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Are Cyborgs Really Monsters?
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Are Cyborgs Really Monsters?

The History of Cyborgs

This section explores the history of cyborgs and how they have been perceived in popular culture.

The Origins of Automatons

  • Mechanization has always been seen as both a promise and a threat.
  • Stories of human automatons date back to ancient times, with mentions in Chinese philosophical texts and Indian Buddhist texts.
  • Legends of brazen heads, bronze or brass talking fortune-telling automations modeled after humans fill the pages and stages of the Renaissance period.

Emergence of Cyborgs

  • The Industrial Revolution and political revolutions across the world destabilized the concept of the body at the same time that manufacturing shifted from human hands to mechanized devices.
  • In fiction, German Gothic author E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1814 "Automata" has the first quasi-human automation, but it wasn't until Jane Loudon's futuristic 1827 novel "The Mummy" that speculative technologies like labor androids emerged.
  • Edgar Allen Poe famously explored the boundaries between mechanical bodies and human bodies in his science fiction, with his 1839 short story "The Man That Was Used Up" widely cited as the first true cyborg narrative.

Perceptions of Cyborgs

  • Some pop culture villains are cyborgs, but so are some heroes.
  • Cyborgs are viewed with a mix of revulsion and awe because they challenge cultural conceptions about what is natural or unnatural.

The Emergence of Cyborgs

This section discusses the emergence of cyborgs in popular culture and their definition.

Definition of Cyborg

  • The term "cyborg" was first coined by researchers Manfred E. Clynes and Dr. Nathan S. Kline in 1960 in a New York Times article about enhancing astronauts for space travel efficiency.
  • They proposed developing human-and-then-some bodies that would not need to eat or breathe because of battery-powered devices built into the body, providing us with the first public definition of cyborg as "a man-machine system in which the control mechanisms of the human portion are modified externally by drugs or regulatory devices so that the being can live in an environment different from the normal one."

Cultural and Social Technological Pandemonium

  • The late 1970s and '80s were a time of cultural and social technological pandemonium due to the introduction of personal computers, portable phones, fiber optics, and the internet, challenging our worldview and creating new anxieties.
  • Popular culture exposed this anxiety through dystopian android movies like "The Terminator" and "Blade Runner," but also more optimistic characters like DC Comic Universe's superhero Cyborg and "Ghost in the Shell's" crime-fighting cyberpunk Major Motoko Kusanagi.

Post-Humanism

  • Donna Haraway's feminist post-human text, "A Cyborg Manifesto," declared we are all already cyborgs since humans are chimeras of organism and machine, a reality we sit with uncomfortably but should take pleasure in such instability and transgression. She uses cyborg as a metaphor to challenge the definition of human/non-human, pointing out that modern medicine has advanced to the point that small machines can reside in the body, referred to as couplings.
  • Post-humanism is a philosophical concept that challenges anthropocentrism, blurring or eliminating boundaries between humans and other organic and inorganic matter. It's all about connectivity among all things where boundaries are not only blurred but they also simply don't exist, which is both liberating and terrifying. The cyborg then is a man-made distinction between human and non-human animal where artificial devices contribute to making humans less animal.

Monsters and Post-Human

  • Monsters and post-human are intertwined since even the threat of transformation via technology inspires simultaneous terror and pleasure. The cyborg can easily represent both negative and positive interpretations of post-humanism.
  • By the end of the 20th century, discoveries in zoology contributed to our modern conception of cyborgs since many non-human animals craft and use tools, problem solve, have complex languages, social behaviors, and grieving practices. The cyborg then is a break in the distinction between human, animal, and machine in a post-humanist utopian vision of connectivity among all things where boundaries are not only blurred but they also simply don't exist. This is why the cyborg is always made monstrous from hive-mind driven villainous Borg in Star Trek to Marvel's Dr. Octopus or James Bond's nefarious Dr. No; evil or antagonistic cyborgs are physically threatening with their divergent technologies marking them as the other or bad guy in the story even when they're good guys painted differently like Robocop, Ironman, Major Motoko Kusanagi, Bionic Woman etc., who almost always have some traumatic backstory or event that propels them towards mechanical augmentation justifying their monstrosity like Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker from Star Wars who are cyborgs since the end of Episode Five.

The Fear of Cyborgs

In this section, the speaker discusses how cyborgs are portrayed in popular culture as villains and monsters. The fear of losing ourselves in the technologies we create is explored.

Cyborgs as Villains

  • Darth Vader's cyborg appearance visually makes him the villain.
  • Anakin's tragic history justifies his transformation into a cyborg and his choice to join the dark side.
  • This justification only happens explicitly in newer movies released at the turn of the 21st century when attitudes towards robotics have shifted.

Fear of Becoming Technology

  • Our response to cyborgs is driven by how we want to integrate technology into our lives.
  • We fear losing ourselves in the technologies we create.

Integration of Technology

In this section, the speaker explores our relationship with technology and whether we live with it or become it.

Living With Technology

  • We can choose to live with technology and use it as a tool.
  • This approach allows us to maintain control over technology.

Becoming Technology

  • Alternatively, we can choose to become technology.
  • This approach blurs the line between human and machine, raising ethical concerns about what it means to be human.

Clockwork-driven Automata

In this section, the speaker mentions "Liezi" and discusses clockwork-driven automata.

Clockwork-driven Automata

  • "Liezi" includes mention of clockwork-driven automata.
  • Automata are machines that can perform tasks without human intervention.
Video description

Don’t miss future episodes of Monstrum, subscribe! http://bit.ly/pbsstoried_sub Advances in technology are always met with some degree of technophobia—and villainization. And cyborgs represent a special kind of fear inherent in losing ourselves in the technologies we create. For audio descriptions, go to Settings - Audio Track - English Descriptive. ***** PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateStoried ***** Written and Hosted by: Dr. Emily Zarka Director: David Schulte Executive Producer: Amanda Fox Producer: Thomas Fernandes Editor/Animator: Steven Simone Editor/Animator: Jordyn Buckland Illustrator: Samuel Allan Executive in Charge (PBS): Maribel Lopez Director of Programming (PBS): Gabrielle Ewing Additional Footage: Shutterstock Music: APM Music Descriptive Audio & Captions provided by The Described and Captioned Media Program Produced by Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios. Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monstrumpbs ---------------------------- Bibliography Coeckelbergh, Mark. New Romantic Cyborgs: Romanticism, Information Technology, and the End of the Machine. The MIT Press, 2017. Hanafi, Zakiya. The Monster in the Machine: Magic, Medicine, and the Marvelous in the Time of the Scientific Revolution, Duke University Press, 2000. Jancovich, Mark. “Modernity and Subjectivity in The Terminator: The Machine as Monster in Contemporary American Culture.” The Velvet Light Trap, vol. 30, no. 30, 1992, pp. 3–17. Haney, William S. Cyberculture, Cyborgs and Science Fiction: Consciousness and the Posthuman, BRILL, 2006. Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2013. Li, Qiang. Silk Road: The Study Of Drama Culture. World Scientific Publishing Company, 2019. “Spaceman is seen as man-machine.” The New York Times. May 22, 1960. Willis, Martin. Mesmerists, Monsters, and Machines: Science Fiction and the Cultures of Science in the Nineteenth Century, The Kent State University Press, 2013.