Cyborg Feminism: Review of Donna J Haraway
by RusL Charles Kellett Adams Buker
In deference to Haraway's Chart of Transitions of Informatics of Domination, I shall write in point form:
blasphemy protects one from the moral majority - to defame the name of god; swearing.
blasphemy is not apostasy - this means to renouce your religion. I think she is saying that she will blaspheme feminism but not renouncing it.
prophylactics against heterosexism - to guard or prevent beforehand, for public health. Vaccines and condoms are two examples. Prophylactics against heterosexism is an imaginative use of the term, some kind of way to pre-educate future generations it seems to imply. Hard to imagine because we can't escape our culture even as infants.
Taylorism seem idyllic - Closely related, though orinating of, Fordism. 'Scientific' management of 'efficiency' in workers. aka McJob.
Command-Control-Communication-Intelligence, C3I - I think this is a 1980s coldwar US military term. Apparently the new term for it is C4ISTAR= Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, Reconnaissance. It's some kind of nuclear military theory.
chimera - this term I first saw in Marge Peircy's He, She and It, a feminist sci-fi cyberpunk dystopia novel. It means a kind of magical hidden trap. In the case of the novel it is a computer program that falsely presents inself as an entrance to a computer network, meant to confuse and capture intruders to the system. If I hadn't read this book Haroway's ideas would seem even more alien. It's a great novel, I recommend it. However, this work is best left as fiction and it seems like Haroway bases way to much on readings of this, or similar, books and her references to them are oblique. Fictional futures are useful because you can dispense with how we got there from the present, or why we went that direction instead of another. However, in Haroway's essay, we are taken in the direction of these novels as if it all makes sense and is inevitable, which is not so.
ontology - I always forget this one. It is fundamental metaphysics that looks at how things relate to one another. I don't like how the term is bandied about so useful. If it's supposed to be a deep meaning, then researve it for important sentances! Otherwise use more functional words.
non-naturalist - Well, this one is a self explanatory neologism, but I have a problem with it. It's not really any less vague or loaded with assumptions than 'natural,' but its use implies criticism of the term 'natural.' Therefore, I think it's kind of a stupid word. What a silly judgement to say non-natural is better than natural. The only meaning it really has is opposition to something vague that too many assume to be positive. Therefore the main function is divisive and offensive without much substance.
oedipal calendar - All the references I can find for this are to Harroway. It seems like a term that diminishes the value of sex and biology. Phht.
telos - the philosophical concept of purpose or goal based meaning. Also, interestingly enough, this is also a science fiction planet in both Star Wars and Doctor Who. And, it is a computer language.
oikos - Anciet Greek term [why always refer back to them if we're trying to reject that imperial traditonal outlook?] meaning family or household. Basically it is the people you spend time with regularly. The modern sense of the term can include many people at work and in various places that one spends time with. I'm supposing this is Haroway's idea of suggesting an alternative future to the nuclear family that is more inclusive.
holism - When you look at the whole, as opposed to being reductive. Scientifically this often means systems analysis. I think this is an interesting for her to use since it implies a certain universality.
political fictional (political-scientific) - This seems to be a weird overly complex way of saying that science fiction is political. However, I don't like it [besides the pedantic flavour] because it seems to suggest a scientific social theory, as Marx did so arrogantly in creating economics. Suggestions that a social theory are scientific is to preclude dialogue and criticism unless it comes through the proper channels. I just relate it to oppressive thinking in general. Science should mean open-to-debate, but when used as a political telos, it implies that opposition is unsceentific, irrational. Stifiling.
radical political people - Are these people some kind of elite? I have may used this term myself, but I have to pick on Haroway for using it because she should be more conscious of the exclusion implied in her language. She says she is trying to be.
dialectical progeny
mocking the Father's ubiquity
Cyborgs are ether, quintessence.
Greenham [Common] Women
cyborg Alice?
Santa Rita Jail
Livermore Action Group
Affinity
oppositional consciousness, of Chela Sandoval
naturalization of the matrix
disorderly polyphony emerging from decolonization
faithful filiation
self-knowledge of a self-who-is-not
structure of my caricature
Overall, this text is loaded with all sorts of imagery, but it doesn't always make sense. If we have been cyborgs since we first used tools, then why is now the time of greatest need for unity of all history? The cyborg theme doesn't really tie it all together that well. Seems more like a fad fetish of meaning. When was this thing written anyway?
The part I like best is where she mentions "...emphasis on the daily responsibility of real women to build unities..."
What about romance?
"not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines"
"embrace the status of partial explanation"
"from all work to all play"
Community Ecology vs. Ecosystem