All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. Anthony Miccoli. Postbuman Suffering and the Technological Embrace. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010. 141 pp. ISBN 9780739126332. $62.99 hc.Reviewed by Pawel FrelikPosthumanism may not have yet become household name in academia at large, but in certain quarters, including our own of sf studies and technoscience studies, its discourses have already acquired the critical mass of full-blown discipline. A wide array of studies, including Judith Halberstamu0027s Posthuman Bodies (1995), Katherine Haylesu0027s How We Became Posthuman (1999) and My Mother Was Computer (2005), Neil Badmingtonu0027s Posthumanism (2000) and Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within (2004), Francis Fukuyamau0027s Our Posthuman Future (2003), Bruce Clarkeu0027s Posthuman Metamorphosis: Narrative and Systems (2008), and the ongoing University of Minnesota Pressu0027s Posthumanities series, have demonstrated it to be truly multidisciplinary field extending into or, perhaps, bridging philosophy, cognition studies, literary and cultural theory, media studies, psychology, and natural sciences. Anthony Miccoliu0027s Posthuman Suffering and the Technological Embrace is one of the latest additions to posthuman scholarship. Despite its humble 141 pages, it offers some very interesting ideas.Miccoli begins with brief survey of theories concerning and its positioning, especially focusing on Haylesu0027s How We Became Posthuman, from which he also selects the word appearing in the following passage: my dream is version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality (Hayles 5). This concept subsequently becomes one of the iconic metaphors of the book. Regardless of this inspiration, Miccoli disagrees with Hayles on number of points, finding her informed posthumanism problematic in its failure to distinguish between the posthuman ability to process information and its understanding (5). He notes that Haylesu0027s call for embrace of technology - its artifacts, systems, possibilities, and faults - clashes with more subtle call to assert our selves and to retain some kind of cohesive self-image that stresses our specialness of embodiment. This leads to the conclusion that complete human embodiment can only be attained through technologyu0027u0027u0027u0027 (7). And yet, Miccoli continues, in order to reach that embodied potential, we would have to be fully compatible with technological systems, state that implies oblivion to any connection between the body and the techne. Consequently, truly posthuman individual would not be aware of the interface while Hayles stresses that awareness. His conclusion is thus that Haylesu0027s posthuman is a very liberal humanist (8) dream. Picking on the minutiae of luminariesu0027 writings in any field is an old and cheap rhetorical trick, but it has to be acknowledged that Miccoliu0027s critique of Haylesu0027s work is very careful and serves to accentuate the perceived shortage of attention, in the posthumanist discourse, to the question of the interface between the human body and technology. This lacuna also allows him to turn to Elaine Scarryu0027s The Body in Fain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (1985), which subsequently becomes the core theoretical text of his analysis.In most general terms, Scarry maintains that one of the central defining characteristics of humanity is the experience and expression of physical pain. She also specifically focuses on the interface, the site where the individual human and the tool they use come together figuratively, metaphorically, and physically (Miccoli 9). This prompts her to perceive all human-made artifacts as literal objectifications of human needs, desires, and means of relieving pain, the perception which for Miccoli opens the way to answering the question that he considers crucially missing from many posthumanist discussions - why do we turn to technology in the first place? …