Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto"

I'm a bit perplexed with the chapter "Cyborg Manifesto" in Haraway's book. Yes, it's interesting that she's trying to combine notions of feminist and materialist theories with cyborgs. Yes, the feminist movement is fractured and it's important to think of ways of suturing the splinters together. Yes, it's interesting the way Haraway starts off the chapter with the notion of blasphemy as "ironic faith." But, I'm dubious as to how this fits in with Haraway's larger points of how "[cyborg] imagery can help express two crucial arguments in this essay: first, the production of the universal, totalizing theory is a major mistake that misses most of reality..." (316). Okay, let's look at that a little closer. Of course the use of essentialzing within theory can be complicated, reductive, and dismissive of other lived experiences. Yet what I feel is going on in this chapter is more of the same ol' same ol' in that narrative of the us's and the them's. Haraway even alludes, at one point, how we all have a tendency to talk about the us's and the them's: "It has become difficult to name one's feminism by a single adjective- or even to insist in every circumstance upon the noun" (296). For the majority of this particular page Haraway is talking about how the false dichotomy of the us's and the them's, while also hinting at one of her larger points that a "totalizing theory is a major mistake..." What I take issue with here is that she's making a strong point for how splintered feminism has become, how we could look more for the similarities rather than the differences, yet later she goes on to dismiss the notion of the we. Haraway furthers my umbridge by using lots of almost-but-not-quite scary quotes, for instance when she writes 'us.' It's jarring, but not in a productive way, but rather a dismissive and arrogant way. I think Haraway missed a great opportunity to call out factions and say, hey! The more we talk about the us's and the them's the more it splinters us, and the more the ideology survives to create the sexist, classist, racist world we live in.

I'm just fed up with the notion that we're all so different. "Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus." The ideologues want us to buy into these notions that we're worlds apart from one another; ideology works better when folks are alienated from what's important rather than in-tune with what is. So I'm bloody tired of hearing these narratives, particularly from folks who ostensibly try to build up a we narrative, only to knock it down right away. Take this bit from Haraway: "...and ironically corporate executives reading "Playboy" and anti-porn radical feminists will make strange bedfellows in jointly unmasking the irrationalism" (301). Seems like Haraway's trying to inspire a we narrative, but look closer at the sentiment. Haraway is setting up an assumption for her reader, one that makes the CEO a white male fat cat, and the radical feminist a white woman who's seen as a crazy person to the CEO. At least that's what I envision as I read and re-read that passage. But maybe it's reversed; maybe they're not white; and why think they're so far apart anyway? At the core, we're all human. And yes (to Haraway's point), it's tricky to universalize humans. But I argue that at our core, we're all the same. No matter where one lives; what cultural influence one has; etc. And what's universal about humans is that we all want to be loved, and we all avoid suffering. Now, it gets more complicated the more we branch out from the core, but I think that if we approached each human on that fundamental level, then it would change much of the interactions we have, and could lead to some real, indelible change. This is where I feel the major pitfall of Haraway's manifesto lays is that while she's arguing for a cyborg look at feminist et al. issues, to move away from the white male narrative, she's really driving it closer to the same ol' ideology that's persevered for eons. This makes me think of the Hayles book, particularly chapter five and her close read of "Limbo." I'm also tying this together with some of the stuff we talked about last week in class about how cyborgs tend to be white males. No one could come up with a non-white cyborg, and while there were a few woman cyborgs, they too weren't peoples of color. So while Haraway is trying to change the face, nature, and conversation surrounding theory, I feel she falls short of her goals by perpetuating some of the same stereotypes she's trying to dispell,

What I think we need to be doing more of is working to create the we narrative. To be inclusive rather than always keeping our eyes on the differences. Because I think it's the similarities between us humans that is more compelling than the differences. Just sayin'.