The cyborg icon is liberation from ideology by embracing
technology and avoiding categorization.
Haraway is
exploring the borders between human and machine, physical and nonphysical; human and
animal. Rather than constructing another icon/myth of the scientific/social feminist as
something essentially human, Haraway embraces the relevance of technology and invents
the cyborg as this new icon for the social feminist since technology is now already a
part of what it means to be human. Being “always” on the border between human and
machine, the Cyborg is not subjected to the traditional myths and icons of the West. The
Cyborg is post-gender, post-essentialist and therefore, not subjected to prescribed
roles in gender or any essentialist doctrine; from feminism to Marxism. Therefore, the
Cyborg has the privileged position (potential) of avoiding any essential categorization.
One the one hand, this is flimsy and perpetually wishy-washy; on the other hand, it is a
perception of being totally open to difference. Since Haraway’s Cyborg is an icon of
feminism and socialism, this Cyborg does have an agenda; the point is that the Cyborg
will not allow itself to be categorized in any essential way. This would be like saying
and actually believing/living/doing something like, “I’m a democrat, but I don’t
automatically bend to the will of the party and I don’t belong to any essentialist sect
of democrats.”
Haraway recognizes the role of technology
and writing and the multiplicity of both. So, her feminist cyborg is not just some myth
of escape from real material oppression. By integrating her myth with technology, she is
acknowledging the way the world works. This is a departure from feminists
and other –ists which suppose that there is an absolute (or even fundamental-ist) way
for every “-ist” to be. It is also a departure from the romanticized, rural notion of
feminist or Marxist, uncorrupted by culture and technology. Although
technology has played a role in oppression, Haraway does not retreat from it. She
intends to use it. The only way for political action to be effective is to engage in the
systems it uses.
Haraway argues that we are already
Cyborgs. (Think of how connected to our machines: ipods, phones, PC’s etc.
industrialized countries have become. Also, consider the growing comparison between
computers and brains and all the apocalyptic tales where computers take over the world).
Being non-organically reproductive, the cyborg evades all religious and even some
scientific discourses such as biological/genetic determinism. In this sense, the cyborg
is a liberation from those histories; and that’s what liberation is: the possibility of
creating something new. Since computers are increasingly smaller and the information
transferred itself is in the ether, the cyborg is non-physical as well as physical; able
to program her/himself.
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