Tainted Food and the Icarus Complex: Psychoanalysing Consumer Discontent from Oyster Middens to Oryx and Crake

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology

2021

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Although Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was thoroughly trained in philosophy and theology, he was first and foremost a paleoanthropologist, directly involved in the discovery of Homo erectus pekinensis (“Sinanthropus”) in China in the 1920s and 1930s. He came from a Catholic aristocratic background, was ordained a priest in 1911, survived World War I (as a stretcher-bearer, distinguished with the Legion of Honour), joined the Jesuit Order, conducted paleoanthropological field work during the interbellum, and became entangled in a conflict with his Jesuit superiors (over pantheism and the concept of original sin) until his death in New York (in exile more or less). When his writings were published (shortly after his death, as his superiors forbade publication during his lifetime), he quickly became an intellectual celebrity. Currently, he is credited with having anticipated Gaia theory (King, 2006), the global village concept (McLuhan, 1962), the Internet (Barlow, 1992; Cobb, 1998), the WWW (Garreau, 2005, p. 256; Greenfield, 2014, p. 9), transhumanism (Delio, 2014; Steinhart, 2008), the “global brain” (Stock, 1993), and the Anthropocene (e.g. Crutzen, 2002; Steffen et al., 2011).

Section: Teilhard and Lacan: From Skulls To Shellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Phenomenology of the Noosphere

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology

2021

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“…The symbolisation or "literation" of the Real gives rise to various by-products in the form of litter (including data litter), as technoscience allows humans not only to hominize but also to dramatically pollute the world. Think of plastic litter that currently litters not only terrestrial environments but also littoral areas and oceans: plastic packaging, carrying letters -the logos of their producers, left-overs of human λόγος (Zwart, 2015).…”

Section: Language and The Tormented Subject ($)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And indeed, disruption and irritability are important components of the syllogism of animal research. The epistemology of disruption either functions per via de levare, by removing or disconnecting organs, one after the other (Zwart, 2015), or per via di porre, by adding something (a carcinoma, a tumorous growth), but the irritable animal's body offers resistance against such intrusions.…”

Section: Third Case History: the Nude Mousementioning

confidence: 99%

Psychoanalysing Technoscience

Philosophy of Engineering and Technology

2021

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While the previous chapter discussed the shift from Hegelian dialectics to dialectical materialism, this chapter addresses the shift from dialectics to psychoanalysis, notably in France, paying due attention to the productive tensions between both approaches. After a concise exposition of Freudian psychoanalysis, focussing on Beyond the Pleasure Principle, the text in which Freud explicitly “plunged into the thickets” of modern biology (Gay, 1988, p. 401), I will extensively discuss the views of Gaston Bachelard and Jacques Lacan on technoscience. Building on a previous publication (Zwart, 2019a), where I already presented a psychoanalytic understanding of technoscience, which I don’t want to duplicate here (focussing on the oeuvres of Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Gaston Bachelard and Jacques Lacan), I will now emphasise the continuity between dialectic and psychoanalysis, indicating how dialectics remains an important moment in Bachelard’s and Lacan’s efforts to develop a psychoanalysis of technoscience, both as a discourse and as a practice. In addition, I will elucidate the added value of this convergence by extrapolating it to three concrete case studies, one borrowed from particle physics and two from life sciences research: the Majorana particle, the malaria mosquito and the nude mouse.

“…DNA sensors may be installed, not only in hospitals and airports, but also in food production facilities and markets. From an experiential perspective, by introducing such methods, what used to be familiar and intimate (the daily handling of food) becomes a target of suspicion and estrangement (Zwart 2015 ). A cordon sanitaire is imposed between humans and their food, inciting discontent in global civilisation, as traditional food handling practices of long standing are reframed as problematic.…”

Section: Collision 1: Traditional Husbandry Practices Challenged By Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging viral threats and the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous: zooming out in times of Corona

Med Health Care and Philos

2020

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This paper addresses global bioethical challenges entailed in emerging viral diseases, focussing on their socio-cultural dimension and seeing them as symptomatic of the current era of globalisation. Emerging viral threats exemplify the extent to which humans evolved into a global species, with a pervasive and irreversible impact on the planetary ecosystem. To effectively address these disruptive threats, an attitude of preparedness seems called for, not only on the viroscientific, but also on bioethical, regulatory and governance levels. This paper analyses the global bioethical challenges of emerging viral threats from a dialectical materialist (Marxist) perspective, focussing on three collisions: (1) the collision of expanding networks of globalisation with local husbandry practices; (2) the collision of global networks of mobility with disrupted ecosystems; and (3) the collision of viroscience as a globalised research field with existing regulatory frameworks. These collisions emerge in a force field defined by the simultaneity of the non-simultaneous. Evidence-based health policies invoke discontent as they reflect the normative logic of a globalised knowledge regime. The development of a global bioethics or macro-ethics requires us to envision these collisions not primarily as issues of benefits and risks, but first and foremost as normative tensions closely entangled with broader socio-economic and socio-cultural developments.