the Real in this example is not the ‘actual’ or ‘objective’ arrangement of the houses, but the very social trauma that causes the split in the symbolic accounts of the town’s layout. The Real is by (Lacan’s) definition unrepresentable, “that which resists symbolization absolutely” (1991, 66); nevertheless, the Real is also seen in Levi Strauss’ example as being the very driving force behind the revelation of an emergent class struggle - it is the trauma of the Real that inevitably distorts the ‘objective’ arrangement of the village in the minds of its residents. In Žižek’s words, the Real is simultaneously “the Thing which eludes our grasp and the distorting screen which makes us miss the Thing” (2006, 26). But, as we can see, while we might be missing ‘the Thing’, we can instead find something else: in the case of LéviStrauss’ example, the emergence of a class system in the Winnebago village. Thus, by confrontation with the Real via differing symbolic representations, we are able to potentially glean some truth about the material conditions of the system being represented. It is this function, the simultaneous process of distorting and illuminating reality, that we find with such abundance in the world of conspiracy theory, and that might potentially be exploited to provide insights about our form of social organisation at large. Indeed, conspiracy theory is perhaps unique in terms of the apparently endless range of symbolic representations it is wont to generate. It coalesces around the ruptures and contradictions generated by the trauma of the political Real (political matters which are beyond representation) wherever they appear, and will move obsessively through many iterations as it seeks internal coherence; both in terms of offering an adequate explanation of given phenomena and, relatedly, in terms of its ability to propagate itself to other conspiracy theorists and potential believers. From an academic perspective, therefore, it possesses an exceptional opportunity to study the ways in which we come into confrontation with the political Real, and as such, might provide access to a plethora of issues regarding the condition of social organisation and public life. If the Real is that which is beyond signification, the political Real could be said to be that which is beyond legal signification. This specificity arises from the location of the usual subjects of conspiracy theory (politicians, corporations, state institutions) in the public sphere, for which Law acts as the ultimate, formalised big Other. Anecdotally, we can note the tendency of conspiracy theories to coalesce around crimes or injustices for which

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

289

meaningful legal recourse is difficult if not impossible to obtain; whether it be due to inadequacies within the law (as relating to new technologies for example), corporate power in terms of lobbying politicians, or conflicting interests within organs of the state apparatus, and so on. Banking and finance, for example, form a particularly fertile area for conspiracy theorists, and theories about wealthy banking families, the Federal Reserve, and even the design of the US dollar bill are abundant. And while a given conspiracy theory might be completely baseless, it is not hard to see how they would be attractive to those seeking meaning in a world where almost no legal measures resulted from the widespread fraud and corruption unearthed in the 2008 financial crisis. Conspiracy theory, as so often, fills the void opened up by political questions whose answers are unknowable or unrepresentable: how is the global economy controlled? Who is responsible for the crash? How can we avoid this happening again?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In general terms, the notion of the crime of conspiracy is one which spreads blame amongst many and, conversely, would necessitate a cover-up of evergrowing magnitude the more people it involves. The 2008 crisis serves as an example of what happens when the blame is spread so far and to so many that the apprehension of its perpetrators is impossible. This is not only because of the logistical and social difficulty of trying and arresting an entire swathe of (middle- and upper-class) citizens, but also because the mechanism for ignoring an injustice this widespread must be built into the ideological fabric of the society itself; and projected by the hegemonic cultural narratives of the dominant society, of which financiers and bankers form no small part. Although this quality of conspiracy, where there is always the potential for more perpetrators to be involved and implicated, can serve to obfuscate any meaningful justice, it also provides an important structural drive for conspiracy theory. In the search for the truth, the theory can always be expanded, more injustices always unearthed, and more conspirators implicated. Within this open-ended structure, the Truth becomes the petit objet a of the conspiracy theorist - as in the X Files, it is always ‘out there’, but 7 can never quite be grasped. Also crucial to fueling the structural drive of conspiracy theory is its necessary confrontation with the political Real, that which is politically unknowable and unrepresentable. Because the Real will always resist symbolization, the conspiracy theory, as it grows in reach and influence, must 7

And if it does ever appear that the truth has been meaningfully discovered, as could be said to happen at one point in the X Files, this has its own quite strange consequences. This will be explored in detail later in the chapter.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

290

Chapter 13

respond by moving through a huge variety of iterations, each an oblique and inadequate symbolic cut in the Real, eventually landing on the forms and narratives that are the most effective in terms of their propagation in a given historical moment. Accounts of conspiracy theory have conventionally seen this apparently obsessive tendency towards amorphous but totalizing critique 8 as evidence of a distinctly individualised paranoia characteristic of our times. Instead, we would point towards the inherently communal way in which this process must function - necessarily shared amongst a large but disparate group of authors, theorists, and believers - expressing social tensions more than it does individual mental pathology. Fundamentally, this intrinsic tendency towards an iterative and totalizing process of re-theorising means that, as an ideological and discursive tool, conspiracy theory is always-already illegitimate, incomplete, monstrous; the central paradox is that this ineffable quality is not only the source of its discursive subjugation but also its discursive power.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

13.1.2 Constructing the Imaginary, Embracing the Monster In its attempt to confront the horrors of the political Real, conspiracy theory opens up an ideological void at the heart of political power. A plethora of discourses are then sucked into this negative space, where they come to coexist in a chaotic milieu. In the attempt to offer a convincing account of the alleged conspiracy at hand, the conspiracy theory must find a way to organise its multiple (and often divergent) discursive elements into a form that offers some cohesive explanation of the given events; without ever fully resolving the inner tensions from which it is constituted - it must, in other words, come to form a narrative. As a form of symbolic representation, a narrative is considerably more complex than the basic maps Levi Strauss was given at the Great Lakes, and as such it requires a great deal more structural coherence in order to mount a meaningful challenge on the given hegemonic narrative. To do this, i.e. to offer a coherent account or explanation of events at the level of the political Imaginary, the conspiracist must preserve and even amplify those symbolic elements that lend power to the group of pre-existing discourses that are brought together within the conspiracy theory. This over-determination of the Symbolic is, therefore, a necessary component of building a narrative at the level of Imaginary that is sufficiently convincing to contribute towards building a meaningful interrogation of the political Real. This serves to exaggerate the meanings already present in given, usually highly-

8

Hofstadter (1964) and many others since.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

291

charged, constellations of signifiers; and brings with it the burden of that semiotic over-determination. The negative consequences of this are perhaps most clearly visible in the anti-Semitic tropes that are reproduced with such ubiquity throughout so many conspiracy theories, particularly those concerning the financial system and the so-called New World Order, an alleged secret world government epitomising concerns about economic, cultural, and political control. These millennia-old tropes carry both their prejudice and their enduring discursive power into the world of conspiracy theory. The overdetermination of the Symbolic also takes other forms; it can be seen in the enthusiastic analysis of apparently hidden-in-plain-sight symbols which is used to provide evidence for many conspiracy theories, such as the infamous Masonic seal on the US dollar. This overdetermination is a central structural impetus of conspiracy theory, the driving force behind both its creative and destructive capacities.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

To study conspiracy theories, therefore, we must maintain a delicate balance: while being critical of those aspects that reproduce and reinforce reactionary and racist ideologies, we must also avoid this leading to complete rejection and dismissal of the form. Instead, it should be our aim to attempt to channel this ultimately political energy beyond any reactionary tendencies and instead towards exposing the very social conditions that work to produce and maintain them. In order to do this it is necessary to - at a certain level - embrace the monstrous and overdetermined symbolic life of conspiracy theory as something inherent to its structure and the way it functions, just as we propose to embrace conspiracy theory as a cultural and political discourse, itself treated as a monstrous aberration of the ‘legitimate’ critique. Conspiracy theory offers some quite unique characteristics: the inherent critique of hegemonic power, the apparently endless ability to reproduce and adapt itself, and the significant role of grass-roots communal theorising in its production. Within these wild political Imaginaries, we should expect to find monsters. By identifying them within the framework of a reflexive materialist critique, we may begin to redirect the energy congealed within them towards more useful political ends. 13.2 Sci-fi and Conspiracy 13.2.1 Building Utopia: Sci-fi as Critical Theory, Sci-fi as Public Policy Science fiction as a diverse yet cohesive set of cultural discourses, has throughout its history attracted an enthusiastic and variegated critical response; once faced with denigration as a vulgar form of popular culture, it has come to occupy a relatively privileged position, not only in academic circles, but also in its apparently unique potential for influencing scientific practice and public policy. We argue that a similar approach to conspiracy

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

292

Chapter 13

theory, which has a comparative lack of discursive privilege in those same circles, would offer a useful and meaningful counterweight to the treatment of science fiction, in particular in terms of its role as the narrative, technological thought-experiment par excellence.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In academia, the perception that certain disciplines share common goals with science fiction is partly responsible for this elevated position. The discussion of science fiction as critical theory is perhaps most clearly articulated and critiqued by Carl Freedman (2013). Critical theory, defined in the sense of a post-Hegelian mode of dialectical thought, and science fiction are, he claims, each ‘a version of the other.’ Bakhtin, Lukacs, Bloch, even Marx, are all ‘(if implicitly and unconsciously) … major theorists of science fiction,’ and science fiction is in return ‘a privileged generic object for critical theory.’ What is the shared goal that leads to this confluence of interests? “The transformation... of reality into utopia,” (2013, 86) which is, according to Freedman, the central telos of critical theory - a telos which science fiction so often attempts to enact. The parallels in terms of the potential for imagining and critiquing potential futures, utopian and dystopian, are clear. The connection with the sciences is at once more obvious and subject to far less critical scrutiny. Here, we can chart a more direct sort of influence, operating at the level of political power through the policy surrounding science and technology. There is also, of course, the broader ‘soft’ influence science fiction has had on science which, though it is difficult to quantify or track in any detail, necessarily results from a widely-distributed popular form which concerns itself broadly with exploring the possibilities and potential ramifications of new technologies. The more direct kind of influence mentioned above has a long history that cannot be adequately covered here. We can, however, gain some insights about the potential forms taken on by this interaction between science fiction and political policy by looking briefly at a view particular examples. Our first is taken from the very early history of science fiction which, having emerged as a form after the industrial revolution, came to take the technology of rocketry and the related potential for space exploration as one of its key themes. This was, of course, related to the ever-increasing political significance that this technology gained throughout the 20th century, coming to its apotheosis in the events of the Cold War. A brief look at the intertwining roles of science fiction and public policy in the instance of rocketry, therefore, provides a valuable nexus for understanding this strange interdependency. Indeed, this relationship is present from the early years of space-related technology: the then-controversial ideas of the 19th Century Russian cosmists would go on to significantly influence the early science of rocketry despite their utopian fictional writings being banned in the Soviet period (Young,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

293

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

2012). The most prominent example is perhaps Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, widely considered a founding figure in the sciences of rocketry and cosmonautics, but also one of the most notable cosmist philosophers. The science fiction and philosophical writing that grew out of this movement would even go on to have some tangible influence on public policy and planning surrounding science and technology in the Soviet Union; as outlined by Richard Stites (1984) in his essay on Alexander Bogdanov and the origins of Bolshevik science fiction, whose extra-terrestrial utopias would be referenced by political figures involved with the Five Year Plan. This process comes full circle with Tsiolkovsky being consulted in the production of the Zhuralev’s 1936 film Cosmic Voyage (Finney et al., 1997). This brief look at the early history of modern rocketry gives some insight into how science fiction came to occupy its position as the predominant mode of technological thought-experiment, particularly with regard to the 9 imagineering of utopian futures for humankind. We see this tendency still, with two recent popular sci-fi films, Interstellar (2014) and Arrival (2016), treating space-travel and extraterrestrial knowledge as the necessary saviours of mankind in the face of economic scarcity and global political tensions respectively. Both have their respective monsters: the first has ‘blight’, a biological entity better adapted to Earth’s atmosphere that is destroying all consumable crops; the second has an advanced alien species with a sophisticated mode of communication and mysterious intentions. The former situates the monster in the background, merely a context, and the latter is robbed of its terror and instead domesticated by being brought to the foreground (as per Derrida’s typically evocative phrase: “one cannot say: “Here are our monsters,” without immediately turning the monsters into pets” (1989, 80)). In either scenario, however, what is outlined is a ‘space of possibilities’ opened up by technological advances, which are inspired in turn by the appearance of the monster and the related existential threat. To return to the Lacanian mode of analysis, we could say that science fiction is always involved in the construction of an Imaginary. The location of this Imaginary in the future, however, taken with the inherent tendency towards the positivist scientific logic of the genre, means that, unlike with conspiracy theory, it is not necessary to come into confrontation with the political Real in order to achieve a convincing narrative. The teleological bent of the positivist, rationalist mode of enquiry with which science fiction is so fundamentally linked, effectively allows that confrontation to be bypassed. Combined with 9

A term itself that provides further evidence of this general phenomenon: a portmanteau of ‘imagination’ and ‘engineering’.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

294

Chapter 13

the institutionalised discursive prestige now possessed by the genre at large (echoing, of course, the prestige of the ‘hard sciences’ within academia), we would argue that this tends towards a complicity with the discursive monopoly on (empirical) ‘truth’, ‘progress’ and so forth, with a relatedly limited capacity for broader critiques of existing social conditions.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This is not to say that science fiction cannot provide historical insights or social critique. Indeed, we would be inclined to agree with British sci-fi novelist Adam Roberts’ (2013) assertion that ‘alterity is fundamental to SF [scifi]: it is a poetics of otherness and diversity. Even if this is accompanied by a corresponding tendency of sci-fi utopias to reproduce, what he calls, an ‘authoritarian’ potential when ‘transferred into human social relations’, it is important to acknowledge that in general, science fiction can provide important critical insights. Particularly in the area of the social implications of technology, ideology, utopia/dystopia, etc., running from the Russian cosmists up to the present day (indeed, entire journals are dedicated to these topics). What we merely claim is that this capacity for social and material critique is limited structurally by the positivist rationalist logic that usually underpins it. The iconic television show Star Trek provides a useful example for exploring these contradictions. The original series was ground-breaking in terms of its progressive social representation, attracting both plaudits and criticism for featuring an African-American woman as a space officer in the Civil-Rightsera USA. Her kiss with the white Captain Kirk was largely unprecedented when first broadcast in 1968 and remains one of the show’s most memorable 10 scenes. The show is also, however, memorable for its seemingly endless ability to reproduce certain (white) bourgeois social structures throughout its many and ongoing iterations, most notably in the instance of one of the central concepts of the series, the ‘Prime Directive’, a fundamental law which all Starfleet officers must obey. It states that the crew of the exploratory spaceship should never interfere with the planets and living beings they find, and should confine themselves to the scientific observational duties that supposedly motivate their mission. This directive is (of course) broken and discarded more or less every episode, revealing a barely concealed form of neo-colonialism hiding just below the surface of empirical scientific study. Meanwhile, the crew itself is regimented according to an ancient (from the

10 There is some evidence that television executives attempted to alter the scene, either removing it or, interestingly, having Uhura kiss Spock, a half-human half-alien character, which the presumably thought would be more palatable to American audiences. See Star Trek and History by Bernardi (1998) for more.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

295

perspective of the 23rd century) form of military/naval hierarchy, with its captains, first mates and ensigns. The key contradiction is therefore found between the seemingly unavoidable reproduction of reactionary and distinctly colonial formulations on the one hand, and the apparently pluralist, socially-liberal, guiding principle of noninterventionism on the other. Nevertheless, Star Trek is still able, in part, to provide some useful and even innovative critiques thanks in part to its valorisation of otherness, an aspect Roberts claims is central to the poetics of the genre. While this brief example cannot hope to capture the intricacies of this complex issue, which by itself fills many journals, it does point to some of the central strengths and perhaps inevitable limitations of science fiction in relation to its construction of an Imaginary through technological thought experiment. A ‘space of possibilities’ is opened up, and is explored in a mode of jouissance at the endless utopian possibilities before us - an idea distilled into the ‘holodeck’, a room aboard the ship in which anything can be simulated. The boundaries of this space, however, seem to be irrevocably policed by the conditions of a much older and much smaller world.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

13.2.2 No Trees on Flat Earth Conspiracy theory, meanwhile, has a far more fraught path to the construction of a convincing Imaginary, as has previously been explicated. In further contrast with science fiction, it seems to thrive when exploring alternative (nondominant) systems of logic for use as modes of inquiry, and therefore has access to perspectives and problems for which positivist thinking has relatively little to contribute, such as political systems of power and control, as well as how they might be resisted and exposed. To provide an example of how this might work, we will now look at a recent development of the infamous ‘Flat Earth’ conspiracy theory. This theory claims that the earth is not a globe but a flat plane, knowledge of which is covered up by an elaborate and widespread conspiracy involving scientific and state authorities. As with any suppression of popular knowledge, there is a presumption of malevolence, but what form does this take? Or, in other words, what motivates this purported conspiracy? The emergence of a new strand of the Flat Earth conspiracy theory, referred to here as the ‘No Forests’ variant, might provide some answers. In a number of journalistic articles (2016a, 2016b), Sam Kriss provides an interesting account of the way in which the ‘No Forests’ theory seemed to take the Flat Earth online community by storm, inspiring a rapid proliferation of online activity mostly in the form of forum discussions and Youtube videos. This conspiracy theory claims that what we now call forests are in fact a pale and deformed version of an ancient, more unified ecosystem based on gigantic trees that were destroyed by malignant political forces. Evidence for this is there to

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

296

Chapter 13

see, claim its proponents: the geological feature, known as the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, which bears a striking resemblance to an enormous desiccated tree stump, is amongst the most frequently cited. The question, of course, is why? Why would those in power hide the fact that the Earth is flat? And why would they have destroyed the real forests? Scour the extremely varied explanations and accounts posited by the theorists, and there emerges a common soft consensus: the ancient forests formed part of a more unified ecosystem of which we were an integral part, and this was dismantled to better enable our subjugation and exploitation.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Acknowledging that the No Forests theory comes equipped with a relatively pre-determined audience of those already sympathetic to Flat Earth theory, it seems that the attraction posed by the former is primarily a complementary one. It adds strength to the totalizing drive of Flat Earth theory, further explaining how the surface deception of the spherical globe conceals a broader central truth, one that explains the position of exploitation in which so many find themselves confined. The precise form that this exploitation takes is not always clear, but consistent is the idea that oppression is both total and hidden, and conversely that some possible utopia, freedom, or other reality is denied. Important here is the location of the denied utopia in the past rather than the future, and the consequent acknowledgement of the utopian goal as always already having failed. In this, we find a rejection of the mainstream conceptions of progress, history, growth, a rejection that works in tandem with the adoption of an experiential epistemology at the expense of a positivist scientific outlook. When presented with the typical, predominantly neo-liberal political rhetoric surrounding these notions, the No Forest theorists adopt a radical alternative. What is really hidden from us is that the world as such has already ended; the apocalypse has not only happened but has passed us by, leaving us powerless to confront the reality governing our experiences. Concealed behind the vivid excesses of this particular discourse, throughout its highly varied symbolic forms, we find two central assertions that remain fixed: 1) Modern society is dependent on the exploitation and destruction of our ecological environment. 2) We are made complicit in this exploitation by hidden systems of political power and oppression and are thus exploited ourselves. This critique - which might be called Marxist had it come from a different source - is arrived at through an alternative epistemology; reliant on a conception of the supremacy of personal experience (e.g. ‘the horizon looks flat to me’). In direct rejection of what Horkheimer calls ‘instrumental reason’, a

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

297

mode of scientific practice that doesn't just explain reality, but which is put to use in the interest of maintaining the dominant economic and political ideology. It is not difficult to see how this forms an attractive proposition, particularly to those who find themselves in a position of relative exploitation or perceived socio-economic decline. The theory, like so many others, bases itself on the idea that the ‘official’ - i.e. state-sponsored, scientifically-proven, etc. explanation for a set of phenomena does not align with the lived experience of the given individual or community. Instead, it offers an explanation based on the supposed exploitation of the masses by hidden networks of political power. From a Marxist perspective, we would have to say that this analysis seems a useful one; it goes beyond Lyotard’s famous formulation of postmodern thought as the ‘suspicion towards metanarratives’, which several commentators have explicitly linked to the ‘paranoiac social thinking’ associated with conspiratorial 11 theorizing, and demands a critique of power as it exists and operates. We find this even in the world of the flat-earthers, to say nothing of the many conspiracy theories whose relation to ‘politics’ as it is usually conceived is far more explicit and straightforward. The problem, of course, is where the theorists locate this power - we have already discussed the tendency for reactionary and racist ideologies to be reproduced in this setting. We are therefore caught between, on the one hand, the exciting prospect of a counter-hegemonic, grass-roots populism, endlessly grasping for a more authentic explanation of present circumstances than those explanations provided by official sources, and on the other, the risk of simultaneously reproducing and propagating racist, regressive ideologies. Rather than being repelled by the off-putting monstrous excesses inherent to the form, however, we would argue that this fragility necessitates the academic study of conspiracy theory.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

13.2.3 Conspiracy Theory and the Technical Imaginary At the end of one of his articles (2016b), Kriss raises the question of where the ‘no forests’ variant of flat-earth theory leaves us intellectually: ‘the trees are gone forever, and we’re not getting them back; we mourn for them, but the question of what we can possibly do now is unasked and unanswerable.’ Though it is probably correct that we can’t answer the questions posed by Flat Earth conspiracy theories, we can potentially harness the relentless capacity of conspiracy theory to invent and ask new questions. With the tools at our disposal is it not possible that conspiratorial reasoning can be to some extent instrumentalized in the way that Horkheimer claims of mainstream scientific

11

Hofstadter (1964) and Melley (2000) expound this viewpoint, for example.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

298

Chapter 13

logic, but rather than supporting the dominant forces of power, is instead set against them? In doing so, we can open up the spaces of possibility offered by the formation of varied and radical political Imaginaries, but in a way that is closer to home than those conjured within science fiction. Furthermore, we find that our monsters, now with no easy alien externality on which to be projected, instead exist in uncomfortably close proximity. Accepting both the subversive potential and the ideological limitations of science fiction, we suggest that through the elevation of conspiracy theory to a similar status in terms of its role of cultural-discourse as thought-experiment, we can offer a complementary force which deals more directly with critiquing the political power structures of contemporary capitalist society. To do this, we must find a way to harness the tendency of conspiratorial discourse to construct and explore political Imaginaries that address our immediate political situation.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The study of conspiracy theory as it exists presents some unique challenges, however: its very resistance to straightforward commodification means that the discourse is dispersed and diffuse, and tends not to produce the iconic historico-cultural works that metonymically represent science fiction as a discourse in many academic studies. Yet this is not the only sort of approach available: rather than necessarily focussing on hermeneutic or formalist interpretations of conspiracy theories as they exist or have existed, we can consider instead how we might utilize a conspiratorial outlook within the very process of technical research and innovation so fundamentally bound up with shaping our material realities. With this we reverse the usual discursive outlook of science fiction: instead of reflecting on a potential future in order to illuminate the present, we look to alternative explanations of our current moment in order to understand the potentially radical ways in which we might shape the future. 13.3 Critical Technical Practice There is a common conception that scientific/technical researchers prefer to operate in an environment which is hermetically-sealed from the broader currents of history, ideology, and culture, relying solely on the scientific method and empiricism as a timeless guiding philosophy. Instead, we might argue that the most effective technical research necessarily acknowledges historical and cultural specificity. Engineering as a particular discipline and subculture through its constant need to apply scientific knowledge in incommensurable, ‘unmodellable’ situations - takes pride in its open acceptance of methodological

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

299

12

self-criticism. The ideological difference in research-practice stems from the often muddy distinction between invention and discovery: (inventing) a new type of radiocommunications device, (discovering) a new complex crystalline structure in metals. Engineering straddles these two methodologicalepistemological structures uncomfortably; and nowhere is this distinction more ambiguous than in artificial intelligence research. It was within the AI research community that Philip Agre, working through 13 the turn of the 90s, first coined the term Critical Technical Practice (Agre, 1997). Coarsely put, Agre’s call was this: to inseparably combine technical development with critical reflection on its underlying cultural models and assumptions. With artificial intelligence, Agre showed how such a critical practice isn’t just philosophical indulgence, but real technical research: AI necessarily inherits and expands on philosophical systems about intelligence and the mind (1995). The technical difficulties it encounters are often, according to Agre, down to tensions in the underlying philosophical systems (and therefore, we can further assert, due to contradictions between ideological backdrops, hegemonic paradigms, class and economic interests, etc.).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

A technical hermeneutic lies at the heart of Agre’s proposed research methodology for artificial intelligence research. The critical hindsight of hermeneutics alone isn’t enough: critical technical practice isn’t just a call to do more critique of technology. The point is to undertake technical research as critique in itself, and vice versa: critical technical work whose technical elements are themselves informed by a critical understanding of technoideological specificity. Conspiracy necessarily entails a symbiosis of the conception and critique of technology: leading naturally into critical technical practice. Though critical technical practice had its roots in artificial intelligence, it is now more usually referred to in fields that are accustomed to interdisciplinary discourse, such as human-computer interaction and design. How then do most engineering and technology research projects currently situate themselves, in lieu of such a critical understanding? In the words of computer scientist Alan Blackwell: “Many of the things that engineers create are driven by the imagination of science fiction” (Blackwell, 2015). Technical research 12

See, for instance, Henry Petroski’s work on historical cycles of structural failure in bridges and construction (Petroski 1994) 13 An exciting time in artificial intelligence research, when Good Ol’ Fashioned Artificial Intelligence - GOFAI - or rule-based intelligence was being superseded, see e.g. Brooks (1990).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

300

Chapter 13

projects are both conceived and critiqued through unreflected science fictions - equally naïve in their u- or dis-topian caricatures. Here we claim something more precise than the Wildeian notion that life imitates art. Of course, there is no shortage of engineering inventions that are direct replicas of technologies from science fiction works - cell-phones (Star Trek), the diesel-electric submarine (20,000 Leagues), atomic power (The World Set Free) - these ‘creation myths’ loom large in the collective imaginary 14 of the technical research community, but remain a small minority of technical advances and inventions. Rather, the use of science fiction as a technique of narrative, technological thought-experiment - imagining the (utopian) societal use of the technology to be developed - is the first stage of any technical innovation. What if they were to start instead with an untamed, monstrous conspiracy? 13.4 Mephistopheles “Und ich habe, mein Lieber, wieder bei diesem kleinen Geschäft gefunden, dass Missverständnisse und Trägheit vielleicht mehr Irrungen in der Welt machen als List und Bosheit. Wenigstens sind die beiden letzteren gewiss seltener.” And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than malice and wickedness. Over all events, the latter two are of less frequent occurrence. (The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe 1774/2017, 5)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

13.4.1 The Mephistophone In 2014, some of the authors were involved in a research project for monstrous artificial intelligence: to build the devil Mephistopheles from Goethe’s Faust, in collaboration with a production at the Royal Opera House, London. This project was not carried out with conspiracy in mind: but it helped form our understanding of the role of the monster within critical technical practice, leading - eventually - to the ideas laid out in this chapter. It thus proves as a useful, if small, example to see how conspiratorial CTP might work in practice - countering Bernhard Ingham’s reading of Goethe with our own. The project - a collaboration between the departments of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Cambridge - started with the design and 14

There was, for instance, a peak of research interest in transparent gesture-based computer-human interaction after such a device was shown in the 2002 Spielberg film Minority Report.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

301

manufacture of a large robot body, along with associated AI control algorithms, for our theatrical Faustian devil. The Mephistophone’s (unpublished) technical specification starts thus:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The Mephistophone is a mechatronic hybrid, a robot the size of a dowry chest with metal skeleton, acrylic tendons, and a mobile latex skin. In performance and exhibition spaces it can be either a dancer or an orchestra, synthesising movement from sound and vice versa. As an interpretive agent, the "soul of the machine" is supplied by machine intelligence algorithms that learn from experience and observation of human performances. The illusion of autonomy created by this imitation game has caused audiences and co-performers to react as if the machine is possessed - a reaction that led us to christen it the Mephistophone.

Conspiracy theories represent transgressions of the modern order, in which the boundaries of technocracies and technosystems are penetrated by gnostic truths, superseding mundane understanding. Conspiracy tales are a parallel to gothic imagination in which other worlds, faintly apprehended, intrude on our lives at places where reality becomes thin. The “dowry-chest” is a classic trope of the gothic, resonant as the junction site between financial materialism and conjugal flesh. The Mephistophone itself is a robot with “latex skin”, that had proven problematic as an engineering construction. Although the metal and electronic components of the robot had been readily sourced from the usual engineering suppliers, the only place to obtain large sheets of latex rubber was a London retailer of fetish supplies. The team building the robot were forced to confront its implicit sexuality, of the kind that the author of the dowry-chest phrase had previously explored in the metaphors of “jacking in” that appear in the technological neo-gothic of William Gibson and David Cronenburg. What size is a dowry-chest, in any case? Big enough to hide the body of a bride, as suggested in the Legend of the Mistletoe Bough? Any robot carries an element of the uncanny, of things animated that should not be animated, or of bodies that have no soul. They force us to confront the mechanism of our own bodies, and the boundaries of our skin, in an age of boundary-less ‘society’. Such questions of machine sexuality and agency - the ‘illusion of autonomy’ are closely related to the anthropomorphisation of technology, a key distinguisher between ‘artificial intelligence’ and electronic control algorithms, with a long history in musical instruments. How can a violin or a guitar, for instance, be ascribed human and emotional qualities, when a (more ‘intelligent’, from an information-theoretical point of view) MP3 player is given none? The key to ‘mixed-initiative’ interaction with technology - where human and machine are seen to be working together - is not just the cognitive capacity of the machine, but the game of agency between it and the human.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

302

Chapter 13

The monstrous nature of Mephistopheles allowed us to exaggerate - even caricature - two of the most important elements of this co-creation in musical instrument interaction: unpredictability and resistance, two qualities actively avoided by human-computer interaction researchers. The machine soul of the Mephistophone predicted the next move of the human or musician, using the same machine learning algorithms that are often used to extract commercial value from human decisions: suggesting products on Amazon, placing adverts for hotels near an event you’re attending on Facebook. Rather than assisting the musician, however, the machine fights her - physically pushing against the musician’s touch, with a (somewhat disconcerting) degree of unpredictability (Impett et al., 2015). This paradigm for human-machine interaction was applied beyond theatre: for instance, in augmented cognition for exploring and analysing bioacoustic ecological data (Herman et al., 2015). So, a nice thought-experiment in monstrous human-computer interaction but how is this critical technical practice, and how does it relate to conspiracy? From the specification again:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The research questions that we explore through this device are informing the future development of haptic user interfaces and embodied computation. The algorithms that we use are also central to the pressing concerns of "big data". Many researchers want to know how "unstructured" data such as musical experience can be turned into codes for data mining and economic value. 17thcentury music notation is no longer adequate for the mashed-up digital soundscapes of contemporary culture. As machine learning technologies become increasingly valuable through companies like DeepMind and Autonomy, our society is facing urgent questions in relation to whether humans are beneficiary users or subjects of surveillance. Our goal with Mephistophone is to question these dynamics through a technically advanced prototype that demonstrates “mixed-initiative” design, where humans and algorithms together collaborate toward creative and purposeful goals.

Reimagining our machine-learning algorithms as the monster, therefore, had a dual role: a technical contribution, to aid our understanding of anthropomorphised interactions with machines, but also a critical contribution - to question the dynamics of our interactions with the kinds of AI we don’t anthropomorphise. At the heart of this - which we will further explore in the conclusion - lies a conspiracy, or at least the question preceding a conspiracy. What are the real power-dynamics of techno-capitalist machine learning systems and privatised big data? In doing so, the Mephistophone quite consciously adds the Sorcerer’s Apprentice implication to its Faustian context: have we conjured a spell too far? Notions of techno-apocalypse in artificial intelligence often rest on a version of the ‘singularity’, in effect an algorithmic Sorcerer’s Apprentice - wherein we naïvely increase the intelligence and agency of AI, until it explodes out of our

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

303

control. The road to hell, as the saying almost goes, is paved with quite 15 reasonable software-updates. Our claim as conspiracy theorists is, of course, that such a singularity has already happened. How ought we to square such a dramatic claim - we are living in a posttechno-apocalyptic wasteland - with the mundanity and forgetability of everyday life? Curiously, the answer is provided by none other than Mark Zuckerberg (in a comment on trying to recreate a version of Jarvis, the AI assistant from the Iron Man franchise): “That's the thing about AI. It's sort of like magic. We only call things AI that we don't understand yet. Once we understand something, it's just math.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

But if you'd asked someone 30 years ago if a computer system that you could talk to, that could see your friends and let them in, that could learn your listening habits and figure out when to make you toast, if that was intelligent, then most people would have said that would be AI. Now that we know how to do it, it's just math.” (Zuckerberg, 2016)

This is a well-known claim in the Artificial Intelligence research community - the ‘AI effect’. As soon as a difficult challenge of human intellect is solved the story goes - such as Chess, translation, car-driving - if it works, it’s not AI (Phillips, 1999). The very fact that these operations can be performed by a computational machine renders them nothing more than instances of numerical optimisation; any intelligence in the whole process is reassuringly natural, in the efforts of the Engineers. As Rodney Brooks - former director of the MIT AI lab - puts it, “Every time we figure out a piece of it, it stops being magical; we say, 'Oh, that's just a computation'” (Kahn 2002, 72). The more computers are able to replicate human tasks, the further back the line of ‘humanity’ or ‘intelligence’ is drawn, to the extent that ‘artificial intelligence’ is a priori impossible until such a point as the nature of humanity reduced to infinitesimal nothingness. This argument, however imperfect, provides us with an interesting contraimplication. If artificial intelligence can never be said to have arrived, then its associated dystopian scenario (economic/military/labour/sexual) will likewise never be felt. In other words: if we are to believe the Artificial Intelligence researchers, the Singularity (that is, the self-accelerating explosion of artificial intelligence) will never happen, at least as a cultural phenomenon: the technical

15 Of course this Sorcerer's Apprentice legend implies the Faustian twin: let’s accept the degradation of working conditions in the face of Uber, Deliveroo, and the Mechanical Turk, for to do otherwise is to stand in the way of algorithmic progress and scientific inevitability.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

304

Chapter 13

process that underlies it will never be recognised as intelligence, perhaps until it’s too late. Indeed, from this thesis, we derive the useful conspiratorial viewpoint: the singularity has happened, and nobody noticed. Naturally, the overt or covert nature of algorithmic agency - that is, the degree of anthropomorphism in human-computer interaction - is precisely the object of study of the Mephistophone. A compelling example comes from the anthropomorphisation of search-engine big-data intelligence in Alex Garland’s 2015 film Ex Machina, on the production of an (essentially deceitful, malicious) artificially intelligent being in human form. Although it is hardly the main point of the film - only one sentence in a technical debrief of how the robot antihero is built - it is revealed that the intelligence of the monster comes not from revolutionary design, but from the ability of the robot’s maker (a Musk/Zuckerberg West-coast billionaire hacker, who owns the world’s biggest search engine) used to tap in illegally to millions of conversations by secretly activating smartphone microphones. Of course, the smartphone network and the company-owner are the real villains of the film: but it takes a sexy robot with a knife to show us the apocalyptic nature of Googlemail. 13.5 Termination: Narrative and Conspiratorial Apocalypse

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The anthropomorphisation of big data into a robotic humanoid body in Ex Machina is not an entirely new idea. We know it well from the Terminator franchise, where the all-knowing system Skynet, fed by thorough surveillance, is embodied in the iconic android character of the Terminator. In contrast to Ex Machina, the Terminator films do not fail to show its audience the logical conclusion of its computations: the apocalypse. In this section, we will briefly discuss the concept of apocalypse and how it can be used to stress the radical differences between science fiction and conspiracy theory. Confronted with so-called ‘post-apocalyptic’ narratives such as The Terminator, we are asked to reflect upon the end of the world, or rather; the end of world history. The apocalypse of The Terminator is undoubtedly the end of the story of the world, and its prophetic narrative drive is focused towards that very end. No matter what the characters do––or how many films Hollywood produces––the end is inevitable. Even its title suggests and stresses this point: history will be terminated. The Last Man is a robot with an Austrian accent. The apocalypse can be understood as a narrative concept: the end of time is the end of the story, so to speak. No greater catharsis can be reached than in the genre of the apocalyptic narrative, charging the story––or History––with meaning by offering a finite conclusion. Apocalypse, then, is an ancient and fundamental model of storytelling or, in the words of literary critic Frank Kermode, who championed and elaborated on this idea in his book The Sense

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

305

of an Ending (1967), a pattern; a cultural pattern of (narrative) expectation–– and closure. In this scope, commonly associated with Kermode, every ending of every narrative is indeed an apocalypse. Apocalypse enters this position in history as well as fiction. This is obviously evident in its religious use. However, even in the modern division between history and fiction as is seen in the often non-religious apocalyptic narrative schemes of sci-fi, apocalypse gives closure to a narrative expectation of the end of history. Consider Fukuyama’s infamous notion that history ended with the hegemony of liberal democracy, or Marx’ idea of a Final Revolution, placing Utopia in an indeterminable future. Adding an ending to history allows for thorough and logical analysis of the progression leading up to this ending. The sense of an ending adds sense to story and history alike.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This Kermodian, somewhat narratological conception of apocalypse in both fiction and history is pursued in Paul Ricoeur’s elaborate hermeneutic exploration of the relation between time and narrative. Here, the philosophy of history, as outlined by German historian Reinhart Koselleck, entails narrative mediation of time. The progression of time needs to be mediated through common narrative structures––patterns–-in order to be grasped. In other words, the logic of time is the logic of narrative. And as conventional Aristotelian knowledge tells us, every story needs a beginning, a middle, and, crucially, an ending. The apocalypse, the ending of all endings, stands as a prime example of the narrative logic of ‘before and after’. This is what narrative mediation is: an ordering or sequencing of events into a logical and temporal progression. Narrative mediation gives the reader a sense of time. And apocalypse is, in this framework, narrative eschatology par excellence. While this all-encompassing idea of a narrative logic of progression and change through the apocalyptic fixation of a (future) ending fits well into the definitions of science fiction discussed above, we will argue that another understanding of apocalypse is called for in the pursuit of the critical potential of conspiracy theory. Where scifi places the end in a future scenario, be it gloomy or utopian, the apocalypse of the conspiracy has already happened. To understand apocalypse as conspiracy, we need to present two movements. First, the concept of apocalypse has to be retaken from the dominant narrative logic described above. In the formidable Seeing Things Hidden - Apocalypse, Vision, and Totality (1999), Malcolm Bull introduces apocalypse, not as a pattern, but as an erosion of cultural patterns. Apocalyptic texts cannot be confined to the realm of endings, because, as Bull reminds us in his critique of the Kermodian conception, “we are starting and stopping all the time.” (Bull 1999, 84). Apocalypse is, in other words, not the ending we expect; not a fulfilment of a narrative desire; and never the logical conclusion of history. Instead, apocalypse reveals the patterns that structure this very expectation, this

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

306

Chapter 13

very desire of getting to the end––and shatters it. Revelation is indeed the etymological key to understanding apocalypse as a concept as well as the fundamental function of it. As a “lifting of the veil,” the apocalypse reveals the “undifferentiated;” (Bull 1999, 64) the matter that is left out in the differentiation created by any cultural pattern, often construed out of binary pairs of opposition like life and death, man and woman, beginning and end, etc. In the narratological framework that is at play here, apocalypse most importantly dissolves the binary between ‘before’ and ‘after’. Through the reading of a diverse selection of apocalyptic texts, Bull shows that apocalyptic is “dialectical and revolutionary” (Bull 1999, 79). A crucial example here is the enigmatic conception of history in Walter Benjamin’s canonized historico-philosophical theses: rather than ordering history in a coherent narrative like the historicist, the historical materialist, guided by the iconic Angelus Novus, makes the continuum of history explode. Apocalypse is exactly what explodes the ordering of past, present, and future. They all come into one in Benjamin’s dialectical image. Second, this notion of apocalypse needs to be put into play in the conspiratorial critique of contemporary capitalism. As previously pointed to, this entails the idea that the apocalypse has already happened; that monsters already surround us. In the words of theorist Evan Calder Williams:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“The world is already apocalyptic. Just not all at the same time. To be overcome: the notion of apocalypse as evental, the ground-clearing revelatory trauma that immediately founds a new nomos on earth. In its place: combined and uneven apocalypse.” (Williams 2011, 149)

Here, Williams sums up our argument above, introducing a decidedly conspiratorial conception of the apocalypse: not as a conclusive narrative event to come, but as a hidden reality out of time. Combined and uneven apocalypse, a pun off of Trotsky’s idea of combined and uneven development, charges the apocalyptic not as an ultimate conclusion, but as the structures that summons the ultimate conclusion as an expectation. We shall not here give an account of Williams’ concept of salvagepunk which his book articulates, but only point to his manifesto’s understanding of the apocalypse we need: “What we need, then, is an apocalypse. [...] The sense [of apocalypse] we pursue, instead, is the end of a totality, here meaning not the sum of all things but the ordering of those things in a particular historical shape. This end, therefore, is the collapse of a system of “real abstractions” and their real effect, of the intersections and stresses between ideas about the world and how the world is shaped into accordance with those ideas. [...] this doesn’t mean a total destruction but rather a destruction of totalizing structures” (Williams 2011, 5)

Science fiction rests upon a decidedly narrative understanding of the future apocalypse. In contrast, conspiracy theory places the monsters of the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

307

apocalyptic in our midst, past, present, and future. Conspiracy theory considers not the space of possibilities but reveals what structures these spaces––and what they miss. 13.6 Conclusion: Towards a Materialist Conspiracy Theory As we mentioned in our introductory discussion of Immortal Technique, conspiracy theories are not necessarily ideas whose proponents conceive of as straightforwardly true. Rather, they emerge as assemblages of stories, critiques, parables, myths and metaphors, distributed both in meaning and authorship. As such, conspiracy theories engender a kind of polyharmonic epistemology: within which many ontological, semiotic and interpretative (Real, Symbolic and Imaginary) layers overlay and interface.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Conspiracy theory can only exist in a communal sense; its political power and potential exist in its capacity to spread, replicate and evolve, and in doing so, to unite and politicise subjects who might otherwise have remained alienated. Moving away from the idea that the conspiratorial style reflects a 16 and, rather, functions in a paranoia born of extreme individualism necessarily communal way, we might begin to see the foundations for recasting conspiracy theory, as a mode of discourse, from a Marxist perspective - waking up from the ‘vigilant and insomniac rationality’. In doing so, however, it is necessary to acknowledge the fundamental dichotomy of conspiratorial discourse: that although they have the potential to subvert and expose power structures, they also have a tendency to reinforce existing prejudices as a result of the process of the semiotic overdetermination previously explicated as fundamental to their poetics. We might see a parallel here with queer analyses of horror cinema, which often involves the foregrounding of complex, monstrous outsider-subjectivities, contrasted with the bland heterosexual stereotypes often formed by the other characters. Here, the opportunity of expressing identities and ideas that may otherwise have been inexpressible to a mass audience is balanced by the risk of reproducing 17 reactionary tropes such as the ‘predatory homosexual’. However, in the same way, that a heterosexist cultural hegemony engenders the existence of the homosexual cinematic monster, the inadequacy of mainstream public political 16

A good argument for this perspective is made in ‘Agency Panic and the Culture of Conspiracy’ by Melley in Knight ed. (2002: 61), in which he claims that “conspiratorial views function less as a defense of some clear political position than as a defense of individualism, abstractly conceived". 17 Benshoff’s essay ‘The Monster and the Homosexual’ in Benshoff and Griffin (2004) provides a good introduction to these ideas.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

308

Chapter 13

discourse engenders its own monstrous Other: conspiracy theory. From the perspective of the Academy, ignoring these monsters comes with significant risks, namely of surrendering their significant symbolic and discursive power to distinctly reactionary interpretations, wasting their latent radical potential. One such method of harnessing this potential and navigating this dichotomy, as we have suggested, is to use conspiratorial discourses as part of a critical approach to technical practice. The closest we can get to exploring a Critical Technical Practice without introducing technical research, however, is to present a conspiratorial technological thought-experiment. Let’s return to the problem of the Mephistophone (and of Terminator, Ex Machina...): are we to fear Big Data and Artificial Intelligence through the spectre of malign superintelligent militaristic beings, or through (incremental) algorithmic invasions of our economic and social structures? Should society find the 18 algorithms of Boston Dynamics or Booking.com more terrifying?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

A common fear of artificial intelligence is that of human redundancy in the face of intelligent automation - found everywhere in science fiction from The Matrix (1999) to WALL-E (2008). Mass media headlines carry similarly apocalyptical science-fictional overtones: “AI and robots threaten to unleash mass unemployment” (Cookson, 2016). The conspiracy theorist sees - with their post-apocalyptic critique - that AI and robotisation have already devastated the labour-market, as does the taxi-driver, hotelier, travel agent, logistics worker, and any other member of the industries ‘disrupted’ by Californian cyberliberal interventions. Of course, the economic effects of such algorithmic interventions are accompanied by cultural consequences of equal seriousness. Google’s profits come from advertising around free services, built on the intellectual content of others: a parasitic cognitive rent of the General Intellect (Pasquinelli, 2009). In doing so, it goes so far as to commodify not only language but linguistic expression itself, leading to Orwellian warps and simplifications of language and semiotic interaction (Kaplan, 2014). The political urge to accept these (essentially neoliberal) capital-algorithmic structures uncritically (in apartment renting, taxi driving, currency exchange and banking, unregulated and unprotected manual labour) as an inevitable part of the post-internet economy is itself an instance of our dual Goethian fallacy. As some new technical interventions have lead to disruptions in

18

A robotics company, acquired by Google in 2013, that has made several military prototypes that wouldn’t seem out of place in a low-budget robo-apocalyptic science fiction film.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

309

established models of social democracy, so (say the technocrats) must social democracy be disrupted in order to facilitate scientific and technical development.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The Mephistophone’s response to this brings the monstrous to the surface in freeing the monster from the chains of insomniac rationality, bringing it into the realm of the playful, we technologically exploit the cybernetic Otherness of the machine. As we have previously discussed, the robot’s Otherness operates at the level of sexuality: a queer monster. It also has, however, a kind of cybernetic Otherness; an unconcealed inhumanness, in form ( a dowry-chest) and functioning (its mechanisms visible through its transparent sides). These Othernesses bring about, within both a theatrical and a human-computer interaction context, a Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt (estrangement-effect): rendering the critical intervention both conspicuous and uncomfortable - a phenomenon strongly at play in Immortal Technique’s uncomfortable reading of 9/11. In other words, the form of the monstrous is liberated from the chains of insomniac rationality, released instead onto the emancipatory estrangement-potential of Critical Technical Practice - the parallel technical and critical truth-status of such a transformation reflecting the polyharmonic epistemology of conspiracy theory itself. The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election saw an explosion in the public awareness of the techno- commodification of expression. As well as the phenomena of ‘fake news’, ‘social media echo-chamber’ and ‘twitter diplomacy’ that loom large in the contemporary popular imagination, this restriction-commodification of language aids the algorithmic forecasting, targeting and manipulation of the individual as both consumer and elector. In particular, the transplantation of technologies developed for consumerist optimisation (targeted advertising, cross-referenced social big data, recommender systems, behavioral prediction) into the domain of bourgeois-democratic manipulation put the algorithm in charge of state power - without the bother of a superintelligent killer-robot. We don’t need to wait for the ‘singularity’ to hand over democracy to the algorithms, says the conspiracist: we already have. In recognising that an adequate understanding of the social consequences of current technological developments requires to some extent a conspiratorial, or at least radically pessimistic outlook, we are in essence working towards the oxymoronic formulation of a Materialist Conspiracy Theory. Conspiracy theory, in general, tends towards positing a critique based on the notion of a totalizing force that manipulates political, economic, and social power in such a way that reproduces itself by the exploitation of the masses. A materialist conception of history furnishes us with a better name for this totalising force than those who would seek to blame, instead, a racialized Other - its name, of course, is Capital. Marx himself is everywhere seeing monsters as he arrives at his critique of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

310

Chapter 13

political economy, defining capital as ‘dead labour’, extracted and congealed into a powerful, zombified force which seeks to control and consume the living. Lesser known are Marx’s own forays into out-right conspiracy theory, such as his sensationalist 1853 tract accusing British politician Lord Palmerston of being a Russian spy. There is again an element of Verfremdungseffekt in both of these otherwise divergent texts, which, amongst other things, serve to purposefully heighten the feeling of alienation in the reader towards explicitly political (and liberatory) ends. A century and a half later, the task of exposing and properly analysing the ways in which we are oppressed has increased in both its immediate importance and its technical complexity. A solution, we suggest, to keeping up with the Zuckerbergs, is to adapt and instrumentalise conspiratorial modes of thinking in a way that serves to infiltrate and transform technical practice itself, and as such radically alter the trajectory of our material conditions and political realities.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Agre, P. (1995). The Soul Gained and Lost: Artificial Intelligence as a Philosophical Project. Stanford Humanities Review 4(2). 1-19. Agre, P. (1997). Toward a critical technical practice: Lessons learned in trying to reform AI. Bowker, G. C. (Ed.). Social Science, Technical Systems and Cooperative Work: Beyond the Great Divide. New Jersey: Erlbaum. Benshoff, H. (2004). The Monster and the Homosexual. Benshoff, H. and Griffin, S. (Eds.). Queer Cinema: The Film Reader. Abingdon: Routledge. Bernardi, D. L. (1998). Star Trek and History: race-ing toward a white future. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Blackwell, A. F. (2010). When systemizers meet empathizers: universalism and the prosthetic imagination. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 35(3-4). 387-403. Blackwell. (2015). Inside the Sexy Robot. Lecture given at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, March 2015. Retrieved from https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/ra-schools-springsymposium#alan-blackwell Brooks, R. A. (1990). Elephants don’t play chess. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 6(1). 3-15 Bull, M. (1999). Seeing Things Hidden: Apocalypse, Vision, and Totality. New York: Verso. Cookson, C. (2016). February 14. AI and robots threaten to unleash mass unemployment, scientists warn. Financial Times. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/063c1176-d29a-11e5-969e-9d801cf5e15b Dean, J. (1998). Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace. New York: Cornell University Press DeLanda, M. (2011). Philosophy and Simulation: The Emergence of Synthetic Reason. London: Continuum

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Waking the Monsters of Insomniac Rationality

311

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, J. (1989). Some Statements and Truisms about Neologisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and other small Seismisms. The States of Theory. Carroll, D. (Ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. 63-94. Fenster, M. (1999). Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Finney, B., Lytkin, V. and Alepko, L. (1997). Tsiolkovsky’s Album of Space Voyages: Visions of a Space Theorist Turned Film Consultant. American Astronautical Society History Series 26. 3-16. Freedman, C. (2013). Critical Theory and Science Fiction. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Goethe, J. W. v. (2017) [originally 1774].The Sorrows of Young Werther (English German Edition, illustrated). Paris: Clap Publishing. Herman, I. et al. (2015). Augmenting Bioacoustic Cognition with Tangible User Interfaces. International Conference on Augmented Cognition. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Hofstadter, R. (1964). The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Harper’s Magazine, November. Impett, L. et al. (2015). Musician Fantasies of Dialectical Interaction: MixedInitiative Interaction and the Open Work. International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Kahn, J. (2002). It's Alive. Wired Magazine (10), 1st March. 72-77. Kaplan, F. (2014). Linguistic capitalism and algorithmic mediation. Representations 127(1). 57-63. Kermode, F. (2000) [originally 1967]. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction with a New Epilogue. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Kay, A. C., Whitson, J. A., Gaucher, D. and Galinsky, A. D. (2009). Compensatory control: Achieving order through the mind, our institutions, and the heavens. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(5). 264-268. Knight, P., 2000. Conspiracy Culture: From Kennedy to the X-Files. New York: Routledge. Knight, P. (2002). Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America. New York: NYU Press. Koselleck, R. (1996). Remarks on the History of the Concept of Crisis. Lilly, R. (Ed.). The Ancients and the Moderns. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 148-158. Kriss, S. (2016a). My Journey to the Center of the Flat Earth Conspiracy Theory. Vice, 5th February. Retrieved 17-02-2016 from https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/zngdg3/the-earth-is-flat-sam-kriss. Kriss, S. (2016b). Flat-Earthers Have a Wild New Theory About Forests. The Atlantic, 9th September. Retrieved 10-09-2016 from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/flat-earthtruthers/499322/ Lacan, J. (1991). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book I: Freud’s Papers on Technique 1953-1954. London: W. W. Norton. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1963). Structural anthropology. Vol. 1. New York: Basic Books.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

312

Chapter 13

Marx, K. (1887). Das Kapital. Vol. 1. Retrieved 13-11/16-08-2017 from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm Marx, K. (1899). The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston. London: S. Sonnenschein. Melley, T. (2000). Empire of Conspiracy: The culture of paranoia in postwar America. New York: Cornell University Press. Melley, T. (2002). Agency panic and the culture of conspiracy. Knight, P. (Ed.). Conspiracy nation: The politics of paranoia in postwar America. 57-81. Pasquinelli, M. (2009). Google’s PageRank algorithm: A diagram of cognitive capitalism and the rentier of the common intellect. Deep search: the Politics of Search beyond Google. Innsbruck: Studien Verlag. 152-162. Petroski, H. (1994). Design paradigms: Case histories of error and judgment in engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pidgen, C. (2007). Conspiracy theories and conventional wisdom. Episteme, 4(2). 219-232. Phillips, E. M. (1999). If it works, It’s not AI: A commercial look at artificial intelligence startups. Doctoral dissertation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Roberts, A. (2013). War of the Worlds: Who owns the soul of science fiction? The Guardian, 8th April. Van Harreveld, F., Rutjens, B. T., Schneider, I. K., Nohlen, H. U. and Keskinis, K. (2014). In doubt and disorderly: Ambivalence promotes compensatory perceptions of order. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(4). 1666. Stites, R. (1984). Introduction. Bogdanov, A. (Ed.). Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia. Indiana University Press. 15-16. Prooijen, J. W. and Acker, M. (2015). The influence of control on belief in conspiracy theories: Conceptual and applied extensions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 29(5). 753-761. Williams, E. C. (2011). Combined and Uneven Apocalypse: Luciferian Marxism. Alresford: John Hunt Publishing. YouGov Poll. June 2012. Retrieved 03-03-2017, 19:00 from YouGov.com. http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/pzr1fuzydn/YGArchives-Life-YG-Conspiracies-040712.pdf Young, G. M. (2012). The Russian cosmists: The esoteric futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and his followers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Žižek, S. (2006). The Parallax View. Cambridge: MIT Press. Zuckerberg, M. (2016). Building Jarvis. Facebook note. Retrieved 21-12-2016, 20:00 from https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/buildingjarvis/10154361492931634/

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

14. A Wonderful Kind of Monster: the Likeable Monster Stefanie Steinhart University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract 'Likeable monsters' are mentioned in studies, but not developed in detail, though they are a very specific shape of the modern narrative arrangement. The contribution will sketch, based on the TV-shows Mutant X and Pushing Daisies, that the 'likeable monster' is another type of monster, a narrative tool that allows to exceed the uncanny type of monster. It will consult Goffman’s theory on stigmatization to track the ways 'likeable monsters' are stigmatized and Marcuse’s theory on the One-Dimensional society for the way they are integrated, utilized and normalized by society at the same time. The essay will also draft which fears these two TV-shows produce in monsters - not being accepted and loved 'for who they are' - and humans - monsters as uncanny, unexplainable threats -. It will also outline oppositional possibilities, strategies and resistance of ‘likeable monsters’, based on Goffman’s and Marcuse’s theories. The chapter will sketch that this type of monster wishes and hopes to be loved for who it is, no matter how (much) it defies standards, norms, ideals, not having to hide, to disguise for what it is. In this context, it will outline trust and distrust dynamics between 'likeable monsters' and fellow-monsters but also 'likeable monsters' and humans. Mutant X and Pushing Daisies raise hope for the possibility of a better future society of diversities, differences and tolerance, without guarantees though. 'Likeable monsters' create on the one hand deeply human fears, hopes and wishes, but on the other hand they are characters especially people who feel abnormal, not fitting in, in any way can relate to. Keywords: Likeable monsters, containment/subversion-dynamics, TV-shows, Mutant X, Pushing Daisies

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

314

Chapter 14

14.1 Introduction Mason Eckhart: “[...] while you chase your horrific dreams of rescuing these laboratory mistakes, my passion is in the service of humanity.” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 35:10 – 35:15) Adam Kane: “A grim and limited vision of humanity, defined by your narrow mind and your pathetic perspective.” (ibid., 35:15 – 35:21)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Previous aesthetically oriented studies sketch monsters in a very classical manner as more or less uncanny hybrid-beings, which defy the (given) ‘natural order of things’. Monsters blur culturally and socially established categories (Freud, 1955) and, most of the time, have to be contained or even killed (Carroll, 1990). Existing research deals with monsters mostly as ugly and dangerous threats to human society. If it mentions likeable monsters at all, then it doesn’t present them as ‘real’ monsters and dismisses them thus not worthy of further investigation (Toggweiler, 2013). Studies usually analyze monsters in a one-dimensional way by emphasizing only the aforementioned aspects of ugliness and danger. Research like this indicates on the one hand that art is able to criticize societies, but on the other hand, it narrows the legitimate perspective on monsters to one adequate mode and dismisses the possibility that monsters can have various forms. It robs likeable monsters of their ability to be understood as symbols of diversity. The aim of my chapter is to show that there is another type of monster than the uncanny one and hence another way of looking at and understanding monsters too; my essay is supposed to be an addition to the existing research. I do not consider my chapter a permanent result. There’s no fixed guarantee, but it might be a part of further scientific development on the topic of the monstrous. I want to show that the figure of the monster has developed beyond the type of the one-dimensional uncanny monster. Narratives like Pushing Daisies and Mutant X don’t work the way the aforementioned classical theories determine but shape monsters in other ways. They are told from the perspective of likeable monsters, like in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and J. R. R. Tolkien’s work. Likeable monsters exceed the classical portrayal of monsters by incorporating the ways monsters look back at the actual human society. Modern aesthetic theories link particular forms or narrative structures with specific ways to criticize social orders (Kayser 1981, Esslin 2004 or in particular on Tolkien: Curry 2004). J. R. R. Tolkien acknowledges a connection between mythical monster narratives and social criticism. He notes that classical mythology shows ‘man at war with the hostile world’ (Tolkien 2006a, 18). In these narratives, monsters symbolize chaos and unreason, which win (Tolkien 2006a, 21). J. R. R. Tolkien acknowledges that these classical forms are no longer possible because modern art is supposed to seek new forms to

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

315

question modern industrial societies. (Tolkien 2006b, 109) This second group of aesthetical theories indicates that art can show and criticize society the very particular way it is. Hence art becomes specific criticism. The various forms of this other, more-dimensional kind of modern monster narrative reveal the relationship between subject and society. Likeable monsters symbolize the divergent subjects. Contemporary narratives reveal the cruel mechanisms of society, trying to force monsters to behave well. But monsters react to these attempts in subversive ways. This implies that if you want to analyze the form of a work of art you need an appropriate theory about society as it is. This is the reason why modern aesthetics consider classical art theories no longer suitable: the organization and ideals of modern societies differ from classically ancient ones. Following J. R. R. Tolkien’s hint that form is supposed to criticize a particular social system, my study will show that likeable monsters serve a critical function towards one-dimensional society, as it is, by not just reducing monsters to uncanny threats which must be contained or even killed. Likeable monsters are particular subjects. Michel Foucault suggests that subjects are always embedded in specific social power structures. (Foucault 2000, 326) In order to sketch shapes of likeable monsters, my essay brings up the following interrelated questions: 1.) How do Mutant X and Pushing Daisies create likeable monsters? Likeable monsters are a specific form of the subject. Hence they are linked to a particular form of society. Michel Foucault suggests that in order to understand a specific form of subjectivity you have to consider the power structure in which it is embedded. Following his ideas on how to analyze power my essay will also consider:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“How is power exercised?“ (Foucault 2000, 336)

That means observing systems of differentiations, the types of objectives, instrumental modes of power to discipline subjects, making them more and more obedient, forms of institutionalization, the degrees of rationalization (Foucault 2000, 344f ). The question: “What constitutes the specific nature of power?” (Foucault 2000, 340)

implies also broaching the issues of actions and reactions or responses (Foucault 2000, 340). Considering that my first question leads to another question: 2.) Which relations do likeable monsters have to society? That means bringing up: In which social and power relations do likeable monsters live? Do the monsters change these structures? If yes, how? To sketch the power relations and the subversion containment dynamics of Mutant X and Pushing Daisies in an accurate way, I will consult Herbert Marcuse’s study about one-dimensional societies on the one hand. It brings up the tensions in the modern relationship between society and subject. His theory enables me to raise questions about how society deals with the disobedience of likeable monsters and how the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

316

Chapter 14

monsters try to fight back and try to subvert society’s standards and its structure. Basically, Herbert Marcuse’s study is an application and extension of raising the questions which Michel Foucault considered important in order to understand the modern subject and hence of likeable monsters. Herbert Marcuse’s book enables me to tie the form of the likeable monster with its social context and to develop some kind of understanding of this particular kind of monster. In order to deepen this I will also draw on Erving Goffman’s theory on Stigma because it deals with specific mechanisms in which society turns deviant subjects into monsters and how the monsters handle their stigmas. In this regard Erving Goffman’s study serves me as an extension of Herbert Marcuse’s analysis in order to bring up of some aspects which Herbert Marcuse doesn’t discuss in-depth but which are constituent elements of the form of likeable monsters. Examining power mechanisms means to consider the formerly private inside of the subject. Industry and society control, govern and administer the subject as a whole, even its wishes, fears and hopes. TV shows have the ability to show this invasion of privacy and at the same time exceed it in a utopian way. So, in order to trace the multi-layered form of the likeable monster on a deeper level and trying to develop an understanding how narratives constructing likeable monsters deviate from and even exceed those of onedimensional, uncanny monsters implicates my essay brings up the question: 3.) Which hopes, fears and wishes do these TV shows produce?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

14.2 Likeable monsters and their gifts in Pushing Daisies and Mutant X Both TV shows sketch the deviations of the monstrous characters as something you can’t see right up front, only when they use their abilities. Ned in Pushing Daisies appears on the one hand to be a tall, attractive young man, but on the other hand he is not a mundane human because: “[...] Ned could touch dead things and bring them back to life.” (Pushing Daisies, Pie-lette, S01E01, 01:32 – 01:37) His childhood sweetheart Chuck seems to be a beautiful woman, partial to wearing brightly coloured retro-outfits reminiscent of the fashion style of the fifties that emphasize her femininity but in actuality, Chuck is a zombie-like, ‘alive again’ creature, due to the fact that after she got killed, Ned brought her back to life with his magic touch. Team Mutant X consists of: Shalimar Fox, who seems to be a sexy blond young woman who likes revealing clothing, but is a Feral Feline who has enhanced hearing, touch, smell, sight and is very athletic and strong, so she can attack ‘like a tiger’ (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01, 09:58 – 10:00); Emma deLauro, who seems to be a pretty sometimes brunette, sometimes redheaded shy young woman but is a Psionic (Mutant X, Dark Star Rising, S01E10) with a tele-empathic gift, which means she can sense feelings of others and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

317

influence them (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01); Brennan Mulwray, who seems to be a tall, muscular, dark-haired, attractive, bold young man but is an Electric Elemental (Mutant X, Dark Star Rising, S01E10), who can produce electricity in his body and throw electric sparks (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01) called Tesla Coils in the series, and also learns to use his gift to fly (Mutant X, A Breed Apart, S01E22); and Jesse Kilmartin, who at first sight is an attractive, blond, sensitive young man, yet turns out to be a Molecular who can alter the density of his body enabling him “to go from intangible to massive at will” (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01, 10:02 – 10:04).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

14.3 About social relations of likeable monsters The narrative structures of Pushing Daisies and Mutant X embed monsters in specific societal relations. First of all, they have specific bonds with their families. Likeable Monsters share traumatic experiences with their bloodrelated families. Most of the time, their families can’t handle their gifts and abandon the monsters in one way or another. In Mutant X, Shalimar was even put in a psych ward by her father because of her abilities (Mutant X, Lest He Become, S02E22); Emma’s parents were way too ‘flaky’ to even notice what was going on with her (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02) and Jesse’s father was too caught up in his job as a covert operative, but is at least proud of his son in the present (Mutant X, Blood Ties, S01E13). Brennan’s biological father died in Vietnam, so he never knew him (Mutant X, No Man Left Behind, S02E06). He had a stepfather but didn’t get along with him well. (Mutant X, Within These Walls, S02E13) The audience doesn’t get to know anything about Brennan’s mother, but him saying that he was “raised on the streets” (Mutant X, Once Around, S02E16, 41:16 - 41:18) suggests that she has been as an absent mother, quite likely due to poverty. When Ned in Pushing Daisies revived his mother, with his magic touch, his childhood sweetheart’s father died as a consequence, because if the revived person stays alive longer than one minute, another life is taken. In the end, Ned learned the hard way that he is not allowed to touch the ‘alive again’ creature again to stay alive – his mother died forever when she gave him a goodnight kiss (Pushing Daisies, Pie-lette, S01E01, 03:00 – 05:00). Ned’s father put him in a boarding school after his wife’s death and abandoned the boy there. His father promised he’d come back, but never did (ibid., 05:07 – 05:15 and Dummy, S01E02, 00:52 – 01:30). Being treated this way even as a kid awakens the traumatic fear in monsters not to be loved and accepted the way you are by your own family, but it also awakens in the family an uncanny feeling towards monsters and implies fears of their gifts in monsters themselves.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

318

Chapter 14

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

On the second level Pushing Daisies and Mutant X draw specific relations between likeable monsters and humans as well as likeable monsters and fellow monsters. Both TV shows embed monsters in a specific verbal structure, so when other characters talk about monsters, they use language in a certain way. In Mutant X, Mister (Mason) Eckhart, the power-hungry leader figure of season one (and recurring character in seasons two and three) and his employees, mutants working for his company called Genomex, call mutants names like “anomalies” (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01, 24:37 – 24:38), “freaks” (ibid., 30:48 – 30:50), ‘demons’ (ibid., 22:50 – 22:51), “laboratory mistakes” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 35:11 – 35:12), “monstrosities” (Mutant X, The Meaning of Death, S01E06, 12:57 – 12:58), “aberrant loose cannons [...] wreaking havoc” (Mutant X, ibid., 05:00 – 05:03) and “abominations” (Mutant X, Cirque Des Merveilles, S03E21, 27:21 – 27:22). In Pushing Daisies, Emerson uses the nickname “Dead Girl” (Pushing Daisies, Dummy, S01E02, 07:17 on) for Chuck, who he dislikes. By labelling them with terms like that, other characters create likeable monsters as inhuman ‘others’, as deviations of the human norm, as beings at the bottom of the hierarchical structure. These ascriptions and their specific use create what Erving Goffman calls stigmas: discrediting attributes; though not the attributes, but relationships are important. A stigma can stigmatize one subject and can, on the other hand, confirm the usualness of another. (Goffman 1990, 13) The terms are used in specific ways to create a hierarchy, in which monsters are ascribed to a position on a lower level than humans. This kind of language devalues monsters, stigmatizes them as others, as less worthy or even unworthy deviations from the human norm. Both series stigmatize likeable monsters by certain patterns of behavior as well – on a third level. Mister Eckhart and his employees treat the mutants in specific ways: They literally catch and cage mutants (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 26:28 – 36:08) like wild animals. Throughout the course of the series, in almost every episode, Team Mutant X is busy freeing a mutant caught by Genomex or other enemies. Mister Eckhart regards mutants as valuable only as far as he can utilize them for his own goals; for his (personal) agenda. He treats them in very brutal and raw ways. Mister Eckhart and Genomex compel mutants physically to be obedient by using ‘subdermal governors’. Subdermal governors are devices connected with the DNA of mutants, enabling Mister Eckhart and Genomex to discipline them, to punish irregular behavior by causing physical pain: “It connects us directly with your DNA so that whenever you use your abilities without our approval, the pain is debilitating.” (ibid., 10:55 – 11:05)

In short, these devices work like electronic dog collars for mutants. A lot of mutants are put in line by that tool. By implanting a subdermal governor in

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

319

Brennan, causing him tremendous pain and threatening him with ‘jolts’ to keep him in line from time to time, Mister Eckhart and especially his employee Mister Thorne force Brennan into working for Genomex temporarily (ibid.). If Mister Eckhart can’t discipline, control and use mutants the way he wants by subdermal governors, these mutants are put in a kind of coma and used for scientific research aimed at improving the human DNA structure (Mutant X, Fool for Love, S01E04, Dark Star Rising, S01E10 and Blood Ties, S01E13). Sometimes they even get killed if they fail the tasks he assigns to them (Mutant X, The Meaning of Death, S01E06). The brute ways in which Mister Eckhart treats mutants show two traits of modern industrial societies: his ways to use mutants, even if they’re disobedient, as ’lab rats’ show the hegemonic inhumane, cold and brutal utility thinking. The increasingly efficient use of resources results in exploitation of resources (Marcuse 2002, 19). The colonial gesture of the domination of nature here becomes the efficient domination of subjects. By creating these relations between Mister Eckhart and the mutants, Mutant X also uncovers that the objective nature of things is a result of domination (Marcuse 2002, 147). Modern industrial societies use science as a form of domination. It should be considered, though, that the domination grasps even the physical level. Mister Eckhart and Mister Thorne dominate Brennan physically with the subdermal governor. Physical violence is done by Genomex to Brennan before that as well: when he tries to flee from the Genomex headquarters, he first gets into a couple of fights with Mister Eckhart’s employees and then gets beaten up by Mister Thorne. (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 01:26 – 05:44) Usually, modern industrial societies camouflage their brutal mechanisms, but Mutant X reveals that even raw physical violence serves Mister Eckhart to manipulate what mutants, other subjects in modern industrial societies, desire (Marcuse 2002, 45): he tries to make them want to be obedient, to want to be dominated and the place that he ascribes them. The ways likeable monsters are treated by their families and society, in general, are traumatizing to such a degree that it influences the social behavior of monsters. First of all, they don’t tell others about their gifts. They keep their abilities secret. Brennan, for example, says: “I found out I could throw off sparks when I was a kid. Kinda kept it to myself, though. You know, being that ... that different was just asking for a world of hurt. Just always felt like ... a freak.” (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01, 34:26 – 34:37)

With Mutant X, you have to take into consideration that humanity doesn’t even know that mutants exist, as the intro of the second season tells the audience (Mutant X, Past as Prologue, S02E01, 03:49 – 04:04). In Pushing Daisies, Ned tried to make friends as a kid using his powers, but he got rejected by the others and stopped trying (Pushing Daisies, Robbing Hood,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

320

Chapter 14

S02E07, 01:36 – 03:26 and Comfort Food, S02E08, 00:10 – 01:40). When Ned is grown up, Emerson Cod is the “sole keeper of the Pie Maker’s secret” only because he accidentally sees Ned’s “magic touch” (Pushing Daisies, Pie-lette, S01E01, 06:40 – 07:25). According to Dauphin, this shows that Ned considers integrating himself into a community way too scary because of the concurrent risk of rejection and judgement. Risking personal attachments is too frightening; he remains insular. The series creates a constant fear in Ned that someone else he loves might die (Pushing Daisies, Pie-lette, S01E01, 05:44 – 05:52; Bitter Sweets, S01E08, 01:12 – 03:18; Circus Circus, S02E02, 00:51 – 03:10; The Norwegians, S02E10, 00:07 – 03:40). This turns the theory of abjection downside and makes community and belonging the objects of repulsion (Dauphin 2011, 31). By minimizing physical contact with others, he can avoid moments of terror, vulnerability and rejection. This goes as far as Ned isolating himself emotionally: he is wary of forming close attachments to people (Dauphin 2011, 32). The narrator tells the audience: “The sadness and dread which the boy felt were not so much a product of the Longborough School. Young Ned’s acute discomfort came from the knowledge that when he touched a dead thing it came back to life.” (Pushing Daisies, Dummy, S01E02, 01:26 – 01:36)

Ned’s isolation roots in a refusal to accept the terms of societal interaction. He is full of fear, jealousy, insecurity and incapable of fully relating to others. (Dauphin 2011, 39) Ned is often shown being afraid of his gifts. Though he’s a tall white man, over six feet tall actually, he often reduces his size by “aww shucks” (Farr 2011, 139). He reflects his internal struggle in quotes like:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“[...] who wants to be Superman? Not me. I say no to ‘super’ and yes to ‘man’. I’m Clark Kent.” (Pushing Daisies, Window Dressed to Kill, S02E11, 04:19 - 04:25)

Brennan’s and Ned’s isolationist behavior creates what Erving Goffman calls ‘avoidance’, which means that stigmatized (monsters) come up with strategies to avoid contact with normal humans and sometimes even isolate current contact between ‘normal’ subjects and ‘stigmatized’ ones (Goffman 1990, 23). The monsters’ fear of their gifts, of their abilities – Brennan can throw electric sparks, and Ned can wake the dead – reflects their fear of being stigmatized in general. It also indicates how much they already have internalized formerly external mechanisms of punishment for not being normal and exclusionary mechanisms of one-dimensional, unifying societies – which treat monsters as illegitimate outcasts and yet integrate them through utilization at the same time. Brennan and especially Ned desperately long to be normal human beings. This indicates that societies influence and administer wishes, fears and desires of monsters.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

321

14.4 Verbal attempts to resist domination When likeable monsters feel threatened and stigmatized but don’t have the support of others, they often try to subvert hegemonic power by questioning it verbally: In Pushing Daisies, Ned asks Emerson not to use the word ‘zombie’ for those he ‘revived’ with his magic touch because it’s disrespectful and they don’t stumble around squawking for brains. He criticizes ‘un-dead’ too because nobody wants to be ‘un-anything’ and statements don’t always have to be negative. Emerson proposes ‘living dead’, but Ned says you’re either living or dead. For the state of first being dead and then not, Ned proposes ‘alive again’ (Pushing Daisies, Pie-lette, S01E01, 07:26 – 07:52). This constructs even Ned as influenced by, if not caught in, dualistic one-dimensional patterns of thinking. With a lot of mutants, Mister Eckhart is successful in dominating them with subdermal governors, but not with (future) Team Mutant X. When Genomex catches Emma, who is usually constructed as shy and anxious, she does not act in an obedient manner by saying: “You call dragging us here rescue?” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 30:42 – 30:45)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Bold and daring Brennan, in particular, doesn’t act obediently: when Genomex tries to force him to kill Jesse, a future teammate, he doesn’t do it, claiming the electrical spark he threw at Jesse missing its target was an accident, and he couldn’t have done anything (ibid., 20:20 – 23:10). This shows that Brennan seeks ways to resist being dominated or at least to establish freedom of action - basically seeking ways of subversion. The mutants’ resistance has consequences, though. Mister Eckhart tells Emma, for example: “I call it protective custody. Who it’s intended to protect is open to interpretation.” (ibid., 30:45 – 30:51)

The following dialogue constructs that even sarcastic Brennan gets kind of shut up verbally by Mister Eckhart: Mister Eckhart: “As for you, Mister Mulwray, I have to say I’m terribly disappointed on [sic!] Mister Thorne’s report on your behavior.” (ibid., 30:51 – 30:57) Brennan: “I’ve been hearing that since the third grade.” (ibid., 30:58 – 31:00) Mister Eckhart: “It’s really too bad. You could have been of enormous service to the cause. Instead, you’ll be put into stasis for future examination.” (ibid., 31:01 – 31:10)

Mister Eckhart’s behavior towards mutants in general shows that modern industrial societies camouflage mechanisms of enforcement as choices. More specifically, they merely pretend that subjects do have choices. Subjects don’t get to chose between qualitative alternatives, though. In that regard, Mutant X highlights containment tools or strategies of societies to make subjects

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

322

Chapter 14

obedient, to make them accept a certain standard of living instead of considering the quality of life (Marcuse 2002, 8). Mister Eckhart’s wording always seems to be noble and sophisticated. After the mutants find out, when Adam is believed to be dead, that Adam might have secretly done experiments on them Mister Eckhart tries to convince Brennan not to kill him by saying: “Listen, Mulwray. Without Adam you’re like lost children. I can give you purpose. I know what he was doing to you. I can help.” (Mutant X, Into the Moonless Night, S03E01, 39:44 – 39:52)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Mister Eckhart always uses language for his cause. Mutant X constructs Mister Eckhart’s style of language as excessively posh to camouflage his real, not at all noble but brute motives – another element of one-dimensional societies (Marcuse 2002, 88). The quote also exposes that purpose is a construct by those who exercise power, such as Mister Eckhart, which means they determine what the purpose is – purpose is not a fact given by nature. Purpose can be used as a tool to dominate subjects in one-dimensional societies. The power relations between Mister Eckhart and the mutants create a very specific fear in the mutants: the fear of being treated in a very bad way, humiliated, stigmatized. At the same time, it raises fears in society of what and who doesn’t fit one-dimensional rigid schemes and norms. Especially Brennan’s behavior shows that monsters endanger societal structure. Mister Eckhart’s treatment of mutants shows that modern industrial societies contain subversion by utilizing those subjects who defy established power as bad examples, threatening others not to behave like that. This raises anxiety in monsters of mechanisms of exclusion, of stigmatization processes ranging from being called names to being utilized as non-human lab rats by Genomex. This makes monsters fear their abnormality, being deviations, not to fit in, not to live up to or fulfil standards. These anxieties imply that in modern industrial society, power even administers and dominates desirability and the mind of subjects. Society even makes monsters scared of themselves and especially their powers or gifts – they’re aware that their deviations from normal humanity results in being stigmatized. Mutant X and Pushing Daisies also raise the wish of likeable monsters to choose between qualitative alternatives instead of just accepting a way of life that is forced on them. 14.5 Finding substitute families, community and new social bonding Mutant X and Pushing Daisies create ‘homelike’ gathering places for monsters: Ned comes to know that pie is a comfort for him as a kid because his mom always baked as well. He becomes the pie maker. He even makes his bakery,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

323

called the Pie Hole, a place for everyone, but especially those who have trouble as subjects in society, those who don’t fit into society. Ned’s Pie Hole becomes a new gathering place for a counter-community (Jowett 2011, 20), especially shown when the Pie Hole becomes a gathering place for friendless people (Pushing Daisies, Fresorts, S02E04). In Pushing Daisies, various characters, especially Ned, Chuck, Olive and Emerson, form a community, a “family” (Pushing Daisies, Dim Sum Lose Some, S02E05, from 04:23 on) out of being alienated and alone (Dauphin 2011, 20). This shows that groups of nonconformists can produce communities of conformists. Ned’s Pie Hole is a place that makes this possible; it is a gathering place for those who have nowhere else to gather (Dauphin 2011, 29). Mutant X creates a similar place for mutants. Mister Eckhart once says: “Normal people don’t want super-powered freaks next door.” (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01, 15:47 – 15:50)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

But Sanctuary, “the Mutant X secret headquarters” (Mutant X, Whiter Shade of Pale, S01E11, 22:32 – 22:34), already is home of the mutants Jesse, who even verbally refers to it as “home” (Mutant X, Blood Ties, S01E13, 00:49 - 00:50), and Shalimar (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01). Adam Kane, founder and boss of Team Mutant X, usually just referred to as Adam, offers Emma and Brennan specific possibilities: “Welcome. Emma. When I started this journey, I always knew I needed someone like you. Someone with the gift of inner vision and the strength of character to bear the weight of so powerful gift. Now, in time you’ll come to see yourself as I see you, but for now, you’ll just have to take my word for it. You’re an answered prayer. And Brennan, I never wanted to work with someone like you. Someone who would squander his incredible gift on petty crime and an outlaw’s live for the moment mentality. Until I realized that I’ve chosen the path of the outlaw for myself. And who better than a fellow outlaw to help show me the way? You’ve both seen what we’re up against and that the odds are against us. But Emma, I’m hoping that this is the chance for you to fulfil the potential that you know is inside you but you’ve never been able to quite reach. And Brennan, for you, it’s an opportunity to put the past behind you and to join with us all in helping create a new future.” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 39:50 – 40:52)

Pushing Daisies and Mutant X show that it’s important for likeable monsters to have at least a kind of substitute home, a place where they feel safe. But home wouldn’t be a home without a family caring for the likeable monsters. At first, Emma and Brennan become friends in Mutant X: after Emma lets Brennan see ‘into her’ tele-empathically, he shows her his gift later in the episode as well (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01). Emma’s and Brennan’s decisions to accept Adam’s offer (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 40:52 – 42:26) enable them to find a new home and even new

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

324

Chapter 14

jobs. Within a cruel modern industrial society, Adam offers them a possibility to change the quality of their lives (Marcuse 2002, 8) and they take it. The growing amount of trust and the increasing closeness of bonds within Team Mutant X is emphasized when Jesse says about Brennan: “he’s closer than my own family” (Mutant X, One Step Closer, S02E19, 08:22 – 08:25) or when Brennan tells Jesse: “I love you too, man.” (Mutant X, In Between, S03E18, 36:51 – 36:52). Actions also depict them as being very close: Jesse literally takes a bullet for Brennan and Brennan risks his life later to save Jesse, to support him mentally and to reawaken Jesse’s will to live, which Jesse had abandoned (ibid., S03E18).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Concerning social bonding, Ned’s and Chuck’s romantic relationship is crucial: after Ned revives her with his ‘magic touch’, they fall in love and have a relationship, but due to the terms of his gift they can’t touch each other or Chuck dies permanently. They find their quirky ways to be with each other, though: one scene shot from above shows the couple in a literal dance of avoidance, moving around each other in perfect choreography, wearing slippers with bells; they can never touch, but they’re romantically connected anyway (Pushing Daisies, Bzzzzzzzzz!, S02E01, 03:17 – 03:55). Ned and Chuck often use proxies to hold hands and to hug (Garbett 2011, 50): They hold their own hands together and pretend that it’s the other person (Pushing Daisies, Pie-lette, S01E01, 38:55 – 39:13). Chuck and Ned also work around their disabled relationship by utilizing barriers, like a cling wrap to be able to kiss (Pushing Daisies, The Fun in Funeral, S01E03, 03:16 – 03:50) and gloves to hold hands (Pushing Daisies, Dummy, S01E02, 38:48 – 39:31). On the one hand, this implies that Ned and Chuck desire to actually touch each other. On the other hand, their relationship offers a different view on relationships as well (Garbett 2011, 50f.). When Chuck says about her relationship with Ned “There’s an us with special circumstances” (Pushing Daisies, Bitches, S01E06, 22:03 – 22:05) she establishes their normativity: “Despite the fact that their individual qualities relegate them to the category of disabled, Ned and Chuck appear to be ‘normal’.”(Garbett 2011, 51)

Chuck’s ‘living again’ existence doesn’t just complicate her relationship with Ned. After being murdered, the rest of the world, including her Aunts Vivian and Lily whom she used to live with, is not allowed to know that she’s alive again. Ned brings Chuck back to life with his ‘magic touch’ and gives her a second chance at life after she was murdered. She has to treat her gift carefully, though. Lies, disguises and subterfuge isolate her from the world beyond Ned’s bakery and force her to seek communal ties with the rest of the dysfunctional characters. Though Chuck spent a lot of her time being locked away from the world, due to her aunts’ social phobias, she’s perhaps the character who’s most aware of the dysfunctions of the main characters’ group

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

325

and the one who is able to bring on change. Chuck is isolated by her own will. Because of this, she doesn’t represent the abjection of community but the possibility to overcome the isolation. She is an embodiment of the human drive toward functional community (Dauphin 2001, 33).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Chuck hopes to disrupt the community of isolation and to open the possibility of rejoining the world. Her attempts to fix problems of her companions show the socialization of the socially inept. Chuck is partially successful: she manages to convince Ned to expand his menu, to break his ‘sacred’ routine. In the same episode, her aunts Vivian and Lily Charles return to the pool - they retired a while ago as a swimming duo - after repeated encouragement from Olive and regular doses of Chuck’s pies containing homoeopathic mood enhancers (Pushing Daisies, Smell of Success, S01E07). Chuck even manages to make them go on regular trips away from their home, usually to get pie and seek companionship (Pushing Daisies, Bzzzzzzzzz!, S02E01). This constructs that the cure for these kinds of problems is persistent and attentive behavioral modification. This produces the desire to establish an identity that will operate fully within functional communities (Dauphin 2011, 35). Mutant X constructs Adam as a crucial character, especially through language. Quotes like “[...] Adam, I know you feel some kind of responsibility for that maniac, but your dog is rabid, and it’s your job to put him down.” (Mutant X, The Future Revealed, S02E05, 10:07 – 10:13), “One of the creators desperately struggles to try and save his precious creations.” (Mutant X, The Meaning of Death, S01E06, 28:37 – 28:41) or “[...] while you chase your horrific dreams of rescuing these laboratory mistakes [...]” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 35:10 – 35:12) create Adam’s responsibility for the new mutants. He even considers them his creations; at least partially. He used to be a “pioneer of genetic research, manipulating DNA to save human lives” (Mutant X, Past as Prologue, S02E01, 02:57 – 03:04). Mutant X constructs Adam as a specialist for mutants; he serves the function of what Goffman calls ‘wise’: “[...] namely, persons who are normal but whose special situation has made them intimately privy to the secret life of the stigmatized individual and sympathetic with it, and who find themselves accorded a measure of acceptance, a measure of courtesy membership in the clan.” (Goffman 1990, 41)

What you have to consider with Adam is that he was a doctor who helped to create mutants. This shows that he had a personal experience that made him wise (Goffman 1990, 41). Adam achieved his status as wise by working as a doctor, a genetics researcher, for a company that did genetic research to improve human DNA. Later, he didn’t just work for a company that helped mutants; he even founded a company to protect mutants, to help them. He constantly monitors the physical condition of the mutants, especially his charges Shalimar, Emma, Jesse and Brennan throughout the series. He says:

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

326

Chapter 14 “[...] it’s vitally important for you to recognize the toll that these abilities take on your body, mind, and soul. [...] There’s a spiritual side to your condition too. Too many of the new mutants are under the delusion that they’re God. Now, I’ve designed this EDD to diagnostically calibrate your genetic enhancement and to identify any adjustment to your DNA that might be required since your new mutant DNA. It’s in a constant state of evolution.” (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01, 10:50 – 11:23)

The monitoring of the physical condition of the new mutants is a doubleedged sword. On the one hand, Adam’s intentions to use science in order to help the mutants might be true, but in one-dimensional societies science might also be operationalized and used to dominate and repress subjects, like monsters (Marcuse 2002, 127). Mutant X often shows Adam comforting the mutants:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“No need to run anymore, Emma. You’re among friends.” (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01, 04:38 – 04:41)

His skills of calming are most obviously shown when Shalimar, Emma and Jesse undergo a ‘secondary mutation’ – a further development of their abilities; Brennan even a tertiary mutation. The mutants articulate fear of the process. Emma says to Adam: “Okay, now you’re scaring me. I mean, I finally just get comfortable with one kind of weirdness, and now you’re telling me that there’s more?” (Mutant X, A Breed Apart, S01E22, 07:35 – 07:41) or Brennan: “Well, that’s interesting, ‘cause all of a sudden I’m Rocket Boy and Shalimar’s got eyes in the back of her head, Jesse’s phasing stairwells, and Emma’s got a mental bazooka, and that’s a growth spurt?” (ibid., 13:59 – 14:08): Adam doesn’t know exactly what’s happening at first, so he admits: “[...] Brennan’s power burst might be a completely isolated incident or could be the first indication of a major shift for all of you.” (ibid., 07:45 – 07:52). Due to the mutants‘ constant articulation of their fears, Adam tries to grant the mutants more safety when he says: “You know we’re all in this together. Now we’ve got to figure out how to deal with it all.” (ibid., 13:34 – 13:38) and “[...] you’re all experiencing what I can only call a new mutant growth spurt” (ibid., 13:50 – 13:55). The mutants show very much concern for one another as well. Brennan, for example, asks if he hurt Emma unintentionally. Adam replies: “No. See, but that’s the thing. You used exactly the right amount of force. Which means that you’re closer to getting this thing under control than you think.” (ibid., S01E22, 14:39 – 14:45)

This shows Adam’s distinct ability to encourage others. He also tells Jesse: “Listen, I want you to practice, and preferably at an empty safe house or someplace where you can do as little damage as possible. [...] we learn by doing, right? Plus, I don’t want anyone else taking any falls like Brennan did.” (ibid., 18:30 – 18:40)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

327

Though Adam admittedly sees new mutants as his “children” (Mutant X, The Meaning of Death, E01E06, 28:43 – 28:44), he has to think tactically at the same time – which is due to the status of Mutant X as a secret agency as well: “I understand your frustration, but taking action prematurely could get us all killed.” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 18:52 – 18:55)

The new substitute families of likeable monsters show the possibility to find fellows in others who are stigmatized too but also to find a family in normal human beings. Both TV shows raise the hope in likeable monsters to be loved by others just the way they are, to be accepted by fellow isolates, deviations of the norm as well as normal human subjects. They also offer hope that community and family can exist in various forms, not just the one which society’s standard defines as the ‘right one’. At the same time, Mutant X and Pushing Daisies produce fear of the new, the unknown, insecurity and change of life as the likeable monsters know it.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

14.6 The role of trust in various relationships of likeable monsters Both TV series create trust as crucial in romantic relationships. Chuck’s relationship with Ned affects him deeply: His love for Chuck causes him to gradually loosen his tight-knit control over his world and let others in. While Ned is struggling with his affection for and simultaneous need not to be with Chuck, he begins to realize his feelings for his employee, Olive. Olive definitely loves Ned, but only him letting down his guard lets him see Olive as more than an employee. Ned and Olive share a kiss. After that, Ned has sexual dreams about Olive but does not act on his feelings. He admits that he has considered these feelings, but doesn’t want to accept the normal relationship he could have with Olive over the dysfunctional one he can keep with Chuck (Pushing Daisies, Pigeon, S01E04; The Norwegians, S02E10; Window Dressed to Kill, S02E11). Chuck then holds a particular kind of power over Ned, enabling him to overcome his seclusion (Dauphin 2011, 32). In the end, he abjects community though. To Ned, the act of opening his world to include Chuck is less scary than the fear of losing her. She pushes the boundaries of her cage and explores the world beyond it (Pushing Daisies, Bzzzzzzzzz!, S02E01; Frescorts, S02E04; Window Dressed To Kill, S02E11). Ned reveals that he has just shifted his boundaries: he transformed a comfort zone only meant for him into a larger sphere that allows to include others without threatening his general isolation. Ned resurrects Chuck's father, named Charles Charles, and Ned feels his hold on Chuck weaken and feels abjection. Chuck manages to convince Ned to keep her father alive, which tests their romantic relationship. Ned is even willing to accept Charles, but Charles tries to force Ned to end his relationship with Chuck. Charles manages to make Chuck consider running away with her father, but in the end she stays with Ned, and her father

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

328

Chapter 14

abandons her (Pushing Daisies, The Legend of Merle McQuoddy, S02E09). Ned is simultaneously repulsed by the idea of expanding his community and attracted to the prospect of a bit of normalcy through the addition of a father figure for Chuck (Dauphin 2011, 38). Ned’s obsession with keeping Chuck’s secret, thereby reserving her exclusively to Ned’s world, is based on selfishness (Pushing Daisies, Kerplunk, S02E13). Nevertheless, it can be said for Ned that: “He only displays comfort and security when interacting with other isolates, suggesting that he simply is not capable of anything else.” (Dauphin 2011, 39)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Basically, Pushing Daisies sends the message that community can exist in any form (Dauphin 2011, 39). It shows that stigmatized monsters can form a new group. But it also shows the social phobia of stigmatized subjects: they can never know for sure how normal human subjects will react to their stigma and what they really think about the stigmatized ones (Goffman 1990, 24). Mutant X connects community and also romantic relationships with a specific fear and danger of blind trust: monsters can be utilized and used in one-dimensional societies (Marcuse 2002, 19). Shalimar falls in love with the mutant Richard, who convinces her to inject a serum for becoming an ordinary human and live with him. In the end, she returns to her teammates, and Adam even has to find an antidote for the serum because it kills mutants (Mutant X, Fool for Love, S01E04). Almost every other character is faced with the danger of blind trust in a romantic relationship too: After Brennan introduces Jesse to a girl named Toni, who’s an old friend, Jesse falls for Toni, but it turns out that Toni has played the team. This episode constructs Jesse as someone who is tricked easily because he tends to see only the good in people: “I’ve been acting like Toni is a victim in all this. But I have to face the fact that she’s the one that got us into all this hot water in the first place.” (Mutant X, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, S01E08, 34:32 – 34:38). A guy even pretends to be in love with Emma and kills her, but in the end, the team manages to “revive” her (Mutant X, Lazarus Syndrome, S01E15). Betrayal of trust is not restricted to romantic relationships; Mutant X also shows it in friendships: Emma gets betrayed by an old high school friend called Michelle (Mutant X, Interface, S01E16) and when Shalimar gets injured on a mission, her old friend Nikki temporarily replaces her on the team. Soon Shalimar gets jealous of Nikki and starts to feel threatened by her. In the end, it turns out that Nikki almost killed Shalimar and is even responsible for her injury (Mutant X, Understudy, S02E10). Trust is important too within Team Mutant X: while the rest of the team doesn’t doubt the motives of an ex-boyfriend of Shalimar when he asks for help, Shalimar doesn’t trust him. In the end, Shalimar’s scepticism and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

329

caution save the team – she detects that he’s a traitor (Mutant X, Deadly Desire, S01E20). With Brennan, trust is a really big issue. He’s the least trusting character in Mutant X. He shows awareness of his trust issues: “[...] in case you haven’t noticed, blind trust? It’s not my favourite course of action, okay?” (Mutant X, Whose Woods These Are, S02E04, 00:37 – 00:40)

He explains in a conversation with Shalimar: “[...] I spent a lifetime being let down by people that I thought were my friends. I learned early on that loyalty was everything. That’s why when I did work the streets, I tended to work alone.” (Mutant X, Once Around, S02E16, 41:23 – 41:35)

Shalimar says: “Felt like you couldn’t trust anybody.” (ibid., 41:35 – 41:37)

Brennan replies:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Nope. No, you see, I’m very loyal. And all I expect is the same in return.” (ibid., 41:37 – 41:44)

This conversation explains why he’s so sceptical towards others: his former occupation as a thief and his life on the street taught him to be extra careful. He knows best how important yet rare loyalty is. Sometimes Brennan lets his guard down and gets betrayed. Though Brennan is the least trusting character in the show, he’s vulnerable to blind trust in relationships too. In one episode, he feels attracted to another Electrical Elemental named Ashley, who eventually absorbs Brennan and forces Team Mutant X to save his life (Mutant X, Lit Fuse, S01E07). In another episode, a female scorpion mutant manages to seduce him, even kind of enchants him and convinces him to abandon the team. When the team wants to get Brennan back, she almost manages to kill him, but he is saved by his teammates (Mutant X, Dancing on the Razor, S01E21). Brennan also shows awareness that women might trick him by flirting, like when he goes undercover in a casino and the woman who owns it flirts with him. He pretends to flirt with her as well, but he knows she’s playing him (Mutant X, Wages of Sin, S03E02). Brennan is also betrayed by some of his old friends: his thief buddy Tony tells Genomex about his abilities (Mutant X, The Shock of the New, S01E01) and Matty is secretly cooperating with Genomex and wants to sell Team Mutant X out to Mister Eckhart and his employees (Mutant X, Double Vision, S01E12). Sometimes Brennan’s trust is rewarded. As a teenager, he had to choose between juvenile prison and therapy. He found a surrogate father in his psychiatrist. Doctor Palance was the first person who cared about him when

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

330

Chapter 14

he was going down the wrong path as a teenager, and he was the first one Brennan told about his abilities (Mutant X, Shadows of Darkness, S03E06). It’s worth mentioning too that over the last season of the show, Brennan even develops a romantic relationship with Shalimar.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

At other times, Brennan is shown as the noble hero saving his friends, like when he goes on an undercover mission in order to help his childhood friend Cole (Mutant X, Divided Loyalties, S03E15) or saving a friend’s reputation and going undercover in prison with Jesse after his friend died. Jesse and Brennan learn that the prison staff illegally injects prisoners with steroids and forces them to fight each other in an illegal fight club. They clear the name of Brennan’s friend by uncovering this (Mutant X, Hard Time, S02E14). Throughout the course of the show, Brennan is the most sceptical character towards leaders. He constantly questions Adam’s motives, for example. This is shown especially clearly when Brennan tells Adam that he wants all the information Adam has about their missions. Brennan learns to understand Adam’s situation too, though, when he has to replace Adam as a leader, and he decides not to tell the team everything (Mutant X, Within These Walls, S02E13). Brennan develops leadership skills, trying to stay calm in precarious situations, not being afraid to face challenges and being sceptical, not just believing everything he is told blindly. After Adam disappears and is assumed to be dead, Lexa takes over Adam’s position as the new team leader. She has to work to win the team’s trust (Mutant X, Into the Moonless Night, S03E01 and the following episodes), but Brennan always remains sceptical of her. After Adam reveals to Brennan later that he had to pretend to be dead, Brennan doesn’t really trust Adam as well (Mutant X, Divided Loyalties, S03E15). The relationship of Adam/Lexa and Brennan in particular shows that wise persons like Adam/Lexa have to prove themselves to the stigmatized monsters. That means that it isn’t enough that Adam/Lexa is offering his/her expertise and his/her sympathy to the mutants. The mutants must accept Adam/Lexa and his/her offers (Goffman 1990, 41). That said, Adam betrays Team Mutant X multiple times: In one episode he’s manipulated by a female mutant and almost kills Shalimar, Emma, Jesse and Brennan due to exactly knowing their weaknesses. Adam says about his behavior: “You know, I want to apologize to all of you for the way I treated you all. [...] I knew your weaknesses and I used them against you. It was very weird. It was very dark. But you guys saved me, and I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” (Mutant X, Altered Ego, S01E14, 41:54 – 41:21)

His worst betrayal of trust turns out to be his secret research on his fellows on Team Mutant X (Mutant X, Lest He Become, S02E22). Brennan feels

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

331

betrayed because Adam had a backup plan, even made up a new identity, for Brennan in case joining the team didn’t work out for him (Mutant X, Divided Loyalties, S03E15). Adam knows that he is holding back information is difficult for Team Mutant X: “[...] I know it’s not easy working with me sometimes, not getting the whole picture. And I realized something about myself in there. Which is that sometimes I hold back so that I can be the only one who sees all the cards, so that I can stay in control. [...] I’m saying that’s wrong. If you guys share in the danger, you should share the information.” (Mutant X, Within These Walls, S02E13, 40:58 – 41:16)

The various relationships in Pushing Daisies and Mutant X rouse fear that the (blind) trust of monsters might be betrayed. They also arouse scepticism in likeable monsters towards other characters. On the other hand, both TV series show how important it is for monsters to find fellow monsters, humans, other creatures and/or even a substitute family they can trust. The relationship between Brennan and Adam/Lexa also awakens the fear to be betrayed by an expert because valuable information about mutants can be utilized by enemies and turned into a weapon. Neither Pushing Daisies nor Mutant X offers a consistent answer to the question of who to trust, yet both series emphasize the crucial role of building trusting relationships. 14.7 Hope without guarantees In the first episode of Pushing Daisies, Emerson watches Ned using his gift when Ned’s Pie Hole was on the verge of financial ruin. Then:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Mister Cod proposed a partnership: murders are much easier to solve when you can ask the victim who killed them. The Pie Maker reluctantly agreed.“ (Pushing Daisies, Pie-lette, S01E01, 07:14 – 07:25)

Though often struggling with his monstrousness and longing to be normal, Ned decides in the end: “[...] no more pretending to be normal. The best way I can help anyone is by being a pie-making dead waker. Pretending to be something I'm not is a recipe for disaster. So I say yes to super and no to normal.” (Pushing Daisies, Window Dressed to Kill, S02E11, 34:29 – 34:39)

Every main character in Pushing Daisies is unable to blend in the world outside of the Pie Hole. The accumulation of several such people creates a functional pseudo-community (Dauphin 2011, 28f.): “[...] a group that satisfies the need for communal belonging without requiring the characters to abandon their isolationist quirks.” (Dauphin 2011, 29)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

332

Chapter 14

Goffman posits that groups like that have a specific function: the group shares experiences and can, because of it, offer instruction and survival techniques for specific situations, but also moral support, comfort and being accepted as a subject like any other (Goffman 1990, 31f.): “Among his own, the stigmatized individual can use his disadvantage as a basis for organizing life [...]” (Goffman 1990, 32)

The members of Team Mutant X try to encourage one another. Shalimar tells Emma, who’s still afraid of her abilities: “[...] just as we learned to walk and talk, we’ve had to develop skills with our new mutant abilities too.” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02) and Adam says to Emma: “Maybe it’s time that you looked at your world from a different perspective. When you take what you see as a problem, and you make it a solution.” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02). A dialogue between Brennan and Adam shows the dynamics of fear and hope pretty well:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Brennan: “How are you staying so calm, cool, and collected through all this?” (Mutant X, A Breed Apart, S01E22, 14:09 – 14:11) Adam: “Right. Remember when you were a kid, and you were first getting a handle on your powers?” (ibid., 14:11 – 14:14) Brennan: “Yeah. Yeah, I had a few problems and caused a few problems too.” (ibid., 14:14 – 14:18) Adam: “Yeah, but then eventually, like when you learned to walk and talk, it all became second nature, right?” (ibid., 14:19 – 14:22) Brennan: “Yeah, I guess I gotta take what seems a problem and then make it a solution.” (ibid., 14:23 – 14:27)

Adam constantly tries to encourage the mutants to shift their perspective: “[...] you’re gonna have to look at this new thing of yours as an asset, not a liability.” (ibid., 17:41 – 17:44) and “Well, I didn’t say it was gonna be easy, you’re just gonna have to get a grip on your new powers the way you did your old ones.” (ibid., 17:47 – 17:52). Emma once admits to him “Jesse, Shalimar and Brennan get all the action while, you know, I hang around and play with people’s feelings. And now I finally get to kick some ass too.” (ibid., 19:31 – 19:40). Emma’s quote constructs Adam as capable of giving the mutants hope. He has more knowledge than the mutants and also other humans, but he doesn’t know everything. When Brennan’s abilities undergo a secondary mutation, the show constructs him as scared by saying: “[...] Adam’s not the one whose body is falling apart, here!” (Mutant X, One Step Closer, S02E19, 06:33 - 06:34). Shalimar feels for Brennan but tells him not be too self-centred: “If this is about your mutation taking another step, then it is about me; it’s about all of us!” (ibid., 06:49 – 06:54). Jesse offers some hope: “Maybe what’s happened to Brennan was supposed to happen. Maybe his accident wasn’t an accident at all, but was just a natural

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

333

progression of his mutation.” (ibid., 08:10 – 08:17). But he is also constructed as insecure and sceptical as well through saying: “[...] we are all continuing to mutate, and sooner or later that mutation’s gonna go out of control.” (ibid., 08:26 – 08:31) or: “[...] right now, Adam doesn’t have the answers, which means that nobody does, and that’s scaring me.” (ibid., 08:47 – 08:51). When Adam wants Brennan to stay at Sanctuary, Brennan asks: “[...] do you just think I’m gonna hurt somebody else?” (ibid., 10:02 – 10:04) and “[...] meanwhile, I’m just supposed to sit here waiting to die?” (ibid., 11:11 – 11:13) – these quotes show Brennan’s fears of hurting somebody and dying. Adam tries to calm down Brennan by saying: “I’m working on a way to stabilize your powers [...]” (ibid., 11:06 – 11:08), and his other mutant charges by: “All right, look, I know that you’re all afraid that your powers are mutating. But right now there is no reason to think that any of you are in any danger. [...] I am not gonna give up here. I’m gonna find a way to stabilize Brennan, and I’m gonna make sure nothing bad happens to any of you. You just have to trust me.” (ibid., 12:23 – 12:39). Brennan tells him: “I could have killed Jess, Adam. I could have killed any one of us.” (ibid., 12:44 – 12:48). Adam says: “Believe me, I’m gonna do everything within my power to make sure that that doesn’t happen.” (ibid., 12:49 – 12:53). Adam also suggests to Brennan: “Right now you have to learn how to control your emotions because I believe that that is triggering the problem.” (ibid., 13:23 – 13:28). Brennan asks:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“Adam, do you have any idea what it feels like to walk around like a living time bomb? To know that at any second I could explode and kill Shalimar, Jesse, you, anyone? I walk around with these thoughts in my head every single day, and you want me to control my emotions? Are you out of your mind?” (ibid., 13:28 – 13:45).

As such, Brennan is clearly in despair when he says to Adam: “Why don’t you just admit that I’m dying?” (ibid., 21:58 - 21:59). Adam replies: “Because I’m not gonna admit that and you shouldn’t even think it.” (ibid., 22:01 – 22:04). In the end, Emma has to help Brennan tele-empathically because as Adam explains to Brennan: “Your body is mutating faster than your mind has the capacity to keep up with the change.” (ibid., 29:34 – 29:38) Adam tries to comfort them and give them hope. He tells Emma: “[...] we both know that your powers have grown stronger over the last couple of weeks. [...] Emma, I know you’re afraid. But you might be surprised at what you can do.” (Mutant X, Reality Check, S02E20, 09:59 – 10:30). The hope Adam offers is not attached to guarantees and security, though. Pushing Daisies and Mutant X create what J. R. R. Tolkien called “Hope without guarantees” (Tolkien 2006c, letter No 18, 237). The narrative structures of both TV shows don’t offer a happy ending, a harmonic synthesis, which dissolves all problems, no ‘and they lived happily ever after’. Herbert Marcuse proposes that hope is supposed to have this very specific form: in

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

334

Chapter 14

order to be subversive hope has to be without guarantees because otherwise, it would just raise another one-dimensionality (Marcuse 2002, 261). In Mutant X, Mister Eckhart is put into one of his pods for mutants himself at the end of season one, but Gabriel Ashlocke, former Patient Zero of Adam and Mister Eckhart, becomes the main villain of season two. Mister Eckhart eventually returns from his comatose state and gets killed by Brennan (Mutant X, Into the Moonless Night, S03E01). Season three presents no new main villain right up front: Team Mutant X now works for an obscure organization called The Dominion, fighting either followers who want to pursue Mister Eckhart’s legacy or mutants that are threatening and/or exposing other mutants. The motives of The Dominion remain unclear until the end – so there’s always one threat or another. Ned, as well as Team Mutant X, might succeed in embracing their identities as monsters though the audience doesn’t get to know for sure. One way of coping with Stigma, according to Erving Goffman, is when the stigmatized person with a shameful differentness can develop or adopt an unconventional interpretation of the character of her or his social identity. This gives stigmatized monsters the opportunity to turn their sufferings into blessings in disguise, as lessons about life. This can enable monsters to reassess the limits of normal human subjects (Goffman 1990, 21). At the same time, Adam leaves himself as the wise and the stigmatized Mutant X open to misunderstandings by normal humans who might see this as offensive behavior (Goffman 1990, 44). Adam puts what he considers the core aim of Team Mutant X as:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

“[...] helping create a new future.” (Mutant X, I Scream the Body Electric, S01E02, 40:50 – 40:51)

Mutant X, in particular, shows that you have to act in the present, in order to try out what you think is best, in order to create a better future. The last episode of Mutant X sketches Adam’s true motives even more distorted than before because it turns out that Adam is a clone of a creature called ‘The Creator’ and that this being shaped Adam’s whole life and actions. Adam gets captured by it, and the rest of the team is left behind. Lexa, Shalimar, Jesse and Brennan discuss what to do next. Lexa proposes to find Adam. Shalimar says that they’ve lost their ‘plane’ – the Double Helix – and Sanctuary is destroyed, so The Dominion has won. Brennan objects: “They think they’ve won. It’s not over yet.” (Mutant X, The Assault, S03E22, 42:18 – 42:20). So there is no guarantee that things are going to be alright, but there is a chance. Mutant X doesn’t answer the question if Adam operationalized the mutants with his genetic research or not. At the end of the last episode of Pushing Daisies, Chuck manages to reunite with her aunts because Ned overcomes his fear of losing her. The narrator tells that Ned’s and Chuck’s shared life began with a magic touch and became the promise of a new family. Events, though, should

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

335

not be considered an ending because there are no endings because endings are where things begin. (Pushing Daisies, Kerplunk, S02E13, 40:48 – 41:11) This shows that there is hope but no guarantee for the becoming of a new kind of family. 14.8 What likeable monsters offer the audience

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Herbert Marcuse’s and Erving Goffman’s theories helped to sketch the narrative structure and form of Pushing Daisies and Mutant X. Both theories and TV series try to raise awareness: by their forms, these TV shows reveal cruel and even destructive modes which contemporary societies usually camouflage by rationalising them and forcing subjects to integrate them in their subconscious without questioning them. Maybe these theories didn’t help to display every little detail, but they offer kind of a basic understanding. Mutant X especially shows that Herbert Marcuse’s theory on the use of technology, knowledge and science to make the subject compliant is still accurate. Digitalization, technology and mechanization are crucial elements in the TV show’s narrative structure, as well as (medically) monitoring the condition of the body and to improve it. These are hints on topics which are important in contemporary society. Mutant X form indicates that blind positivism and optimism towards these values might cause problems for likeable monsters. Pushing Daisies shows that likeable monsters are stigmatized in modern societies, and it also traces the mechanisms of how this is done to them. I originally wanted to sketch the form of both TV shows a bit more in detail but found that I didn’t have the room to explore that aspect as well in this article. I hope to be able to regard Pushing Daisies form of the marvellous and Mutant X form of science fiction in other essays. Both TV shows depict likeable monsters in a particular way: they are normal, human and attractive enough so that the audience can identify with them. At the same time, they deviate from one-dimensional norms of subjectivity. This twisted characteristic of likeable monsters offers chances of identification to people who deviate from the ideal subject and often are stigmatized as not being normal, or as Kilohertz in Mutant X summed it up: “Freaks of the world! [...] the odd, the weird, the misplaced, the displaced” (Mutant X, Kilohertz, S01E05, 16:48 – 17:38). Herbert Marcuse writes that subversion by inherent possibilities of one-dimensional societies is no longer an option because they’re always already contained. He traces hope though that underneath the popular conservative base is another kind of subject. The only chance lies in the outcasts, outsiders, the exploited, the persecuted of other races and other colours. Their lives are the ones that are most threatened. They’re in the most desperate need to end the intolerable conditions and institutions, in need of social change. Their opposition is revolutionary because it is not deflected by

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

336

Chapter 14

society, and it hits systems quite forcefully from the outside (Marcuse 2002, 258). Herbert Marcuse’s theory helped to understand that likeable monsters symbolize divergent subjects which might be the forces of change, though maybe not exclusively the specific groups that he named. Pinning Pushing Daisies and Mutant X down as being targeted at just a very specific audience consisting of teenagers, trying to find their place in society, is way too constricting since that would exclude adult viewers who identify with likeable monsters. My point is that teenagers can be one group of viewers identifying with likeable monsters in a variety of divergent subjects of one-dimensional societies. Likeable monsters deviate from compliant ideal subjects and could be called stereotypes because they fit certain stigma types, which Erving Goffman drafts. That’s a very dim view, though, because it neglects their other layers. Pushing Daisies and Mutant X raise hope for a better life, for alternative and manifold ways of thinking, behaving, talking, desiring, wishing and living too. These TV shows sketch alternate social relationships as well as social interrelations. The narrative structures of both TV series play a crucial role here because they’re open, not fixed, as well as hope without guarantees. Herbert Marcuse writes that there is no guarantee for social change in onedimensional societies, but hope. There is no indication whether the end will be a happy one. Still, there is a chance for social change (Marcuse 2002, 261). My article marginally dealt with characters of Pushing Daisies and Mutant X trying to shape their lives and society. I haven't paid detailed attention to the question in what ways both TV shows encourage viewers to become what J.R.R. Tolkien called 'sub-creators', who are makers or shapers of worlds (Tolkien, 2006b). He builds his whole aesthetic form on the assumption that passive readers can become active. Tolkien even presumes a shared human desire to be a maker (Tolkien 2006b, 155). Herbert Marcuse's social theory deals with strategies and mechanisms the social system comes up with in order to make this shift from a passive to an active subject seem impossible. Yet he also stresses, that all hope rests on this shift, no matter how unlikely chances seem. (Marcuse, 2002) Regarding the outcomes of my article I intend to discuss the relationship of the forms of my examples, J.R.R. Tolkien's 'subcreator' and Herbert Marcuse's active subject in other essays at length. This implies to also discuss further and more detailed which forms of language the TV shows use to create which effect. References Books and essays Carroll, N. (1990). The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York et al.: Routledge.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

337

Curry, P. (2004). Defending Middle-Earth. Tolkien: Myth and Modernity. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Dauphin, M. (2011). Pushing Daisies Away: Community Through Isolation. Burger, A. (Ed.). The Television World of Pushing Daisies. Jefferson et al.: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers. 28-42. Esslin, M. (2004). The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: Vintage Books. Farr, D. (2011). The Queer, Quirky World of Pushing Daisies. Burger, A. (Ed.). The Television World of Pushing Daisies. Jefferson et al.: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers. 137-154. Foucault. M. (2000). The subject and power. Power. Essential Works of Foucault: Vol. 3. Faubion, J. D. (Ed.). New York: The New York Press. 326-348. Freud, S. (1955) [German original: 1919]. The ‘Uncanny’. Strachey, J. (Ed.). An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: Vol. XVII (1917-1919). London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. 217-252. Garbett, C. (2011). Often Invisible: Disability in Pushing Daisies. Burger. A. (Ed.). The Television World of Pushing Daisies. Jefferson et al.: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers. 43-53. Goffman, E. (1990). Stigma. Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. London et al.: Penguin Books. Kayser, W. (1981) [German original: 1957]. The Grotesque in art and literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Jowett, L. (2011). Spectacular Collision/Collusion: Genre, ‘Quality’, and Contemporary Drama. Burger, A. (Ed.). The Television World of Pushing Daisies. Jefferson et al.: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers. 11-27. Marcuse, H. (2002). One- Dimensional Man. Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. London et al.: Routledge. Toggweiler, M. (2013). Kleine Phänomenologie der Monster. No 42. Institut für Sozialanthropologie. Bern: Universität Bern. Retrieved 11-08-2013 (12:02) from http://www.anthro.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/fak_historisch/dkk/anthro/content/ e40422/e40425/e40426/e127585/files127635/ab42_ger.pdf Tolkien, J. R. R. (2006a). Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Tolkien, C. (Ed.). London: HarperCollinsPublishers. 5-48. Tolkien, J. R. R. (2006b). On Fairy-Stories. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Tolkien, C. (Ed.). London: HarperCollinsPublishers. 109-161. Tolkien, J. R. R. (2006c). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Carpenter, H. and Tolkien, C. (Eds.). London: HarperCollinsPublishers. Mutant X and Pushing Daisies Episodes A Breed Apart. Writ. Chaykin, H. Dir. Turner, B. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc five. Altered Ego. Writ. Keyishian, E. Dir. Potter, A. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc three. Bitches. Writ. Kroeker, A. Dir. Creasey, C. G., Creasey, R. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette erste Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc two.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

338

Chapter 14

Bitter Sweets. Writ. Gewanter, A. Dir. Kroeker, A. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette erste Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc three. Blood Ties. Writ. Dance, P. Dir. Fawcett, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc three. Bzzzzzzzzz!. Writ. Fuller, B. Dir. Kane, A. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc one. Circus Circus. Writ. Ocko, P. Dir. Trilling, L. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc one. Cirque Des Merveilles. Writ. Amato, M. Dir. Hackett, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Third Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc five. Comfort Food. Writ. Petrie, D. Dir. Lauer, P. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc two. Dancing on the Razor. Writ. Amato, M. Dir. Montesi, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc five. Dark Star Rising. Writ. LaZebnik, P. Dir. Cassar, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc two. Deadly Desire. Writ. Newman, D. Dir. Turner, B. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc five. Dim Sum Lose Some. Writ. Holmes, D. Dir. Trilling, L. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc two. Divided Loyalties. Writ. Wilks, D., Keyishian, E. Dir. Flower, R. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Third Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc four. Double Vision. Writ. Fetty, D. Dir. Cassar, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc three. Dummy. Writ. Ocko, P. Dir. Sonnenfeld, B. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette erste Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc one. Fool for Love. Writ. Newman, D. Dir. Scott, T. J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. Frescorts. Story: Joy, L. Teleplay: Joy, L., Berg, G. J., Harberts, A. Dir. Lauer, P. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc one. Hard Time. Writ. Meyer, T., Septien, A. Dir. Sassone, O. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc three. In Between. Writ. Grant, G. Dir. Potter, A. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Third Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc four. Interface. Writ. Lisson, M. Dir. Girotti, K. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc four. In the Presence of Mine Enemies. Writ. Cheaykin, H. Dir. Bell, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc two. Into the Moonless Night. Writ. Mohan, P. Dir. Seagal, P. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Third Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. I Scream the Body Electric. Writ. Chaykin, H. Dir. Cassar, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season, Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. Kerplunk. Writ. Berg, G. J., Harberts, A. Dir. Trilling, L. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc four.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

A Wonderful Kind of Monster

339

Kilohertz. Writ. Newman, D. Dir. Scott, T. J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. Lazarus Syndrome. Writ. Amato, M. Dir. Bell, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc four. Lest He Become. Writ. Mohan, P. Dir. Hackett, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc five. Lit Fuse. Writ. Fudge, T., Keyishian, E., Newman, D. Dir. Bell, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc two. No Man Left Behind. Writ. Newman, D. Dir. Montesi, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc two. Once Around. Writ. Amato, M. Dir. Pitteman, B. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc four. One Step Closer. Writ. Prinze Jr., F. Dir. Corcoran, B. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc five. Past as Prologue. Writ. Chaykin, H. Dir. Scott, T. J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. Pie-lette. Writ. Fuller, B. Dir. Sonnenfeld, B. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette erste Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. 2008. disc one. Pigeon. Writ. Mimoun, R. Dir. Kane, A. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette erste Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. 2008. disc two. Reality Check. Story: Young, D. Teleplay: Mohan, P., Amato, M. Dir. Montesi, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc five. Robbing Hood. Writ. Gray, J. D. Dir. Shapiro, P. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc two. Shadows of Darkness. Writ. Amato, M. Dir. Potter, A. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Third Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc two. Smell of Success. Writ. Nimerfro, S. Dir. Trilling, L. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette erste Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc three. The Assault. Writ. Mohan, P. Dir. Potter, A. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Third Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc five. The Fun in Funeral. Writ. Fuller, B. Dir. Edwards, P. A. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette erste Staffel. DVD. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc one. The Future Revealed. Writ. Amato, M., Mohan, P. Dir. Bell, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. The Legend of Merle McQuoddy. Writ. Creasey, C. G., Creasey, D. R. Dir. Trilling, L. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. Warner Bros. disc three. The Meaning of Death. Writ. Falchuk, B. Dir. Campbell, G. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc two. The Norwegians. Writ. Nimerfro, S. Dir. Brock, T. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc three. The Shock of the New. Writ. Chaykin, H. Dir. Scott, T. J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. Understudy. Writ. Fetty, D. Dir. Bell, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc two.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

340

Chapter 14

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Wages of Sin. Writ. Carney, B. Dir. Montesi, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Third Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. Within These Walls. Writ. Mohan, P. Dir. Guthe, M. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc three. Whiter Shade of Pale. Writ. Di Franco, T. Dir. Ingram, T. DVD: Mutant X The Complete First Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc three. Whose Woods These Are. Writ. Fetty, D. Dir. Montesi, J. DVD: Mutant X The Complete Second Season. Delta Music Group. 2008. disc one. Window Dressed to Kill. Writ. Gewanter, A. Dir. Robinson, J. A. DVD: Pushing Daisies Die komplette zweite Staffel. Warner Bros Television. 2013. disc three.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Philosophy, Ethics, Theology & Anthropology

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

15. The Devil in Contradiction: Bringer of light - embodiment of the wicked - of the libidinal monstrosity Peter Heintel University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Abstract In the Christian religious tradition we come across / encounter the devil in two (self-) contradictory roles: he is the representative of Evil and Sin, and also has the power to lead human beings astray; as a fallen angel he is also Lucifer, the “bringer of light”, who leads the first human beings out of Paradise in God’s image. Evidently, something “good” needs - especially if it only expresses itself through dictates and forbiddance - a counterpart which frees others from him/it.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Keywords: God, devil, Good and Evil, self-transcendence of human beings, subversive quality, light-bearer, bringer-of-light 15.1 Preamble “The devil’s in the details”; this saying is often heard in discussions surrounding the difficulty of translating life into mission statements or codes of conduct. There is no singular concept of good, and philosophers have always talked about the idea of a regulatory standard for ethical behavior. The good which is determined by its content is multi-faceted and expresses its meaning according to social constellations (what is good for an individual is not the same as for a couple, and what is considered good in one culture may even be categorised as evil in another). The wicked and the sinful, represented by the Devil, accompany us throughout our lives, and are concealed in the background of all our doings; every one of our decisions includes or excludes, establishes the one choice as more valuable, and the other as lesser. We can never be completely sure whether we are right, even if we are totally convinced that we are, and act in all conscience. Many unconsidered consequences can bring us down to earth

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

344

Chapter 15

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

and relativise our choices via hindsight. Theologians call this fact original sin, which does not mean any particular sin, but is the fate of our finite freedom. Hence we may observe that in the name of Good (God), evil occurs whenever finiteness believes that, in appealing to God, it can raise itself to be the actual truth. God is used as an external voice that cannot be doubted, giving human decisions, interpretations, norms, etc. an absolute, everlasting meaning and dignity, along with the belief that goodness will win or has won, vanquishing evil, the “unclean,” and the Devil. But the truth is the exact opposite. The finite, that attempts to approach the level of the absolute and annuls the self-determination of those who cannot follow their own truths, actually represents evil or the Devil because it denies others what it assumes for itself. In the dialectic of finiteness, God and the Devil are closely connected, like sisters, so that one does not exist one without the other. Christianity has, in my opinion, supported this notion. Accordingly, the Devil remains invincible, and cannot, as is the case in other dualistic religions, be vanquished; which is not to say that one has to “surrender” to him right from the start. The pursuit of goodness is still the goal of every decision; weighing choices, looking deeply within oneself, and consulting others are what characterise every responsible conscience. “Being certain in one’s own mind,” being able to let “one’s own court of judgment” rule, and trusting others to do the same, is an unavoidable requirement for an ethical system which has assigned individuals with selfdetermination (autonomy). This establishment of an “inner difference” can provide the idea of goodness with a “real” location and thus bring God back from the hereafter into ourselves. He is, so to speak, our own self-transcendence directed to the outside, which, in the past, was a “necessary” external grounding, because in being directed from the outside through orders and forbiddance, the autonomous individual was not yet “permissible.” In accordance with this, “evil” also necessitated the Devil, as the other side of its self-transcendence, as its external grounding. He represents the ultimate nonavailability of goodness. We are at his mercy without wishing to be so, and traditionally, when we are under his control, we are “possessed”, and he must be “driven out of us” so that we can again submit to the established commands. Nevertheless, the power of his seduction remains, as in the biblical fall of mankind. Disobeying orders means, as we are told, first “to know what good and evil are,” so that through “Lucifer” we can come closer to the image of God. “I am determined to prove a villain,” says Richard III in Shakespeare’s play of the same name. The character’s hope is that by doing so, he will contradict all norms (of behavior) and live contrary to all morals and conventions. Here evil can be traced to what is actively there. However, as it was known in former times, it can also mean making “a pact with the Devil,” contrary to one’s own thinking and conscience, deciding to take the route of evil; usually to one’s

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Devil in Contradiction

345

own advantage in relation to other people. Here the Devil “wins” because there is no room left for the idea of there being some goodness in one’s own estimation. One subjects oneself to selfishly wanting to experience the freedom of one’s own benefits; these being metaphorically represented in the seven deadly sins: Whatever element of oneself has the will to take over against one’s other faculties becomes lost in a prison of blind selfdependence; finally “sinning against the Holy Ghost,” which represents the community. (Incidentally, systems, ideologies, etc. can more or less consciously choose the path of evil. One can recognise this through their hypocritical self-justifications.) If one observes this relationship to evil (named the “Devil” as an ontological reference) with regard to humankind’s individual and collective decisions, the finiteness of liberty (“deadly/mortal sin”), and specific goodness (which is not possible to imagine without evil; being right creates its own wrong), then the following roles for the Devil ensue:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

1.) He is the deceiver, who encourages breaking existing commandments and creating confusion in the existing order (diabolos = the one who “throws in all directions”), to challenge, to relativise the claim to absoluteness in God’s “goodness” (the story of mortal sin). To that extent, evil frees people from the control of others and leads them back to recognising themselves (“see Adam has become one of us, and recognises what is good and bad”). 2.) Where laws, commands and bans are made in connection with God and are justified through him, and where we humans are really God’s creations, an equally powerful authority is needed for sin and for breaking the law, one which takes possession of us and pulls us toward “evil.” This power must be driven out of us (exorcism: consists of the admission that one has taken the wrong path, from “returning rituals,” a readjustment through brainwashing, or obliteration of one’s own thinking). Especially at those points where legal positions have broken down, in times of revolution when new forms of thinking and acting develop, the Devil is constantly present. He becomes the cause of divergent “heresies” and “witchcraft,” turning into an “anti-Christ” that is active everywhere. But recently a “realm of evil” was “discovered,” to which “the good” could offer resistance. The “power” of the Devil and hell is lessened whenever people take responsibility for their actions and criticise their commandments themselves since this involves understanding that they are “man-made,” and thus open to change by people. Here democracies are especially valuable and effective enlighteners. 3.) Human beings are not only “intellectual” beings, but are also “nature’s creations,” at the mercy of their desires, inclinations, physiologies, ancient

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

346

Chapter 15

patterns, all of which find expression in “embodying” emotions. Here we often react directly and in response to others, and these reactions do not always correlate to the given (“desired”) civilisation, i.e. the good we want to do. Humans are, however, not just products of nature who just happen to be there, they are also “forsaken,” demanding from themselves a free and an independent will to drive them towards a “better” future. Thus their nature and their previous history can obscure the path toward that future. They effectively have to pass judgment upon themselves; “cleanse” themselves. Since this is not always an easy undertaking, the external determination of said judgment has to be understood as their destiny; as a prison (soma, sema) that blocks their route to God, the better half of a human being. This fateful power (“mankind is evil by nature”) is identified as belonging to the Devil; and that in turn with every part of man that we imagine as belonging to nature: his body, his sex and sexual desire, his “negative” emotions, which express themselves primarily in his asocial self-referencing, his readiness to take revenge and act in destructive ways (“mine is to revenge, says the Lord”) etc. The way to God, to goodness, has to be taken against this “nature” and history. Asceticism and discipline purify. Hostility towards our urges is seen as exorcism. Ultimately these methods cannot succeed; we remain finite natural beings, and in the background, the seducer is always lurking. And again and again, that would seem to make sense. The enthrallment with disciplining our nature can also go to the other extreme, to a neurotic constraining of the self, becoming self-indulgent in its rules, regulations, and self-torment, which are also capable, in the long run, of destroying our “nature,” of subjugating it to a mind that wants to take over. If the seducer has his say here, he will perhaps claim it is the “sanity of the body” (Nietzsche), will demand a new dimension to the relationship between nature and liberty. But self-indulgence can also appear as a reaction to or protest against predominantly hypocritical morality. Loss of inhibition, sexual “excesses,” “satanic brotherhoods,” etc. give “good” enough reason to permit the Devil to rise once again, and to show him their morality with an even more rigid undertone; and to castigate the “loose” moral conduct of the “fallen.” 4.) The Devil as the Prince of Hell: in order for one to be quite sure of being good and of the manifestations of one’s morals in commands and prohibitions, one has to be able to envision its opposite; likewise for the punishments which will be exacted if one leaves the path of virtue. Tertullian, the Father of the Church, was consoling when asked what the pleasure of the redeemed, of the blessed in Paradise, could be: He had the Blessed take a seat in an amphitheatre, with a clear view into Hell, in which they could see the torment of the damned and apparently enjoyed watching it (Vorgrimmler). The executions of criminals on Golgotha were once public

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Devil in Contradiction

347

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

festivals. In each case, the legitimacy of the law was proven by the lawfulness of the punishment, and of this, the people had to be reassured over and over again. This fact alone would plead the case that justice and morals are the work of man. But the work of man is finite, prone to error, and highly susceptible to human relativisations. That is why a better, longer-lasting foundation is required. The same applies to evils and punishments. The punishments from Hell that the Devil oversees allow us to grasp the special quality of misconduct, and the sinners. They show the unavoidable causality of momentary lapses of behavior: “If you do that, then ... will follow.” Now judges, priests, guardians of public morals, etc. can “do something to” other humans down on earth. The references to the transcendent, future, eternal hell, and the Devils in charge of it, undoubtedly reinforce the effect. Punishment in the sense of temporal restriction, and of an opportunity for repentance, for a chance to mend one’s ways, is not sufficient. That would provide an opportunity for individuals to “speculate.” The Devil and “eternal damnation” speak a far more haunting language; and we must not forget that it supports the judges’ power of interpretation, too. 5.) The Devil is generally represented in the form of an animal; with horns, skin, and cloven hooves, but with the face of a human. The deadly sins are embodied in demons, hellish ghosts with deformed bodies, and grotesque, disfigured faces. There seem to be no limits to artistic fantasy, and the damned in hell conform to these representations. Nevertheless, they make a more sophisticated impression than the choir of the redeemed opposite them, who (German: Gesichtsausdruck) with a similar look on their faces stand to attention in military fashion, paying homage to God. As the opponent of the Devil, God, is if at all, shown as a person or face, practically as the symbol of the Holy Ghost. The disagreement between the religions, which flares up repeatedly, is evidence of how difficult it is to capture God as an image, as “invisible” and exceeding all our experience. On the other hand, there is an equally powerful need to be able to encounter him as “one’s equal.” But the “hidden” God (deus absconditus) always withdraws, just likegoodness that is always considered desirable. It is located in the “self-transcendence” of Man, which makes everything specific good and turns everything evil into an object to be re-considered, to be weighed, to be tested. In the Christian incarnation this self-transcendence in Jesus becomes self-awareness. (“Man is not for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for Man”, “I have not come to abolish laws, but to fulfil them,” “He who throws the first stone,” etc.). We can apparently get around evil, sins, and mistakes in our behavior more easily. The animal-human-appearance of the Devil reveals this line of thinking. Evil comes from our “natural” existence, our “animal” past. Fighting evil means disciplining our nature, taking away its influence. Sin arises from

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

348

Chapter 15

its directness, its external determination, against which we appear to be helpless. It is true that we are still on our way to God, but our face is contorted as a result of this dependence. Evil puts its stamp on our body, on our physiognomy (a way of thinking that goes way back to the beginning of modern times, in which racist ideologies were happily assimilated). The damned, however, do not fall back into their animal nature, but remain human, deformed and with terrifying faces and heads. These representations might also be seen as containing a dig at individualism: they are all different from each other, are special beings, but they “owe” that to their sins, to their divergence from God and goodness.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

6.) Along with the Devil and the representations of evil and sin, the monstrous and the exorbitant repeatedly come into view. These represent not only the overpowering, the appalling, the undefined fear of what cannot be influenced, but they also create a double, apparently self-contradictory notion. The “natural” in human beings is not regulated or subject to being measured, as is apparently the case in nature, nor is it possible to construe such a measure from the freedom or the spirit of mankind. History has many examples of the extent to which we, individually and collectively, can act without restraint in our unquestioned drive. Mass psychotic behavior can be assessed as evidence in the same way as the ideologically fixated degradation of other humans, wherein what some people are and claim to be is denied, with the purpose of subordinating or destroying them. The streak to a lemminglike self-destruction is equally at home here, too. Expressed as a metaphor, the Devil has taken possession of us, and we do not even notice, because we are him; we do not even need him as a cause for our wrongdoing. But even our freedom contains no sense of measure. It is frighteningly open. In order to overpower its “emptiness,” it must define itself, want something, become concrete. That though is at the same time its loss, its permanent estrangement since it loses itself in declaring itself; in the end, its selftranscendence becomes impossible. In vain our freedom tries to escape this state through further self-allocations of power. It remains at the mercy of its work. In its criticism of religion, the Enlightenment (politely but firmly) showed God the door, and we too, in our unconditional immanentism, now known as a “practical constraint,” have lost our self-transcendence (God), and completely given ourselves over to what we, ourselves, have put in place (sorcerer’s apprentice syndrome). Consequently, we are on the one hand completely at the mercy of our own finiteness, while on the other hand, we are subject to our imagination’s vague fears and demons and monsters. The apocalyptic horsemen are riding into our present. In old metaphorical terms the Devil has now become the prince of this “civitas terrena.”

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The Devil in Contradiction

349

7.) Alfonso di Nola’s fundamental work: “The Devil.” Character, Effect, History (Munich 1993, DTV) provides the information that in 1971, in American publishing houses, 2345 books on black masses, organised Satanism, and occult sciences could be identified (di Nola 1990, 433). If we consider the development since, with the growth of religious fundamentalism in the United States, and amongst Muslims etc., it is reasonable to assume that the number of publications will have continued to grow. Is the Devil becoming modern again? Do we need this cause, this external force, to push away all the “evil” we humans commit? Or have we, as noted above, lost our sense of control, our ability to maintain order, which makes it difficult for us to apportion “blame”? There is a lot of talk about responsibility, but where is it located? Re-phrasing it as “shared responsibility” makes it seem more like our embarrassment at allocating it, rather than grasping it solidly. Furthermore, the same book provides an example of a modern return of the Catholic church to believing in the Devil, when Pope Paul VI solemnly declared on 13th November 1972: “The evil in the world indicates the presence and activity of a dark enemy, of the Devil in us and in our society. Evil is not simply a lack or weakness; it is a living, spiritual, perverted, and perverting being. A frightening reality, secret and alarming. Whoever refuses to recognise its existence, places him or herself outside the Bible and the church; likewise, whoever raises him up to be a principle whose source, unlike every creation, is not in God; or whoever declares his pseudo-reality, making of him a personified fantasy figure of the unknown causes of our troubles ... The Devil is our number one enemy, the causer par excellence. From this, we know that this dark, confusing being actually exists and is still active. With deception he threatens the moral balance of mankind, he is the false sorcerer, who knows how to worm his way into us, in order to lead us away from the path of righteousness and truth... The Devil and the influence he is capable of exerting would be a very important chapter of the Catholic doctrine, worthy of renewed study, which happens only rarely happens in today’s world” (di Nola 1990, 425). And in 1986 Woityla adds: “Satan’s cunning plan in the world consists of deceiving human beings into denying his existence in the name of rationality or of every other system of thought, which clutches at any excuse possible in order to avoid admitting to his actions” (di Nola 1990, 426). This Satan is, of course, nothing as tangible (and solid) as Beelzebub was in earlier times. He becomes a “dark confusing being,” which leads di Nola to remark, justifiably: “The papal Devil presents himself like an empty room, like an ideological and mythological vacuum, which a reactionary cleric or a practising Catholic can fill with their exclusionary fantasies and with their sadistic aggression” (di Nola 1990, 428). And he draws one important conclusion: ”The return to the Devil enacts a form of inertia and numbing of the conscience, which contributes to the real reasons for persecution,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

350

Chapter 15

violence, and carnage being relegated to the level of fantasy. The ideology of the Devil, communicated with authority, soothes and calms us, by pretending to our conscience that a different source of evil has suddenly been discovered, thus relieving us of our guilty conscience and sense of responsibility, which will always to be the starting point for human action” (di Nola 1990, 433). It makes no difference which direction we take, whether to God or the Devil, a helplessness with regard to human liberty and its cause has always been expressed, either in relation to power determined by others, or, equally, in relation to its own fateful, final intractability of goodness. Both sides may well play a role today: the “worldly” power of a particular form of business and technology with their medium of “money” have made themselves indispensable in such a way that, as M. Thatcher once said, there is no alternative to it; in spite of all the visible shortcomings, lack of common sense, and other problems. Opposed to that is an individual helplessness that knows a better course of action for itself, but sees no possible way of undertaking “action” to achieve it, if it has not already totally subjected itself to the agreeable aspects of this power. This “self-disappropriation” of collective and individual autonomy can lead back to old patterns of thought: into an externally positioned “God of self-transcendence” in whom all hope of goodness is centred, who is however, also the cause for existing and desired power, and has to leave this to his interpreters, and into a Devil of “selftranscendence,” which, working away in the background, can be made responsible for all evil, for our individual incapabilities and incompetences, thus excusing our “fall”. Admittedly, doubt must be cast upon the idea that this Satan can be driven out so easily, just because individuals are possessed?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References v. Balthasar, H. U. (1987). Kleiner Diskurs über die Hölle. Ostfildern. Brèmond, J. (1924). Le diable. Paris. Brenk, B. (1972). Teufel. LCI 4. 295-300. Colleye, H. (1946). Histoire du diable. Brüssel. Cortè, N. (1957). Unser Widersacher der Teufel. Aschaffenburg. Di Nola, A. (1990). Der Teufel. Wesen, Wirkung, Geschichte. München. Erich, O. A. (1931). Die Darstellung des Teufels in der christlichen Kunst. Berlin. (Kunstwissenschaftliche Studien 8). Falk, W. (1983). Des Teufels Wiederkehr. Alarmierende Zeichen der Zeit in der neuesten Dichtung. Stuttgart. Flasch, K. (2015). Der Teufel und seine Engel. Eine neue Biographie. München: Beck. Franzoni, G. (1990). Der Teufel – mein Bruder. Der Abschied von der ewigen Verdammnis. München. (ital. Il diavolo, mio fratello. Soveria Mannelli 1986). Gellner, E. (1974). The Devil in Modern Philosophy. London.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

The Devil in Contradiction

351

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Gorresio, V. (1973). Il papa e il diavolo. Mailand. Haag, H. (1974). Teufelsglaube. Tübingen. Himmelfarb, M. (1983). Tours of Hell. Philadelphia. Hofgärtner, I. (1985). Teufel und Dämonen. Zugänge zu einer verdrängten Wirklichkeit. München. Holl, A. (1973). Tod und Teufel. Stuttgart. Maple, E. (1966). The Domain of the Devils. London. Nigg, W. (1985). Der Teufel und seine Knechte. Olten. Russell, J. B. (1985). Lucifer. New York. Teyssedre, B. (1985). Le Diable et l`Enfer. Paris. Vorgrimler, H. (1993). Geschichte der Hölle. München. Vurmbran, R. (1979) Mio caro diavolo. Ipotesi demonologiche su Marx e sul marxismo. Rom.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

16. Monster Anthropologies and Technology: Machines, Cyborgs and other Techno-Anthropological Tools Mark Coeckelbergh University of Vienna, Austria

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract Monsters are not confined to the realm of fiction and fantasy; there are also real technological “monsters”, and they play a role in how we deal with the new and with others in our culture. Moreover, as frightening, fascinating, and confusing others, monsters are not only a threat and a problem but have a far more constructive role than usually assumed: they help us to explore and cross borders, probe the darkness of the unknown, and both confirm and subvert the normal and establish ontological and political structures. In the drama of sameness and difference, monsters play on both sides and thus contribute to the ongoing making and breaking of cultures, making and questioning the lines that define it. There is a dynamics of subversion and containment. Engaging with monster theory and relating it to thinking about technology, this chapter argues that Western philosophical anthropology depends on monsters and other hybrid entities to define itself, and shows that these “monster anthropologies” also have a technological face with human-like automata, machines and cyborgs. It argues that these “negative anthropologies”, “technoanthropologies”, and other purifications of the human are not only “cultural” or fictional but have a real and material side, are normative and evaluative, for instance in politics and in the humanism/posthumanism debate, and are indispensable for thinking about what it means to be human in a technological age. For this purpose, we need not only discourse but also materialtechnological practices and artistic-scientific experiments. But if we tame and domesticate our (techno-)monsters, do we do violence to them, is something left out? Can we get beyond modern Western thinking, which relies on monster machines to define itself? Can art and non-Western culture offer us different

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

354

Chapter 16

ways of coping with being human? And are we monsters, posthuman hybrids of organisms and machine cyborgs? Keywords: Monsters; anthropology; technology; machines; cyborgs; robots; techno-anthropology; negative anthropology; posthumanism; alterity; cyborgs 16.1 Introduction At first sight, monsters have little to do with technology. They are usually seen as frightening imaginary creatures that dwell in the realm of fantasy and fiction. They belong to “culture”. Technology, by contrast, is seen as belonging to the real and material realm, such as the world of work, industry, and dayto-day life and business. Technology is part of economy; of how we deal with “nature”, and of daily, ordinary reality. Monsters live in tales; we live in the real world.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

When we look at how people respond to new technologies, however, a rather different picture emerges. In our fear and fascination with new technologies, “monster” and the “monstrous” are often used as metaphors. For instance, genetic modification of plants, animals, or – o horror – humans, is seen as monstrous. Human-like robots are experienced as monsters. And so-called transhumanists who attempt to “enhance” themselves by merging themselves with technology – who try to become cyborgs – are seen as monsters. How can we make sense of this? What does it tell us about monsters and their role in our culture? And what does it tell us about the way we think about technology, humans, and all kinds of others? In this chapter, I reflect on the cultural and philosophical-anthropological role of monsters, in particular, technological monsters. After introducing technological monsters and responding to existing monster theory, I argue that all kinds of monsters, including technological ones, are not only a “problem” but have a far more constructive role in cultures: they are used and are indispensable in the making of cultures and in thinking about what it means to be human. I show that machines, cyborgs, and other techno-anthropological tools are used to define what the human is, and that this exercise is not merely a matter of “cultural discourse” and textual interpretation but also includes, and should include, technological-material and artistic practices. I also critically reflect on how we do this in modernity – in particular what form this takes in the modern “West” (we use monster machines) – and ask if there may be alternative ways of coping with being human. In the course of my discussion, I also take into account thinking about (and the concept of) alterity. At the end I ask what might get lost if we tame the monster (perhaps there is something problematic about monster domestication) and if there is a sense in which humans are monsters: posthuman hybrids of organisms and machines.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster Anthropologies and Technology

355

16.2 Technological monsters as a problem: The fearful and fascinating crossing of boundaries and categories Monsters radiate a lot of meanings that point in all kinds of directions. These meanings leave the realm of fiction and wander into what are usually considered to be “real” issues and domains, ranging from thinking about capitalism to thinking about genetically modified organisms. Monsters play an important role in culture, providing meaning and metaphors to understand ourselves and our world. The history of culture, therefore, is also a history of monsters at the same time. Asma (2009) gives some examples of historical monsters: ancient (griffins, hermaphrodites, hydras, centaurs, Cyclopes), medieval (demons, dragons, ghosts, golems, witches), and modern (conjoined twins, microcephalics, craniofacial anomalies, psychopaths, terrorists). Indeed, each time has “their” monsters (Dixon 2008, 672).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

When it comes to thinking about technology, monsters also play a crucial role. A very influential myth in this domain, at least in the modern West, is the Frankenstein story. Influenced by Gothic Romanticism and by scientific experiments of her day (e.g. galvanism), Shelley wrote Frankenstein (1818): the story of a scientist who creates a “monster” – constructs a body out of lifeless body parts, life created from the lifeless – and then flees from it. The “Creature” then becomes malicious and turns against him. The story is often interpreted as a warning against technology going out of control. Technologies, especially technologies such as genetics and robots and artificial intelligence, are thus interpreted as monstrous, something to be feared. The monster and its creator are blamed for their hybris, for “playing God”. Moreover, the story clearly explores the boundary between human and non-human, life and lifeless – “monstrous” crossovers. This monster narrative and these monster meanings live on today in contemporary culture, for instance, science-fiction films such as Ex Machina, Ghost in the Shell, and Blade Runner. But they are also relevant to how people respond to new science and technology. For example, if today surgeons make plans for head transplants (or body transplants, depending on how you look at 1 it), they are accused of playing Dr. Frankenstein and the result – a head of one person attached to the body of another person – may be seen as monstrous. But there are also slightly less gothic examples. Genetics (e.g. genetically modified organisms), bio-engineering (Midgley 2000, 10), “Frankenstein foods” (Botting 2003, 342), and so on are seen as monstrous, but also human-like robots, cyborgs

1

See for instance surgeon Canavero’s plan to do a human head transplant https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/03/will-first-human-head-transplanthappen-in-2017

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

356

Chapter 16

etc. receive this response. Combinations of humans and machines are seen as monstrous. Autonomous robots and artificial intelligences are feared for becoming monsters that “take over” or that cross the human/non-human boundary. Thus, not only the life sciences but also computer science and engineering are accused of creating monsters. However, the emotional-hermeneutic impact of the Frankenstein story is also much wider; it also goes beyond fear to fascination. Botting (2003) has argued, Frankenstein myth continues to inform fascinations with science – and indeed science itself. For instance, contemporary genetics can be interpreted as attempts to discover the secret of life and create new, artificial life. It seems that such an aim is straightforwardly Frankensteinian: to infuse dead matter with the spark of life.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Sometimes monsters are intentionally created, by some scientists perhaps, but also and especially by artists, for example in bioArt (Dixon, 2008). Art can make visible the monsters and hybrids that already exist or even create new ones. In this sense, there are indeed “Dr. Frankensteins” at work. But here a merger of art and science is seen as something positive, as work that contributes to understanding our monsters and explicitly creating them, rather than keeping them at a distance. For some, however, the meeting of art and science remains fearsome, if not monstrous. At the turn of the millennium, Virilio suggested in Art and Fear (2000) that, on the one hand, art increasingly uses technological means (he mentions the information revolution and the ‘virtual cyberworld,’ 95-96) and, on the other hand, science in the form of genetic engineering becomes a kind of art. As genetics becomes creation, it becomes culture, and technoscience becomes theatre. According to Virilio, genetics is a new kind of horrific expressionism: the “expressionism of a MONSTER, born of the labour of a science deliberately deprived of a conscience” (Virillio 200, 50). Thus, for Virilio the combination art and science, one that creates the transhuman, leads to horrors. It is the road to Auschwitz, to Mengele, to eugenics. He sees a sick world, ruled by biology demiurges – by monsters. th

th

Yet this merger of art and science is not new. During the 19 and 20 century, art and science have been closer than is usually assumed; it is worth further considering those meetings of art and science, and explore what it means for understanding (our relation to) technology today. For a start, the Frankenstein myth itself shows brilliantly how, at that time, art and science were not opposed. Botting writes: Imagination and science, romance and reality, art and experimentation, are not simply opposed in the novel. The division of faculties between arts and sciences has yet to occur. Poets, like Shelley’s husband, Percy, dabbled in experimentation and scientific theory. (Botting 2003, 339)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster Anthropologies and Technology

357

Indeed, this mixture of art and science did not only happen in fiction. As I also show in my book New Romantic Cyborgs (2017), at the time, there was a “Romantic science” that combined a Romantic imagination with practical, experimental science. There was a fascination with electricity and generating new life. Frankenstein’s monster was a Romantic monster, created in the imagination but rooted in real Romantic science. (Botting [2003] goes even as far as to blame art, not science, for creating the monster [340].)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

As said previously, the usual response to the myth is to blame the monster, which has gone out of control. The message is that one should be cautious: one should not “play God” and one should not create technology that one can no longer master. But on a careful reading of the story, one should also blame the creator for not taking responsibility, for abandoning the monster. This is an important lesson for the philosophy of technology: the designer should take responsibility for her creations. Today this is recognized in the philosophy of technology, at least since the work by Winner (1997): abandoning the monster is a flight from responsibility (Winner 1997, 309). He argues that people release technology into the world with cavalier disregard for consequences’ and ‘with no attention to the ways in which these “tools” unexpectedly rearrange their lives’. They participate in ‘megatechnical systems far beyond their comprehension or control’ and passively accept technologies (Winner 1997, 314). However, the monster is not only monstrous because it is out of control. What is so monstrous and fearful has to do with something else, something that penetrates deeper into our culture. Here a philosophical perspective helps to better understand the nature of the monstrous: the monster rises when there are phenomena that do not fit our categories. This is what frightens us so much; at the same time, it also explains our fascination. This is what is at stake in Frankenstein and “Frankensteinian” genetics, where the dead/alive border is crossed. This is what is at stake in the robotics and AI that creates cyborgs and other illegitimate mergers of humans and machines. To better understand this, let us turn to philosophy and cultural anthropology. Derrida (1992) has argued that monsters refuse to fit. Monsters make us aware of what is normal; they remind us what the norm is. As “disturbing hybrids”, they refuse to participate in the “order of things” (Cohen 1996, 6). Kristeva (1982) has argued that abjection, which arguably we feel when we are confronted with a monster, is the result of a threatened breakdown of meaning, caused by the loss of distinction between subject and object, and self and other. The monster, as abject, draws us towards a place where “meaning collapses” (Kristeva 1982, 2). Abjection is caused by that what does not respect borders, by the “in-between” and the “ambiguous” (Kristeva 1982, 4). Thus, feeling disgusted, for instance, is not only a kind of moral judgment,

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

358

Chapter 16

as Midgley (2000) suggests; it may also signal the threat of the collapse of ontological order. Its meaning and significance are closer to Midgley’s interpretation of traditional myths: “Traditional mixed monsters--minotaurs, chimeras, lamias, gorgons--stand for a deep and threatening disorder, something not just confusing but dreadful and invasive.” (Midgley 2000, 10). This is also how we can interpret monstrous technology. If we think that genetic modification of humans or head transplants are monstrous, it is because we have difficulties in categorizing and giving meaning to crossings of borders and categories. In our order of things, there were clear distinctions between the living and the dead and between the natural and the artificial. These new developments in the biosciences and medicine threaten and shatter that order and these distinctions.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Similarly, information technology also “produces” monsters and has difficulties dealing with ambiguity, with people that do not fit its categories and procedures. If someone makes herself into a cyborg by modifying her body with technological apparatus, the line natural/artificial is crossed. If a robot were to become very human-like or if a human were to get a robot body, it would make us question the human/non-human border and, again, the dead/alive or material/cultural categories. We have difficulties giving meaning to these new phenomena since they do not fit the ontological order we assumed. At the same time, this ontological order is also a social and political one. Monsters are also, literally, abnormal: they deviate from the norm. Some people are stigmatized and marked as monstrous, such as immigrants or refugees (see also Castro Verala’s contribution in this volume.) Technology can play a crucial role in this making of social and political monsters. Murray (2007) has argued that biometric technology, while pretending to be neutral, involves all kinds of biases and presupposes a “normal” body. She writes: “Biometric technology claims to be able to determine who someone “is” based on the appearance and measurement of his/her body parts.” (Murray 2007, 353) But these technologies and procedures monsters, foreign and perhaps dangerous others (I will say more about otherness in next section), who are not “normal” according to the algorithm or whose bodies cannot even be “read”, are illegible: Biometric technology is a visualizing technology, transcoding one’s body into an image consisting of a binary digital code, and it is designed to flag particular users as dangerous; it predicts and assesses risk, and it does so through the measurement of a user’s body part. Biometric technology, as is made clear through the illegible body, is gauged in the West for an image of normativity as a white, white-collar male; it delegates as “Other” those who do not meet this image. (Murray 2007, 354)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster Anthropologies and Technology

359

Here technology is used in a way that sorts people: the biometric household involves social sorting. Some fit, others not. People are sorted into categories, into the social order. But some bodies resist digital identification (Murray 2007, 356); they cannot (entirely) be translated into computer code. The technologies thus “produce as monstrous those bodies “Othered” by idealized, wealthy, young, white, male bodies” (Murray 2007, 360). These people are neither citizens nor non-citizens since they are illegible. They are what one could call “no-body”. Moreover, as Murray also shows, at border controls, some people with higher socioeconomic status have a fast track, while others have to undergo more screening. Some bodies and some people move faster through the globalized world than others, and it is the technologies that contribute to this sorting, or more: make this sorting possible. There are “normal” people and “abnormal” people, “monsters”.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Yet our response to monsters is not only one of fear and fascination; as Smits (2006) has argued, we also try to expel the monster, and if that does not work we try to tame it, we try to fit it. We try to force the monsters into our categories, ontologically but – heeding Murray’s analysis – also politically: we try to force people that do not fit the standards of normality into the normal. This also happens to technological monsters. For example, we try to say that a humanoid robot is a mere machine (we force it into the categories of artefacts and objects) or that a genetically or technologically modified human is still a human (we force it into the categories of humans and subjects). We usually try to keep up the ontological and political order. Let us further explore a more cultural-anthropological take on this. Douglas (1966) has argued that ideas about impurity and danger are applied to phenomena that do not fit into cultural categories. There is a cultural order, and that order is also normative: what does not fit into it is “impure”, out of place, unnatural, etc. – in other words: it is a monster. Smits (2006) has usefully applied this idea to new technologies, which are at first monstrous: “New technologies are sometimes deeply ambivalent, bringing together, as they do, cultural categories assumed to be mutually exclusive.” (Smits 2006, 499) Hence first there is fear and fascination. But then, if it turns out that the monster cannot be expelled, people try to domesticate it: to fit it, to adapt to it, to make it part of the cultural and societal order. Perhaps they even embrace it. Indeed, the most radical strategy, perhaps, is what Smits calls assimilation: “monster assimilation refers to a strategy of adapting not only the monster but also the cultural categories by which it is judged” (Smits 2006, 501). Here the cultural categories themselves are adapted. Smits gives the example of brain death, a new notion made possible by new technologies. A new definition was necessary after new technologies that keep someone “alive”, and new transplantation techniques emerged.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

360

Chapter 16

To conclude, monsters are not culturally or normatively neutral: as they make us question our categories and distinctions, they deeply “touch” our culture and our thinking, and they are literally normative in that they define the “normal”, the “natural”, etc. They can even change the ontological and social order. Therefore, Smits calls for “monster ethics” (Smits, 2006, 500). However, in Smits approach, monsters are still mainly seen as a problem. In the next section I stress the constructive role of monsters in our culture and in defining the human. I also ask what might be lost when we tame (e.g. assimilate, adapt to) the monster – if it can be assimilated and domesticated at all – and ask whether we are monsters. 16.3 The constructive role of monsters in cultures and in defining the human: Monster machines and the negative anthropology of non-machines in Western modernity

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Monsters do not only cross the line; they also help us to draw the line, establish the very categories they question, threaten, and damage. For example, discussions about genetically modified organisms or robots do not only question but also reinforce the natural/artificial boundary, as they make us aware of how culturally important and normatively significant these boundaries are for us, moderns. Often the monster becomes tame, and then the cultural-ontological and political order is reinforced and confirmed, rather than destroyed. What does not kill the order makes it stronger. Thus, on the one hand, monsters subvert existing ontological and political orders; on the other hand their integration and normalization lead to a consolidation of those orders. There is a dynamics of subversion and containment. Yet monsters often refuse to be domesticated (Dixon 2008, 672), and it is questionable if they can be assimilated at all. As Kristeva writes on horror at the beginning of her book: There looms, within abjection, one of those violent, dark revolts of being, directed against a threat that seems to emanate from an exorbitant outside or inside, ejected beyond the scope of the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable. It lies there, quite close, but it cannot be assimilated. (Kristeva 1982, 1)

Perhaps the truly or radical monstrous cannot be assimilated or should not be assimilated; it remains intolerable and abject, it cannot be contained. Monsters can play this role because they are “others”, also in relation to the human. They are great anthropological tools to define the human – by means of defining the non-human. Let me unpack this claim: first, I discuss monsters in the light of the concept of alterity; then I introduce the concept of negative anthropology and show the constructive role of monster machines.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster Anthropologies and Technology

361

Alterity is a concept that refers to “otherness”. It usually is traced back to its roots in the philosophy of Levinas (1961, 1995) who argued that humans have a radical difference. But the term can and has also been applied to animals (e.g. Coeckelbergh and Gunkel, 2014) and even to technology: Ihde (1990) identified human-technology relations in which robots, for instance, play the role of quasi-others (Ihde 1009, 97). The ethical point of using the concept of alterity is that if we stress only sameness, we violate the difference of the other (for Levinas: the Other). Instead of regarding others as “same”, we should respond to their face and appeal to our responsibility, understood as what one could call response-ability.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Monsters, we could infer, are fearful and problematic because they are “other”. Monsters symbolize and embody difference. If we try to tame them, we might lose that difference. This may be ethically and politically problematic. Moreover, if we domesticate them, we might lose something we actually need. Perhaps monsters can play a more constructive role. Let us first consider the otherness of monsters, and relate it back to what has been said about the threat to ontological categories and social-political order. Socially and politically, when we see others as “monsters”, we project our fears onto them, and we refuse to recognize the stranger as singular other (Kearney 2002, 5). Thus, such efforts of domestication are ethically and politically problematic. Monsters are “difference made flesh” as they “function as dialectical Other” and are “an incorporation of the outside” (Cohen 1996, 7). The difference can be cultural, political, racial, sexual, etc. For instance, foreigners and indigenous people have been framed as monstrous, and women have sometimes been depicted (literally, but also for instance in Aristotle) as the monstrous other (Gear, 2001). Thus, monsters embody difference. But at the same time monsters confirm the norm, the sameness etc. In that sense, they play on both sides. Furthermore, what is considered “monstrous” or “normal” can change. For instance, Midgley (2000) gives the examples of cruel punishments and abuse of animals: whereas first they were considered “normal”, today they are often considered “monstrous” (Midgley 2000, 10). Moreover, monsters, understood as others, “reveal the undecidable character of many of our neat divisions and orders” and “signal a perplexing experience of otherness which is ‘awe-ful’” (Kearney 2002, 121). Monsters signal what cannot be charted, places where dragons reside, mysterious places. But monsters are also within us…; we are not at home with ourselves (Kearney 2002, 50). Kristeva (1982) also finds the abject within (Kristeva 1982, 5); in the end, the monster, the radically unfamiliar, is not only “out there” but is (also and at the same time) to be found in the self. On the one hand, monsters represent what is exiled from the self: on the other hand, the self itself is at least partly monstrous.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

362

Chapter 16

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

However, most accounts of otherness tend to follow Levinas in assuming and defending the absolute otherness of the other. As we have seen, for Kristeva, the abject is the radical unfamiliar. But if we cannot recognize any sameness in the other, this seems to be equally problematic: then the monster is so “other” that it is entirely out of reach of any efforts of meaningfully and ethically dealing with it. One may even wonder, in that case, if the monster is still monstrous and if there is still any border at all. Then perhaps what we need in monster ethics, is not complete alterity but a more dialectical or in any case a more nuanced view. We need some way of understanding and deciding vis-à-vis the monster, some conceptual and ethical-political interface. Kearney (2002), for instance, criticizes absolute or inflated ideas of otherness in Levinas, Derrida, etc. for leaving us unable to act and judge; instead he defends a diacritical hermeneutics that “ensures that the other does not collapse into sameness or exile itself into some inaccessible alterity; hermeneutics keeps in contact with the other” (Kearney 2002, 81). This is a good argument for not regarding monsters – including technological monsters – as totally and absolutely “other”, while at the same time trying to respect its difference and the hermeneutic and ethical-political challenge it poses. However, to develop this approach here would lead to far from the main aim of this chapter. An important conclusion at this point is the insight that monsters are “other”, but perhaps not completely other. This is helpful to know since this might be necessary for monsters to play the more constructive role I will discuss now. First, if we look at how monsters are studied in cultural anthropology, we can discern not only the role of threatening but also a role of constructing – including constructing the human. Cultural anthropology shows how historically foreign cultures and people were understood by “us” (the “West”, “civilization”) as monstrous: people outside “civilization” were seen as barbarians, savages. (In the past, cultural anthropology even helped construct this view of indigenous societies as barbarians.) The other was thus used to define oneself. They indeed embodied and incorporated the “outside”, the “other”. Furthermore, cultural anthropology also offers studies of monsters in the myths of indigenous societies. Every society has “their” monsters in their stories (Gilmore, 2002). Note that these monsters are not always seen as merely negative or even evil; sometimes they are also experienced and constructed as rather seductive and fascinating, even if they are meant to threaten (and teach us a lesson). We have our own myths in “the West”, and in these myths, there are also monsters. In modernity, our myths typically include machines. This brings me to the next point. Second, if we look at philosophical anthropology, then monsters also play a role – perhaps a rather unexpected role. In thinking about the human and in

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster Anthropologies and Technology

363

defining the human, monsters show what the human is not. As such, monsters help us to define the human. For instance, we are not gods, and we are not zombies. This is also the case for techno monsters such as machines and cyborgs: it is said that we are not machines. The monster is thus the negative of the human. Let me develop this point. What happens here is part of a more general process in Western cultures: we tend to employ what I have called ‘negative anthropologies’ (e.g. Coeckelbergh, 2014). Western philosophical anthropology has proceeded via a via negative: we have defined the human by saying what the human is not. What the human “is” has been constructed by using various non-humans: fictional and real animals, machines, and other “others” and negatives of the human. We need others, nonhumans to define ourselves. For instance, humans have been defined as nongods, non-angels, non-animals, non-wolves, and indeed … non-monsters. In modernity, this negative anthropology has taken a particular form, which gives a central role to technology, in particular machines: we are non-machines. This already started with Descartes and his negative machine anthropology.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In his Discourse on Method (1637), Descartes uses machines as the negative other of the human. Machines do not appear accidentally in the text; they are central to his anthropology. He uses them to draw the line around the human. He argued that machines can utter words but that they cannot arrange speech “in various ways, in order to respond appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence” (Descartes 1637, 38). The human is the negative of the machine: humans can respond appropriately to what is being said, they respond in a “non-machine”-like way. The machine is the negative of the human, and the human is the negative of the machine. Note that, heeding our discussion of otherness and monsters, it is necessary that the machine-monster or other monster is indeed an “other”, but in order for it to play its constructive role there also needs to be some sameness. The machine, for instance, needs to be a bit similar to the human for it to be a constructive other and a constructive monster in the construction of the 2 human.

2

Consider also the concept of the ‘uncanny valley’ in robotics: in order for a robot (or, we may add, any other non-human) to be uncanny, it needs to be different from a human, of course, but at the same time similar enough. For instance, a corpse is similar (it is a human body, human form) but different (the human is dead), and this makes possible our response that it is uncanny. And humanoid robots are only uncanny, fearful, and indeed “monstrous” if they are experienced as something/someone inbetween machine and human. As said, monsters cross boundaries; in this crossing and ambiguity lies their monstrosity.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

364

Chapter 16

Today computers, robots, AIs, etc. are used as the negative of the human. They are the new non-human monsters that are used to define us. They continue the machine monster anthropology of the West. As non-humans and others (which, as said, nevertheless have some sameness), they help us to construct the human. And they are not only fictional; instead, there are very real materialanthropological exercises in the lab and the artist’s studio. The non-human is being built, and there is a lot of work and funding going into it. They are engineered to be quasi-human in order to play the role of the new non-human monster. They are used to show and co-constitute the human difference. Indeed, this techno-anthropology is not just a “cultural” matter but involves technological and material practices, not only at the desk of the writer but also in the workshop of the engineer and the artist. If we want to explore new anthropologies at all, therefore, we should also consider technological innovation and art. This includes technology and art aimed at the so-called posthuman. The monstrous is not only roaming in our own self; perhaps it is also part of the human. 16.4 Beyond modern negative machine techno-anthropologies, or the posthuman challenge: We are monsters

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

If we want to think beyond the modern machine anthropologies, which define the human as the negative of the machine, what resources do we have? We can explore less dualistic anthropologies by means of art, by looking at “other” cultures, and/or by considering posthumanist anthropologies, which perhaps do not go beyond machine thinking, but at least beyond Cartesian negative anthropology. Here the human is no longer the non-machine; the humanmachine border is transgressed. Let me explain the challenge and innovation of this idea, in particular with regard to monster thinking. For many authors, including Smits, monsters are mainly other, are outside, etc. – and then they have to be tamed or assimilated, or it turns out impossible to do so. But there is a sense in which we are monsters and hybrids, with “we” understood as “self” but also as “human”. As we have seen, the so-called “other” also constitutes the self, and that means that I am also monstrous. But this can also be applied to thinking about the human: the other and the monster we have used to define the human (in a negative way, as the negative of the other, the negative of the monster), is “closer” than we think: it is actually already part of the human, of what the human is. This way of seeing ourselves goes beyond dualism. A first step to break dualism is always inversion: we can say that we are the other, the monster. For instance, to say that humans are machines cuts through human-machine dualism and questions the Cartesian negative

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster Anthropologies and Technology

365

anthropology that sees us as the negative of machines. (Similarly, we can say that “we” are also animals, women, etc. – using whatever others and monsters we have used in the past, but now in a new way.) This inversion is monstrous, of course, as it radically calls into question the very distinctions and categories of the philosophical-anthropological order we have set up. It is an attempt to change that order; it is revolutionary.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

In sociology, Law (1991) has argued that we are part-machine (Law 1991, 17). The line between humans and machines is variable. There are no clear dividing lines in the order of things. We are a place where incompatibilities come together (Law 1991, 19). And for Law, this is not only problematic; monsters can also be hopeful (Law 1991, 17-18). Indeed, in this kind of thinking we should be tolerant towards monsters and hybrids, if not positive, since they liberate us from the old order of things. Or more precisely: they liberate us from a misleading conception we have of that order and of ourselves. Perhaps we have never been modern and always existed and lived in a way that cuts through the modern dualisms, as Latour (1993) argued. Moreover, this kind of view also opens up more variety and plurality, especially if we consider the radical relationality of the human (see also below). As cyborgs we are members of many worlds and networks, and cyborgs subvert the standardized: if “humans and machines are intermingled” (Star 1991, 43) then reified boundaries break down. This point can also be put in the language of monsters. Lestel (2012) has argued that humans do not only love monsters – we are a species that loves monsters – but that monstrosity is a characteristic of human beings. We are Darwinian and are part of a global ecosystem, and this makes homo sapiens a “monster animal” (Lestel 2012, 259). It does not “play the species game” (Lestel 2012, 260). And since Frankenstein, and probably already since the Minotaur (which, however, was still born rather than created), the biological, cultural, and artificial hybridize. Lestel sees the creation of the posthuman as an attempt to go beyond evolution (Lestel 2012, 261). This is monstrous, but if indeed we have always been monster animals, it is merely a new kind of monstrosity. The biological becomes contaminated by the technological (Lestel 2012, 262). Organ transplants are “a triumph of the monstrous” (Lestel 2012, 263) and the development leads to the cyborg. We love monsters since we are monsters and since they are our future: “We love monsters not only on account of the fact that we are Darwinian monsters, but also because monstrosity is our future and we are, simply, condemned to loving monsters” (Lestel 2012, 267). Such a “cyborg” and “monster” view is in line with posthumanist views of the human and contemporary views of human-technology relations that see humans as hybrid and technological beings. Haraway (2000, 2008) sees the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

366

Chapter 16

cyborg – a hybrid of machine and organism - as a fictional creature, but she also discerns the cyborgs in science and modern medicine. For Haraway, such hybrids are not a problem; on the contrary, they are the protagonists of her posthuman myth. We are all cyborgs (Haraway 2000, 292). She writes: By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism. In short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation. … This chapter is an argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction. It is also an effort to contribute to socialist-feminist culture and theory in a postmodernist, non-naturalist mode. (Haraway 2000, 292)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Thus, the confusion of boundaries – typical for the monstrous – is for Haraway pleasurable and transformative. Her posthumanism is monstrous, and she invites us to love the monster. And this view also illustrates again that monsters are normative and evaluative: they project a view of how the human should be (understood). Similarly, Latour (1993) has argued for recognizing hybridity. Whereas modernity usually sharply distinguishes between the natural and the social-cultural, for Latour we have never been modern: our world is full of hybrids. As Smit (2006) also recognizes, Haraway’s cyborgs and Latour’s hybrids are a kind of monsters: “Like monsters, cyborgs represent tension-filled mixtures of organisms and machine, or of the human and the animal” (Smit 2006, 502). Haraway embraced the monster. Latour’s relation to hybrids is less clear, perhaps he recognizes them but seems to want to limit their number. But in any case, we have views here of the human and of human culture in which the monstrous is recognized as part of the human, rather than banned to the nonhuman or to Otherness, to the land of alterity. While attention to monsters in technological practices (and elsewhere) can help us to become more sensitive to difference, as the biometric technologies example showed, there is also a sense in which all humans are the same; this is so not because they share an essence but because of their relational nature: what they are as persons and as humans is constituted by what and whom they are related to. Their existence and selves are strongly entangled with others, with their technologies, and with their environment. It is a view that leads to what we could call a far more relational, and certainly less dualist anthropology than the Cartesian one. In posthumanism understood as a relational view, I am constituted by the others and the relations I have to these others, and neither do “they” have absolute alterity and difference, nor do “I” or “we” have absolute sameness and identity. A relational view even cuts through the alterity/sameness and identity/difference dichotomies. And in the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Monster Anthropologies and Technology

367

end, it shows that we are monsters and need our monsters in order to be the humans and selves that we are. This takes us far beyond Smits’s strategies of taming and assimilation. It invites us to reflect not only about what it would mean to give more respect to the wildness of the monster (to have it retain some of its alterity, not to tame it completely), but also what it would mean to recognize the monster in ourselves and to cope with the monstrosity of the human, understood in terms of post-humanity and the relationality. 16.5 Conclusion For thinking about technology, we may conclude that the Frankenstein story teaches us not only that responsibility for technology is also with the designer; it also reminds us of the cultural and anthropological roles of technology and their philosophical significance. Technology is more than an instrument that is meant to do what it is supposed to do, in the sense that it has unintended consequences, but also that it is culturally meaningful and functions as an anthropological tool. There are techno-anthropological exercises that define the human by means of technological and other monsters. This does not only happen in fiction and the study room of the philosopher or literary critic, but also in the lab of the scientist, the workshop of the engineer, and the studio of the artist.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

For thinking about cultures, this means that monsters are not only a problem, but also play a constructive role. They challenge and corrode our established concepts, lines, categories, and order; but at the same time, they also help to construct it. When in modernity we try to tame our monsters, then, we might lose some of the very building blocks of our world order. For thinking about humans, it turns out that we are made by monsters and other others, and that perhaps we are monsters ourselves. Indeed, if our modern Cartesian way of defining the human with its focus on machines as the negative is problematic, then we can now discern a view that respects hybridity, alterity, and indeed monstrosity, which is then seen as something that is not only problematic but also something we need. Perhaps we can also learn from other cultures to get beyond our thinking about humans as the negative of machine monsters. There may be different ways of coping with being human: different myths, different technological practices, and different art. Other cultures may also have a different relation to their monsters. Further research needs to go into building bridges and dialogues between different cultures and their monsters, and into new and better anthropologies – monster anthropologies and others.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

368

Chapter 16

For thinking about alterity, the present text stresses that we should also consider technological others, also include monsters. Alterity is not just about humans or animals (Coeckelbergh and Gunkel, 2014) but also technology. Alterity is not only cultural; it is also in the material; or rather, as being something monstrous itself, it crosses these borders. Moreover, I have suggested that we can think beyond the alterity/sameness dichotomy. This could also be beneficial for developing a more comprehensive account of how we use monsters constructively, relying on their difference and sameness. Monsters can only play this constructive role, it seems, if they are what we could call similar others. For thinking about monsters, finally, this chapter evokes a wide and rich field of interpretation that sheds some light on how we cope with new technologies, on our relation to technology, and how we think about what it means to be human. The latter turns out to always involve thinking about and shaping our relation to technology. We construct and use technological tools to shape the human; what the human “is”, is shaped by our tools and by the other monsters to which we are related. And if posthumanists are right, we are both human and technological. Then we are monsters.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Asma, S. T. (2009). On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Botting, F. (2003). Metaphors and monsters. Journal for Cultural Research. 7(4). 339-365. Coeckelbergh, M. (2014). The Moral Standing of Machines: Towards a Relational and Non-Cartesian Moral Hermeneutics.Philosophy and Technology, 27(1). 61-77. Coeckelbergh, M. (2017). New Romantic Cyborgs: Romanticism, Information Technology, and The End of the Machine. Cambridge, MA, London: The MIT Press. Coeckelbergh, M. and Gunkel, D. (2014). Facing Animals: A Relational, OtherOriented Approach to Moral Standing. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 27(5). 715-733. Cohen, J. J. (1996). Monster Culture (Seven Theses). Cohen, J. J. (Ed.). Monster theory. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 3-25 Derrida, J. (1992). Passages – From Traumatism to Promise. Weber, E. (Ed.). Points . . . : Interviews, 1974–1994. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 375-395. Descartes, R. (1988) [originally 1637]. Discourse on the Method. Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dixon, D. P. (2008). The blade and the claw: science, art and the creation of the lab-borne monster. Social and Cultural Geography, 9(6). 671-692.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Monster Anthropologies and Technology

369

Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London, New York: Routledge. Gear, R. (2001). All those nasty womanly things: Women artists, technology and the monstrous-feminine. Women’s Studies International Forum 24(3/4). 321–333. Gilmore, D. D. (2002). Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Haraway, D. (2000) [originally 1991]. A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and social- ist-feminism in the late twentieth century. Bell, D. and Kennedy, B. M. (Eds.). The Cybercultures Reader. London: Routledge. 291-324. Haraway, D. (2008). When Species Meet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kearney, R. (2002). Strangers, Gods and Monsters. London, New York: Routledge. Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press. Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Law, J. (Ed.) (1991). A Sociology of Monsters. Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London, New York: Routledge. Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and Infinity. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. Levinas, E. (1987). Collected Philosophical Papers. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Lestel, D. (2012). Why are we so fond of monsters? Comparative Critical Studies 9(3). 259–269. Midgley, M. (2000). Biotechnology and Monstrosity: Why We Should Pay Attention to the ‘Yuk Factor’. Hastings Center Report 30 (5). 7-15. Murray, H. (2007). Monstrous Play in Negative Spaces: Illegible Bodies and the Cultural Construction of Biometric Technology. The Communication Review 10(4). 347-365. Shelley, M. W. (1992) [originally 1818]. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. London: Penguin Books. Smits, M. (2006). Taming monsters: The cultural domestication of new technology. Technology in Society 28. 489–504. Star, S.L. (1991). Power, Technology, and the Phenomenology of Conventions. Law, J. (Ed.). A Sociology of Monsters. Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London, New York: Routledge. 26-56. Virilio, P. (2000). Art and Fear. London, New York: Continuum. Winner, L. (1997). Autonomous technology: technics-out-of control as a theme in political thought. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

17. I, Monster: Hybrid Anthropology Markus Fath QualityMinds GmbH, Germany

For the most beautiful hybrid I have ever seen: Franzi & Juno With all my love, deepest gratitude and appreciation for every moment you are a part of my hybrid existence.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract The contribution aims at giving an introduction to an anthropological concept considering the essence of human nature as an alterable, fluent and highly dynamic hybrid. The concept uses elements from different theoretical approaches including actor-network-theory, the philosophical approach of Michel Serres and essential insights from social psychology. In short human beings are basically considered as hybrids, including non-human actors (objects, but also ideas, values, etc.). Such hybrids cannot be considered as static; quite the contrary, they have to be considered as being distinguished by constant alteration. The so build anthropological concept will offer a more complex – and thus more honest – understanding to what we call human beings respectively human nature. We are always natural-artificial-altering-hybrids, and we could consider ourselves monstrous. This more complex perspective will contribute to de-dramatizing the fusion of the human and the artificial by showing that being human always meant and always will mean being artificial to some degree. It will contribute as well to preparing for a future society, where the potential – and yes: the beauty – of monsters are appreciated. Keywords: Anthropology, actor-network-theory, philosophy, social psychology 17.1 Some sort of introduction – or: Tales of monsters and human beings Many, perhaps even all members of the species we call humanity can surely remember a period of their life, where they had an extremely important, essential ritual. That ritual was so vital that it was not negotiable at all. That ritual was checking for monsters before going to sleep.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

372

Chapter 17

Monsters could be everywhere, but they surely have favourite places where they lurk: under the bed, in the closet, under the toilet lid and of course in every shadow respectively in the darkness. Well, as long as we were spared from that strange process called growing-up, we had a complete understanding where monsters lurk and how to keep them in check by watching out for them. Then we were confronted with different types of so-called adults. There were those who helped us watch out; they offered us their faithful services to check the lavatory for us and reported the monster-free status. Phew! That was a near miss. And there were the really sad cases of serious adults (that’s how they mostly called themselves), suffering from something called rationality – obviously a highly contagious disorder with symptoms of missing empathy, missing humor and a typical compulsive behavior: telling everybody, mostly without being asked at all, what is reasonable and what is not reasonable. While so many things were completely obvious, others were truly hazy. What do the monsters look like? Um, well, horrible of course, and, um, monstrous! Red eyes, sharp teeth, long claws and creepy things like that. Where do the monsters come from? What do they want? Especially the so-called serious adults kept asking questions and started mocking us for not delivering precise answers. Is it so difficult to simply check under the toilet lid for us? Perhaps that is a good definition for being rational and especially reasonable: feeling strong mocking scared children. Perhaps the monsters aren’t such a bad company after all…

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Quite likely, that is the crucial point. What makes the monsters monsters is our lack of knowledge. And our lack of knowledge is the root of our anxiety. The term monster is used as a placeholder, a category without definition, when all categories we are used to fail. In German, the term monster has several synonyms: Ungeheuer means that something is scary because we are not used to it. Unmensch, which is mostly used as swearword, literally simply means that all we know about something is that it is not human. This simple but meaningful statement shall be my starting point for the following reflections: Monster is a term used for everything that is not familiar and not fitting with our images of what human beings should be like. The term monster is like a negative image. We cannot say what monsters are. We only can say what they are not. They are not fitting with the expectations we are used to, considering how human beings should be like. According to Jean Piaget (2015), there are two basic strategies on how to deal with a mismatch of worldview respectively conception and experience. Assimilation means only taking into account what fits with the worldview and thus keeping up the worldview and considering it as approved. The aspects that do not fit with the established worldview are either ignored or declared unimportant. Accommodation means also taking aspects into account which misfit the worldview. The result is alteration of the established worldview, leading to reforming a worldview fitting to past and new experiences.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

373

Let us follow the path of accommodation for a while. Let us for once assume that a mismatch with our expectations of human beings is not a bad thing, but merely an opportunity to learn something respectively to evolve. Let us assume that our expectations of how human beings should be, is not Godgiven or natural and not cast in stone. Let us assume that our conception of human beings, in one word our anthropology, is a social construct. It occurred in and was shaped by social, cultural, religious contexts and thus is alterable. Perhaps the most promising strategy for getting rid of our anxiety is not to chase away all that does not fit our expectations. Perhaps we can simply reflect and reform our expectations. Then we could start understanding that what we call ‘monster’ is simply an entity not yet understood and/or accepted, respectively acknowledged, respectively appreciated.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

That is exactly what this chapter is all about: Making a contribution to the process of understanding, accepting, acknowledging and finally appreciating what appears monstrous by offering an alternative image of human beings, an alternative anthropology, overcoming rigid expectations. First of all, I will show, based on a famous historical example, that even highly influential and dominating anthropology can be overcome and sometimes has to be overcome. The example given is humoral pathology. Then by taking a closer look at two phenomena, I will show that the effects of human qualities and attributes depend on interaction with the natural and social environment. Thus human qualities and attributes need to be contextualized. The phenomena are sickle-cell-anaemia and ADHD. Finally, I will introduce to an alternative anthropology, using terms and insights from three theories respectively research fields: actor-network-theory, the philosophical approach of Michel Serres and social psychology (especially the experiments of Milgram and Zimbardo). Combining these terms and insights will deliver an alternative anthropology without rigid expectations. To the contrary this anthropology will understand human beings as natural-artificial-altering-hybrids. The chapter will close with suggestions how to integrate the alternative anthropology into future conceptions. Now let us turn our attention to the humoral pathology and a fundamental question that bothered one of its most famous advocates: Aristotle. 17.2. Humoral pathology – or: By the gods, why is there such a thing like women? Now let me exactly do what I talked about: taking abstract thoughts and contextualize them. These thoughts dealt with a mismatch between experience and expectations of how human beings should be. The context is now ancient Greek.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

374

Chapter 17

Aristotle († 322 BC), an advocate of humoral pathology, was wondering about a phenomenon that did not fit with the dominant anthropological expectations. This phenomenon was women. Well, at that time and place, it was proven beyond reasonable doubt that human beings should be like men. Male qualities and attributes were the optimum and the foundation for expectations. Grownup male human beings were considered as the measure of all things. Women simply did not match those expectations. Who would have thought? Thus the very existence of women was in need of explanation (Fath, 2013). The answers were found. Let me first present them and then discuss them. Answers: Females are actually disabled males. Whenever a female human being is born, it actually should have been a male human being, but something went wrong. There are three major possibilities what went wrong. 1. The male involved in the act of sexual reproduction was old and weak. 2. The uterus of the female involved in the act of sexual reproduction was of bad quality. 3. During the act of sexual reproduction, the humid south wind was blowing (Fath 2013, Zwick 2004). Yes, exactly. No, you did not miss anything. No, not errata, respectively misprint. Take your time and read the answers once more, if you feel the need to do so for the purpose of reassurance.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Today these explanations would probably cause outrage and insurrection. At least they would be answered with a pitiful and smirking shake of the head. But remember the need for contextualization. In ancient Greek, these explanations were considered as proven, not least because they fitted the dominant anthropology: humoral pathology. Humoral pathology, also known as the theory of the four humors, teaches that all living things are shaped by certain composites of the four humors: blood, phlegm, white bile and black bile. Depending on the proportions of the humors, different natural beings with different qualities emerged. The explanations were no simple assumption. Nobody jumped to conclusions. These insights resulted out of a long research process under consideration of Empedocles’ insights on the four natural elements: fire, earth, water and wind. The elements had characteristic qualities: warmth, coldness, humidity and dryness (Zwick, 2004). Natural phenomena like the humid south wind had elemental qualities and were considered influential on the proportion of the four humors. Furthermore, coherences with star constellations were taken into account. In short: the explanations for the existence of women were conclusions emerging out of the medical worldview of that zeitgeist. If someone believed in these theories of nature, and at that time and space there was no reason for not believing them, the given explanations for the existence of women are

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

375

logically consistent (Fath, 2013). Like today these theories were developed considering repeated observations and experiences – today when we conduct similar research that confirms our expectations, we consider these expectations as empirically proven. No need to say that this theory is overcome at the very latest with the discovery of sex-determining chromosomes, but for centuries this anthropology was dominating and unchallenged in human medicine shaped by mainly European theories. What if you were a most capable philosopher or medical practitioner in ancient Greek and you were trying to explain to the best of your knowledge and belief why women exist? It is extremely likely that you would have agreed with Aristotle (Fath, 2013). Let us keep that in mind: Even the most dominating and best-proven theory, respectively, anthropology is depending on context and is a child of its time. Whatever is proven beyond reasonable doubt today can easily turn into a bad joke tomorrow. Today this historical dominant theory at least scores by getting the laughs.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

By the way, our current theories dealing with genesis of human life cannot be considered as unchallenged either. In 2002 a medical case was published dealing with the discovery of so-called tetragametic chimerism. A woman aged 52 was suffering from kidney failure, and her three sons were tested as potential donors. The result of the testing: The woman could not be the mother of two of her three sons (Yu et al., 2002). Further testing was conducted – would there have been further testing if the result would have been disputed fatherhood of a male human being? – and unravelled the mystery. The woman was a chimera in terms of genetics. Not going too deep into details: Chimeras in terms of genetics are individuals that have not one but two different DNA-strands forming one body. The theory behind that phenomenon is about dizygotic twins merging into one embryo in the uterus. Both DNA-strands can be found all over the body in all organs and tissues. But it is also possible that in one organ (in the case of that woman in the uterus) one DNA-strand is absolutely dominant. So the basic idea of genetics, that one unique DNA-strand leads to one unique human being, has to be rethought. The good news is, in that case, the immune system of natural tetragametic chimeras is tolerant for both DNA-strands, meaning that in the published case all three sons could be considered as potential donors (Yu et al., 2002). The discovery of that phenomenon offers more explanations for more human qualities in need of explanation, e.g. iris heterochromia (meaning one person having two or even more eye colours) and intersexuality can be better explained by tetragametic chimerism than by other theories. However, consequences of that discovery beyond genetics for law, criminology, pedagogy etc. are inestimable. DNA-proof can no longer be

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

376

Chapter 17

considered as proof beyond reasonable doubt. Nobody can make an educated guess how widespread that phenomenon is. We may also have to rethink our ideas of family, motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood etc. Considering all we know so far, it is definitely within the realms of possibility that one child has two genetically fathers (Fath, 2013). Even if we would cling to a strict biological respectively genetically anthropology, we are far from a reliable theory beyond reasonable doubt. Perhaps the ideas of Aristotle seem no longer so pathetic in comparison to our current ideas. It seems to be only a matter of time and space until expectations and conclusions considering human qualities and attributes are overthrown. At this moment please take a short break and think of everything you consider as proven beyond reasonable doubt today. After that, let us take a look at some of our today’s conceptions about health, disease and other things we consider as normalities.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

17.3 Rethinking qualities and attributes – or: nature simply does not give a damn about expectations and conclusions Today the anthropological ideas of ancient Greek are considered – in polite words – as a historical episode. From our zeitgeist it seems hard to comprehend how people ever could have believed the explanations of Aristotle. Even though the theory of the four humors is outdated, the desire for constants in human life, respectively human existence was not dropped. There were a lot of ideas all across the cultures and centuries trying to identify the essence of human beings and the characteristics of existence. Perhaps it is the inevitability of evanescence that raises the desire for reliable constants in human life. Maybe this is why anthropological concepts focus on the idea of typically human qualities and/or attributes. Depending on the anthropological concept physical and/or mental qualities and/or attributes are highlighted. Promising aspirants for such reliable constants are good health as distinguished from disease and reasonable behavior as distinguished from disturbed behavior. Let me take these qualities and attributes to the test and see how reliable they are. They won’t last long. I promise. Is aspiring after good health a reliable constant in human life? There is a lot of research and discussion about pathways to good health. This research fills papers, books, bookshelves and libraries. One could get the impression that it is the most important topic of humanity. Avoiding, treating and curing diseases seem to be part of the oldest professions. Remember that it was the medical perspective that dominated the anthropology of ancient Greek. The foundation of every diagnostic process, now and then, is an idea of how the human body should be. These reflections are dealing with the question of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

377

what belongs to the formula of good health and what has to be considered as disease. But how reliable is this distinction? Prenatal diagnostics, including screenings for hereditary diseases, are part of a social system with a massive influence on anthropological ideas. But can hereditary diseases be identified without exception as diseases?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Let us take a closer look at the hereditary disease called sickle-cell-anaemia. This phenomenon occurs in a homozygous and an intermediary heterozygous manifestation. People with homozygous manifestations often die at an early age. People with a heterozygous manifestation can reach old age, but they do not have a strong ability to withstand (especially physical) stress. Under conditions of physical stress, the erythrocytes (red blood cells) of these people shift their form to a sickle (name giver). While in sickle form oxygen cannot easily attach to the cell. Thus the red blood cells deliver less oxygen to the organs and tissues. Thus oxygen supply of the organism is not well, and the organism is not so physically powerful that it can match social expectations (Passarge, 2012). However spared from physical stress, these people could lead a good life, but of course, resilience towards physical stress is a high value in our society. Isn’t it? So we have a reliable source of suffering and a clear indicator how human beings should not be. The best thing for humanity is to find a cure and somehow get rid of this disease someday? Like humoral pathology that position cannot remain unchallenged due to the discovery that there are populations on earth, where one out of three persons is showing the heterozygous manifestation. That rate is unexpectedly large for a hereditary disease. These populations are found in regions where malaria is widespread. What is known so far is that the malaria pathogen is a parasite depending on red blood cells in a certain larval stage. In the red blood cells of people with sicklecell-anaemia that parasite dies off. Heterozygous sickle-cell-anaemia is tantamount to natural immunity for malaria (Passarge, 2012). Thus this supposed hereditary disease has to be considered as evolutionary selection advantage in regions where malaria is widespread. Now imagine a society where climatic change leads to the global distribution of malaria, while physical resilience towards stress would not be any longer a social value. Would there still be anyone left considering sickle-cell-anaemia as a disease? Let me note that even hereditary diseases are in need of contextualization and every context alters dynamically, easily making evolutionary advantages out of hereditary diseases. Next supposed reliable quality, please! Here we go with reasonable behavior. When Enlightenment started, its triumph, humanity was freed from irrationality and unreason. There are

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

378

Chapter 17

efforts to declare reason as the essence of human nature, rooted in the religious desire to separate man from all other living things and declare humanity as the crown of creation. But these efforts without exception are stuck for an answer to the question what reason exactly is. It reminds us of that childhood ritual. Maybe the reason is some sort of good monster lurking under the toilet lid. We are sure it is there, but do not ask for details! To continue with a humorless statement: the triumph of Enlightenment and reason goes hand in hand with the birth and spreading of insanity respectively mental disorders (Foucault 1988, 1995). Without the social construct of reason, there is no social construct of unreason respectively insanity, respectively, mental disorder.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Now let us take a closer look at an example of a disorder to clarify the lack of clarity behind expectations of reasonable (which stands as a placeholder term for socially desirable and acceptable) behavior. The Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a spreading disorder. However, the underlying diagnostics and resulting therapies are not unquestioned. It would take too long and be unrewarding for this chapter’s perspective to go deep into the essential debate about the fuzziness of diagnostic criteria and especially the administration of methylphenidate despite lack of even one long-term study on the potential massive harms (Fath 2011, 2015, Roggensack 2006). What shall suffice here is highlighting descriptions of pathologized behavior. Among the symptoms you can find behavior patterns like: not following through on instructions; avoidance or reluctance to engage in given tasks; leaving the seat in situations where remaining seated is expected; inability to play or engage in activities quietly; talking excessively; blurting out answers before question is complete; difficulties in awaiting turn; interrupting or intruding on others; Like the term reason, it is not clarified in the diagnostic manuals where exactly the borderline between normal and excessively is. But what is far more important: the described behavior patterns are obviously based on expectations on how children should be: well-behaved, obedient, socially fitted, productive and not annoying. When children show behavior mismatching expectations, it is considered a symptom of a disorder. Now let us take once more that social construct and regard it under a contextualized perspective. Disregard towards unwanted tasks and instructions; inability to remain silent; talking about everything all the time; inability to hold still: all these behavior patterns actually have to be considered as important protective factors, but not in the context of social expectations or clinical psychiatry. They are important protective factors for children at risk of child molestation, especially sexual child molestation (Fath 2011, 2015). The most significant factor in cases of child molestation is the obedience of the child;

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

379

including fitting to social expectations and remaining silent about what is happening (Kuhnen, 2007). This is pretty easily understood: children talking excessively about simply everything are much less likely victimized by a crime based on keeping a secret. On the other hand, this should be no less easily understood: The well-behaving child is the most helpless victim for the offence of child molestation. The statement that qualities of physical respectively physiological attributes depend on contexts extends for the reasonability of behavior. What is a risk factor for social integration is a protective factor against child molestation (Fath 2011, 2015). The expectations of children may be convenient for the nerves of adults, but they are counterproductive for the protection of children. To be honest, it would not be surprising if further research concludes that the described childish behavior considered as pathological by clinical psychiatry turns out to be some sort of natural protective instinct. Here I have to point out that it is only a matter of context that distinguishes desirable physical and mental qualities and attributes from undesirable ones. Anthropologies based on expectations on physical and/or mental qualities and/or attributes have to be rejected for not taking into account that human beings never exist out of dynamic and alterable contexts. Let me close these brief reflections on qualities and attributes with a bold, winking and very plausible suspicion: the belief in typically human physical and/or mental qualities and/or attributes will turn out to be the humid south wind of the anthropological ideas of our zeitgeist.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Now it is time to introduce to an anthropological concept renouncing expectations and understanding human beings from scratch as contextualized dynamic altering existences. 17.4 Hybrid anthropology – or: Know thyself, monster called human! The following chapter introduces to an anthropological concept built out of the combination and further development of three theoretical approaches coming from different research fields and disciplines. They are: actornetwork-theory, the philosophical approach by Michel Serres and the key results from Milgram’s and Zimbardo’s experiments. First, I will introduce to the core terms and insights, describing how they are transferred to the anthropological concept. Please note that I do not raise the claim of full descriptions of the theories respectively research fields. The focus lies on the selection of certain aspects and their integration into a bigger context. After that I will merge the developed elements to a full picture. Finally I will contextualize the anthropological concept as such.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

380

Chapter 17

17.4.1Actor-network-theory Let me start with the basic ideas of actor-network-theory. This theory was developed to function as the theory of relativity for social sciences. Bold aspiration! How is this to be understood? In physics, for a very long time, there was the assumption of ether as a medium for the expansion of light. All theories worked with this idea until the theory of relativity was developed and was able to explain, among other things the expansion of light completely without that mysterious element called ether. According to Latour (2005) the term social in social sciences is quite similar to the term ether in natural sciences. Nobody has ever found any proof that this entity called social actually exists. Latour sees it as some sort of placeholder category. The idea of social influence is used whenever a phenomenon cannot be explained in a better way. But no one can describe what social influence as such exactly means. Social influence, ether, reason etc. appear like some sort of terminological dei ex machina to mysteriously save the concept. Latour chooses a different approach to describe and explain human action and behavior. The crucial aspect is the term of actor-network. It stands for a highly dynamic and only temporary assembling of actors that take several roles and by combined coaction fulfil what we call action respectively behavior. An actor-network is always built by the integration of human and so-called non-human actors (Latour, 2005). A non-human actor is a term representing human constructions that become a part of action and behavior. Non-human actors can be objects, ideas, values etc.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Let us take a look at a specific example that brings the abstract imagination of human and non-human actors co-acting in an actor-network to context. The action to shoot is not fulfilled by a human being simply using a weapon. It is fulfilled by a complex human-weapon-hybrid (Latour, 1999). It is unprecise to consider the weapon as passive object used by the acting subject. The influence of the weapon on action and behaviour is more significant. First of all, the weapon draws attention to certain aspects and thus reduces complexity. When you look at a weapon, your thoughts will deal probably more than anything else with its harmful potential and not with the possibility of, e.g. writing a poem, even if other non-human actors (pen and paper) close to you would enable such an action as well. In other words, our associations with specific non-human actors link them to certain possibilities that seem more present as soon as we draw attention to the non-human actors. In short: attention towards one non-human actor already limits the number and characteristics of possible actions we are aware of (Fath, 2011).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

381

Secondly the close presence of certain possibilities goes hand in hand with other possibilities temporarily vanishing from our consciousness. When you look at a weapon or even hold it in your hand, you will not be aware of a lot of realistic possibilities like leaving the room, driving a car, put on some music, taking a shower etc. Actions that do not include the weapon are less present or even not present at all. That phenomenon, the absence of possible actions due to the conscious presence of a non-human actor is called black-boxing. Finally, one action above all others is very close at hand and the most likely to be fulfilled when a specific non-human actor is integrated. This is induced by the characteristics of the non-human actors’ structure. In case of a weapon, e.g. a pistol, it is because of its form that the most present action, when you hold it in your hand, is to aim and pull the trigger (Fath, 2011). That phenomenon, the specific construction of a non-human actor being tantamount to a call of action is called inscription.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Please note that the inscription is not to shoot or even to kill someone! Such inscriptions can be part of other non-human actors, e.g. the idea of retaliation or the idea of defending your country against the enemy. By the way, two more variations of the humid south wind of our zeitgeist (Fath, 2011). How fundamental the influence of a non-human actor is, and why it has to be considered as much more than only an object, is made clear by a simple thought. Imagine a situation twice with all several human and non-human actors involved. The only difference between the situations is one non-human actor being part of a human-actor-non-human-actor-hybrid. In the first situation, you have several people in a room arguing, and one of these people is a human-weapon-hybrid. In the second situation, you have the same people, the same argument, and the same human actor as part of the hybrid of our special interest. But this time this human actor is part of a humanflower bouquet-hybrid. By imaging these alternate situations it gets much clearer how fundamental influence of non-human actors on human actors and situational dynamics can be. Let me sum up the basic statements from actor-network-theory that are transferred to the anthropological concept. Action and behavior are commited by an actor-network. This actor-network consists of human and non-human actors. An actor-network has to be considered as temporarily assembled and can disintegrate at any time. Non-human actors are co-acting by drawing attention to certain aspects, black-boxing other aspects and through inscriptions highlighting specific potential actions. Utilizing these theoretical elements from actor-network-theory allows me to build a fundament for the anthropological concept, understanding human

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

382

Chapter 17

beings from scratch as contextualized existences while simultaneously no expectations considering physical or mental qualities are raised. The theoretical framework of actor-network-theory remains open to the alteration of actor-networks. While this theory is very detail-oriented about action and behavior it is not so precise about how the alteration of actornetworks actually takes place. To gain analytical access to this question the philosophical approach of Michel Serres delivers adequate terminological tools. 17.4.2 Philosophical approach of Michel Serres Philosopher Michel Serres (1982) deals with the question: What happens if new actors enter a system, respectively, what happens when a system is confronted with new actors or elements? In the following lines, I adapt the approach to the terminology already used and speak of actor-networks and not of systems. What happens when an actor-network gets aware of a new actor respectively the new actor is drawing attention?

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The first effect of a new actor is always the same, even if the effect is very short-lived. There is an interruption of the current action or behavior. Afterwards, the reaction of the actor-network can take on three typical reactions, which are described as analytic, paralytic and catalytic (Brown 2002, Serres 1982). Analytic means the actor-network will continue to act or behave like before, but now with increased energy expenditure. Paralytic means the interruption of the actor-network’s action or behavior is so severe, that the actor-network cannot return to the former condition and disintegrates. Catalytic means the new actor is integrated into the current actor-network. The new actor becomes a part of it and thus alters the actornetwork, creating new possibilities for action and behavior. Let me continue my selected example to explain the new theoretical elements by contextualizing them. We have the same situation with several human actors having an argument, one of them a human-weapon-hybrid. Suddenly a cell phone starts to ring, playing Don’t Worry Be Happy from Bobby McFerrin as a ringtone. Even if it is just in the blink of an eye, there will be a short interruption of the situation, respectively the argument. Now for the three typical reactions: Analytic would mean that the phone keeps ringing while the argument continues like before. But the tone will cause a distraction and all people would have to focus stronger on what is said. It will be harder for everyone to follow with regard to acoustic and substantial aspects. The cell phone, respectively, the ring tone can be ignored, but it is exhausting to continuously ignore the distraction. Paralytic would mean that the distraction of the cell phone is so severe that the actor-network is not able to continue its action or behavior. The ring tone makes everybody laugh or forget what the

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

383

argument was about. Catalytic would mean the integration of the new actor into the actor-network and thus alteration of the actor-network. The argument switches to how annoying cell phones can be, while one actor searches for his phone and answers the call. If there are several actors that have Don’t Worry Be Happy as ringtone … Well, I am sure you get the idea. While this integrates a new human actor, namely the caller, the question is raised which soundtrack included the song. While this question is forwarded to the caller, the discussion turns to the idea of going to the cinema. The caller is asked if he wants to join the actor-network in the action of going to the cinema and so forth. I can sum up that drawing attention to new actors creates the possibility of disintegration and alteration of the actor-network. Alteration happens through the integration of new actors, the exclusion of integrated actors or replacement of integrated actors. Alteration is always linked to a new repertoire of possible actions and behaviors. Furthermore, alteration of actornetworks is not an exception. To the contrary alteration has to be considered as happening all the time. At this point, the combination of the theoretical elements allows complex analytical access to understanding human beings as complex, contextualized existences under permanent alteration. Alteration can be ignored under increased energy expenditure; it can lead to completely new constellations or to slightly developing new repertoires of action and behavior.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Yet the anthropological concept still lacks the possibility of taking psychodynamic aspects into account. For that, I will draw on the insights of social psychology. 17.4.3 Agentic-State; Lucifer effect; Agentic-Spectrum Now I am searching for an adequate theoretical framework to complete the anthropological concept by describing the psychodynamic situation of involved human actors. The selection is delicate because it is difficult choosing a psychological framework for an anthropological concept, without falling into the trap of raising expectations considering at least mental qualities. Originally the choice of the insights of Stanley Milgram and Philip G. Zimbardo were due to the development of an overarching theory dealing with violence and non-violence/peace (Fath 2011, 2017). However, for an anthropological concept, this choice turns out to be serendipity. Milgram and Zimbardo did not describe how a human being should be in terms of physical or mental qualities. What they brought to light by coincidence is a psychodynamic phenomenon colliding with the self-

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

384

Chapter 17

determination of human beings. That is the crucial point: The theoretical framework presented here does not give any statements about how human beings should be like. It clarifies what collides with the ability of human beings to decide for them, on their own, how they want to be.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Stanley Milgram (2013) conducted a series of experiments dealing with the question under what conditions people show obedience to authority, even if this authority gives horrible orders. In the famous first experiment, people were brought into a simulated situation (they did not know that it was a simulation, they believed it was all real) where they acted as teachers asking questions to a student. The teacher role was supposed to mete out punishment for wrong answers with electric shocks. This experiment brought to light what was hard to believe: almost two out of three experimental subjects would have taken the risk to kill a completely innocent person at the command of an examiner, simply by fulfilling their role in the given situation (Milgram, 2013). During this experiment Milgram and his team made a discovery that became their key result. The experimental subjects were undergoing a dramatic psychodynamic change. Confronted with the extremely stressful situation, two out of three people adapted completely to the demands; one could say, the inscription of the situation. In other words: undergoing this psychodynamic change, the examination subjects were completely matching the expectations addressed to them. Milgram’s observations described the phenomenon that during the stressful situation, these people seemed to have nothing in common with the personalities they were before and afterwards. In short: During the situation, these people seemed to be not themselves. These were not only the observations and descriptions of the examiners watching these subjects. This also matched the self-descriptions of how the subjects felt undergoing these psychodynamic changes. They described a strong emotion of self-estrangement. Probably all of us are pretty familiar with that psychodynamic condition. When we were truly angry or anxious, we get the feeling of not being ourselves. Thoughts like: That is not me! I am not like this! are popping up in our mind. This is a psychodynamic phenomenon, that can be found and confirmed across cultures and ages, Milgram and his team called agentic state (Fath 2011, 2017, Milgram 2013). The results of Milgram were confirmed by Zimbardo in the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, once again by coincidence. Zimbardo and his team brought students into a simulated prison environment and were surprised by an enormous pulling effect the situation had on the involved persons – including the team of examiners taking the role of the prison administration. Zimbardo and his team observed that the examination subjects were completely taken up in their roles. Students turned into merciless correctional officers, and the examiners themselves lost touch with their everyday life and

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

385

functioned as administration. Zimbardo calls this pulling effect, which caught him and his team by surprise: lucifer effect (Zimbardo, 2008). However, the bottom line is that the lucifer effect and the agentic state are two different terms for the same phenomenon. It is characterized by a psychodynamic change of persons undergoing stressful situations. It leads to fitting to the situation and obedience towards calls to action respectively expectations. These calls to action can also be the inscriptions of non-human actors. However, it seems not realistic that this psychodynamic phenomenon is a dichotomous condition. It seems way more realistic that it is linked to a fluent process, respectively fluent transition. This is why Milgram’s term of the agentic state is further developed into the term of agentic-spectrum (Fath 2011, forthcoming). Considering the agentic-spectrum as pointed is linked to adapting to situations, being obedient to calls to action and a deep feeling of self-estrangement (Fath 2011, 2017).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This insight from social psychology needs little contextualization, for it is a theoretical element rooted completely in precise contexts. However, it is pretty clear what this phenomenon means in our chosen example. A pointed agenticspectrum increases massively the danger of escalation based on human actors involved adapting to situational scripts, respectively situational expectation respectively calls to action from human actors and inscriptions from nonhuman actors. Now imagine the non-human actor of the idea of retaliation comes into play and the human-weapon-hybrid is undergoing a pointed agentic-spectrum. Alternatively, if the actors are not undergoing stress, and thus are not undergoing these characteristic psychodynamic changes, it is very likely they can refuse calls to action/inscriptions/expectations linked to escalation. Now I have gathered all theoretical elements necessary for a complex anthropological concept without expectations and without raising the need for physical or mental qualities. What remains is merging the theoretical elements into an anthropological concept and exemplifying the transferability of this concept. Or in other words: I still have to consolidate the abstract ideas and contextualize the so described anthropological concept. 17.5. Consolidation and contextualization – or: Relax! It is only a monster! Closing this chapter, I will once describe the anthropological concept as a whole, contextualize it and draw consequences for further use of it. Human beings never exist without context or other human beings. What we call human being is in any moment a complex highly dynamic conglomerate of actors, including non-human actors. This conglomerate is called actornetwork respectively hybrid. Action and behavior are everyday terms for the result of an intertwining co-acting of all included actors. Furthermore, every

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

386

Chapter 17

actor-network is undergoing constant alteration. There is no static moment for an actor-network. Actors (human as well as non-human ones) are integrated, exchanged, substituted or excluded. With every actor, the actornetwork takes on a new and unique form, including a new and unique repertoire of possible actions and behavior patterns. Alteration of an actornetwork happens by turning attention towards new actors respectively actors that are not already part of the actor-network. The alteration of the actornetwork can happen in three characteristic ways.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Analytic alteration means the actor-network is focused on continuing like before. But due to the constant distraction this is bound to a higher level of energy expenditure. Paralytic alteration means the actor-network disintegrates and the highly dynamic conglomerate vanishes, while the once integrated actors are free to become part of new actor-networks by integrating new actors and/or being integrated by other actors. Catalytic alteration means the current actor-network integrates the new actor and thus becomes a new actor-network with a different form, different characteristics and different repertoire of actions and behavior patterns. Considering the insides of an actor-network, nonhuman actors are co-acting via three forms of influence. Firstly they are limiting perception and interpretation by being associated with certain aspects, e.g. weapons are associated with violent respectively aggressive aspects. Secondly, which can be considered as the flipside of this specific association, non-human actors are black-boxing aspects that are not associated with them. These aspects are vanishing temporarily and dynamically from the human actor’s apperception. Thirdly via inscriptions non-human actors have a suggesting effect on human actors. Due to the special characteristics of their construction one special action or behavior pattern seems quite natural for human actors, while they are turning attention to specific non-human actors with respective inscriptions. Last but not least for the inside of the involved human actors, their psychodynamic state has to be considered as not one bit less dynamic. Especially very stressful situations show the effect of human actors adapting without reflection to their (social) environmental context, showing affinity to fulfil calls to action, which can also appear as inscriptions of non-human actors respectively situational scripts. The possible range of psychodynamic conditions, which dynamically alter all the time, is called agentic-spectrum. This spectrum reaches from very distant loose tights, binding human actors slightly to their actual actor-network, to human actors completely going up in their actor-network. The strongest manifestation of human actors being integrated into actor-networks is called pointed agentic-spectrum. This state goes hand in hand with a strong feeling of self-estrangement and is linked to unreflecting adaptation. Like every other element in this anthropological

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

387

concept pointed agentic-spectrum is no static respectively constant condition. The only constant of all aspects in this anthropological concept is constant alteration. This anthropological concept has several advantages. First of all, it considers human beings as constantly interwoven in context, which can be a natural and social environment. To some degree, the context is always part of human beings and vice versa. In very clear words: what everybody, including you (the reader) and me (the author) is calling “I” is always an actor-network including non-human actors. Just for once reflect the current situation, while you are reading these lines. The behavior of reading as part of your life is not possible if you were not a dynamic, altering hybrid. The behavior of reading is not possible without nonhuman actors like the medium of the paper (printed or e-version, the latter requiring a laptop, a tablet, a smartphone, an e-book-reader, or whatever), perhaps glasses or contacts, a reading lamp, a chair or sofa or whatever etc. And of course, without the normality of disintegrating such an actor-network, you would be doomed to do nothing but reading for the rest of your life. But you can easily leave this actor-network and become part of another alike dynamic and temporarily actor-network to do something else. Of course this chapter would not exist without several actor-networks like author-family-laptop-chairuniversity-books-hybrids. The moment you are in while reading this is only happening due to the alterable and highly dynamic nature of human action, human behavior and above all human existence as such. Try to imagine your everyday life without being permanently intertwined with non-human actors.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The only reason why you can live your everyday life is that your nature, human nature if you will, is to be an alterable, fluent, partly natural, partly artificial and highly dynamic hybrid. The most significant advantage of this complex anthropological concept is its adaptability to yet unknown mixed forms of human-non-human-hybridexistences. While traditional anthropological concepts address expectations to physical and mental qualities and attributes, this anthropological concept already includes an acknowledgement of human alteration, human development and human evolution without knowing where it will end up. This anthropological concept is prepared for unpredictable evolutions. Take, for example, the advancing fusion of human and artificial entities forming one being, thinking and feeling its existence as “I”. Classical anthropological concepts endanger human beings undergoing such fusions of depressively growing desperate over the question: “Am I still human?” From the perspective of the introduced anthropological concept, you can simply state that critics of the artificial becoming more and more natural for human existence, only exist because they are already artificial to a certain degree. Every human existence is

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

388

Chapter 17

and has always been artificial to a certain degree. Of course the action of criticizing is only happening due to the co-acting of artificial non-human actors. This anthropological concept can contribute to de-dramatizing human evolution by acknowledging from scratch that what may appear monstrous to us, due to being unknown and thus frightening, was always there as naturally familiar element of our self. From an acknowledging anthropological perspective potential alterations of human existence are not problems. They are phenomena. The introduced anthropological concept opens a more complex – and thus more honest – perspective on the diversity of human beings, playing a part in contributing to overcome rigid anthropological expectations and other prejudices. There is no reason why pluralism of human existence, present and upcoming, should be feared. There is no reason why pluralism of human existence, present and upcoming, should not be appreciated. The monstrous is nothing else but beauty yet not appreciated. We are all monsters.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

References Brown, S. D. (2002). Michel Serres: Science, Translation and the Logic of the Parasite. Theory, Culture and Society 19 (3). 1-27. Fath, M. (2011). Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit. Entwicklung eines TheorieModells. Lit. Fath, M. (2013). Das Schmetterlings-Prinzip. Die Urteilskraft der ‘Laien‘ als notwendige Methode. Bildung und Ethik. Beiträge und Perspektiven jenseits disziplinärer Grenzen. Lit. 95-130. Fath, M. (2015). Violence Against Children. Reflections from a Holistic Approach. / Nasilje nad otroki. SIstory – Zgodovina Slovenije. / SIstory – History of Slovenia. Retrieved 01-02-2017 from http://www.sistory.si/SISTORY:ID:31038 Fath, M. (2017). Violence and Non-Violence/Peace. Introduction to a Holistic Approach. Friedman, Y. (Ed.). Religion and Peace: Historical Aspects. Routledge. Foucault, M. (1988). Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Vintage. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage. Kuhnen, K. (2007). Kinderpornographie und Internet. Medien als Wegbereiter für das (pädo)-sexuelle Interesse am Kind?. Hogrefe. Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Sciences Studies. Harvard University Press.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

I, Monster

389

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-NetworkTheory. Oxford University Press. Milgram, S. (2013). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Pinter and Martin. Passarge, E. (2012). Color Atlas of Genetics. Thieme Medical Publishers. Piaget, J. (2015). The Psychology Of Intelligence. Routledge. Roggensack, C. (2006). Mythos ADHS. Konstruktion einer Krankheit durch die monodisziplinäre Gesundheitsforschung. Carl-Auer. Serres, M. (1982). The Parasite. Johns Hopkins University Press. Yu, N. et al. (2002). Disputed Maternity leading to Identification of Tetragametic Chimerism. The New England Journal of Medicine 346 (20). 1545-1552. Zimbardo, P. G. (2008). The Lucifer Effect. How Good People Turn Evil. Rider. Zwick, E. (2004). Spiegel der Zeit – Grundkurs Historische Pädagogik I. Antike: Griechenland – Ägypten – Rom – Judentum. Lit.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved. Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

18. Mathematical Monsters Andrew Aberdein Florida Institute of Technology, Florida

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Abstract Monsters lurk within mathematical as well as literary haunts. I propose to trace some pathways between these two monstrous habitats. I start from Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s influential account of monster culture and explore how well mathematical monsters fit each of his seven theses (Cohen, 1996). The mathematical monsters I discuss are drawn primarily from three distinct but overlapping domains. I will describe these in much greater detail as they arise below, but here is a brief preview. Firstly, late nineteenth-century mathematicians made numerous unsettling discoveries that threatened their understanding of their own discipline and challenged their intuitions. The great French mathematician Henri Poincaré characterised these anomalies as ‘monsters’, a name that stuck. Secondly, the twentieth-century philosopher Imre Lakatos composed a seminal work on the nature of mathematical proof, in which monsters play a conspicuous role (Lakatos, 1976). He reconstructs the emergence during the nineteenth century of a proof of the Euler Conjecture, 1 which ascribes a certain property to polyhedra. Lakatos coined such terms as ‘monster-barring’ and ‘monster-adjusting’ to describe strategies for dealing with entities whose properties seem to falsify the conjecture. Thirdly, and most recently, mathematicians dubbed the largest of the so-called sporadic groups ‘the Monster’, because of its vast size and uncanny properties, and because its 2 existence was suspected long before it could be confirmed.

1

Polyhedra are three-dimensional figures with planar surfaces. Euler conjectured that V−E+F=2, where V is the number of vertices, E the number of edges, and F the number of faces. See Section 18.2 for further discussion. 2 Groups are mathematical structures of wide-ranging application; they may be most easily approached in terms of symmetry: different groups capture the symmetries of different sorts of object. Simple groups are groups that cannot be reduced to smaller groups—hence some authors call them ‘atoms of symmetry’ (Ronan 2006, 8). Sporadic groups are a special sort of

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

392

Chapter 18

Keywords: Infinity; mathematical anomalies; mathematical heuristics; the sublime 18.1 “The monster’s body is a cultural body”

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

For Cohen, the monster is “an embodiment of a certain cultural moment—of a time, a feeling, and a place” (Cohen 1996, 4). This poses two immediate questions: what, if anything, constitutes a cultural moment for mathematicians and can mathematics be embodied? The philosopher Brendan Larvor argues that mathematical practices should be understood as cultural since “they are reproduced non-biologically, they are shared activities mediated by material artefacts, and they express norms and values” (Larvor 2016, 18). However, the question of what constitutes a cultural moment for mathematicians is a fraught one. Is the culture in question the culture at large, as bolder historians and sociologists of mathematics would insist? Is it rather the culture of mathematicians’ institutions, universities, learned societies, funding bodies and so forth, as other, more cautious sociologists and historians maintain? Or is there a purely mathematical culture comprised of the mathematicians and their interactions, proceeding more or less independently of the wider world? Or perhaps many such cultures, divided by mathematical specialism or geographical contingency? Or is the mathematician of no culture, his idiosyncrasies attributable only to his peculiar genius, to the psychology of the individual? Some of the conflict between these various positions can be illustrated by a classic debate between a sociologist, David Bloor, and a philosopher, John Worrall, over the status of the mathematical monsters discussed by Lakatos. Bloor, in his splendidly titled article “Polyhedra and the abominations of Leviticus” (Bloor, 1978) links the responses of nineteenth-century mathematicians to ‘monstrous’ polyhedra to the fourfold classification of cultures devised by the anthropologist Mary Douglas: hierarchical, enclavist, individualistic, or isolate. As she explains, one is based on hierarchical community, and so in favour of formality and compartmentalization; one is based on equality within a group, and so in favour of spontaneity, and free negotiation, and very hostile to other ways of life; one is the competitive culture of individualism; and fourth is the culture of the isolate who prefers to avoid the oppressive controls of the other forms of social life (Douglas 1996, 42).3

finite simple group—ones that do not fit into the system of classification that accommodates most such groups. See Section 18.6 for further discussion. 3 Bloor employs Douglas’s earlier account of this taxonomy in terms of high or low ‘grid’ and ‘group’, where grid measures the strength of a society’s internal hierarchies and group measures the strength of its barrier with the rest of the world. Hence hierarchists

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

393

Bloor traces the following sequence during the era in which proofs of Euler’s Conjecture were under development: “Eighteenth-century corporate universities” (enclavist) ⟶ “Intended result of [Prussian university] reforms of 1812” (hierarchical) ⟶ “Actual result of reforms by 1840: a competitive structure” (individualistic) (Bloor 1978, 265). Each of these historical contexts corresponds to one of Douglas’s four kinds of culture and is thereby associated with a method for dealing with monsters. Happily enough, the work which Lakatos saw as first exemplifying the most successful methodological response to the monster, which Bloor associates with an individualistic culture, appeared in 1847 (although in Munich, not Prussia, as Bloor concedes).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The difficulty with such a picture, of course, is that individual mathematicians do not necessarily fit. Mathematicians may share identical circumstances and yet go about their work in very different ways. Replying to Bloor, Worrall notes Poincaré’s comment on his older compatriots Charles Hermite and Joseph Bertrand: “They were scholars of the same school at the same time; they had the same education, they were under the same influences; and yet what a difference!” (Worrall 1979, 76, quoting Poincaré 1913, 211). Of Poincaré himself, Worrall complains that “it just seems grossly implausible that a genius like Poincaré, who was engaged in critical and immensely fruitful debates on a variety of subjects with a variety of scientists, should have been simply reflecting his social circumstances in responding to polyhedra” (Worrall 1979, 78). But there is nothing simple about it. Poincaré’s genius led him to results that perhaps no other mathematician of his era could have found. Nonetheless, his social circumstances, including debates with his peers, helped to shape and direct that genius. Likewise, Hermite and Bertrand may have had much in common, but they also had significant differences, not just 4 in their temperaments but also in their respective networks of collaboration. Douglas’s later work contains an implicit response to Worrall’s challenge: the fourfold classification describes not only cultures but also how individuals may accept or react against the prevailing culture (Douglas 1996, 44ff.). Different mathematicians may be expected to accept or reject the various cultures of which they are a part to differing degrees. An applied mathematician, whose research is driven by the needs of science or industry, may reflect some cultural aspects more explicitly than a pure mathematician whose research is curiosity-driven. A mathematician with many collaborators

are high grid, high group; enclavists are low grid, high group; individualists are low grid, low group; and isolates are high grid, low group. 4 For example, Hermite (but not Bertrand) took a close interest in contemporary German mathematics (Ferreirós 2016, 225).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

394

Chapter 18

or students will belong to a culture of research in a different way to a more isolated contemporary. But a mathematician who stood entirely outside of all 5 such cultures would be a monster indeed. Worrall also suggests that “Bloor was perhaps misled by Lakatos’s terminology: ‘monster’ is, of course, a technical term in biology” (Worrall 1979, 78). Indeed the appropriation of this biological terminology did not begin with Lakatos, but with Poincaré: Logic sometimes makes monsters. Since half a century we have seen arise a crowd of bizarre functions which seem to try to resemble as little as possible the honest functions which serve some purpose. No longer continuity, or perhaps continuity, but no derivative, etc. … If logic were the sole guide of the teacher, it would be necessary to begin with the most general functions, that is to say with the most bizarre. It is the beginner that would have to be set grappling with this teratologic museum (musée tératologique) (Poincaré 1913, 435f.).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

But what is a teratologic museum? Since the late eighteenth century, anatomists began to assemble collections of ‘monsters’, developmentally anomalous human and animal foetuses. Poincaré’s father was a professor of medicine, so we can assume that he had firsthand experience of such collections. More strikingly, ‘teratology’ itself, an unambiguously technical term in biology that literally means ‘the study of monsters’, was coined by 6 Poincaré’s grandfather-in-law. So Lakatos and Poincaré are clearly using ‘monster’ in the biological sense of an anomalous case that resists classification. That would be a problem for Bloor’s application of Douglas (let alone my application of Cohen) if this sense of monster was unrelated to the latter’s work. But, this is precisely what Douglas (and, as we shall see, Cohen) stresses the most (e.g. Douglas 1996, 126). We have seen that mathematical practices take place within cultural contexts, but not that they are embodied. Surely mathematics is purely a matter of the mind? In a recent paper entitled ‘The materiality of mathematics’, the sociologist of mathematics Christian Greiffenhagen argues otherwise: “writing (on paper, blackboards, napkins, beermats, or even in the air) and the development of representational techniques are indispensable for doing and

5

By a further irony, Poincaré was himself once described as a ‘monster of mathematics’ (Dieudonné 1973, 52). We might more naturally refer to him as a prodigy although, of course, ‘prodigy’ also means monster. 6 The naturalist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire introduced the term to describe the study of congenital malformations, a research field initiated by his father, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (Blumberg 2009, 26). The two men were respectively grandfather and great-grandfather of Louise Poulain d’Andecy, Poincaré’s wife (Rollet 2012, 20).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

395

thinking mathematics” (Greiffenhagen 2014, 505). The truths of mathematics may be culture-independent, but the cultural process whereby mathematicians arrive at them and demonstrate their truth surely is not. This distinction may be especially important for monsters. As objects of mathematics, they have the same status as any other equally well-established mathematical object. But what makes them monsters is their intersection with the specific mathematical culture that gave rise to them: “anomalies are not installed in nature but emerge from particular features of classificatory schemes” (Douglas 1996, 126). Characteristically, they are monsters because they represent an affront to the intuitions of the mathematicians who discover them. Those intuitions are unavoidably cultural. In this sense, the monster’s body is indeed a cultural body. 18.2 “The monster always escapes” “No monster tastes of death but once”, as Cohen has it (Cohen 1996, 5). This is one of the most immediately recognisable traits of the monsters of film and folklore. As Buffy says to Dracula “You think I don’t watch your movies? You always come back” (Noxon 2000, 38’00’’). Some mathematical monsters exhibit similar behavior. For example, many of the monsters discussed by Lakatos were forgotten, rediscovered, forgotten again, re-rediscovered, reinterpreted, explained away, before they were finally put to good use. To see how this could happen, we need to investigate the story Lakatos tells. 7

Polyhedra have been studied since antiquity. In the seventeenth century, the mathematician and philosopher René Descartes noted a property that all

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

7

Whereas polygons are plane figures bound by straight edges, such as triangles, rectangles, or pentagons, polyhedra are their three-dimensional analogues: threedimensional shapes with planar surfaces bounded by straight edges. Regular polyhedra are polyhedra all of whose faces are regular (that is, equiangular and equilateral) polygons. They are five in number: the tetrahedron, comprised of four equilateral triangles; the cube, of six squares; the octahedron, of eight equilateral triangles; the dodecahedron, of twelve pentagons; and the icosahedron, of twenty equilateral triangles. Players of tabletop roleplaying games will recall these as the d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20 dice, respectively. The proof that there can be only five such objects is pleasingly straightforward (ask yourself what the angles at the corners of each of the regular polygons are and how many of each could meet at a point). It is the last proposition of the last book of Euclid’s Elements, the most celebrated of mathematical textbooks (Heath 1908, XIII.18, 1190). Of course, not all polyhedra are regular. Roleplaying enthusiasts will also recall the d10, whose sides are kite-shaped, and perhaps the d30, with rhombus-shaped sides. More generally still, there are prisms, not all of whose sides are the same, and other figures assembled from various shapes in all sorts of ways.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

396

Chapter 18

polyhedra, regular and irregular, seem to share. A century later the mathematician Leonhard Euler made the same observation and put it into the form by which it is now best known: V−E+F=2, where V is the number of vertices, E the number of edges, and F the number of faces. The claim that this equation holds for every polyhedron is the Euler Conjecture. It clearly holds for tetrahedra (4−6+4=2), cubes (8−12+6=2), and the other regular polyhedra, and many other examples besides. But just listing positive cases does not comprise a proof. A mathematical proof should establish that a theorem is true without exception. But as proofs of the conjecture emerged, so did apparent counterexamples. Throughout the nineteenth century numerous proofs of the conjecture were attempted, only to fall to counterexamples not anticipated by their authors. The final proof was not established until the very end of the century.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

The Euler Conjecture may seem to be a mere mathematical curiosity. Nonetheless, the history of its attempted proofs is the subject of a masterpiece of the philosophy of mathematics: Proofs and Refutations is a singular book. It is structured as a dialogue, apparently taking place in a classroom, but in which the pupils, identified only by Greek letters, act as mouthpieces for the contrasting methodological tendencies of many of the nineteenth-century mathematicians who tangled with the Euler Conjecture. Meanwhile, the actual history unfolds in 8 the footnotes. As Lakatos reconstructs the story, the interruptions from monster polyhedra, apparent counterexamples to the conjecture, eventually led mathematicians to revise the concepts in which the conjecture was couched. Essentially, they came to realise that they had not really understood what a polyhedron was when they began searching for proof. En route to this realisation, many different strategies are tried on for size. These strategies worked to exclude, reinterpret, or otherwise kill off monster polyhedra. But the monsters kept escaping—or new monsters appeared to take their place. The first monster to make an appearance is the hollow cube: “a solid bounded by a pair of cubes” (Lakatos 1976, 13). Since for each cube V−E+F=2, then for both taken together as a single object V−E+F=4. In the historical record, this was first published in 1813 as a counterexample to Augustin Cauchy’s 1811 ‘proof’, then overlooked, then rediscovered in 1832. In Lakatos’s dialogue, the hollow cube provokes the following response: But why accept the counterexample? … Why should the theorem give way, when it has been proved? It is the ‘criticism’ that should retreat. This pair of nested cubes is not a polyhedron at all. It is a monster, a pathological case, not a counterexample (Lakatos 1976, 14).

8

Or not: even in the footnotes, Lakatos plays somewhat fast and loose with the historical record (Corfield 2003, 152).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

397

This response, ‘monster-barring’ to which I will return in Section 18.4, provokes a series of monsters, for each of which a further monster-barring redefinition is proposed. Many of these examples have a history of appearance, disappearance, and reappearance. For example, the picture frame (16−32−16=0), Fig. 18.1, was first published alongside the hollow cube in 1813 (with a note from the journal’s editor stating that he already knew of it) but was then overlooked in works published in 1827 and 1858 (Lakatos 1976, 19). Other monster polyhedra included twin polyhedra (conjoined at a vertex or an edge), stellated polyhedra (with star-shaped faces), and the crested cube (a cube with a smaller cube stuck to one face). Figure 18.1: The picture frame, fugitive non-Eulerian polyhedron?

Nor is monster-barring the only way to make monsters disappear. Lakatos also discusses monster-adjustment: where the monster-barrer revises definitions until the monster is no longer a polyhedron, the monster-adjuster revises definitions until the monster is no longer a monster. For the monster-adjuster,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Monsters don’t exist, only monstrous interpretations. One has to bar one’s mind from perverted illusions, one has to learn how to see and how to define correctly what one sees. [Monster-adjustment] is therapeutic: where you—erroneously— ‘see’ a counterexample, I teach you how to recognise—correctly—an example. I adjust your monstrous vision (Lakatos, 1976, 31).

In some cases, the monster is merely an illusion, a misreading, in which case monster-adjustment may well be the best remedy. But the danger of this approach is that it does not explain, but only explains away. Where monsters are symptoms of deeper problems with the conjecture, monster-adjustment postpones the eventual recognition and remedy of these problems. A corollary that Cohen draws from the fugitive nature of monsters is that “monstrous interpretation … must content itself with fragments” (Cohen 1996, 6). This too is familiar from the culture of mathematical monsters. Consider these reflections on the Monster group (to which we shall return in Section 18.6): These things are so beautiful. It’s such a pity that people can’t see them. I mean, it’s a kind of beauty that exists in the abstract, but we poor mortals will never see it. We can just get vague glimmerings. … Well, I mean, I know all the theorems. But there’s still something that to me is unknown, unknowable. … Especially with the Monster, and I keep saying that it makes me sad that I’ll probably never understand it (Roberts 2015, 264).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

398

Chapter 18

This is John Conway, a mathematician who is as much of an expert on the Monster group as anyone. His words may seem like false modesty until one 53 appreciates that the Monster group has more than 8x10 members. Where Conway has “vague glimmerings”, Cohen refers to “footprints, bones, talismans, teeth, shadows, obscured glimpses” as “signifiers of monstrous passing that stand in for the monstrous body itself” (Cohen 1996, 6). Mathematicians deal with different sorts of signifier from monster hunters, but they often have a similar task: to infer the properties of something they can only grasp in the most indirect fashion.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

18.3 “The monster is the harbinger of category crisis” Cohen’s third thesis grounds his second: “The monster always escapes because it refuses easy categorization” (Cohen 1996, 6). This makes it “dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions” (Cohen 1996, 6). We have already seen some small-scale examples of this tendency at work in mathematics: the monster polyhedra disrupted early attempts to impose an easy categorization. Allusions to monsters also arise in much more fundamental areas of mathematical work. An early example occurs in the origins of the calculus. Although Newton and Leibniz pioneered the study of rates of change of functions in the seventeenth century, their work relied upon the use of infinitesimal quantities, for which no consistent basis was then known. This was subject to criticism from an early date, but a consistent foundation was not presented until the nineteenth century. The most astute early critic of the calculus, the philosopher and clergyman George Berkeley, characterized infinitesimals in monstrous terms: they were the “ghosts of departed quantities” (Berkeley 1734, 81). Much more recently, the infinitesimal has been rehabilitated, using modern mathematical techniques far beyond those available in the seventeenth century. Although the soundness of this work is beyond dispute, not all mathematicians find it worthwhile. Indeed, some of them have criticized the new infinitesimals in terms strikingly similar to those once used against the old—notably the distinguished French mathematician Alain Connes, who has referred to them as “chimeras” (Kanovei et al. 2013, 287). Although ghosts and chimeras are monsters of rather different pedigree, Berkeley and Connes are complaining about a property they share: resistance to categorization. The ghost is sometimes there and sometimes not; the chimera is a jumble of properties from different creatures. A more fundamental category crisis arose in the nineteenth-century mathematics required for the rigorization of the calculus. Many concepts that hitherto had only been given informal definitions were replaced by formal

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

399

explications, but it turned out—alarmingly—that the newly redefined concepts did not fit together in the same way as their pre-formal antecedents. The irony was that dispatching one generation of monsters had given rise to another. As the mathematician and philosopher Solomon Feferman notes, “one service that the monsters lurking around the corners provide is forcing us to don such armor [of rigorous proof ] for our own protection. But if the proofs themselves produce such monsters, then the significance of what is proved requires closer attention” (Feferman 2000, 328).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Crucially, mathematicians had assumed that continuity and differentiability were properties of more or less the same functions. Informally, a function is continuous if it doesn’t have any ‘jumps’—that is if its output only makes big changes when its input makes big changes—and it is differentiable whenever it has a derivative, that is when its rate of change can be determined. Functions that are differentiable at every point must be continuous. Intuitively, it may seem as though the converse should also be true, that continuous functions must be everywhere differentiable. This cannot be so, because there are some functions with isolated non-differentiable points, known as singularities, such as cusps or ‘sharp corners’, that lack tangents. But it had been assumed that such functions would only have comparatively few, isolated singularities. Indeed, the French mathematician André-Marie Ampère published what he took to be a proof of this result in 1806. However, starting in the 1830s, mathematicians began to turn up functions that were continuous but nowhere differentiable (Thim 2003, Volkert 2008, Smoryński 2012). The Czech mathematician Bernard Bolzano was the first to demonstrate the existence of such a function, although his result remained in manuscript until long after his death (and long after similar results had been derived by others). The first published continuous but nowhere differentiable function is due to Karl Weierstrass, in a lecture given in 1872 and published in 1875. His function has the form

where 01 is an odd integer. As may be seen from Fig.18.2, it is loosely sinusoidal, but between each summit, the curve follows a smaller scale sinusoidal path, and between the summits of that path an even smaller scale sinusoidal path, and so on, ad infinitum. It is this last clause that is crucial: the curve stays just as detailed; however much we magnify it.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

400

Chapter 18

Figure 18.2: Weierstrass’s function W with a=.5 and b=5 on [0,3] (Thim 2003, 22).

Self-similarity at ever smaller scales is a hallmark of an important class of fractals, a type of function which received a lot of attention in the late twentieth century, in part because increasing computer speeds made visualization of such functions feasible. Indeed the very word ‘fractal’ is new— it was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot as recently as 1975. While the classification of fractals is still an on-going project, and controversial in some details, they now have a clearly established place in mathematics. This was not the case at the time of Bolzano’s and Weierstrass’s discoveries, as Poincaré’s animadversions against the exhibits of the ‘teratologic museum’ demonstrate. This suggests a point of contrast with the monsters analysed by Cohen, for whom “the monster’s very existence is a rebuke to boundary and enclosure”, its geography “always a contested cultural space” (Cohen 1996, 7). Progress in mathematics often consists of mapping that geography, resolving these contests, and constructing new monster-proof enclosures. (Of course, new monsters tend to arise to test the new boundaries.)

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

18.4 “The monster dwells at the gates of difference” “The exaggeration of cultural difference into monstrous aberration is familiar enough”, as Cohen reminds us (Cohen 1996, 7). The most obvious mathematical counterpart to this xenophobic tendency in monster reception is Lakatos’s method of monster-barring, which we encountered in Section 18.2. He characterizes it, somewhat pejoratively, as follows: Using this method one can eliminate any counterexample to the original conjecture by a sometimes deft but always ad hoc redefinition of the polyhedron, of its defining terms, or of the defining terms of its defining terms. We should somehow treat counterexamples with more respect, and not stubbornly exorcise them by dubbing them monsters (Lakatos 1976, 23).

Monster-barring is not confined to mathematics—similar techniques for winning arguments by manipulating definitions to exclude troublesome counterexamples are familiar from other contexts, under other names—some

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

401

of which also alludes to the xenophobic possibilities of monster-barring. For example, the ‘no true Scotsman’ move, in which the monster is barred by splitting the contested concept into ‘true’ cases and others (Flew 1975, 47). Thus the chauvinistic Scotsman may reconcile his belief that ‘No true Scotsman takes sugar with his porridge’ to the existence of an apparent sugared-porridge-eating Scotsman, by dismissing the latter as no true Scotsman. Bloor also brings out the scapegoating aspects of monster-barring, linking it to the anomaly response of

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Pollution-conscious societies [that] … survive by the threat of expulsion, or suffer repeated schism. They are frequently subject to outside threat and consequently their whole system of classification is pervaded by the dichotomy between the good inside and the evil and perverted outside. They need to exercise and symbolize high group control (Bloor, 1978, 253).

Worrall complains of this link that “Bloor’s argument … seems to depend quite heavily on there being an emotional component to ‘monster-barring’, that it should involve ‘turning in disgust’ from alleged counter-examples. But of course, this emotional component is by no means essential” (Worrall 1979, 78). Not essential, but by no means absent either: Lakatos quotes Hermite reacting to the functions discussed in the last section, “I turn aside with a shudder of horror from this lamentable plague of functions which have no derivatives” (Lakatos 1976, 19). It is significant that Lakatos is quoting from private correspondence, published posthumously; perhaps Hermite would have been more circumspect if writing for publication. This reflects the sociologist Erving Goffman’s distinction between the ‘front’ and the ‘back’ of cultural practices: the former intended for public consumption; the latter for private cooperation (Goffman 1959, 114). Some commentators have found this reflected in mathematical practice. Thus Reuben Hersh distinguishes “mathematics in “finished” form, as it is presented to the public in classrooms, textbooks, and journals” from “mathematics as it appears among working mathematicians, in informal settings, told to one another in an office behind closed doors” (Hersh 1991, 128). A proper understanding of mathematical culture must attend to both of these contexts but the front, intended as it is for a wider audience, is always the more accessible. Bearing this practical distinction in mind, we may reflect that it is more remarkable that there is any trace of an emotional component to an apparently affectless problem-solving technique than that it is not seen in every case. Resort to monster-barring represents one crude conclusion that may be drawn from the presence of monsters: the monster must be excluded by whatever means necessary. Just as crudely, we could take the monsters to show that the whole basis of arriving at distinctions is radically unsound: “By

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

402

Chapter 18

revealing that difference is arbitrary and potentially free-floating, mutable rather than essential, the monster threatens to destroy … the very cultural apparatus through which individuality is constituted and allowed” (Cohen 1996, 12). A spokesman for this perspective with respect to mathematics was the philosopher Hans Hahn, for whom monsters such as continuous but nowhere differentiable functions had profound methodological implications: “Again and again we have found that, even in simple and elementary geometric questions, intuition is a wholly unreliable guide. It is impossible to permit so unreliable an aid to serve as the starting point or basis of a mathematical discipline” (Hahn 1933, 1974). For Hahn, this mandates “the expulsion of intuition from mathematical reasoning” and “the complete formalization of mathematics” (Hahn 1933, 1970). The project Hahn envisages, of “completely formalizing mathematics, of reducing it entirely to logic” (Hahn 1933, 1971), was indeed a goal of much early-twentieth-century foundational work in the philosophy of mathematics. But it foundered on deep conceptual difficulties and never much intersected with the research priorities of mainstream mathematicians. Subsequent thought has tended to less drastic solutions than the banishment of intuition. Feferman, for example, draws a much more modest conclusion:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

What, then, is one to say about the geometrical and topological monsters that are supposed to demonstrate the unreliability of intuition? The answer is simply that these serve as counterexamples to intuitively expected results when certain notions are used as explications which serve various purposes well enough but which do not have all expected properties (Feferman 2000, 322).

That is, the monsters show us the limits of our intuition, not that our intuition should be ignored. On the contrary, intuition has an enduring place in mathematical methodology, as does the practice of pushing it to its limits: “it is standard mathematical practice to seek best possible results of an expected kind, and one way to achieve such is to make weakest possible assumptions on the given data. In this respect, the mathematical monsters serve simply to provide counter-examples to further possible improvements” (Feferman 2000, 322). This limitative role for the mathematical monster leads us directly to Cohen’s fifth thesis. 18.5 “The monster polices the borders of the possible” Marking limits is a further cultural use of monsters that Cohen identifies: “From its position at the limits of knowing, the monster stands as a warning against exploration of its uncertain demesnes” (Cohen 1996, 12). This role has several dimensions with mathematical counterparts. We have seen one already, in Feferman’s reflections on the limits of intuition. Another is that particularly hard problems can be framed in monstrous terms, as a warning to mathematicians that their efforts may be in vain. The sociologist and historian of mathematics

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

403

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Donald MacKenzie notes how such notoriety attached to the four-colour conjecture, the innocent-seeming claim that four colours suffice to colour any planar map so that no adjacent regions are the same colour. Quoting Wolfgang Haken, one of the architects of the eventual proof (itself a computer-assisted monster, too vast for human inspection), MacKenzie states that the “conjecture had gained a reputation as a ‘man-eating problem’ [whose] victims abandoned ordinary, tractable mathematics to spend years or even decades looking for a proof or a refutation” (MacKenzie 1999, 9). Indeed, MacKenzie’s history of the four-colour conjecture invokes a monster in its title, ‘Slaying the Kraken’, echoing the celebratory lines of the graph theorist (and occasional poet) Bill Tutte: “Wolfgang Haken/Smote the Kraken/One! Two! Three! Four!/Quoth he: ‘The monster is no more’” (MacKenzie 1999, 39f.). When the conjecture was still open, Tutte had observed of it, “It is dangerous to work close to The Problem” (MacKenzie 1999, 9). The danger is a real one: mathematicians who devote all their effort to one big problem risk having nothing to show for it, to the detriment of their careers. Cohen also observes that “policing the boundaries of culture [is] usually in the service of some notion of group ‘purity’” (Cohen 1996, 15). Mathematics has several notions of purity. The philosophers Mic Detlefsen and Andy Arana remark that “’Purity’ in mathematics has generally been taken to signify a preferred relationship between the resources used to prove a theorem or solve a problem and the resources used or needed to understand or comprehend that theorem or problem” (Detlefsen and Arana 2011, 1). This is what is often termed ‘purity of method’, the sense that an optimal proof should use only the resources of the field in which the problem arose, and not detour into other areas of mathematics. Such detours can be effective ways of tackling tough problems, but mathematicians often consider it worth pursuing pure proof, even after an otherwise satisfactory proof has been established (Dawson 2006, 279f.). Another sense of purity is exhibited in the distinction between pure and applied mathematics. Here the purity emphasizes a boundary between mathematics and other scientific and technological disciplines: pure mathematics addresses problems that arise within mathematics; applied mathematics brings mathematical methods to bear on problems from elsewhere. This boundary has always been as much political as objective: it served the institutional purposes of increasingly professionalized nineteenth-century mathematics departments to stress the purity of their work (Ferreirós 2016, 218). Moreover, innovative scientists and engineers have often found very practical applications for mathematical results originally considered the purest of the pure: the centrality of prime factorization to modern cryptography is a standard example. Taken to extremes, this sense of purity could become a pernicious ivory-tower mentality that could be used to excuse toleration of monstrosities in the political sphere:

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

404

Chapter 18

what the historian Herbert Mehrtens terms “irresponsible purity” in his survey of mathematics in Nazi Germany (Mehrtens 1994, 324). The boundary-patrolling function of monsters is also reflected in another of the methods of monster accommodation that Lakatos documents. Rather than change the definitions so that the monster is excluded, as in monsterbarring, a more productive approach may be to determine where the conjecture holds. This project of constructing a boundary to enclose the safe cases rather than to exclude the monsters, Lakatos calls exception-barring, or rather “a whole continuum of exception-barring attitudes” (Lakatos 1976, 24). He distinguishes primitive exception-barring, which just compartmentalizes the proof and its exceptions without any attempt to reconcile the two, from exception-barring strategies that are informed by the proof at issue. For these exception-barrers, the proof at least provides “some inspiration for stating the conditions which determine a safe domain”, and at best “a very fine delineation of the prohibited area” based upon “a careful analysis of the proof” (Lakatos 1976, 24). Such an exception-barrer maintains that: no conjecture is generally valid, but only valid in a certain restricted domain that excludes the exceptions. I am against dubbing these exceptions ‘monsters’ or ‘pathological cases’. That would amount to the methodological decision not to consider these as interesting examples in their own right, worthy of a separate investigation (Lakatos 1976, 24).

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

This is a significant methodological improvement over monster-barring, but it is not the final word. The lingering problem is that addressing some exceptions does not ensure that all exceptions have been addressed. As Poincaré observed of such a manoeuvre, “We have put a fence around the herd to protect it from the wolves but we do not know whether some wolves were not already within the fence” (Kline 1972, 1186). Bloor sees exception-barring as characteristic of Douglas’s hierarchical cultures: “large, diverse but stable system[s] of institutions”, with an extensive repertoire of methods for responding to anomaly and for their reclassification. They will be fitted in somewhere, or the classificatory scheme will be expanded. Complicated rites of atonement; promotions and demotions; special exceptions; distinctions, assimilations and legal fictions will abound. And pervading the use of all these expedients there will be a vague sense of overriding unity (Bloor 1978, 254).

This neatly intersects with Cohen’s remark that “The monster of prohibition … validated a tight, hierarchical system of naturalized leadership and control where every man had a functional place” (Cohen 1996, 13f.)

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

405

18.6 “Fear of the monster is really a kind of desire” Cohen tells us that “The monster also attracts” (Cohen 1996, 16). This is clearly true of some mathematical monsters, at least for some mathematicians: the warnings against monster problems we encountered in the last section would be unnecessary if no one were drawn to such problems. This thesis may be less obvious for the mathematical monsters we have discussed most, the anomalies and pathological cases. Certainly, some mathematicians, with Hermite, “turn aside with a shudder of horror”. But for other mathematicians “the linking of monstrosity with the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing as a temporary egress from constraint. … We distrust and loathe the monster at the same time we envy its freedom, and perhaps its sublime despair” (Cohen 1996, 17). The concept of the sublime may be key to understanding this combination of fear and desire. In one of the most influential analyses of the sublime, Edmund Burke characterizes it as follows:

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful (Burke 1756, 13f.).

Many informal reflections by mathematicians on the highs and lows of their professional lives could be framed in terms of the sublime, and sometimes these allusions are made explicit. For example, the mathematician John Baez describes “moments of exaltation that come from suddenly glimpsing a terrifyingly grand vista: sometimes shrouded in mist, sometimes lit by a lightning-bolt of insight” (Baez, 2008). This directly echoes Burke’s observation that “Greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime” (Burke 1756, 51). Burke presumably intended ‘dimension’ in the sense of scale—great extent along a given dimension—not in the sense of higher-dimensions, since the fourth dimension was not theorized until a century after his death. The Monster group, however, has greatness of dimension in both senses. Its discovery has been described as “one of the most spectacular and mysterious mathematical achievements of the past fifty years” (Simons 2005, 334). To gain some sense of what the Monster group is, and why it has attracted so much attention, we will need to venture briefly into group theory, the mathematical field in which it originates. Technically, a group is a set, say G, acted on by an operation, say *, for which the following axioms hold:

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

406

Chapter 18

Closure g*h∈G for all g,h∈G. Associativity (g*h)*k=g*(h*k). Identity There is an identity element e∈G such that g*e=e*g=g for all g∈G. -1

-1

-1

Inverse For all g ∈G there exists g ∈G such that g*g =g *g=e.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

To see how this works, take a letter, say P, and think about some of the transformations we could perform upon it. For example, we could turn it upside down, , or back to front, , or both at once, . Counting leaving the original P alone as a null transformation, this gives us four transformations which comprise a group (known as the Klein four group, or K4). We may think of them in terms of the distinct symbols that result from applying each to P: (P, , , ). These comprise the elements of this group. Its operation is just performing one transformation after another. For example, if we turn the letter upside down and then upside down again, it ends up back where it began. So this transformation is its own inverse (as are the other members of K4) since leaving alone is clearly the identity element. With a bit more thought, we can see that the elements are associative and closed since they represent every possible combination of vertical and horizontal reflection: either, both, or neither. As far as P is concerned, none of these transformations is a symmetry, since P is clearly transformed. But suppose we had applied the transformations instead to X or H. Then (at least for sans serif fonts) the letters would remain unchanged. Hence the Klein four group represents (some of ) the symmetries of these letters. In contrast, consider a different set of four transformations, those resulting from a quarter-turn, a half-turn, a three-quarter-turn, and a full turn: ( , , , P). This is a different four-element group, the cyclic group of order four, Z4. We can see that it is different by observing that H would not be symmetrical under this group (two of the operations would give us ). But we can also see that the two groups have two elements in common ( , P). This is also a group, the cyclic group of order two, Z2. The existence of this subgroup means that neither K4 nor Z4 are simple. However, the only subgroups of Z2 are trivial: Z2 itself and the identity element on its own. Hence Z2 is simple, as is Zp for any prime number p. Thus the cyclic groups of prime order comprise a family of infinitely many simple groups. There are several other families of simple groups, also with infinitely many members. One of the most impressive results of late-twentieth-century mathematics was the classification of finite simple groups, which comprises literally thousands of pages of work, written by scores of mathematicians over several decades. This classification shows that every simple group of finite order must belong to one of these families, or a small cluster of outlaws: the sporadic groups (Simons 2005, 334). These are finite simple groups that do not

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

407

belong to any of the families. In the 1860s and 70s, the French mathematician Émile Léonard Mathieu discovered the five sporadic groups that bear his name (listed here with their orders): 4

2

6

3

7

2

7

2

M11: 2 ·3 ·5·11 = 7,920 M12: 2 ·3 ·5·11 = 95,040 M22: 2 ·3 ·5·7·11 = 443,520 M23: 2 ·3 ·5·7·11·23 = 10,200,960 10

3

M24: 2 ·3 ·5·7·11·23 = 244,823,040 Until the 1930s, it remained controversial whether the Mathieu groups existed and, if so, whether they were really simple (Ronan 2006, 131). That no further sporadic groups were found in this period may have increased suspicions. But in 1965 the first of a brief spate of sporadic groups turned up. Several of the new sporadic groups were actually smaller than some of the Mathieu groups, but some of them were very big indeed, notably the Baby Monster, which has order 13

41

6

2

2 ·3 ·5 ·7 ·11·13·17·19·23·31·47= 4154781481226426191177580544000000 ≈4x10

33

and the Monster, of order 46

20

9

6

2

3

2 ·3 ·5 ·7 ·11 ·13 ·17·19·23·29·31·41·47·59·71= 808017424794512875886459904961710757005754368000000000

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

≈8x10

53

The Monster is monstrous not only for its size but for its uncanny properties. Specifically, it turns out to have profound connections to other, seemingly quite unrelated areas of mathematics. The discovery of these connections began as an apparent coincidence: a close relationship between two series of large numbers, the ‘character degrees’ of the Monster and the coefficients of the j-function, which expresses a property of complex numbers (Ronan 2006, 192). This, and other unexpected connections between the Monster and number theory, were dubbed “monstrous moonshine” by Conway, one of the pioneers of this field, from the slang term “for ‘insubstantial or unreal’, ‘idle talk or speculation’, ‘an illusive shadow’ … to give the impression that matters here are dimly lit, and that [this technique] is ‘distilling information illegally’” (Gannon 2006, 7). With collaborator Simon Norton, Conway published a series of conjectures extrapolating from the idea that these similarities could not just be a coincidence (Conway and Norton, 1979). The eventual proof of these conjectures by Richard Borcherds, a former

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

408

Chapter 18

student of Conway, earned Borcherds a Fields medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics (Ronan 2006, 225). 53

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

It is worth noting that, although 8x10 is by many measures a big number, it is not especially large by the standards of many mathematicians. Much larger finite numbers are employed in some fields, such as combinatorics, some of them requiring innovative notations just to write down, since they are practically inexpressible in the standard notation of exponentiation. Even these numbers are negligible by comparison with infinity itself. As Burke observed, infinity “has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime” (Burke 1756, 52). For much of mathematical history, it was accepted wisdom that the infinite could only be potential, not actual. That is, infinity might represent a never-to-be-attained limit, but it could not actually be assigned to completed sets of things. That perspective was overturned in the late nineteenth century by the German mathematician Georg Cantor, who devised an account of sets of infinite size. This would not be all that interesting a theory if there were only one infinite number, but Cantor showed that this could not be so. With finite numbers, we often neglect to distinguish ordinal numbers (such as first, second, third) from cardinal numbers (such as one, two, three). With infinite numbers, the distinction becomes much more important. The natural numbers {1,2,3,…} are indeed equinumerous with (have the same cardinal number as) many other sets of numbers including the integers {…,−3,−2,−1,0,1,2,3,…}, the rationals (which can all be expressed as ratios of natural numbers) and the algebraic numbers (which are all expressible as roots of polynomial equations). That is, they all have the same cardinal number, ℵ0. But the set of real numbers, that is every number that can be expressed as a decimal expansion (possibly itself infinite in length) has demonstrably more members than there are natural numbers. In other words, it is uncountable. Of course, once we have two infinite numbers, we can start looking for more. Since Cantor’s day, ever more remote families of infinite cardinals have been discovered, so much so that set theorists now routinely distinguish ‘large cardinals’ from comparative minnows such as those studied by Cantor. Many of these families have exotic or grandiose names, although the mathematician Rudy Rucker observes that It is interesting to note that the smaller large cardinals have much grander names than the really big ones. Down at the bottom you have the self-styled inaccessible and indescribable cardinals loudly celebrating their size, while above, one of the largest cardinals quietly remarks that it is measurable, and the largest cardinals known simply point out past themselves with the comment that they are extendible (Rucker 1982, 265).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Mathematical Monsters

409

This observation is somewhat undercut by further developments: beyond the extendible lie almost huge, huge, and super-huge cardinals (Kanamori 2009, 331). The development of mathematics of the infinite was not without controversy. Some mathematicians regarded such work as intrinsically fanciful: internally consistent, perhaps, but devoid of any meaningful application. Some even went as far as to propose that such work should be jettisoned altogether. This provoked a famous riposte from the doyen of German mathematics, David Hilbert: “No one shall drive us out of the paradise which Cantor has created for us” (Hilbert 1926, 191). This controversy finds an echo in Cohen’s remark that “The habitations of the monsters … are also realms of happy fantasy, horizons of liberation” (Cohen 1996, 18). 18.7. “The monster stands at the threshold… of becoming”

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Cohen concludes his foray into monster culture by stating that “These monsters ask us how we perceive the world … They ask us why we have created them” (Cohen 1996, 20). In Section 18.1, we encountered Poincaré invoking biological terminology to complain of the teratologic museum confronting the mathematician. Modern biology has gone beyond teratology to teratogeny, “the art of producing monstrous forms” (Blumberg 2009, 254). The creation of monsters—and attending to the questions that they have to ask—is also key to their role in mathematical discovery. Proofs and Refutations contains exactly one reference to biological literature (Lakatos 1976, 22). Lakatos cites the early twentieth-century biologist Richard Goldschmidt, remembered for his now discredited idea of monsters as the source of new species, and particularly for his reference to “hopeful monsters, monsters which would start a new evolutionary line if fitting into some empty environmental niche” (Goldschmidt 1933, 547). Goldschmidt was reacting against a growing consensus in evolutionary biology that only external, environmental factors were relevant to the understanding of organisms. From that perspective, monsters were irrelevant, since they were presumed to be genetic dead-ends. Much more recently evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo, for short) has rehabilitated monsters—as sources of information, not of new species. As Pere Alberch, one of the originators of evo-devo puts it, I propose that it may be advantageous to turn to non-functional, grossly maladapted, teratologies when studying the properties of internal factors in evolution. These major deviations from normal development result in forms that are often lethal, and always significantly less well adapted than their progenitors. Therefore, one expects monsters to be consistently eliminated by selection. This is a useful property because if, in spite of very strong negative selection, teratologies are generated in a discrete and recurrent manner, this order has to be a reflection of the internal properties of the developmental system (Alberch 1989, 28).

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

410

Chapter 18

Lakatos draws a similar moral: “if we want to learn about anything really deep, we have to study it not in its ‘normal’, regular, usual form, but in its critical state, in fever, in passion. If you want to know the normal healthy body, study it when it is abnormal, when it is ill. If you want to know functions, study their singularities. If you want to know ordinary polyhedra, study their lunatic fringe” (Lakatos 1976, 23). This insight lies behind the methodology that he judges most successful of all those he surveys. He calls this the method of proofs and refutations, but it has also been dubbed “monster-assimilating” (Caneva 1981, 108). The crucial insight is that monsters should be welcomed as a means of deepening proofs. A monster-assimilator reacts to a counterexample to a proof by adding an extra lemma to the proof that the counterexample refutes. This form of proof analysis leads to a revised conjecture, and ultimately, a deeper grasp of the concepts contained within the original conjecture (Lakatos 1976, 127). For the Euler conjecture, the extra lemmas specify that there must be a way of travelling along edges between any pair of vertices (refuted by the hollow cube) and the surface must be simply connected (any loop we draw on it could be tightened to a point; refuted by the picture frame, Figure 18.1). But the proof analysis yields further dividends: we may generalize the result by dropping these lemmas; in doing so, V−E+F will not always be 2; instead it becomes an Euler characteristic that classifies many different sorts of surface. Surfaces with Euler characteristic 2 are those which are topologically equivalent to a sphere (that is, they could be ‘inflated’ into spheres), whereas surfaces with Euler characteristic 0, such as the picture frame, are topologically equivalent to a torus, or bagel. Thus, by attending closely to monsters, a conjecture which might have seemed a mere mathematical curiosity motivates a profound and wide-ranging classification.

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Bloor links such successful deployment of monster-assimilating to Douglas’s individualistic cultures: We must ask what social forms exert a pressure towards innovation and novelty, and encourage transactions across the boundaries of existing classificatory schemes, dissolving them in change? Where is discontinuity more desired than regularity? Where can mistakes be tolerated and risks taken? Where is the tension most acutely felt between the missing of opportunities due to a reluctance to change, and missing them because of lack of sustained application? Which societies embody this contradiction in their very structure? The answer is: individualistic, pluralistic, competitive, and pragmatic social forms (Bloor 1978, 256).

These are the cultural conditions in which monsters may receive their due. References Alberch, P. (1989). The Logic of Monsters: Evidence for Internal Constraint in Development and Evolution. Geobios, 19. 21–57.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

Mathematical Monsters

411

Baez, J. (2008). Re: The Mathematical Sublime. Retrieved from http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2008/06/the_mathematical_sublime. html#c017410. Berkeley, G. (1996) [originally 1734]. The Analyst. Ewald, W. (Ed.). From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 60–92 Bloor, D. (1978). Polyhedra and the Abominations of Leviticus. British Journal for the History of Science, 11. 245–272. Blumberg, M. S. (2009). Freaks of Nature, and What They Tell Us About Development and Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burke, E. (1756). A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London: R. and J. Dodsley. Caneva, K. L. (1981). What Should We Do with the Monster? Electromagnetism and the Psychosociology of Knowledge. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, 5. 101–131. Cohen, J. J. (1996). Monster Culture (Seven Theses). Cohen, J. J. (Ed.). Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 3–25. Conway, J. and Norton S. (1979). Monstrous Moonshine. Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 11. 308–339. Corfield, D. (2003). Towards a Philosophy of Real Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dawson, J. W., Jr. (2006). Why Do Mathematicians Re-Prove Theorems?. Philosophia Mathematica, 14. 269–286. Detlefsen, M. and Arana A. (2011). Purity of Methods. Philosophers’ Imprint, 11(2). 1–20. Dieudonné, J. (2008) [originally 1973]. Poincaré, Jules Henri. Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 11. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 51–61. Douglas, M. (1996). Thought Styles: Critical Essays on Good Taste. London: Sage. Feferman, S. (2000). Mathematical Intuition vs. Mathematical Monsters. Synthese, 125(3). 317–332. Ferreirós, J. (2016). Purity as a Value in the German-Speaking Area. Larvor, B. (Ed.). Mathematical Cultures: The London Meetings 2012–2014. Basel: Birkhäuser. 215–234. Flew, A. (1975). Thinking about Thinking. London: Fontana. Gannon, T. (2006). Monstrous Moonshine: The First Twenty-Five Years. Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 38(1). 1–33. Goffman, E. (1971) [originally 1959]. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin. Goldschmidt, R. (1933). Some Aspects of Evolution. Science, 78. 539–547. Greiffenhagen, C. (2014). The Materiality of Mathematics: Presenting Mathematics at the Blackboard. The British Journal of Sociology, 65(3). 502–528. Hahn, H. (1956) [originally 1933]. The Crisis in Intuition. Newman, J. R. (Ed.). The World of Mathematics. Vol. 3. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. 1956–1976. Heath, T. L. (2006) [originally 1908]. The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements. New York, NY. Barnes and Noble.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,

Copyright © 2019. Vernon Press. All rights reserved.

412

Chapter 18

Hersh, R. (1991). Mathematics Has a Front and a Back. Synthese, 88. 127–133. Hilbert, D. (1983) [originally 1926]. On the Infinite. Benacerraf, P. and Putnam, H. (Eds.). Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 183–201. Kanamori, A. (2009). The Higher Infinite: Large Cardinals in Set Theory from Their Beginnings. 2nd ed. Berlin: Springer. Kanovei, V., Katz, M. G. and Mormann T. (2013). Tools, Objects, and Chimeras: Connes on the Role of Hyperreals in Mathematics. Foundations of Science, 18. 259–296. Kline, M. (1972). Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Lakatos, I. (1976). Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery. Worrall, J. and Zahar, E. (Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Larvor, B. (2016). What are Mathematical Cultures?. Ju, S., Löwe, B., Müller, B. and Xie, Y. (Eds.). Cultures of Mathematics and Logic: Selected Papers from the Conference in Guangzhou, China. November 9–12, 2012. Basel: Birkhäuser. 1–22. MacKenzie, D. (1999). Slaying the Kraken: The Sociohistory of a Mathematical Proof. Social Studies of Science, 29. 7–60. Mehrtens, H. (1994). Irresponsible Purity: The Political and Moral Structure of Mathematical Sciences in the National Socialist State. Renneberg, M. and Walker, M. (Eds.). Science, Technology and National Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 324–338. Noxon, M. (Writer) and Solomon D. (Director) (2000). Buffy vs. Dracula. [Television series episode]. Whedon, J. (Producer). Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Burbank, CA: The WB Television Network. Poincaré, H. (1913). The Foundations of Science. New York, NY: The Science Press. Roberts, S. (2015). Genius at Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway. New York, NY. Bloomsbury. Rollet, L. (2012). Jeanne Louise Poulain d’Andecy, Épouse Poincaré (1857– 1934). Bulletin de la Sabix, 51. 18–27. Ronan, M. (2006). Symmetry and the Monster. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rucker, R. (1982). Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite. Boston, MA: Birkhäuser. Simons, C. S. (2005). An Elementary Approach to the Monster. The American Mathematical Monthly, 112. 334–341. Smoryński, C. (2012). Adventures in Formalism. London: College Publications. Thim, J. (2003). Continuous Nowhere Differentiable Functions. Master’s thesis. Luleå University of Technology. Volkert, K. (2008). La Mathématique et le Pathologique. Philosophia Scientiæ, 12(2). 65–74. Worrall, J. (1979). A Reply to David Bloor. British Journal for the History of Science, 12(1). 71–78.

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society, edited by Diego Compagna, and Stefanie Steinhart,