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RUDN Journal of Sociology
Вестник РУДН. Серия: СОЦИОЛОГИЯ
2018 Vol. 18 No. 4 638-650
http://journals.rudn.ru/sociology
СОВРЕМЕННОЕ ОБЩЕСТВО: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ РАЗВИТИЯ
DOI: 10.22363/2313-2272-2018-18-4-638-650
TRANS-MOBILITIES IN POST-HUMAN ERA: HOW IS SOCIAL ORDER STILL POSSIBLE?*
I.V. Katernyi
Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University)
Prosp. Vernadskogo, 76, Moscow, 119454, Russia
Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS Krzhizhanovskogo St., 24/35-5, Moscow, 117218, Russia (e-mail: [email protected])
Abstract. The today's post-human era is characterized by transformation, mutation, and reinvention of social identities of agents. Transgenders, robots, clones have been increasingly involved in social community and, thus, contributed to profound normative morphogenesis in the contemporary society. Consequently, there is a challenging primordial heteronormativity with some fundamental ascriptive binaries evident in transgressive confusion of the following oppositions: between human and subhuman (e.g. legitimation of animal or fetal rights); between cultural and natural (cyborgs); between animate and inanimate (android robots); between corporeal and incorporeal (virtual, 'augmented' and 'mixed' reality). A range of practices related to such transgression can be considered as trans-mobility that implies various self-determined individual transitions from the former ascribed position to a new transitive one and external transpositions due to forced alteration of individual or collective statuses/identities. The article considers three typical modes of morphological trans-mobility to identify the most important arrays the ontological binaries are de-ascribed in: visceral trans-mobility pertaining to all possible options to modify human corporality (including radical body modification); conversional trans-mobility beyond the line between life and death, being and nonbeing, corporeal (material) and incorporeal (immaterial) ontology (from bitcoins to clones); prosopopoeian trans-mobility involving initially non-social creatures into active social life (from pets to robots). The author seeks to answer the question of how current normative morphogenesis is embedded into social-normative order. Based on the theory of recognition, the article considers morphotaxis (an opposite of morphogenesis) as a latent compensatory mechanism to maintain the primordial social order by persistent reproduction of heteronormativity. Based on some empirical data, the author shows that dichotomized sexual (male—female), genetical (sexual—asexual) and biological (animate—inanimate) patterns with corresponding social norms still constitute the morphological foundation of the primordial social order despite the advanced post-human practices.
Key words: ascriptive statuses; morphogenesis; mobility; transsexual; cloning; android; recognition
* © I.V. Katernyi, 2018. The article was submitted on 04.05.2018.
Through the ages of human history, it has been recognized that conventional social space is rigidly and deeply constrained by two structural positions — veniral ('achieved') and ascriptive ('hereditary') — with corresponding individual and collective identities, physical characteristics, social statuses and expectations. The significance of ascriptive positions can hardly be overestimated for they consist of some fixed social 'properties' that resist voluntary transformations and, thus, constitute a primordial normative order of binary combinations of cognitive, physical and social limits. The article focuses on three structural ascriptions that reproduce primordial social heteronormativity with 'ontological' binaries: (1) sexual (male—female), (2) genetical (sexual—asexual) and (3) biological (animate—inanimate). These strong evolutionary differentiations have reproduced primordial heteronormativity of social order and have not been under morphogenesis until recently being protected by various taboos and restrictions. The widely recognized 'metamorphosis' of current social changes includes transformation, mutation, and reinvention of social identities of agents. Proponents of post-humanism name them 'morphological freedom' and 'flat ontology'.
Two well-known transhumanists — A. Sandberg and N. Bostrom [3; 27] — introduced the term 'morphological freedom' to define all options of voluntary transformations of human body with such technologies as cosmetic surgery, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, cyborgization (prosthetics), uploading of consciousness, and vitrification (rapid freezing before or immediately after death). Gender reassignment surgery, implantation of artificial organs and body parts, transplantation of artificially grown organs, and genome editing is already a reality. Some genetic scientists (Dr. G. Church) believe that the problem of aging is also on the verge of solution. Morphological freedom also means reproductive freedom: it gives people the right to choose the way of getting children and modifying their genetic portrait. In 2016, H.T. Greely published a book The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction predicting that within next 20 years fertilization with stem cells (taken from parental skin) and genetic programming of children will become an accessible, legal and safe technology that will make ordinary sex an unnecessary and unreliable means of reproduction [13]. Despite the fierce bioconservative criticism (L. Kass, J. Rifkin, M. Sandel) pointing to the genetic inequality and unpredictable medical consequences of eugenic experiments, one can see the inevitability of the future development of such services. Therefore, there are emerging biotechnologies and social institutions that determine bioeconomics, biocapitalism, biocitizenship, and biosociality in general. N. Rose speaks of modern 'molecular discourse' as the apotheosis of historical biopolitics discovered by M. Foucault as a basic element of social control and (bio)power: "Molecular biopolitics grants new mobility to the very elements of life that become objects of biological, interpersonal, geographic and financial operations" [26. P. 15].
The second aspect of current post-human era is the recognition of 'flat ontology' (M. DeLanda, G. Harman) that deprives a human of exclusive ontological authorship of social agency. Although classical sociology considered sociality as a space for various human interdependences, now in the post-human world 'intersubjectivity' and 'inter-objectivity' (B. Latour's term) constitute a single social-material dispositif, and social action becomes a more ontologically neutral social enactment. Therefore, the new
non-hierarchical universe consists of such new social agentives as human embryos, animals, clones, robots, things, and artificial intelligence (the best samples of which have already passed the Turing test).
Thus, there are evident normative interventions into the domain of primordial ascriptive reality that creates not only new social positions but also a new normative order in which conventional ascriptive distinctions cease to serve as social constants. There is a whole range of hybrid and/or strange statuses and identities with both veniral and ascriptive features. Transsexuals, robots, clones claim social recognition by tolerating ascriptive deviance and eliminating conventional normative limits, which leads to the question — are there any ascriptions that still matter for social order, i.e. a mechanism for maintaining any of the designated morphological binaries under the growing normative morphogenesis.
SOCIOLOGY OF TRANS-MOBILITY
The classical definition of social mobility by P. Sorokin emphasizes the relocation of people and objects within social space in the symbolic and geographical dimensions; social mobility stands for any transition of an individual or social object or value from one social position to another [29. Р. 174]. However, a founding father of the Chicago school of sociology R.E. Park made an insightful discovery when assumed that the modern individual wants not only "to move freely and untrammeled over the surface of the mundane thing" but also "to live, like pure spirit, in his mind and in his imagination alone" [24. P. 156], i.e. to do one's best to break ties with local and temporal landscapes and, thus, cease to be a 'social plant'. It is the possibility to change social statuses freely that is a key feature of the modern society, according to Park. In the 21st century, J. Urry develops a 'new mobilities paradigm' by suggesting five types of interdependent 'mobilities' that (re)produce social life and (re)form its contours [37. Р. 47]:
(1) corporeal travel of people (from daily commuting to once-in-a-lifetime exile);
(2) physical movement of objects (from goods to postal items); (3) imaginative travel through talk, print and visual media (e.g. magazines or television programs on travelling);
(4) virtual travel based on live broadcast technologies or interactive digital space;
(5) communicative travel through text, photograph and multimedia message exchange via telephone, fax, computer, mobile phone and other gadgets (e.g. Instragram).
Some new performative interventions to social space through Urry's mobilities skip the primary identifications. The ontological 'metamorhosis' in the post-human world of the 21st century implies such deep transformations as removal of ascriptive (onto-logically 'strong') boundaries between primary assignments: (a) between human and human (for example, by legitimation of the embryos rights); (b) between cultural and natural (interracial 'transitions'); (c) between animate and inanimate (social usage of humanoid and android robots); (d) between corporeal and incorporeal ('augmented reality' technology). There is a new area of strange and hybrid statuses and identities with a mixture of ascriptive and veniral characteristics that will be considered in the article as a 'morphological trans-mobility' (hereinafter — trans-mobility): it includes individual and self-acting transitions ('passings') from the prescribed to a new transitive position,
and 'external' transpositions, i.e. compulsory symbolic and normative transformations of identities of individual and group subjects and objects. There are three typical forms of trans-mobility: visceral — aims at transformation of body ascriptions (radical body modifications, reassignment of sex, gender, race); conversional — breaks the line between corporeal and incorporeal ontologies, 'life' and 'death' in a variety of technologically advanced practices (from augmented and virtual reality to cloning); proso-popoeian — makes non-social creatures actively involved social agentives (from pets to robots).
Certainly, the most sophisticated area of visceral trans-mobility today consists of gender and sexual transitions. According to H. Garfinkel and E. Goffman, heteronormativity of gender has been 'ironclad' until recently. However, gender and sexual performativity were legitimized in the queer theory (J. Butler) and far beyond the academic discourse, when in 2014 the Facebook provided its users in the Great Britain with 70 options of gender identity — from asexual and androgyne to polygender and two-spirit. Under current social changes such a heteronormativity has once and for all given way to comprehensive personal autonomy of body and imagination. However, such legitimization of the public gender even in developed societies does not cover sexual norms. K. Schilt and L. Westbrook conducted a number of interviews and crime chronicles analysis to show that patterns of communications with open transgenders in public provide ample opportunities to overlook the individual's gender and construct ones' gender identity in a strictly performative way (through gender display). But if a transgender is included in the sexual partners' pool as a cisgender (gender normal), the status and role ascription changes and enables the 'good old fashioned' heteronormativity: "when a transgender person is not a potential sexual partner, biological credentials (the 'right' genitalia) are not required to claim membership in a gender category. By contrast, when the transgender person is found in a pool of sexual partners, the criteria for gender membership becomes stricter — cultural genitals are no longer enough and biological genitals are a necessity" [28. Р. 461]. Sanctions for violating the norms of sexual ascription can be dramatically severe: 56% of murders of transgenders in the USA (1990—2005) were explained by the feeling of deceit of the murderers by their victims [28. Р. 452].
There is a story of the US government guidelines for educational institutions that recognized the right of transgender children to use male or female bathroom according to their choice [7]. 11 states tried to repeal this directive, and it was withdrawn by the new administration of D. Trump. Since 2013, there is a call to use public unisex toilets at the legislative level; however, even the advocates of gender equality recognize that these facilities give freedom to transgender people but are unacceptable for most other people, especially for women: "not only do many women object to sharing a restroom with men, whom they perceive as less tidy, as well as potentially more threatening, many women also value the women's room as a site of female sociability" [6. Р. 219]. In Thailand, where transsexualism has become uniquely favorable (for many reasons), the local government, nevertheless, denies transgenders ('kathoeys') legal sex reassignment and forbids to change physiometric data given at birth in their passports and other
documents. Thus, morphogenesis of polynormativity within gender trans-mobility is confronted by the primordial sexual order on the normative level, which requires to distinguish sexual primordial and secondary gender ascriptive social norms.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST HUMAN CLONING
Cloning issues reveal transitions and transpositions between life and death, corporeal and incorporeal dimensions within conversional trans-mobility. In 1996, I. Wilmut failed 276 times before he finally managed to create the first cloned mammal (Dolly the sheep). Today we have enough technologies to create an almost unlimited number of cloned generations of any prototype. In 2013, the Center of Biology and Development of the RIKEN Institute managed to give birth to 581 clones (25 generations) from a single cell of one rodent [38]. From the biological perspective, this original donor mouse defeated death, and its post-mortal trans-mobility in the infinite generations of clones is an ultra-technological way of realizing the humanity's dream of immortality.
In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Declaration on Human Cloning prohibiting all forms of producing clones "inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life" [36]. The declaration prohibits both therapeutic cloning, in which cells are cloned from a human for medical use and transplants, and reproductive cloning — creating a living genetic duplicate. Though several countries disagreed with the declaration, there is still cloning moratorium. To date, no human clone has been born but in 2008, researchers successfully created five mature human embryos by using somatic cell nuclear transfer technology (SCNT) — the nucleus of a somatic cell was taken from a donor and transplanted into a vacant host egg cell. The embryos were only allowed to develop to the blastocyst stage, studied and then destroyed [11]. So, technically we can do it, and, contrary to the popular belief, a reproductive human clone would not be fully identical to the donor for we clone genotype not phenotype. Moreover, even under the same conditions growing cloned organisms would differ due to inevitable random deviations. However, there is an agreement in the international community that reproductive cloning is very dangerous.
The human ambition to conquer death as the epitome of evil, chaotic and unknown has persisted throughout history from the ancient Hindu ideas of reincarnation to the Christian dream of resurrection and today's reproductive genetics. Therefore, cloning can be considered a cherished ideal to fight death, and it works for our beloved passed away pets. However, when it comes to human being, the issues of cloning (perceived as a controlled post-mortal trans-mobility) reveal the predominance of deep fear that is manifested in bans of human reproductive and therapeutic cloning at the institutional level and in a new psychiatric disorder related to the phobia of cloned humans (bionalism) at the cognitive level. World religions differently explain their will to prohibit human cloning [16]. And secular norms based on the Kantian notion of human dignity support them. Arguments against reproductive cloning are of technical and medical nature such as weakening and undermining the original idea of human reproduction and family, unclear relationship between the cloned baby and its 'creator', unclear personal identity and disturbed psychological development of the cloned baby, eugenic questions (considering genetical 'enhancement' of people), possible illicit cloning, etc.
Thus, normative morphotaxis recognizes uniqueness of personal identity as the very core of social order, and human cloning challenges the ontological and normative notion of being human. It is the fact that every individual is viscerally unique that supports human dignity — human's right to have one's own inherent individuality with specific mind and appearance. Since the late 18th century there has been the literary and philosophical idea of threatening 'uncanny double' (Doppelganger) created by body manipulation and psychological multiplicity. According to J. Francavilla, "the double threatens the extinction of differences between oneself and all others, which means that the double jeopardizes individual identity (defined by such differences) by threatening usurpation of, possession of, substitution for, or the obliteration of the self" [10. P. 111]. The idea of the clone is frightening because even if it looks and acts like a copy it cannot and will not be one. The possibility of multiplying individuals by using genetic material would radically alter not only one's perception of self and others but the very personal identity: "this could potentially cause a Copernican revolution directly affecting the concept of Human Dignity" [30. P. 67]. This fact and asexual human reproduction in general breaks deep taboos, which represent an infringement of recognizing human in the humanity.
SOCIALIZING NEW AGENTIVES
For a long time, only humans have been endowed with social agency that strongly depend on social status including gender, race, estate, caste, etc. Nevertheless, the gradual transformation of some traditional hereditary 'opportunity structures' (R. Merton's term) under modernization determined normative morphogenesis that eliminates or changes conventional normative discrimination. Abolition of slavery, integration of 'barbarians', enfranchisement of women, racial desegregation, reform of caste system and recognition of the gay minority rights are well-known historic contributions to such normative morphogenesis.
In last decades, we witness a new social agency — of non-human nature. According to E. Durkheim, this is impossible: "Material objects ...are the matter to which the vital forces of society are applied, but they do not themselves release any vital forces. Thus, the specifically human environment remains as the active factor" [9. P. 136]. However, it is happening due to prosopopoeian trans-mobility — when originally nonsocial subjects and objects undergo social personification. This is the essence of prosopopoeian trans-mobility: transitions and transpositions from nonsocial universe into social community, emergence of neo-social and neo-morphic creatures as equal to humans in social communication on the als ob principle: they are treated as if they were humans. Such a list includes all subhuman organisms (from embryos to animals), inanimate creatures and neo-morphs (from 'smart devices' to robots) — together they make up a cluster of social co-agentives of humans. Borrowing some terms (agentives, co-agentives, instrumentals) from the grammar theory that analyzes the underlying role structures of language (C.J. Fillmore) is deliberate for it provides sophisticated codifications of various statuses and role transformations of actors in any proposition by the semantics of predicative expressions. The authors of the 'actor-network theory' were the first to
attach an important sociological meaning to the notion of an 'actant' — this fundamental term of their theory was borrowed from the French linguist L. Tesnière.
The most recognizable advances in the field were made by 'socializing' animals and pets. The animal rights movement has existed for few centuries: the first animal protection laws were adopted in the 17th century when the acts of violence and cruelty to domestic animals (e.g. pulling wool off sheep, attaching ploughs to horses' tails, etc.) were prohibited first in Ireland and then in New England. In the 20th century, prominent environmentalists A. Leopold, P. Singer, A. Naess encouraged consistent recognition of the animal moral and legal rights in human community. However, there are still debates on the extent to which animals can be considered human-like (with all normative consequences).
The most impressive cases of 'socialization' and 'personification' of 'non-humans' as co-agentives can be found today in the field of technological design and social robotics. Owners of Roomba, an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner, find their little automated assistants adorable and give them names like pets, thus, setting up an emotional connection and entertaining the self-inspired illusion of having relationships with them as if with individualized animate creatures. The idea of anthropomorphic robots walking among people no longer seems imaginary about the future. Today, we are at the beginning of the era of universal robotization, and in the sociological perspective existing prototypes of humanoid and especially android robots claim to be neomorphic (synthetic) personalities embodying the amalgam of a recognizable body, intelligent 'mind' and social personality ('persona'), i.e. can be perceived as 'Other' who (re)constructs patterns of sociality in a situation of co-presence. The robot has a 'face' resembling or looking human, dramatically changes the communicative situation with predictable normative, social and psychological consequences. When interacting with humanoid robots, our brain is not capable of constantly staying focused on the fact that their signals are of inanimate and can be ignored. The 'humanness' of such objects implies social expectations, thereby sooner or later a person tends to treat humanoid machines in the same manner as people. When T. Burnham and B. Hare, asked the participants of their experiment to play a game in which they were to donate money, a mere eye contact with a robot named Kismet with human-like eyes increased donations by 30%, which was a co-agency effect of the conventional demand to be or seem more generous and kind to a vis-à-vis partner [5]. We have long been communicating with personal computers and laptops but we perceive them as instrumentalis; however, when a computer becomes more 'animate', our attitude changes. In another study, the experiment participants were to play a game of cards with a computer with a virtual 'avatar' ('identity') that provided real person's verbal responses. The researchers created two avatars identical in appearance but different in behavior: one perfectly imitates human facial expressions, smile, raises eyebrows and was able to establish a non-verbal contact: the other was more 'mechanical' and incapable of accurate facial expressions. So, when interacting with the more 'living' avatar, the participants tended to psychologically see it as human, so at the grammatical level the 'human—computer' dialogue was completely on par with a 'human—human' dialogue in terms of language [14].
In 1970, M. Mori discovered in his experience of introspection a superordinary psychological effect of rejection when perceiving artificial objects too accurately imitating a living person or body parts. He made a hypothetical chart that should have reflected the connection between the human likeness and perceptive attractiveness of different subjects and objects including robots. Mori's hypothesis supposed that the more an object is similar to a human, the more sympathy it recieves but only to a certain extent after which there is a sharp U-shaped decline known as the 'uncanny valley'
This name appeals to the German term 'Unheimlich' (eerie) used by S. Freud as a title of one of his articles on the psychoanalysis of German fairy tales and those frightening images that create an atmosphere of horror: "dismembered limbs, a severed head, a hand cut off at the wrist... feet which dance by themselves... — all these have something peculiarly uncanny about them, especially when, as in the last instance, they prove capable of independent activity in addition" [12. P. 244]. However, Freud himself followed E. Jentsch who in 1906 in his essay On the Psychology of the Uncanny argued that the feeling of fear of the 'undead' is determined by intellectual uncertainty and unfamiliarity with such an object. Jentsch mentioned the sense of doubt "as to whether an apparently living being really is animate" and, on the contrary, "doubt as to whether a lifeless object may not in fact be animate" [17. P. 221] referring to the impression of the wax-work figures, ingeniously constructed dolls, and automata. He also considered the 'demonic effect' of epileptic seizures and manifestations of insanity as they provide an observer with a "dark knowledge that mechanical processes are taking place in that which he was previously used to regard as a unified psyche" [17. P. 226]. Unexpected sudden movements, unnatural color of artificial skin, 'dead eye' effect, etc. can cause fear and terror for they serve as a reminder that it is not an (ordinary) human being but something deeply alien. The same feelings can arise when looking at wax dolls, zombies, dead, possessed people, physically and mentally disabled, and even epileptics.
(Fig. 1).
+
moving still
uncanny valley o- healthy person
humanoid robot
ill person
p-bunraku puppet
disabled person prosthetic hand myoelectric hand zombie
okina mask
ordinary doll
Figure 1. U-shaped decline known as the 'uncanny valley'
The original chart by Mori describes the relationship between the human similarity of an object (the axis of abscisses) and its attractiveness (the axis of ordinates). The more something resembles a living person the more attractive it is; a moving humanoid robot and a big stuffed animal are much more attractive than an industrial robot. But at a certain phase of perception similarity turns into rejection and horror (the demon mask (yase otoko) or the old man's mask (okina) from the traditional Japanese musical theater No, an ordinary doll, a corpse, a prosthetic hand). At the same time, moving objects are more susceptible to the 'uncanny valley' effect: a zombie, a myoelectric hand, a bunraku puppet (able to blink, put out its tongue, move its eyebrows and fingers). A dotted arrow from top to bottom in the lower zone of the 'uncanny valley' marks the perceived unexpected death of a healthy person [23].
A crucial distinction of the uncanny valley (the U-shaped zone) from the extreme left and extreme right sides of the chart is that it includes strange and hybrid creatures that possess characteristics of both 'normal' human and inanimate object. However, only since the mid-2000s, the global development of robotics has become one of the main trends of technical design and the 'uncanny valley' phenomenon was finally recognized [22]. Many empirical studies in the field of cognitive psychology were conducted to confirm or disprove the original Mori hypothesis. Some researchers proved nonlinear effects of perception of the neo-morphic objects by adults [4; 21; 33], children [35], infants [18; 20], and even primates [31]. Other studies confirmed alternative models of perception of the 'uncanny', for example, the 'uncanny cliff [2] or 'uncanny wall' [34]. Some authors denied the enhancement of the repulsive impression when perceiving moving androids [25; 32] form the original Mori hypothesis. Nevertheless, there are still no sufficient data to deny perception abnormalities in communications with androids, i.e. there is always a chance of an 'uncanny' impression of a robot.
In one of the most ambitious studies of the pioneer of the American android science K. MacDorman (with S. Entezari), nine personality characteristics were operationalized and studied on a sample of about 600 people as sensitivity factors to the effect of 'uncanny valley': negative attitudes to robots; animal reminder sensitivity; cognitive dissonance in the perception of android within the pattern 'a person or a machine'; anxiety; neuroticism; perfectionism; personal distress; religious fundamentalism; tendency to cognitive allocation of androids in a separate category of surrounding objects (human—robot—android) [19]. All participants had previously passed special tests for susceptibility to certain factors (mainly on the Likert scale), watched videos with six moving images of a robot vacuum cleaner, a humanoid robot, three androids with conspicuous deviations in appearance, and an ordinary person. The effect of the 'uncanny valley' was assessed by indicators of 'eeriness', i.e. repulsive impression, and 'warmth', i.e. attractiveness. All participants manifested this effect; however, religious fundamentalism, animalism, anxiety, sensitivity to deviations in the appearance and behavior of a robot had an indirect impact on the 'uncanny valley' effect, while the cognitive commitment to strict man/machine categorization and negative emotions to robots directly increased the eeriness or reduced the warmth in the perception of an android. Different factors had different impact, for example, religious fundamentalism
and perceptive dissonance correlated more with the 'warmth', while 'animalism' and anxiety had a greater impact on the enhancement of the 'uncanny'. According to K. MacDorman, this can be explained by the nature of these characteristics: the former are cultural patterns, while the latter represent the biological adaptation mechanisms to detect an external threat [19. P. 160].
Such a study of the mechanisms of perception of neo-morphic objects is more important for human knowledge than the scientific design of more attractive models of new robots. The human rejection of the uncanny object in communication is just another result of morphotaxis process, i.e. reproduction of morphological order that combines biological, cognitive, social and other constraints. Prosopopoeian morphogenesis associated with the active usage of robots and avatars in social life faces the resistance of rigid morphotaxic elements embedded in the primary cognitive-normative structures. It is the binary organization of basic evolutionary dichotomies that forms ontological boundaries of the human world. One of such ontologically fundamental dichotomies is the (overlapping) distinction of 'human-nonhuman' and 'alive/animate-dead/inanimate)'. Issues of abortion, euthanasia, artificial intelligence also manifest the ontological tension of these poles.
***
The dichotomized sexual, genetical and biological patterns with the corresponding social norms continue to constitute the morphological foundation of the primordial social order despite advanced post-human practices. Transitions and transpositions between the poles are of a transgressive ('forbidden') nature that evoke some compensatory and hypercompensatory processes in social order defined as normative morphotaxis. Under the current trans-sociality, it depends on the effectiveness of mechanisms for the protection of primordial solidarity based on shared social norms of recognition and non-recognition. The structural ties of normative morphogenesis and morphotaxis can be defined as a collision of recognition and non-recognition [15]. There are at least three functional levels of social order for this collision: cognitive level — acceptance/ love or fear/anger/rejection (we love pets, we want to clone them, but we are afraid of too realistic android robots); moral level — respect (freedom, dignity) or contempt and humiliation (problem of euthanasia, racial transitions, artificial intelligence behavior); legal level — on the one hand, institutionalized inclusion of transgender people, animals and human embryos, on the other hand, human cloning is legally prohibited. Being socially recognized implies acceptance at all three levels.
Further development of science and technology can change our ideas on being human, male or female, animate or inanimate. However, at a certain stage of technological development (in the near future), society will be able to survive without sex for reproduction and grow embryos with preprogrammed genes or edit genome at an early childhood, which will make the issues of human cloning and impelled sex reassignment redundant. Moreover, the social use of superpowerful artificial intelligence seems to put at risk human ontological sovereignty and social security. The structures of non-recognition reproduced in normative morphotaxis will not be eliminated by any technological progress or 'morphological freedom' but will necessarily find new ways to support trans-mobility and control its risks.
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DOI: 10.22363/2313-2272-2018-18-4-638-650
ТРАНСМОБИЛЬНОСТЬ В ПОСТГУМАНИЗИРОВАННОМ МИРЕ: КАК ВСЕ ЕЩЕ ВОЗМОЖЕН СОЦИАЛЬНЫЙ ПОРЯДОК?*
И.В. Катерный
Московский государственный институт международных отношений (университет) МИД России просп. Вернадского, 76, Москва, 119454, Россия
Институт социологии ФНИСЦ РАН ул. Кржижановского, 24/35-5, Москва, 117218, Россия (e-mail: [email protected])
Одной из главных черт социальной онтологии постгуманизированного мира в XXI веке становится распространение практик изменения, мутации и «переизобретения» социальной идентичности агентивов. Происходит снятие аскриптивных (т.е. онтологически «сильных») границ
* © Катерный И.В., 2018.
Статья поступила в редакцию 04.05.2018 г.
между бинарными статусными распределениями, конвенционально формировавшими гетеронор-мативные основания социального порядка: между человеческим и субчеловеческим (например, через легитимацию прав эмбрионов); культурным и природным (гендерные «переходы»); одушевленным и неодушевленным (через задействование гуманоидных роботов); физическим и не-физиче-ским (через развитие технологий «дополненной реальности»). В результате образуется новая область странных и гибридных статусов и идентичностей, обладающих смесью аскриптивных и вениральных («достигаемых») характеристик. Этот процесс описывается и анализируется в статье с помощью понятия (морфологической) трансмобильности, подразумевающей как индивидуальные и независимые переходы от прошлой предписанной к новой транзитивной позиции, так и внешние переключения, ориентированные на принудительную символическую и нормативную трансформацию идентичностей как индивидуальных агентивов, так и целых групп субъектов и объектов. В статье сделан акцент на трех типических практиках трансмобильности, которые описывают природу онтологического и нормативного морфогенеза: висцеральная трансмобильность — направлена на изменение онтологии телесных аскрипций (транссексуальные переходы); конверсиональная — стирает грань между «естественной» и «искусственной» онтологией (клонирование); прозопопиче-ская — объединяет практики переключений не-социальных созданий в активно задействованные социальные ко-агентивы (от домашних животных до роботов-андроидов). Основной вопрос статьи — как нормативный порядок сохраняется в условиях «морфологической свободы» и «плоской онтологии» постгуманизированного общества. На основе теории «борьбы за признание» автор делает вывод о существовании «морфотаксиса» — механизма воспроизводства базовой гетеронома-тивности как основы социального порядка, который поддерживает на биологическом, когнитивном и нормативном уровнях аскриптивные различения между мужчиной и женщиной, человеком и клоном, человеком и роботом.
Ключевые слова: аскриптивные статусы; морфогенез; мобильность; транссексуалы; клонирование; роботы; признание
