Re: "Post-humanism": The right term?

Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Sat, 7 Aug 1999 10:25:46 -0700

On Saturday, August 07, 1999 12:46 AM Brian Manning Delaney <b-delaney@uchicago.edu>
> I recently had another "What's the Hell's up with this 'post-humanism'
> business?!" discussion with some friends of mine who are academics in the
> humanities. Many of them are technophobes, or simply unimaginative when it
comes
> to the possibilities of human transformation. But their objections to the
term
> "post-humanism" I share. I'm curious what others on this list think about
the
> following.

Funny you should bring this up. A few years ago in _KaspahRaster_ (http://www.teleport.com/~jaheriot/kr.htm), there was a debate along the same lines after my "What is posthumanism?" was published there.

The debate came down to John J. Funk stating that "posthumanism" is "posthuman--ism" NOT "post--humanism." Note the difference in stress.

I tend to think I'd rather have a term that is accurate and shocks some people than a watered down term that is clunking and hard to pronounce -- merely to try to get some crypto-luddite professors signed on. Most likely your academics won't be so easily fooled into accepting our ideas.

And do we need them onboard?

Cheers!

Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/