Haraway, Plant, & Turkle

            The readings this week were by far the most interesting. I enjoyed the aspect of questioning one’s identity in the age of the Internet. I just want to briefly address the prompt. Of course the world be significantly different had feminist writers had been the prominent theorizers in shaping the new media. I Imagine Haraway’s world might be significantly less segregated. She states that identities are “contradictory, partial, and strategic” (Haraway, 155). Essentially, the bodies identified as white-men created a social hierarchy in which males dominate females, low melatonin levels in skin dominate higher concentrations, and so on. I suppose if the feminist dominated world had become a reality and if Freud had still been living, he might need to alter his idea that woman’s one significant contribution to society was weaving and only to “unconsciously…conceal their genitals” because they wanted to pretend to have a penis (Plant, 256). God…Freud must have been obsessed with his prince charming.

            I loved that Haraway referred to herself, and others like her, as “bodies” sharing various characteristics, such as geographical location and gender. This whole talk of cyborgs and identity reminded me of the film Ghost In the Shell. The plot centers on a cyborg named Kusanagi questioning her role in society and purpose for existence; similar to the Haraway’s own questions. The title is a metaphor for the human. The shell is the body, while the ghost is the “soul” or consciousness (which essentially represents memories). In the film is argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information (provided by the world wide web/Internet). And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So, man is an individual only because of his intangible memory... and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. The advent of computers, and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data have given rise to a new system of memory within the Internet. It makes me wonder if one-day computers, or whatever they might evolve into, might attain consciousness one day. After all, there is more than one element that has 4 bonding potentials. Perhaps a new non-carbon based life form will emerge from our endeavors to create machines that imitate out own behavior?

            This brings me to Turkle, who incidentally was my favorite author. In her chapter on virtuality and its discontents the discussion of identity in this highly virtual world continued. Rather than the external representation of cyborgs, Turkle uses an internal approach. She references the use of creating avatars in multi-user dungeons (MUD). For the purpose of the blog though I will refer to massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) because the rapid rate of virtual evolution. MUD’s consist of describing a virtual reality, while MMORPG’s consist of actually seeing your avatar in a virtual reality. Is this avatar part of the individual? Turkle argues that “it is hard not to play an aspect of oneself, and virtual encounters often lead to physical ones” (Turkle, 249). If consciousness is a network or memories and emotions, then why is the virtual memory of making love to your virtual life less significant? Turkle misses this point and suggests that the only reason this behavior is not seen as maladaptive is because avatars are not paid. We have to put this into the context of our environment. We are organisms in the physical world. The virtual act of sex resulted in no offspring…in the real world…who knows maybe this hypothetical couple got pregnant. I suppose it comes down to the things you put value on.