critical art ensemble flesh machine

The sociologist Max Weber identified the historical tendenciesand cultural trends of the 20th century as those primarilyguided by a process of rationalization. Unlike many othersocial thinkers of his day across the political spectrum whobelieved that increased rationalization was the processunderlying Western progress, Weber could only agree tothe extent that it would culminate in a society morecomplex than any previous social order. Beyond this point,Weber split radically from the social theorists of progress inbelieving that the apocalyptic sacrifice of human well-being inherent in the process would create a state of generalmisery that would also exceed any that had come before.The idea of reducing cultural dynamics and human activityto a principle of instrumentality for the sake of increasedpolitical and economic efficiency is a disturbing notion

Introduction

4 The Flesh Machine

when considered in the light of the hope for happiness andsatisfaction in an age obsessed with management systems.Certainly, the hostile management systems which cur-rently structure people’s everyday lives—productionmanagement, urban management, resource management,leisure management, and expression management, to namebut a few—all require bureaucratic administration. Thesesystems (whether corporate, governmental, or military)solidify the boundaries between segments of the division oflabor (whether based on race, ethnicity, gender, orclass), and cause a profound sense of separation andalienation in individuals who share no solidarity be-yond their common rationalized social roles and ranksin society. The feelings of alienation continue to inten-sify in proportion to the degree of isolation one feelsfrom those outside one’s social segment.

Weber’s notion of an “iron cage of bureaucracy” that existsas a construct of purely functional imperatives (the main-tenance, expansion, and perpetuation of its structure) hascome to pass, so it is little wonder that the only represen-tation of the social that seems to have any descriptive orexplanatory value is the machine system. The two keymachinic schemata that have captivated the minds ofresistant cultural producers are the war machine and thesight machine. These intersecting liquid maps have beenused to build an understanding of the structure and dynam-ics of the current sociopolitical management apparatuses,and in the best of circumstances have been used to developstrategies to resist the hyper-rationalized state ofpancapitalism. In this work, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE)offers a contribution to the development of a third machinicmap—the flesh machine. The flesh machine is a heavily

Introduction 5

funded liquid network of scientific and medical institu-tions with knowledge specializations in genetics, cellbiology, biochemistry, human reproduction, neurology,pharmacology, etc., combined with nomadic technocra-cies of interior vision and surgical development. The fleshmachine intersects at many points with the other twomachinic systems, yet it also has an autonomous sphere ofaction and its own particular agenda. It has two primarymandates—to completely invade the flesh with vision andmapping technologies (initiating a program of total bodycontrol from its wholistic, exterior configuration to itsmicroscopic constellations), and to develop the politicaland economic frontiers of flesh products and services.

While the war machine and the sight machine areuseful devices for understanding the management of thestructure and dynamics of social environments, they areless helpful for guiding resistant vectors through thenew interior frontier of body invasion (the autonomousspace of the flesh machine). The body is on the verge ofbeing placed under new management, and like all exte-rior cultural phenomenon, it will be made to functioninstrumentally so that it may better fulfill the impera-tives of pancapitalism (production, consumption, andorder). Currently, pancapitalist power vectors’ attemptsto inscribe these imperatives directly onto the code ofthe flesh are initiating a new wave of eugenics. Underthis new bio-regime, physical perfection will be definedby an individual’s ability to separate he/rself fromnonrational motivation and emergent desires, thus in-creasing he/r potential devotion to varieties ofpolit ical-economic service to perpetuate thepancapitalist dynasty.

6 The Flesh Machine

Just when it seemed that eugenics could not return to theforefront of the social arena, it appears once again, al-though its spectacle has been modified to suit the times.Eugenics, at least on the surface, is only implicitly attachedto issues of race improvement or gene pool cleansing. Nowit hides under the authority of medical progress and thedecoding of nature. This latter association is primarilywhat makes it palatable once again. The Western intellec-tual history of the 20th century is marked by an obsessionwith coding, whether with cultural codes (linguistic oriconic representation), machine codes, or biological codes.Power vectors have been swift to take advantage of thistransition to once again begin the project of totally ratio-nalizing organic territories. The last terrestrial frontier isabout to fall to pancapitalist authority.

In order to further distract the literate nonspecialist publicfrom the development and ideological inscription of thisnew technological apparatus, the sight machine has con-sistently directed public perception toward newdevelopments in telecommunications. Of particular im-portance is the idea that new telecommunicationtechnology will make the body (if not the entire organicworld) superfluous, and that human organics will “evolve”into a posthuman state of being. If such a belief is success-fully deployed, questions about the goals and intentions offlesh rationalization become unimportant. After all, if thebody is being done away with anyhow, and the Cartesiandream of freeing consciousness from the dead weight of theorganic is on the verge of coming to pass, who cares whatis done to the body or what becomes of it? Unfortunately,no virtual utopia is awaiting, nor is one even in anadvanced stage of development. The current techno-

Introduction 7

revolution is designed to keep the body, but in a redesignedconfiguration that helps it adjust to the intensified rigorsof pancapitalist imperatives and to adapt to its pathologi-cal social environment. Once the goals of the flesh machineare factored into the machine world equation, little doubtis left that power vectors have no desire to abandon or evenundermine their material empire—all that is desired isbetter, if not total control over their dominion.

Perhaps the greatest problem revealed in this collection of essaysis the difficulty of knowing what to do to resist the currentbody invasion. While there is rapidly growing criticalknowledge about the development of the flesh machine,strategic and tactical plans of resistance are few. Since theflesh is a frontier zone in the development of pancapitalism,and the situation and apparatus of invasion change withevery passing moment, strategic commitment requires avery radical gamble on the part of resistant forces. Skepti-cism among specialized sectors of resistance regarding thequality of the critique of the flesh machine is runningrampant, and to make matters worse, there is no significanthistory of resistance to organic colonization to look backupon (only scattered traces) to make possible an educatedguess about the probability of strategic or tactical success.In addition, by attacking the flesh machine, which hasbeen presented as a progressive boon to humanity, theattacker is immediately put in the position of a neo-luddite.Science and technology in and of themselves are not theproblem, nor have they ever been. The real problem is thatscience and technology are developed, deployed, and con-trolled by the predatory system of pancapitalism. Themainstream development of knowledge and technology isguided by increased efficiency in militarized production of

8 The Flesh Machine

violence and/or by potential corporate profits in civil-ian markets. If a scientific producer cannot demonstratea connection with at least one of these two possibilities,little if any investment in scientific initiatives will beforthcoming. Pancapitalism has yet to offer any sense ofscience in the public interest, and shows no sign ofdoing so in the future.

Unfortunately, we are left with only more description andmore critique. At best, narratives counter to the “officialstory” are being created. Counter-spectacle aimed at thenonspecialist public is a significant step forward, since themandates and methods of the flesh machine are kept as faraway as possible from the scrutiny of the nonspecialistpublic, and because it is a step beyond the narratives of thebureaucratic ethicists whose teeth are not even the qualityof dentures. However, since the flesh machine no longerworks solely within the realm of the production of violenceand has shifted its strategic fulcrum to the realm of seduc-tion, much more is needed from resistant forces. What isneeded is still the most elusive of all things to conjure,since this circumstance of resistance requires that theunspeakable be spoken and that the impossible be done.

For the first time in history there is one globally dominantpolitical economy, that of capitalism. Under this regime,individuals of various social groups and classes are forced tosubmit their bodies for reconfiguration so they can functionmore efficiently under the obsessively rational imperativesof pancapitalism (production, consumption, and order).One means of reconfiguration is the blending of the organicand the electromechanical. Potentially, this process couldresult in a new living entity distinct from its predecessors.This process, now termed posthuman development, is in itsexperimental stages, which in turn has lead to speculationsand theories about what form this new being will take andabout its probable functions. The two entities of posthuman

1Posthuman Development

in the Age of Pancapitalism*

*This article was originally published in Muae, No. 2.

12 Flesh Machine

existence most commonly postulated by cyber-visionaries,techno-critics, and machine designers over the past twentyyears are the cyborg and downloaded virtual conscious-ness. While robots, androids, and artificially intelligentmachines are also generally considered part of theposthuman family, they do not emerge directly out ofhuman organics, and hence constitute a different line ofdevelopment. Cyborgs and virtual consciousness, on theother hand, are dependent upon human individuals whodesire or are condemned to interface with the machine.The cyborg is a being which typically has an organicplatform integrated with a complex technological super-structure; virtual consciousness is the transference of beinginto digitized form so that it can exist in immersiveinformational landscapes. This latter vision of theposthuman is one in which the Enlightenment principle ofincreased domination of the mind over the body movestoward full realization of complete organic erasure.

The posthuman condition is still only a potential, sincefully integrated, first-order cyborgs (in which the organicplatform and technological superstructure are completelyinterdependent) are still on the cultural horizon, andvirtual consciousness is at best an entertaining specula-tion. Yet, both of these posthuman possibilities are alreadyhaving a dramatic social impact. While virtual conscious-ness acts as a mythic validation of the Age of Reason,second-order cyborgs (organic infrastructures with remov-able, integrated technological systems) are a commonactuality. This situation often leads to the conjecture thatthe cyborg will be the step inbetween organic life andvirtual life. However, when posthuman manifestations aretaken out of the context of sci-fi speculation, and placed

Posthuman Development in the Age of Pancapitalism 13

within the specific social and economic context ofpancapitalism, a much different scenario emerges. Whilecyborg research is moving at top velocity, research intovirtual reality (VR) is moving very slowly by comparison,and the research that is being done does not aim to developa posthuman environment nor to create a posthumanentity; rather, this work is to fortify the pancapitalistdynasty in physical space by serving both spectacular andmilitary apparatuses. The current functions of VR, as wellas the limited research into its varied potentials, areindications that virtual consciousness is not a desirableposthuman condition from the perspective of primarypower vectors of the current political economy.1

Imaging Technology Divided

Currently, imaging technology is deeply divided between thephotographic and the postphotographic—one whichrecords and one which renders. This division correspondsvery well to Althusser’s division of the social into theRepressive State Apparatus (RSA) and the IdeologicalState Apparatus (ISA). When placed in this theoreticalmatrix, the actual functions of immersive technologybecome intelligible, and indicate that inserting disembod-ied consciousness into virtual systems is not a current orfuture strategy for the development of posthuman entitiesby investing agencies.2

The ISA is the structure of control maintained throughthe manipulation of a given culture’s symbolic order.Through this structure, ideology is deployed, reinforced,and morphed in order to maintain the integrity of the

14 Flesh Machine

given power structure. When enveloped in the ISA, anindividual’s perceptions, thought structures, and behav-iors are molded to varying degrees so as not to conflict withdominant historical and socioeconomic imperatives andconventions. The family, schools, the church, and themedia function as the pedagogical institutions throughwhich ideology replicates itself. While family and religionwere dominant in precapitalist society, in pancapitalistsociety, the education system and the media have becomethe dominant institutions of socialization, causing familyand church to fall to a secondary support position. Ofparticular interest here is that communication technolo-gies have been of tremendous aid in empowering theselatter institutions and in causing this pedagogical shift tooccur. The ideologically charged and immersive represen-tational environment generated through the use of massimaging technologies is called spectacle.

The infrastructural counterpart of the ISA is the Repres-sive State Apparatus (RSA). It is the total structure ofcontrol maintained through violent, militarized socialintervention. Its functions are to defend the social systemfrom invasion, to protect “investments” in alien socialsystems, and to maintain internal social order. Institutionsparticipating in this apparatus include armed services,national guards, police, prison systems, and intelligenceand security agencies. Like the dominant institutions ofthe ISA, the RSA depends upon complex technology inorder to remain effective; however, unlike the ISA, whereimaging technologies are an end in themselves, the RSArequires a full array of weapons technology integrated withvision technology in order to carry out its mandate ofrepression through violence.


The imaging technology of the RSA is generally superiorto that of the ISA, but the functions of the technology foreach system are so vastly different that concrete compari-sons are very difficult. The unique characteristics of thetechnology for each system are many and make for highlycontrasted systems. The first significant issue of differenceis visibility. The imaging engines of the ISA are relativelyopen to public scrutiny. In fact, for these imaging systemsto work, the technology which delivers its message (radios,televisions, cinema, etc.) must be widely deployed and/ormade accessible. While the machinery that actually gen-erates the spectacular images is typically kept out of therepresentational frame, that machinery too can and doesbecome one of the objects of spectacle. Passive mediaparticipants are familiar with the existence and function ofmany components of media systems, including cameras,control rooms, editing suites, communications satellites,film studios, and so on. This is true to the extent thatimaging systems are often the object of the jubilant cel-ebrations of technology. For example, who can deny thepublic excitement generated over a cable system deliver-ing 500 channels, or the public enthusiasm for surfing theWorld Wide Web? Couple this situation with media stuntsengineered to further ingratiate new technology to thepublic, and the celebration becomes even more intense.

For example, NASA’s use of the robotic walker Dante torecord events in a volcano was basically a useless endeavorin terms of scientific data collection. NASA has very littleuse for volcanic data. However, this project did serve twofunctions: First, it acted as a public relations campaign todemonstrate in very dramatic terms the current state of hi-tech development. (In actuality, Dante was produced with

16 Flesh Machine

robotic technology that was developed many years ago, butthe data acquired sure seemed impressive, as did its descentinto the volcano. The snapping of its retrieval cord at theend of the mission was a little embarrassing, but it was nothighlighted). The second and primary reason for theDante mission was to develop software for autonomousrobots, which could then be used for other purposes. Inaddition to building a greater public appreciation for thetechnology itself, stunts such as this one also help toconstruct a heroic image for those who use complextechnology. Certainly, this is part of the reason for thecurrent series of multinational space missions. In all, thiskind of celebratory spectacularization is great news forcyborg development, as people increasingly desire to beclose to complex technology. One certainly cannot helpbut wonder if new technology is not the most importantobject of spectacle at this moment.

For the RSA, technology is generally kept hidden, and at leastduring peacetime, it is no cause for celebration. This is notto say that military technology is not spectacularized, for itmost certainly is. The public display of military technologyis done primarily for purposes of disinformation. When anew weapon or imaging system is developed, sometimes itis wise to let others know that it exists; however, what mustbe kept secret are the precise parameters of what it can do.Such incomplete information leakage constructs an in-flated sense of security in friendly populations, and a senseof fear in enemy populations. It also entices enemy powersto overestimate the capabilities of the system. For ex-ample, during the early years of the cold war, US militaryofficials grossly overestimated the numbers of Soviet nuclearmissiles; this caused not only a panic in the military over


an assumed “missile gap,” but also caused a panic in thecivilian population. This situation was not corrected untildata were retrieved from early spy satellite reconnaissancemissions in the early 60s which showed that far fewermissiles existed than US intelligence orginally believed. Amore contemporary example is the spectacularization ofthe Patriot Missile System during the Gulf War. As it waspresented in the media, this piece of techno-junk requireddivine intervention for it to function. Even after thesystem was a proven battlefield failure, it was still pre-sented as the ultimate anti-missile defense system, simplyby either constantly replaying the footage of its few suc-cesses, or by showing images of it not working accompaniedby an authoritative voice-over saying that it was working.

The compelling point here is that spectacular engines em-ployed for this duty are functional, because they use apostphotographic model in which imaging systems are total-izing rendering devices. The images produced under thismodel, and those presented within the media context, areinherently untrustworthy, and flow within the representa-tional fictions of realistic illusionism. While the engines andmethods of production do not call attention to themselveswithin the screen’s frame, it is common knowledge that mediaimages—from fantasy cinema to nonfictional newscasts—are engineered and designed by a plethora of means toonumerous to list in this essay. This skeptical view has becomeso common that conspiracy theorists can even claim that themoon landing was a US government hoax, and can do sowith a modest amount of credibility. Paradoxically, and ina sublime moment of doublethink, the public implicitlyunderstands the rendering hoax of postphotography, yetstill often finds spectacular images credible.

18 Flesh Machine

Contrary to the spectacular model of rendering is the moretraditional model of photographic imaging systems, whichfocuses on principles of recording. While spectacular im-ages created by the ISA for the public continually slide,dissolve, and recombine, images produced by the RSA for

its own use are relatively stable, if the imaging systemsfunction as intended. RSA images are produced for thepurposes of mapping and/or surveying territories and popu-lations: They have a material referent, which is validatedthrough practical application based on information ex-tracted from the image. The goal is to produce images inwhich the map is to the greatest extent possible a represen-tational equivalent of the territory. The higher the accuracyof the representation in relation to the designated referent,the higher the value of the image. This strategy is based onthe understanding that that which can be visualized andmapped can be controlled, as long as this vision system isintegrated with an array of effective weapons systems(both human and electromechanical) that can be de-ployed in a contested territory or among a resistantpopulation.

The need for accurate images is not just a matter ofstrategic necessity, but also a matter of cost-effectivecontrol. The RSA is an incredible drain on financialresources when left standing, but it costs even more touse its forces (although it must be noted that wartimeeconomy can be profitable). Given that the grand ma-jority of contemporary first-world military conflicts fallinto the category of “police action” (which is also theleast profitable of military activities, as police actionsmaintain the empire rather than expand it), militarydeployment and use must be as precise as possible. The


key distinction between images produced by the RSAand those produced by the ISA that arises out of thisinstrumental imperative is that RSA images serve apragmatic military function, while those of the ISAserve an aestheticized sociopolitical function.

To return to the issue of secrecy in regard to RSAactivities, the pragmatic structure of its vision canmaintain its integrity only as long as the specifics of thevision engines and the images they produce are keptclassified. Once the images are recontextualized in theimage barrage of the ISA, they fall victim toaestheticization, lose their usefulness, and become ob-solete. This obsolescence typically occurs when onegeneration of vision technology is replaced by a newgeneration of more accurate technology, and createsthe opportunity for technological spin-offs for the realmof spectacle. Computers, the Internet, and communica-tion satellites are all examples of representational enginesthat lost some or all of their value as RSA systems, andhence no longer had to be kept monopolized. Theseengines were reconfigured and redeployed for the pur-pose of producing spectacle, which in turn indicatesthat there is a vast intersection between processes ofaestheticization and obsolescence, which in turn fur-ther suggests that the much-celebrated postphotographicprinciple of rendering is often still in the service of itsparent, the photographic model of recording.

This is not to say that all institutions for image productionfit neatly into either the RSA or the ISA. The centraliza-tion of capital in various multinational industries allowsthe development of vision engines with double functions

20 Flesh Machine

serving both the ISA and the RSA. These engines areoften developed independently by institutions that inter-sect both apparatuses. For example, the institution ofmedicine plays a pivotal role in both the ISA and the RSA.While on the one hand it participates in the ISA byproducing a spectacle that dictates what is physiologicallyand psychologically “healthy” and “normal,” it also par-ticipates in the function of the RSA through its ability tomuster forces to support these standards, and through itsadministration of a system of institutions in which “devi-ants” may be imprisoned (asylums, hospitals, rehab clinics,halfway houses, etc). At the same time, this industry is stillpartly dependent on the RSA, since some of its technologycomes from obsolete machines released to friendly institu-tions. For example, telepresent robotic surgery is nowbeing developed by the military for use in the field. Onecan be fairly certain that before this med-tech begins totrickle down to civilian medicine, it will have become afully functional military option, and that by that time themilitary will have moved onto newer and better options forfield surgery.

As the border between the ISA and RSA grows increas-ingly cluttered with relative independents, thetechnological state-of-the-art starts to drift back and forthbetween spectacular processes of aesthetic production andmilitarized processes of pragmatic production. Cutting-edge image production still favors the RSA, but the situationis becoming increasingly hazy because many imaging sys-tems are assuming dual functions. What is certain is thatrendering is the foundation for spectacular image produc-tion, and that recording is still the foundation for militarizedimage production.


The Dual Function of Immersive Technology

Given the theoretical matrix explained in the last section, thelikelihood of realizing the dream of VR as a liberatingfuture habitat for humanity seems quite remote. In fact,VR seems to be used for every imaging purpose except as aliberating habitat. Its use by the spectacle is minimal, as noinvesting agency seems able to conceive of a useful (instru-mental) application for it. Currently, VR takes a verysecondary position to older nonimmersive screen-basedsystems. While the World Wide Web, the Internet, andcable television seem to be exploding with new possibili-ties (both compelling and loathsome), VR is beginning tostagnate. Its position is limited to arcade entertainmentand to secondary-display technology that helps boostconsumption. One example of this latter variety of appli-cation is the use of VR in some department and furniturestores in Japan. A shopper can enter a virtual environmentand (within the limits of the product line) render a desireddomestic environment to see if it meets with he/r expec-tations before purchasing the needed merchandise. If he/rvirtual vision does not meet he/r expectations, s/he canredesign the space until it does. The buyer is thus givenextra assurance that s/he will get what s/he wants. Obvi-ously, a system like this functions only when there is avariety of purchasing options, when the object of con-sumption cannot be physically displayed, and when thepurchase is costly. Hence this application has very limitedspectacular use. Further, this application is only one smallstep beyond the use of X-ray machines in shoe stores backin the 30s and 40s. The shopper could X-ray he/r foot tomake sure the shoes about to be purchased were a perfectfit. In terms of the spectacle of consumption, the real

22 Flesh Machine

problem for VR is that there are very few occasions whenthe institutions selling the products want to give even thesmallest amount of authentic choice to the consumer.

The infinite choice and total control promised by VR areprecisely the options that investment institutions want toavoid, and hence, they are not going to pursue VR technol-ogy with any vigor until someone is able to negate itsliberating logic. This is also why investment capital isflowing overwhelmingly in the direction of screen tech-nology, such as the World Wide Web. (The rocketingprices of shares of companies like Netscape and Yahoowhen they went public clearly indicate the flow of capital).On the Web, the producer of the page controls the render-ing process. While this element of Web production seemsto favor the cyber-individual, and accounts for much of thecelebration of the Web, institutions are aware that thosewith the greatest amount of capital can use the latestsoftware and state-of-the-art trained labor to achieve maxi-mum novelty and aesthetic seduction, overwhelmcompetitors for visibility through additional advertising ina variety of media, and offer additional incentives (usuallychances at prizes or free merchandise) for using the page.(And, if consumers are willing to give personal informa-tion for market research to increase their chances ofgetting these incentives, so much the better). If the lure iscarefully constructed, the advertiser can expect to mo-nopolize a Web consumer’s time. Interactivity in this casemeans the ability of the consumer to view a product,purchase it, and/or move onto other purchasing opportu-nities in the given product line. This is the kind ofspectacular technology that pancapitalist ISA will sup-port, not just with investment, but also with legislative and


regulatory support.3 Technologies which truly offer emer-gent choice and devalue centralized economic control arenot worth an investment. Currently, the posthuman hasno place in VR, and VR has a very small material place inthe ISA.

VR’s primary value to the ISA is not as a technology at all,but as a myth. VR functions as a technology that is out onthe horizon, promising that one day members of the publicwill be empowered by rendering capabilities which willallow them to create multisensual experiences to satisfytheir own particular desires. The mysterious aura con-structed around this technology associates it with theexotic, the erotic, and potentially, with the ethereal. Byperpetuating the myth of a wish machine that is alwaysabout to arrive, the pancapitalist ISA builds in the popu-lation a desire to be close to image technology, to own it.Unfortunately, most technology is being designed forprecisely the opposite purpose from that of a wish machine,that is, to make possible better control of the materialworld and its populations. This combination of myth andhardware sets the foundation for the material posthumanworld of the cyborg.

The RSA proceeds along a different route. All the potentials ofVR are being used to create more accurate simulators.However, the core of this immersive image is based onrecording. Usually, the technological environment whichthe VR system is designed to simulate has already beenbuilt or at the very least is under construction. As to beexpected, the virtual image again has a very clear materialreferent. For example, a fighter jet simulator attempts toreplicate the interior technological environment as accu-

24 Flesh Machine

rately as possible. The quality of the replication isjudged practically by how well a pilot trained in thesimulator does in the actual cockpit. The exterior vir-tual environment in which the simulated technologyfunctions makes use of both recording and rendering.However, recording is still dominant, as the trainersattempt to place trainees in specific rather than ingeneral environments. Returning to the example of thejet fighter simulator, the pilot is placed in an environ-ment closely resembling the one in which s/he will beflying. The ground, anti-aircraft batteries, and enemyplanes are rendered as accurately and as specifically aspossible based on recorded photographic images andintelligence data, whereas more random variables, suchas atmospheric conditions, will be rendered in accor-dance with generalized configurations.

As with the imaging systems of the ISA, the goal is notto prepare a person for life in the virtual, but to specify,regulate, and habituate he/r role in the material world.Virtuality has no independent primary function in theRSA; rather, it has a dependent secondary supportfunction. What is really odd about this situation is thatthe mythic gift of VR—complete control of the im-age—is negated. The virtual images are completelyoverdetermined by specific configurations in the mate-rial world. The limited evidence available to the publicindicates that no preparations are being made forimmersive virtual information warfare. This possibilityseems limited to the screenal economy of cyberspace.However, since RSA activities are classified, plenty ofroom exists for conspiracy theorists to speculate. At thesame time, given current trends in investment, re-


search, and development, combined with the very clearimperatives of pancapitalism, such speculations haveonly a very modest amount of credibility.

Preparing for Posthumanity

If the habitat of VR and the virtual entity are eliminated aspractical categories of the posthuman, the only possibilityleft is the cyborg. In terms of social perception in techno-logically saturated economic systems, being a first-ordercyborg covers a broad range of possibilities, ranging from adesirable empowering condition to an undesirable, dehu-manizing one. However, there is plenty of time for spectacleto sort out differing perceptions of the first-order cyborg.Cyborg development is moving at a pace which allowsadequate time for adjustment to the techno-human syn-thesis. Currently, the process is in very different stages atspecific institutions. For example, the military has ad-vanced furthest, and has developed a fully integratedsecond-order cyborg, while corporate and bureaucraticinstitutions are meeting with reasonable success in theirattempts to convince workers of the need to meld body andtechnology.

Within many civilian social institutions, cyborg develop-ment is progressing cautiously enough that members havea difficult time knowing what a cyborg is, perceiving one,or realizing that they are being transformed into one. Is acyborg any person who has a technological body part? Doeshaving an artificial limb or even contact lenses place onein the category of cyborg? In a sense, the answer is yes, asthese pieces of technology are integrated with the body,

26 Flesh Machine

and the individual is relatively dependent upon them.However, in terms of posthuman discourse, the answeris probably no, as there is only a simple engineeredinterface between the technological and the organic.The posthuman model that seems to be developing isMcLuhanesque—that is, the techno-organic interfaceshould extend the body beyond the fluctuating degreezero of everyday normalization. What is spoken about inthe case of artificial limbs or contact lenses is the meansto make the body, to the greatest extent possible, con-form to “accepted” social standards. What is interestingabout precyborgian technological additions to the bodyis that one key ideological imperative having a directaffect on posthuman development begins to show it-self—body-tech is valued as means to better integrateoneself into the social.

Another common question is whether radical techno-logical body intervention, such as gender reassignment,makes one a cyborg. Obviously, since such proceduresare only organic recombinations devoid of technology,they fail to create a cyborg class being. However, theseinterventions do play a role in cyborg development,because they continue to prepare specific publics toperceive these operations as normal and often desirable.This is particularly true of interventions done solely foraesthetic purposes. The social “abnormality” of organicdecay acts as an ideological sign that channels peopletoward the consumption of services for bodyreconfiguration, to enable them to best fulfill the socialimperatives of body presentation in pancapitalist soci-ety. What is truly important about this development isthat technological intervention disconnected from is-


sues of deviance, sickness, and death is being normal-ized. Extreme body invasion as a socially acceptedpractice is a key step in cyborg development.

Military and Civilian Cyborgs

There is no need to dwell on the development of a second-ordermilitary cyborg. The only surprise here is that it took solong to happen. From the common grunt to the heroic jetfighter pilot, the military conversion of humans to cyborgshas become a necessity. The Hughes Corporation hassuccessfully developed a custom-fitted techno-organic in-terface for the infantry which offers an integrated systemof vision, communication, and firepower. Soldiers are nolonger soldiers; as the military says, now they are “weaponssystems.” The posthuman has announced itself in a happymoment of military efficiency. However, the infantry“weapons system,” while actual and functioning, is aminor interface when compared to the developing “Pilot’sAssociate” (McDonnell-Douglas). In addition to having astate-of-the-art interdependent pilot/machine interface(unless the machine thinks that the organics are failing,and it must take over the mission), the “Pilot’s Associate”offers Artificial Intelligence (AI) support analysis in mis-sion planning, tactics, system status, and situationassessment. Here we find a clear indication of what body“enhancement” is going to mean in the age of theposthuman. Body enhancement will be specific to goal-oriented tasks. These tasks will be dictated by thepancapitalist division of labor, and technology for bodymodification will only allow for the more efficient serviceof a particular institution.

28 Flesh Machine

Unfortunately for the multinationals, the developmentof the civilian cyborg has not moved along as quickly.Since the civilian sector does not have the advantage oftelling its forces that being-as-cyborg will prolong one’slife in the field, corporate power vectors are still deploy-ing ideological campaigns to convince civilians of thebureaucratic and technocratic classes that they shoulddesire to be cyborgs. The spectacle of the civilian cyborgmoves in two opposing directions. The first is theutopian spectacle. The usual promises of convenience,access to knowledge and free speech, entertainment,and communication are being trotted out by the usualmedia systems with varying degrees of success; butanyone who has paid attention to strategies of manufac-turing desire for new technologies can read right throughthe surface of these codes. Convenience is supposed tomean that work becomes easier, and is accomplishedfaster; in turn, this means that individuals work less andhave more free time because they work more efficiently.What this code actually means is that the workload can beintensified because the worker is producing more effi-ciently. Entertainment and information access are codesof seduction that really mean that individuals will havegreater access to consumer markets of manufactured de-sire. Better communication is supposed to mean greateraccess to those with whom an individual wants to com-municate. The actuality is that agencies of productionand consumption have greater surveillance power overthe individual.*

*The deployment of utopian promise is commonly used to form futuremarkets. For additional information on the development of utopianpromises associated with telecommunication technologies, please seethe Appendix.


In contrast to utopian spectacle is the spectacle of anxiety.The gist of this campaign is to threaten individuals withthe claim that if a person falls behind in the technologicalrevolution, s/he will be trampled under the feet of thosewho use the advantages of technology. This campaignrecalls the socioeconomic bloodbath of the ideology ofSocial Darwinism. The consumer must either adapt or die.From the perspective of pancapitalism, this campaign isquite brilliant, because unlike the military (where thesoldier is supplied with technology to transform he/rself intoa weapon system), the civilian force will buy the technologyof their enslavement, thereby underwriting a healthyportion of the cost of cyborg development as well as thecost of its spectacularization.

The current spectacle of technology is having an effect onthe civilian population of the appropriate classes, al-though cyborg development in this sector is a little moresubtle than in the military. Most people have seen the firstphases of the civilian cyborg, which is typically an infor-mation cyborg. They are usually equipped with lap-topcomputers and cellular phones. Everywhere they go, theirtechnology goes with them. They are always prepared towork, and even in their leisure hours they can be activatedfor duty. Basically, these beings are intelligent, autono-mous workstations that are on call 24 hours a day, 365 daysa year, and at the same time can be transformed intoelectronic consumers, whenever necessary.

In this phase of posthuman development, the will topurity, explicit in the spectacle of anxiety, manifests itselfin two significant forms: First is the purification of thepancapitalist cycle of waking everyday life. Cyborgs are

30 Flesh Machine

reduced to acting out rational, pragmatic, instrumentalbehaviors, and in so doing, the cycles of production (work)and consumption (leisure) are purified of those elementsdeemed nonrational and useless (by the pancapitalistsystem). It seems reasonable to expect that attempts will bemade to reduce or eliminate regenerative, nonproductiveprocesses like sleeping through the use of both technologi-cal and biological enhancement. The second is amanifestation of ideological purity which persuades thecyborg to obsessively value that which perpetuates andmaintains the system, and to act accordingly. The primedisrupter of this manifestation of purity is the body itselfwith its endlessly disruptive physical functions, and thelibidinal motivations inherent in human psychology. Hencetechnological advancement alone will not create the bestposthuman; it must be supported by developments inrationalized body design.

Final Preparations for Posthumanity

The military has long understood that the body must be trainedto meet the demands of its technology. Consequently, itputs its organic units through very rigorous mental andphysical training, but in the end, it is clear that thistraining is not enough. Training can only take a body tothe limits of its predisposition. Pancapitalism has realizedthat the body must be designed for specific, goal-orientedtasks that better complement its interface with technologywithin the real space of production. Human characteris-tics must also be rationally designed and engineered inorder to eliminate body functions and psychological char-acteristics that refuse ideological inscription.


The mature appearance of the flesh machine is perhaps thegreatest indication that the magical data dump of con-sciousness into VR is not being seriously considered. If itwere, why invest so heavily in body products and services?Conversely, why should capital refuse an opportunity thatappears to be the greatest market bonanza since coloniza-tion? Digital flesh is significant in the mapping of the body,but its value depends upon the practical applications thatare derived from it; these, in turn, can be looped back intothe material world. The body is here to stay. Unfortu-nately, the body of the future will not be the liquid,free-forming body which yields to individual desire; rather,it will be a solid entity whose behaviors are fortified bytask-oriented technological armor interfacing with ideo-logically engineered flesh. Little evidence is available toindicate that liquescence is different in postmodernityfrom what it was in modernity—the privilege of capital-saturated power vectors.

Notes

1 Vague terminology, such as CAE’s use of the term “powervectors,” has unfortunately become a necessary evil in thedescription of pancapitalist political economy. The dy-namics of domination are at present impossible to concretelyidentify and describe because the flow of power moves andshifts at such an extreme velocity that it cannot be locatedat a fixed point where it can be empirically studied. Pleasesee The Electronic Disturbance, Chapter 2 for an extendeddiscussion of this problem.

32 Flesh Machine

2 Here, it must be noted that CAE is not attempting tomake an apology for either/or structuralism, in which allsocial phenomena fit neatly into a binary package; rather,CAE is using the division as a liquid continuum alongwhich countless inbetween, hybrid, and recombinant pos-sibilities occur, in a constant state of transformation overtime. CAE also believes that the boundaries of a givenISA/RSA are extremely fuzzy. In the age of pancapitalism,no national or cultural borders are rigid enough to allowthe establishment of a concrete unit of analysis. We aretherefore limited to discussing only first-world politicaland economic trends and tendencies.

3 Since political agencies do not want to disrupt the WWWmarketing bonanza by offending consumers, regulation isproceeding at a slow and cautious pace. For example, thesteps being taken to limit Web content (such as legislationto control “obscenity” or to eliminate information onweapons construction) are presented to the public assecurity measures. These opening attempts to regulate theWeb also function as preliminary research to discover orinvent the best means to enforce regulation. Like media ofthe past, such as radio or cinema, totalizing regulation willnot appear until the fiscal structure of cyberspace is firmlyin place. In addition, regulating agencies must wait untiluse of the Web and the Internet become a necessary partof everyday life for individuals of higher class rankings, inorder to minimize resistance to regulatory acts.

While much of the current cultural discussion regardingtechnoculture focuses on issues emerging from new com-munications technology, there is an exponentially growinginterest in and discussion of flesh technology. Like thediscussion of new communications technologies, this dis-course vacillates wildly from the intensely critical andskeptical to the accepting and utopian. However, the mostsignificant intersection between the two discourses is theirparallel critique of vision enhancement. Whether it is thedevelopment of global satellite vision or the developmentof micro interior vision, imaging systems are key to bothapocalyptic or utopian tendencies. For example, sonographycan be used to map an ocean floor, or it can be used to maputerine space. In both cases, such an imaging systemfunctions as a first step toward the ability to culturally

2Nihilism in the Flesh

36 Flesh Machine

engineer and ideologically design those spaces. As thesetwo spheres of technology continue to intermingle, arecombinant theory of the relationship of populationsand bodies to technology has begun to emerge thatconflates theories of the social and the natural. Theexistence of such theories under the legitimizing mantleof the authority of science is not new, and in fact thetheories have fallen in and out of favor since the 19thcentury. They continually re-emerge in different guises,such as Social Darwinism (Malthusian and Spencerianphilosophy), eugenics, and sociobiology. In each casethe results of such thinking have been socially cata-strophic, setting loose the unrestrained deployment ofauthoritarian ideology and nihilistic social policy.

Apparently theories of deep social evolution have comeinto favor again, and are rising from the grave to hauntunsuspecting populations. Socially dangerous principlesof cultural development, such as fitness, natural selec-tion, and adaptability, are again in fashion. Considerthe following quote from the announcement for the1996 Ars Electronica Symposium and Exhibition (ArsElectronica is a very prestigious annual conference formultimedia artists, media critics, scientists, hackers,and technicians):

Human evolution, characterized by our abilityto process information, is fundamentally en-twined with technological development.Complex tools and technologies are an inte-gral part of our evolutionary “fitness.” Genesthat are not able to cope with this reality willnot survive the next millennium.

Nihilism in the Flesh 37

This quote contains some of the most frightening authori-tarian language since the Final Solution, and presents thethreat of “adapt or die” as a value-free social given. To whatis the reader expected to adapt? To the technology devel-oped under the regime of pancapitalism for the purpose ofbetter implementing its imperatives of production, con-sumption, and control. There is nothing evolutionary (inthe biological sense) about the pancapitalist situation. Itwas engineered and designed by rational agencies. “Fit-ness” is a designated status that is relative to the ideologicalenvironment, not the natural environment. History re-peats itself, as those resistant to authoritarian order mustonce again separate the cultural and the natural, andexpose the horrific nihilistic tendency that arises when thetwo are confused.

Nihilism

Nihilism can have either positive or negative political associa-tions. For example, some liberationists view nihilism as arevolutionary strategy capable of dissolving boundarieswhich retard the full exploration of human experience,while those interested in maintaining the status quo viewit as a method of social disruption which manifests itself indestruction and chaos. Certainly the original descriptionof nihilism, in Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons, pre-sented it as a revolutionary method designed to promoteEnlightenment political principles. The engine of nihil-ism in this case was reason, and its application manifesteditself in an overly deterministic and domineering model ofWestern science. Turgenev contrasts the nihilist positionwith Christian models of faith and a monarchist social

38 Flesh Machine

order. While many who situate themselves on the left cansympathize with the nihilist’s will to free he/rself from theconstraints of the traditional model of church and state,there is also an uneasy feeling about this variety of nihil-ism, as a danger exists of replacing one tyrant with another.One cannot help but question if replacing faith and under-standing with reason and knowledge could lead to anequivalent state of oppression. Nietzsche makes this pointvery elegantly in his assertions that movement towardpurity and uncritical acceptance (in this case, of reason)always leads to hegemony and domination.

The case of Nietzsche in regard to nihilism is peculiar.While the Nietzschean notion of philosophy with a ham-mer seems to fit well with the nihilistic process, Nietzscheactually inverts the argument. From his perspective, theability of humans to challenge dominant institutions is anaffirming quality. It affirms life and the world. While theprocess has elements of conflict and destruction, acts ofskepticism, disavowal, and resistance are intentionallydirected toward the possibility of freedom, and therebyredeem people from the horrid fate of willing nothingness,rather than not willing at all. From this perspective, theprimary example of the pathologically nihilistic will mademanifest is the institution of the church in particular andreligion in general. Religions encourage the subject tobring about he/r own disappearance, and thereby, to elimi-nate the world which envelops he/r. One abhors presence,and seeks absence. The problem for Nietzsche is that hecannot accept the principles of absence (the soul, God, theheavenly kingdom) that are dictated to society under theauthority of church rule, and perpetuated by an unques-tioning faith. Nietzsche demands that life rest in experience


and in presence. To negate the given is an unacceptablenihilistic position that undermines humanity itself.

On the other hand, if theological principles are accepted,one can easily see how the positions of secularists appearnihilistic. To sacrifice one’s soul to the immediacy ofexperience is eternally destructive. The immediacy of thesensual world should be understood as a site of temptationthat negates the joy of eternity. Those who focus theirdaily activities on the sensual world are doomed to thetorture of privation in this life, and to damnation in thenext life. To choose an object other than God is to becontinuously left unfulfilled, and during this time the souldecays from neglect. In terms of Eastern theology, thesituation of subject-object is mediated by the hell of desire,which can only be pacified when the subject is erased, andthereby returned to the unitary void. In both the Westernand the Eastern varieties of religious life, the subject canonly find peace by affirming God (as opposed to affirmingthe world).

The truly interesting and relevant point here in regard toevolutionary social theory is that the 19th century conflictover the nature of nihilism has a common thread. Nomatter what side of the debate one favors, the discoursecenters around institutional criticism. Nietzsche attacksthe church and its doctrines, while the church attackssecular institutions such as science. People are not theobject of nihilism, no matter how it is defined. However,when nihilism is combined with notions of social evolu-tion, the object of nihilism (whether valued as good orbad) is people! It speaks of the fitness of some, and theelimination of others. It is not a racial construction that the

40 Flesh Machine

authoritarians of social evolution seek to eliminate, butpeople of a race; it is not a class that they seek to eliminate,but people of a class; it is not an anachronistic skill that theyseek to eliminate, but people who have this skill.

Evolution is a Theory, Not a Fact

To be sure, evolutionary theory has become such a key principlein organizing biological information that some toxic spill-age into other disciplines is almost inevitable. It commandssuch great authority that its spectacle is often confused forfact. At present, evolutionary theory is primarily specula-tive; no valid and reliable empirical method has beendeveloped to overcome the temporal darkness that thisconjecture is supposed to illuminate. Consequently, evo-lutionary theory circles around in its own self-fulfillingprinciples. It is in an epistemological crisis, in spite ofauthoritative claims to the contrary.

The tautological reasoning of evolutionary theory pro-ceeds as follows: Those species with the greatest abilityto adapt to a changing environment are naturally se-lected for survival. Those that are selected not onlysurvive, but often expand their genetic and environ-mental domains. So how is it known that a species hasa capacity for adaptation? Because it was naturallyselected. How is it known that it was selected? Becauseit survived. Why did it survive? Because it was able toadapt to its environment. In spite of this logical flaw ofrotating first principles, evolutionary theory brings anarrative to the discipline that makes biological dy-namics intelligible. While the theory can in no way


approach the realm of certainty, it does have tremen-dous common-sense value. If for no other reason,evolutionary theory is dominant because no one hasbeen able to produce a secular counternarrative that hassuch organizational possibilities.

Evolution is an intriguing notion for other reasons too.The idea that natural selection is a blind process iscertainly a turning point in Western thinking. There isno teleology, not even the guiding “invisible hand.”Instead, evolution gropes through time, producing bothsuccessful and unsuccessful species. Its varied manifes-tations display no order, only accident. This notion isan incredible challenge to the Western desire for ratio-nal order. At best, God is playing dice with the universe.The very anarchistic strength of this notion is also itsscientific downfall. How can the accidental be mea-sured in causal terms? For example, the engine of physicaladaptability is mutation. If mutation is the accidental,uncommon, unexpected, and anomalous, how can it bequantified, when the knowledge systems of science arebased on the value of expectation and typicality?

Can we say with any degree of assurance that socialdevelopment is analogous to this model of biologicaldevelopment? It seems extremely unlikely that cultureand nature proceed in a similar fashion. Cultural dy-namics appear to be neither blind nor accidental. Whilethe occurrence of chaotic moments in social develop-ment cannot be denied, unlike with biological evolution,they do not render the same totalizing picture. Culturalevolution, if there is such a thing, seems for the mostpart to be orderly and intentional. It is structured by the

42 Flesh Machine

distribution of power, which can be deployed in either anegating or affirming manner.

Culture and Causality

The ever-changing and transforming manifestations of powerover time are the foundation of what may be consideredhistory. Power manifests itself in countless forms, bothas material artifacts and ideational representation, in-cluding architecture, art, language, laws, norms,population networks, and so on, which is to say asculture itself. When considering either culture or his-tory, it seems reasonable to contend that evolution (inits biological sense) plays little if any role in the con-figuration of social structure or dynamics. For example,the history of industrial capitalism spans only a brief200 years. In the evolutionary timetable, this span oftime scarcely registers. The biological systems of hu-mans have not significantly changed during this period,nor for the last 10,000 years, and hence it would befoolish to think that evolution played any kind of causalrole in the development of capitalism. In fact,humankind’s seeming evolutionary specialization (amammal that specializes in intelligence) places it in apost-evolutionary position. With the ability for ad-vanced communication using language capable offorming abstract ideas, in conjunction with the abilityto affect and even control elements of the body and theenvironment, humans have at least temporarily in-verted significant portions of the evolutionary dynamic.In an astounding number of cases, the body and theenvironment do not control the destiny of “humanity”;


rather, “humanity” controls the destiny of the body andits environment. Unlike the evolutionary process, so-cial development is overwhelmingly a rationalized andengineered process.

If the proposition that social development is a rational-ized process (perhaps even hyper-rationalized, underthe pancapitalist regime) is accepted, can evolutionaryprinciples such as natural selection or fitness have anyexplanatory value? This possibility seems very unlikely.For instance, there is nothing “natural” about naturalselection. At the macro level, the populations that havethe greatest probability of coming to an untimely endare not selected for elimination by a blind naturalprocess; rather, they are designated as expendable popu-lations. In the US, for example, the problem ofhomelessness exists not because there is insufficientfood and shelter for every citizen, nor because this socialaggregate is unfit, but because various power sourceshave chosen to let the homeless continue in theirpresent state. The selection process in this case hasagency; it is not a blind and accidental process. What isbeing selected for in the age of pancapitalism (and formost of human history) are cultural characteristics thatwill perpetuate the system, and maintain the currentpower structure. This process is intentional, self-reflex-ive, and at its worst, systematic—in other words,intensely rational.

The concept of fitness follows the same unfortunatetrajectory. Once this concept is taken out of its originalbiological context and placed into a social context, itsexplanatory power evaporates. When the concept of fit-

44 Flesh Machine

ness intersects an intentional environment, the idea istransformed from a relatively neutral one to one that isintensely value-laden. Unlike the biological concept offitness, a category measured by the emergent manifesta-tions of survival, the sociological concept of fitness functionsas a reflection of a particular population that is thenprojected and inscribed onto the general population. Thevalued characteristics (beauty, intelligence, “normal” bodyconfiguration, etc.) that constitute fitness are designedand deployed in a top-down manner by power vectorswhich control social policy construction and image man-agement and distribution. In a social environment whichhas solved the challenge of production, fitness has no realmeaning other than to mark acceptable subjects, which inturn marginalizes and/or eliminates “deviant” subjects.Without question, when fitness is placed into a sociologi-cal context, it becomes a hideous ideological markerrepresenting the imperatives of the political-economythat deployed it.

Nature as Ideology

Three decades ago Roland Barthes sent an illuminating flareinto the political air to warn us of the socially cata-strophic results of using nature as a code to legitimatesocial value. Under authoritarian rule, the social realmis divided into the natural and the unnatural (theperverse). Everything of value and of benefit to theempowered vectors of a given social system is coded asnatural, while everything which negates its demands byprompting alternative or resistant forms of social activ-ity and organization is coded as unnatural in the


environment of representation. But this binary systemis more complex. Given that one of these values ofempowered vectors is that of militarization in all itsforms, a nasty wound opens as the social fabric is rippedby contradictory ideological forces. On one hand, na-ture is viewed in a very gentle sense as moral and pure,and thereby good. Hence that which is natural is alsogood. On the other hand, when perceived through theevolutionary ideological filter as a realm in which onlythe strong survive the bloodbath of life, nature becomesabject, dangerous, and amoral. Hence, that which isnatural (sovereign) must be repelled. The ideologicalrole of the code of nature is doubled, and simultaneouslyexists as value and as detriment, thereby allowing thecode to float from one meaning to its opposite. All thatauthoritarian power must do is contextualize the code,and it will speak in whatever manner is desired by thesocial vectors with the power to deploy it. In addition,for this code of control to function, its inherent contra-diction must be flawlessly sutured. This is done throughspectacular narrowcasts into the fragmented conditionof everyday life.

It seems rather obvious that importing legitimized theo-ries of natural dynamics (in the case of pancapitalism,evolutionary principles) into the ideological fabric is anecessity if this overall coding system is to function. Inthis manner the constructive qualities of a given regimecan be coded as natural, as can its pathologically nihil-istic and destructive tendencies, even, and perhapsespecially, when they are aimed at other people! Thusthe code truly is totalizing. It does not have to be splitinto a binary which has a boundary that authoritarian

46 Flesh Machine

order cannot cross. Authoritarian power can occupy allsocial space with impunity, both normal and deviant,for constructive or destructive purposes.

Biohazards

When the dark code of nature (survival of the fittest) isefficiently deployed within a given population, geno-cidal nihilism becomes an acceptable course of socialaction. While the code legitimizes and masks militaryaggression for the purpose of acquiring territory andresources, the will to purity has been known to functionas an independent parallel goal, as in the case of NaziGermany. Currently, there is a shift in temperament;genocide is increasingly becoming less a matter of terri-tory and resources, and more a matter of the will topurity. In the days of early capital, when the riddle ofproduction was still unsolved, land/resource appropria-tions were the primary reason for genocide. The examplesare, of course, well known: the kulak genocide underStalin, or the aboriginal genocides in the US and Aus-tralia. In these cases, the will to purity (ideological inthe case of the former and racial in the case of thelatter), was secondary, and functioned primarily as therhetoric and the justification for the actions. Certainly,one can expect to see more genocides typical of earlycapital in the third world, where for reasons of imperialdesign, production cannot meet the demands of thepopulation. The same may be said for industrial nationsin the process of restabilizing, as in Bosnia. However, inthe time of first-world late capital with its consumerculture, global media, global markets, and product ex-


cess, direct military actions seem less necessary, becausegeographic territory is in the process of being devalued.

With economic expansion via territorial occupation inthe process of disappearing, the will to purity (fitness)stands on its own as a prime reason for genocide. Currently,genocidal nihilism tends toward elimination of “deviant”subjectivity. This new form of nihilism is much moresubtle. The day of the death camp designed for maximumefficiency is over, and in its place are prisons, ghettos, andspaces of economic neglect. By making it seem that thecondition of extreme privation is a part of the naturalorder, rational authority can eliminate populations with-out direct militarized action. In some cases, the designatedexcess population will participate in its own destruction asindividuals are forced by artificially produced physicalneed and environmental pressures to do whatever is nec-essary to acquire withheld resources. In turn, these actionsare replayed by the media as representations of the danger-ous natural qualities of given races, ethnicities, or classesthat must be controlled. Ironically, activities and environ-ments which were intentionally designed becomerepresentations of nature, and proof of fitness theory.

Accidental opportunities also have great potential forexploitation. In the early years of the AIDS crisis in theUS, when the virus seemed to affect only gay men, IV drugusers, and Haitians, the Reagan Administration exploitedthis opportunity to eliminate some “degenerate” popula-tions; after all, they were unnatural, impure, and unfit. Byrefusing to intervene or even acknowledge the existence ofthe virus, the Reagan Administration allowed this plagueto take its course from 1981 to 1985. Not until it was

48 Flesh Machine

realized that AIDS would not stay confined to the desig-nated deviant population was legitimized political actiontaken to contain the virus and control its symptoms.

Engineering the death of populations by neglect is not arecent innovation. Certainly the Irish genocide at the timeof the potato blight indicates that this strategy has beenaround for while (although it should be remembered thatthis genocide was also primarily done for land and re-sources, and less for reasons of purity). Death by neglect isa haunting reminder that Social Darwinism and the anti-welfare recommendations of Malthus and Spencer in thetime of early capital are not only alive and well, but are onceagain gaining in strength.

For acts of passive genocide to be perceived as legitimate(natural), the public must participate in eugenic ideology.It must believe that the species is in a biological process thatis striving for perfection through a selection process. It mustbelieve that some populations are more fit than others. Itmust desire to emulate the fit, and to have faith that theunfit will be eliminated. With this belief in place, socialvectors of power only have to contextualize the ideologicalsystem in a particular social moment to see its design cometo fruition for a political-economy that is encoded directlyinto the flesh. Returning to the announcement from ArsElectronica, an indicator of this process at work can beobserved when we read: “Complex tools and technologiesare an integral part of our evolutionary ‘fitness.’ Genes thatare not able to cope with this reality will not survive thenext millennium.” Who benefits from beliefs such as this?Those who profit most from the development of techno-cratic pancapitalism. There is not a shred of evidence that


nature selects for genes with a predisposition for usingcomplex tools. In fact, if survival is taken as the signifier offitness, those who use complex tools are a small and stableminority of the world’s population, which would indicatethat they are less fit. The majority and expanding popula-tions do not use complex tools. (What is truly odd is thatsuch rhetoric implies that “quality of life” is a characteristicthat demonstrates fitness and adaptability. This is a pecu-liar return to the Calvinist belief in finding signs that oneis in God’s grace by one's proximity to economic bounty).It seems just as likely that complex tools are signs ofdevolution, or even the source of species destruction. Whatis clear is that the power vectors which currently engineersocial policy are at the moment selecting for and rewardingthose who can use complex tools and punishing those whocannot, and that this intentional process is at times passedoff as a natural development.

The sweeping condemnation of those outside technoculturebodes badly for less technologically saturated societies,since they presently appear to be “unfit” according to thisline of thinking. Traces of the colonial narrative replaythemselves in this rhetoric, since technoculture is notaccessible to the grand majority of nonwestern races andethnicities. At the same time, the colonial narrative isbeing reconfigured for postwar technoculture. As womenare brought into the bureaucratic and technocraticworkforce, fitness designated by biological characteristicsis starting to be replaced by fitness designated by behavior.This way, power vectors have an alibi which masks thetraces of the colonial narrative alive in technoculture, butwhich can also allow them to embrace “fit” individualsthat emerge from “unfit” populations.

50 Flesh Machine

Conclusion

Two key problems occur in attempting to use evolutionarytheory in the analysis of cultural development. First, pre-senting cultural development as analogous to biologicaldevelopment is like trying to hammer a square peg into around hole. There is little basis for likening a blind,groping process of species configuration within a chaotic,uncontrolled environment to a rationally engineered pro-cess of social and economic development within an orderly,controlled environment. Retrograde notions of culturaldevelopment, such as providence, progress, and manifestdestiny, have more explanatory power, because they atleast recognize intentional design in cultural dynamics,and at the very least they imply the existence of a powerstructure within the cultural environment. Evolutionarytheory, in its social sense, is blind to the variable of power,let alone to the inequalities in its distribution.

The second problem is historical. Since the application ofevolutionary theory has continuously been the founda-tional rhetoric and justification of social atrocity for thelast 150 years, why would anyone want to open thisPandora’s box yet again? At a time when biotech productsand services are being developed that will allow impera-tives of political economy to be inscribed directly into theflesh and into its reproductive cycle, why would anyonewant to use a theoretical system with little, if any, informa-tive power, that if deployed through pancapitalist mediafilters will promote eugenic ideology? While it cannot bedenied that all inquiries for the purpose of gaining knowl-edge bring with them a high probability that the informationcollected could be misused in its application, in the case of


social evolutionary theory, the historical evidence that itwill be misused is overwhelming. This situation is not fuzzyenough to make this roll of the dice a smart gambit, and thegood intentions of individuals who engage this discoursewill not save it from capitalist appropriation andreconfiguration to better serve its authoritarian and nihil-istic tendencies.

Over the past century, the two machines that comprise thegeneral state apparatus have reached a level of sophistica-tion which neither is likely to transcend. These complexmechanisms, the war machine and the sight machine, willgo through many generations of refinement in the years tocome; for the time being, however, the boundaries of theirinfluence have stabilized.

The war machine is the apparatus of violence engineeredto maintain the social, political, and economic relation-ships that support its continued existence in the world.The war machine consumes the assets of the world in

3The Coming of Age

of the Flesh Machine*

*This article was originally published in Electronic Culture, TimDruckrey, ed., New York: Aperture, 1996.

54 Flesh Machine

classified rituals of uselessness (for example, missilesystems that are designed never to be used, but rather topull competing systems of violence into high-velocitycycles of war-tech production) and in spectacles ofhopeless massacre (such as the Persian Gulf war). Thehistory of the war machine has generally been perceivedin the West as history itself (although some resistanceto this belief began during the 19th century), and whilethe war machine has not followed a unilinear course ofprogress, due to disruptions by moments of inertia causedby natural disasters or cultural exhaustion, its engineshave continued to creep toward realizing the historicalconstruction of becoming the totality of social exist-ence. Now it has reached an unsurpassable peak—aviolence of such intensity that species annihilation isnot only possible, but probable. Under these militarizedconditions, the human condition becomes one of con-tinuous alarm and preparation for the final moment ofcollective mortality.

The well-known counterpart of the war machine is thesight machine. It has two purposes: to mark the space ofviolent spectacle and sacrifice, and to control the symbolicorder. The first task is accomplished through surveyingand mapping all varieties of space, from the geographic tothe social. Through the development of satellite-basedimaging technologies, in combination with computer net-works capable of sorting, storing, and retrieving vastamounts of visual information, a wholistic representationhas been constructed of the social, political, economic,and geographical landscape(s) that allows for near-perfectsurveillance of all areas, from the micro to the macro.Through such visualization techniques, any situation or

The Coming of Age of the Flesh Machine 55

population deemed unsuitable for perpetuating the warmachine can be targeted for sacrifice or for containment.

The second function of the sight machine, to controlthe symbolic order, means that the sight machine mustgenerate representations that normalize the state of warin everyday life, and which socialize new generations ofindividuals into their machinic roles and identities.These representations are produced using all types ofimaging technologies, from those as low-tech as a paintbrush to ones as high-tech as supercomputers. Theimages are then distributed through the mass media ina ceaseless barrage of visual stimulation. To make surethat an individual cannot escape the imperatives of thesight machine for a single waking moment, ideologicalsignatures are also deployed through the design andengineering of all artifacts and architectures. This latterstrategy is ancient in its origins, but combined with themass media's velocity and its absence of spatial restric-tions, the sight machine now has the power tosystematically encompass the globe in its spectacle.This is not to say that the world will be homogenized inany specific sense. The machinic sensibility under-stands that differentiation is both useful and necessary.However, the world will be homogenized in a generalsense. Now that the machines are globally and specifi-cally interlinked with the ideology and practices ofpancapitalism, we can be certain that a hyper-rational-ized cycle of production and consumption, under theauthority of nomadic corporate-military control, willbecome the guiding dynamic of the day. How a givenpopulation or territory arrives at this principle is opento negotiation, and is measured by the extent to which

56 Flesh Machine

profit (tribute paid to the war machine) increases withina given area or among a given population.

In spite of the great maturity of these machines, a necessaryelement still seems to be missing. While representationhas been globally and rationally encoded with the impera-tives of pancapitalism, the flesh upon which these codingsare further inscribed has been left to reproduce and de-velop in a less than instrumental manner. To be sure, theflesh machine has intersected both the sight and warmachines since ancient times, but comparatively speak-ing, the flesh machine is truly the slowest to develop. Thisis particularly true in the West, where practices in healthand medicine, genetic engineering, or recombinant organ-isms have thoroughly intersected nonrational practices(particularly those of the spirit). Even when they weresecularized after the Renaissance, these practices haveconsistently been less successful, when compared to theircounterparts, in insuring the continuance of a givenregime of state power. Unlike the war machine and thesight machine, which have accomplished their supremetasks—the potential for species annihilation for theformer, and global mapping and mass distribution ofideologically coded representation for the latter—the fleshmachine has utterly failed to concretize its imagined worldof global eugenics.

The simple explanation for the flesh machine’s startlinglack of development is cultural lag. As the West shiftedfrom a feudal to a capitalist economy, demonstrating thebenefits of rationalizing production in regard to war was arelatively simple task. National wealth and border expan-sion were clearly marked and blended well with the trace


leftovers of feudal ideology. Manifest destiny, for example,did not stand in contradiction to Christian expansionism.War, economy, politics, and ideology (the slowest of socialmanifestations to change) were still working toward acommon end (total domination). The rationalization ofthe flesh, however, could not find a point of connectionwith theologically informed ideology. Flesh ideology couldonly coexist as parallel rather than as intersecting tracks.For this reason it is no surprise that one of the fathers offlesh machine ideology was a man of God. The work ofThomas Malthus represents the ideological dilemma pre-sented to the flesh machine on the cusp of the feudal/capitalist economic shift.

Malthus argued that the flesh did not have to be rational-ized through secular engineering, since it was alreadyrationalized by the divine order of the cosmos designed byGod Himself. Although the nonrational motivation oforiginal sin would guarantee replication of the work force,God had placed “natural checks” on the population, so onlythose who were needed would be produced. The uncivilizedlower classes could be encouraged to have as many childrenas possible without fear that the population would overrunthose in God’s grace, because God would sort the good fromthe bad through famine, disease, and other natural catastro-phes. For this reason, the flesh could be left to its ownmeans, free of human intervention, and human progresscould focus on fruition through economic progress.Spencerian philosophy, arriving half a century later, comple-mented this notion by suggesting that those fit for survivalwould be naturally selected in the social realm. The mostskillful, intelligent, beautiful, athletic, etc., would be natu-rally selected by the structure of the society itself—that of

58 Flesh Machine

“open” capitalist competition. Hence the flesh machinewas still in no need of vigorous attention; however, Spencerdid act as a hinge for the development of eugenic conscious-ness. Spencer constructed an ideological predisposition forconflating natural and social models of selection (theformer arrived a decade or so after Spencer’s primary theseswere published). This made it possible for genetic engineer-ing to become a naturalized social function, intimately tiedto social progress without being a perversion of nature—infact, it was now a part of nature. At this point eugenicconsciousness could continue to develop uninterrupted byfeudal religious dogma until its traces evaporated out ofcapitalist economy, or until it could be better reconfiguredto suit the needs of capitalism. While the idea of a eugenicworld continued to flourish in all capitalist countries, andculminated in the Nazi flesh experiment of the 30s andearly 40s, the research never materialized that would benecessary to elevate the flesh machine to a developmentallevel on a par with the war machine.

Perhaps there is an even simpler explanation. Machinicdevelopment can only occur at the pace of one machine ata time, since scarce resources allow for only so muchindirect military research. After the war machine came tofull fruition with the implementation of fully matured totalwar during World War II, along with the attendant eco-nomic expansion, it became possible to allocate a generoushelping of excess capital for the expansion of the nextmachine. In this case, it was the sight machine which hadproved its value during the war effort with the developmentof radar and sonar, and thereby jumped to the front of theline for maximum investment. It was also clearly under-stood at this point that global warfare required new attention


to logistic organization. The road between strategic andtactical weapons and logistical needs had leveled out, andthis realization also pushed the sight machine to the frontof the funding line. Conversely, the need of the Alliedpowers to separate themselves ideologically as far as pos-sible from Nazi ideology pushed the desired development ofthe flesh machine back into the realm of nonhumanintervention. Consequently, the alliance between the warmachine and the sight machine continued without inter-ruption, delivering ever-increasingly sophisticated weaponsof mass destruction. It also created an ever more envelopingvisual/information apparatus—most notably satellite tech-nology, television, video, computers, and the Net.

While the war machine reached relative completion in the60s, the sight machine did not reach relative completionuntil the 80s (die-hard Web-users might want to argue forthe 90s). Now a third machine can claim its share of excesscapital, so the funds are flowing in increasing abundance toa long deferred dream. The flesh machine is here. It hasbeen turned on, and like its siblings, the war machine andthe sight machine, it cannot be turned off. As is to beexpected, the flesh machine replicates elements of thesight and war machines in its construction. It is thesemoments of replication which are of interest in this essay.

A Brief Note on ScientificImagination, Ethics, and the Flesh Machine

In the best of all possible worlds, ethical positions relevant to theflesh machine would be primary to any discussion about it.In fact, to read the literature on the flesh machine (which

60 Flesh Machine

at this point is dominated by the medical and scientificestablishments), one would think that ethics is of keyconcern to those in the midst of flesh machine develop-ment; however, nothing could be further from reality.The scientific establishment has long since demon-strated that when it comes to machinic development,ethics has no real place other than its ideological role asspectacle. Ethical discourse is not a point of blockage inregard to machinic development. Take the case ofnuclear weapons development. The ethical argumentthat species annihilation is an unacceptable directionfor scientific inquiry should certainly have been enoughto block the production of such weaponry; however, theneeds of the war machine rendered this discourse silent.In fact, the need of the war machine to overcomecompeting machinic systems moved nuclear weaponsdevelopment along at top velocity. Handsome rewardsand honors were paid to individuals and institutionsparticipating in the nuclear initiative. In a word, ethi-cal discourse was totally ignored. If big science canignore nuclear holocaust and species annihilation, itseems very safe to assume that concerns about eugenicsor any of the other possible flesh catastrophes are notgoing to be very meaningful in its deliberations aboutflesh machine policy and practice. Without question, itis in the interest of pancapitalism to rationalize theflesh, and consequently it is in the financial interest ofbig science to see that this desire manifests itself in theworld.

Another problem with machinic development could bethe institutionally-contained panglossian reification ofthe scientific imagination. Consider the following quote


from Eli Friedman, president of International Societyfor Artifial Organs, in regard to the development ofartificial organs:

Each of us attempting to advance medicalscience—whether an engineer, chemist,theoretician, or physician—depends on per-sonal enthusiasm to sustain our work.Optimistic, self-driven investigators succeedbeyond the point where the pessimist, con-vinced that the project cannot be done, hasgiven up. Commitment to the design, con-struction, and implanting of artificialinternal organs requires a positive, roman-tic, and unrestrained view of what may beattainable. Members of our society share abond gained by the belief that fantasy can betransformed into reality.

and:

ISAO convenes an extraordinary admixtureof mavericks, “marchers to different drums,”and very smart scientists capable of converting“what if” into “why not.”

These lovely rhetorical flourishes primarily function torally the troops in what will be a hard-fought battle forfunding. It’s time to move fast (the less reflection thebetter) if the AO model is to dominate the market; afterall, there is serious competition from those who believethat harvesting organs from animals (transgenic animals ifneed be) is the better path along which to proceed. But it

62 Flesh Machine

is the subtext of such thinking that is really of the greatestinterest. From this perspective, science lives in a transcen-dental world beyond the social relationships of domination.If something is perceived as good in the lab, it will be goodin the world, and the way a scientist imagines a concept/application to function in the world is the way it will in factfunction. The most horrifying notion, however, is the idea(bred from a maniacal sense of entitlement) that “if youcan imagine it, you may as well do it,” as if science isunconnected to any social structures or dynamics otherthan utopia and progress.

Perhaps the only hope is that the funding and the opti-mism becomes so excessive that it undermines machinicdevelopment. Star Wars is a perfect example of incidentalresistance from the scientific establishment. During theReagan-era big bonanza for war machine funding, the mostludicrous promises were made by big science in order toobtain research funds. The result was a series of contrap-tions that truly defines the comedy of science. Two of thefinest examples are the rail gun that self-destructed uponlaunching its pellet projectile, and the deadly laser ray thathad a range of only three feet. While the Americantaxpayers might see red over the excessive waste, a majorsection of the scientific establishment was apparentlydistracted enough by the blizzard of money that they failedto make any useful lethal devices.

If I Can See It, It’s Already Dead

The war machine and the sight machine intersect at two keypoints—in the visual targeting of enemy forces (military

64 Flesh Machine

sites, production sites, and population centers), and invisualizing logistical routes. Once sited and accuratelyplaced within a detailed spatial grid, the enemy may bedispatched at the attacker’s leisure, using the most effi-cient routes and means of attack. As long as the enemy canremain invisible, determining proper strategic action isdifficult, if not impossible. Hence any successful offensivemilitary action begins with visualization and representa-tion. A strong defensive posture also requires proper visualintelligence. The better the vision, the more time avail-able to configure a counterattack. The significant principlehere—the one being replicated in the development of theflesh machine—is that vision equals control. Thereforethe flesh machine, like its counterparts, is becoming in-creasingly photocentric.

Not surprisingly, much of the funding for the flesh ma-chine is intended to develop maps of the body and todesign imaging systems that will expedite this process.From the macro to the micro (the Human Genome Projectbeing the best known), no stone can remain unturned.Every aspect of the body must be open to the vision ofmedical and scientific authority. Once the body is thor-oughly mapped and its “mechanistic” splendor revealed,any body invader (organic or otherwise) can be elimi-nated, and the future of that body can be accuratelypredicted. While such developments sound like a boon tohumanity, one need not be an expert in the field to beskeptical of such prospects.

While it is hard to doubt the success of the war machine inreducing military activity to the mechanized (that is, fullyrationalized structures and dynamics), it is questionable


whether the body can be reduced to a similar state regard-less of how well it is represented. One major problem is thatthe body cannot be separated from its environment, sinceso many of its processes are set in motion by environmentalconditions. For example, a toxic environment can produceundesirable effects in the body. Visual representationalerts medicine to an invasion, so action can be taken tocontain or eliminate the invader. In this situation, medi-cine is reactive rather than preventive, and treats only theeffect and not the cause. In fact, it diverts causality awayfrom ecological pathologies, and reinvests it back in thebody. In this manner, medicine becomes an alibi forwhatever created the toxic situation that infected thebody in the first place, by acting as if the infectant emergedinternally. The problem raised here is the limited frame ofrepresentation in regard to the body map, in conjunctionwith an emphasis on tactical solutions to physical patholo-gies. This situation is, of course, understandable, sincestrategic action would have an undermining effect on themedical market. The one exception to this rule is when thetoxic body emerges due to behavioral factors. In this case,the scientific/medical establishment can expand its au-thority over the body by suggesting and often enforcingbehavioral restrictions on patients. In this situation, thescience and medical establishment functions as a benevo-lent police force deployed against individuals to bettermold them to the needs of the state.

To complicate matters further, flesh machine science andmedicine have the unfortunate but necessary habit ofputting the cart before the horse. The flesh machine,unlike its counterparts, does not have the luxury of devel-oping its visual and weapons systems simultaneously, nor

66 Flesh Machine

can weapons development precede advanced visual capa-bilities. The visual apparatus must come first. For example,antibiotics probably could not have been invented beforethe development of a microscope. Consequently, as inmost research and development, a shotgun method isemployed, whereby all varieties of vision machines aredeveloped in the hopes that a few may be of some use. Thisleads to thrilling headlines like the following from DanielHaney of the Associated Press: “Brain Imagery Exposes aKiller.” What this headline refers to is a new medical map,acquired through the use of positron-emission tomogra-phy, which reveals the part of the brain affected byAlzheimer’s disease, and the degree to which the brain hasbeen eroded by the disease. This map can help physiciansto diagnose Alzheimer’s up to ten years before symptomonset. The comedy begins with the admission that there isno way to predict when symptoms will begin to appear, andthat there is still no known treatment for the disease. Allthat medical science can do is tell the patient that s/he hasthe disease, and that s/he will be feeling its effect sometimein the future. The excitement over being able to visualizethis disease comes from the belief that if the disease can beseen, then cure is near at hand. Or, in the words of the warmachine, “If I can see it, it’s already dead.”

Since the process of visualization and representation inthis case is at best only an indication of a far-off possibilityfor cure, and hence is of little use for the patient alreadydiagnosed with the disease, it must be asked: Who couldbenefit from this information? Alzheimer’s is in fact dou-bly problematic because it can be visualized before symptomonset, and because genetic mapping can also be used toindicate an individual’s likelihood of developing it. The


flesh machine’s intersection with the surveying functionof the sight machine becomes dramatically clear in thissituation. Those who would benefit most from this infor-mation are insurance companies and the employer of theperson likely to be afflicted with the ailment. Such infor-mation would be a tremendous cost-cutting device forboth. However, ethical discussions about collecting bio-data lead one to believe that such information wouldremain confidential in the doctor-patient relationship.Perhaps privacy will be maintained. However, it seemsmore likely that if the information is perceived to lead tosignificantly higher profits, resources will be allocated bycorporate sources to acquire it. The most common strategyto watch for is legislative initiatives pursued under thespectacle of benevolence. Mandatory drug testing for someprivate and public employment, under the authority ofemployee and public security, is an example of the meansby which privacy can be eroded.

Finally there is the problem of representation itself. As thewar machine demonstrates, the greater the visualization ofa frontier territory, the greater the degree of contestationat the visualized sight. In other words, the more that isseen, the more power realizes what needs to be controlledand how to control it. The brain is certainly going to be thekey, but happily, at this point, the research is too immatureto warrant strategic intervention on behalf of state power.There are, however, good indicators of how the comingbattle will take shape. One need only think of the visual-ization of the body and its connection to varieties ofsmoking bans from the legalistic to the normative, or interms of populist countersurveillance, the relationship oftoxins (DDT, for example) in the environment to body

68 Flesh Machine

visualization, to understand the connection between vi-sion, discipline, and contestation. The prizewinner,however, is the visualization of uterine space. Feministcritics have long shown how this point of ultra-violentcontestation is but the beginning of the age of fleshmachine violence. (This is also a point of great hope, as thediscourse of the flesh machine has been appropriated fromthe experts. At the same time, this conflict has shown howfascist popular fronts are just as adept at appropriation). Inregard to uterine space, feminist critics have consistentlypointed out that this variety of representation loads theideological dice by presenting the space as separate fromthe wholistic bio-system of the woman, thus reinforcingthe notion of “fetal space.” This idea acts as a basis for“fetal rights,” which are then argued as taking prece-dence over the rights of women.

A new era of bio-marginality has surely begun. Certainlythis situation will only be reinforced by the visualization ofeither diseases or abnormalities (actual or potential) insubjects soon to be classified under the sign of the unfit.The unfit will be defined in accordance with their utilityin relationship to the machine world of pancapitalism.The mapped body is the quantified body. Its use is mea-sured down to the penny. Without such a development,how could any consumer trust in the markets of the fleshmachine?

Selling Flesh

One of the oldest manifestations of the flesh machine is the ideaof engineering the breeding of plants and livestock to


produce what are perceived to be the most functionalproducts within a given cultural situation. Increased knowl-edge about this task has certainly contributed to the greatabundance in the food supply in the first world, thusshifting an individual’s relationship to food from one ofneed to one of desire. In light of this achievement, indus-trial food producers have been faced with the task ofdeveloping foods that meet the logistical demands ofbroad-based distribution, while still maintaining a productthat the manufacturer can market as desirable. The mostproductive solution thus far is the manufacture of pro-cessed foods; however, the market for food cannot belimited to processed food. The desire for perishable foodsis too deeply etched into the culture, and no amount ofspectacle can root out this desire. Fortunately for theproducers of perishable foods, the product and the marketcan be rationalized to a great extent. This particularmarket is of interest because it provides at this moment thebest illustration of the market imperatives that are beingreplicated in the industrial production and distribution ofhuman flesh products. (This is not to say that flesh produc-tion will not one day be more akin to processed food, it isonly to argue that at present the means of production arestill too immature).

To better illuminate this point, consider the case of apples.At the turn of the century, there were dozens of varioustypes of apples available to the buying public. Now whena consumer cruises through a supermarket in search ofapples, the choice has been limited to three (red, green,and yellow). Choice has become increasingly limitedpartly because of logistical considerations. Like most per-ishable fruits and vegetables these days, apples are bred to

70 Flesh Machine

have a long shelf life. In order to have apples all year round,they must be transported from locations that have theconditions to produce them when other locations cannot.Hence these apples must be able to survive an extendeddistribution process, and not all varieties of apples arecapable of resisting rotting for long periods of time. How-ever, logistics alone does not adequately explain choicelimitations. Perhaps more important to the formula aremarket considerations.

Marketing agencies have understood for decades thatdesire is intensified most through visual appeal. How aproduct looks determines the probability of a consumerpurchase more than any other variable. For apples, theconsumer wants brightly colored surfaces, a rounded form,and white inner flesh. In other words, consumers want theperfect storybook apple that they have seen representedsince they were children. Apples are bred to suit thecultural construction of “an apple,” and only a few variet-ies of apples can simulate this appearance and meet thisdesire. This situation is yet another case of Baudrillard’suniverse of platonic madness, where consumers are caughtin the tyranny of representation that passes as essence.

Along with the domination of vision, there comes theneed of the producer to offer the consumer a reliableproduct, meaning that the apples one buys tomorrow willlook and taste like the ones bought today. Consequently,there is an elimination of sense data other than the visual.If all that is needed to excite desire is a good visual, whybother to develop taste and smell? Especially when a goodproduct can be guaranteed if it is completely tasteless (onecan be sure that the apple purchased tomorrow will taste


like the one purchased today)? In this situation, thetyranny of the image becomes glaringly apparent; onewould think that smell and taste would be the dominatingsenses when buying foods, since they would best articulatethe pleasure of consumption. Not so, it is vision, andunfortunately many of the most tasty apples do not lookvery good because they have none of the necessary storybookappeal. Consequently various types of apples have beeneliminated, or limited to distribution in localized markets.

If the principles of product reliability and visual appeal areapplied to the production/consumption components (asopposed to those concerned with control) of the fleshmachine, the reasons for some recent developments be-come a little clearer. The first problem that flesh producersmust face is how to get a reliable product. At present toolittle is known about genetic processes to fulfill this neces-sary market imperative. Consequently, they have had torely on fooling the naive consumer. For example, onecharacteristic commonly sought after by those in thetechno-baby market is intelligence. Unfortunately thischaracteristic cannot be guaranteed; in fact, flesh produc-ers haven’t the slightest idea how to replicate intelligence.However, they can promise breeding materials from intel-ligent donors. While using the sperm of a Nobel Prizewinner in no way guarantees a smart child, and doesn’teven increase the probability (nor does it decrease theprobability of having a below average child), flesh dealersare able to use false analogies to sell their product. (If twotall parents have a child, the probability of the child beingtall is increased, so wouldn’t it be correct to say that if twopeople of above average intelligence have a child, that itwould increase the probability that the child will have

72 Flesh Machine

above average intelligence?) Many consumers believe thisline of thought (the myth of hard genetic determinism hasalways been very seductive) and are therefore willing topay higher prices for the sperm of an intelligent man thanthey are for the sperm of an average donor. Although thisfraud will probably not continue indefinitely in the future,an important ideological seed is being sown. People arebeing taught to think eugenically. The perception is grow-ing that in order to give a child every possible benefit inlife, its conception should be engineered.

Another common strategy to better regulate flesh productsis to take a genetic reading of the embryo while still in thepetri dish. If a genetic characteristic is discovered that isdeemed defective, the creature can be terminated beforeimplantation. Again, parents-to-be can have their eu-genic dreams come true within the limits of the genetictest. Even parents using the old-fashioned method ofconception at least have the option of visualization (so-nar) to make sure that the desired gender characteristic isrealized. In each of these cases, better visualization andrepresentation, along with an expanded range of genetictests, will help to insure that desired characteristics arealways a part of the flesh product, which leads to theconclusion that better vision machines are as importantfor profit as they are for control.

At the same time, remember that the marketing practicesof postmodernity do not wholly apply to the flesh machine,and at present tend to function on an as-needed basis.Fertility clinics, for example, participate as much in theeconomy of scarcity (although it must be noted that theseproducts and processes do not intersect the economy of


need) as they do in the economy of desire. While they mayuse the practices described above, they also have theluxury of being the only option for those who have beendenied the ability to produce flesh materials. Those clinicsthat can boast a product success rate of over 20% (mostnotably the Center for Reproductive Medicines and Infer-tility at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, witha success rate of 34%) cannot meet the demand for theirgoods and services. Apparently, the market for flesh goodsand services has been preconstructed in the bio-ideologyof capitalism.

When Worlds Collide

Assuming that the flesh machine is guided by the pancapitalistimperatives of control and profit, what will occur ifthese two principles come into conflict with one an-other? This has been known to happen as social machinesmarch toward maturity. The sight machine is currentlyfacing this very contradiction in the development of theNet. Currently the Net has some space that is relativelyopen to the virtual public. In these free zones, one canget information on anything, from radical politics to thelatest in commodity development. As to be expected, alot of information floating about is resistant to thecauses and imperatives of pancapitalism, and from theperspective of the state is badly in need of censorship.However, the enforcement of limited speech on the Netwould require measures that would be devastating toon-line services and phone service providers, and couldseriously damage the market potential of this new tool.(The Net has an unbelievably high concentration of

74 Flesh Machine

wealthy literate consumers. It’s a market pool thatcorporate authority does not want to annoy). The domi-nant choice at present is to let the disorder of the Netcontinue until the market mechanisms are fully inplace, and the virtual public is socialized to their use;then more repressive measures may be considered. So-cial conservatism taking a back seat to fiscal conservatismseems fairly representative of pancapitalist conflict reso-lution. The question is, will this policy replicate itself inthe flesh machine?

A good example to speculate on in regard to this issue isthe ever-elusive “gay gene,” always on the verge ofdiscovery, isolation, and visualization. Many actuallyanxiously await this discovery to prove once and for allthat gayness is an essential quality and not just a“lifestyle” choice. However, once placed in the eugenicmatrix this discovery might elicit some less positiveassociations. In the typical alarmist view, if the genecomes under the control of the flesh machine, then itwill be eliminated from the gene pool, thus givingcompulsory heterosexuality a whole new meaning. Underthe imperative of control this possibility seems likely;however, when the imperative of marketability is con-sidered, a different scenario emerges. There may well bea sizable market population for whom the selection of agay gene would be desirable. Why would a good capital-ist turn his back on a population that represents so muchprofit, not to mention that gay individuals as a submarket(CAE is assuming that some heterosexuals would selectthe gay gene too) must submit to the flesh machine toreproduce? Again, market and social imperatives comeinto conflict, but it is unknown which imperative willbe selected for enforcement.


Such an issue at least demonstrates the complexity of theflesh machine, and how difficult the task of analyzing thisthird leviathan will be. What is certain is that the fleshmachine is interdependent with and interrelated to thewar machine and the sight machine of pancapitalism, andthat it is certainly going to intensify the violence and therepression of its predecessors through the rationalizationof the final component (i.e., the flesh) of the production/consumption process. Until maps are produced for thepurpose of resistance and are crossed-referenced throughthe perspectives of numerous contestational voices, therewill be no way, practical or strategic, to resist this newattack on liberationist visions, discourse, and practice.

Drugs are a part of everyday life in pancapitalist society, and servea variety of social purposes including the medicinal, therecreational, and upon occasion the spiritual. These cat-egories overlap and intersect to a greater or lesser degree,depending on the context in which they are used. Nestledwithin this pharmacological collection is another categoryof drugs that also intersects the other varieties. These drugsare designed to “normalize” behavior as well as the socialpresentation of the body. They are usually perceived underthe sign of the medicinal, but they are different in qualityand function. Unlike drugs used to prolong life, wheretheir quality is primarily measured by a patient’s proximityto death (ideological factors are a secondary measure-ment), the quality of drugs used to normalize behavior ismeasured by the patient’s willingness to conform to social

4Buying Time

for the Flesh Machine:Pharmacology and Social Order

78 Flesh Machine

imperatives and the patient’s ability to integrate he/rselfinto specific social contexts beneficial to the given politi-cal economy. Within the context of pancapitalism, thegeneral social imperatives inscribed on the individual arethose of production, consumption, and order under theguiding metaprinciple of efficiency. When individualsbreak from these imperatives by taking up disruptivebehavior that is beyond the norm, but is still perceived asmanageable, biochemical intervention becomes a viable,simple, and profitable option for ideological re-inscrip-tion. The drugs used for this purpose primarily function asa means of social control, and they maintain a socialenvironment that is valued above and beyond the physi-cal, mental, or spiritual well-being of the individual.

The problem with such biochemical interventions is thatthey are not a very efficient means of ideological re-inscription. Too often, the drugs used have side effects thatare as counterproductive as the behavior they seek toeliminate. This situation may change as researchers learnmore about biochemistry, but biochemical intervention isnot the most desirable from the perspective ofpancapitalism. Interventionist drugs, being merely symp-tom managers, do not function preventively, and theirgreat fiscal value is offset by their modest value as behav-ioral control mechanisms. The answer to this problem is toeliminate any biological cause for “anti-social” behaviorby ideologically designing and engineering the flesh. Thisgoal is among the key mandates of the flesh machine.Unfortunately, the flesh machine is at present too imma-ture to implement practical strategies in this biologicalarena, and hence cannot meet this goal. Until it canprepare strategies of flesh intervention that reduce deviant

Buying Time for the Flesh Machine: Pharmacology and Social Order 79

behavior, social control drugs can be used temporarily toreinforce the prison walls of social imperatives andnormative behavior. This is not to say that drugs for thepurpose of social control will completely disappear whenthe flesh machine matures; it is only to say that bio-chemical intervention will be minimized in the future.Social control drugs will always have a place in reform-ing or eliminating deviant behavior that is primarilycaused by cultural conditions, and to enhance norma-tive behavior (smart drugs).

Neutralizing Emotion

Most antidepressants and mood stabilizers are designed for peoplewho are still socially functional and reasonably well inte-grated into their social systems. The problem with thesepeople is that their mood swings can disrupt the spaces ofproduction and consumption. Efficient work requires sta-bilized, rational, instrumental behavior. Behaviors whichfall outside of these parameters are considered undesirableand disruptive. Excessive emotion that does not originatewithin the process of work itself decreases a worker’soutput. This would not be so bad if it were self-contained;unfortunately, work is generally a group process. Whenexcessive emotion affects a worker so much that it mani-fests itself in behavior, it initiates a social current that hasa detrimental effect on the other workers, both in terms ofmorale and behavior. Consequently, interventionist prac-tices become necessary. Antidepressants and moodstabilizers arrest the behavioral symptoms of excessiveemotion. While they do not necessarily help the indi-vidual using them find peace of mind, they do tend to

80 Flesh Machine

function well by stopping the individual from becoming acatalyst for detrimental social currents in the space ofproduction.1

The downside of this strategy is that chemical interven-tion of this class cannot be too widespread, since themanufacture of desire requires an affective response fromits target populations. How could store displays, impulseracks, product advertisements, political advertisements,architectural designs, and other manifestations of manu-factured desire possibly function if the population wereemotionally neutral? Unlike the environment of produc-tion, where stable, rational, and instrumental action isrequired, the environment of excess consumption requiresunstable, nonrational, and affective action. Without it,consumers could not be convinced to buy that which theydo not really need (preferably with the money that theyhave yet to earn). The product providers must establish anemotional-based pleasure switch in consumers that can beactivated by spectacular means. Mood-stabilizing drugsconfound the strategies to do this, so—ironically enough—movement away from such chemicals is also desirable,when placed in the context of consumption. Mood stabi-lizers place capital in the awkward position of using a socialcontrol strategy that negates itself as it moves from thecontext of production to consumption.

Children’s Pathologies

Two common pathologies believed to cause behavior problemsin children are Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) andHyperactivity. The former has recently been recognized as


an affliction which also affects adults, but medical interestin the disorder is still centered on children. One mustwonder why it is so important to diagnose and manage thisailment in children, and why it is less important to do soin adults. The answer is primarily cultural. Once childrenleave the confines of domestic space, and are shuttled offto their first institutional environment (school), a newlevel of socialization begins. The education system accel-erates the process of teaching the child that there is ahierarchical social order, that it is meticulously rule-laden,and that these rules must be followed. When it functionsas intended, mass socialization teaches the child obedi-ence to authority, acceptance of the instrumentalfragmentation of time, the importance of repetitive labor,and a tolerance for boredom simply by repeatedly placingthe child within the bureaucratic context day after day.These social fundamentals set the context in which thechild learns verbal and analytic skills. If this process issuccessfully completed, the young adult will be adequatelyprepared to begin work as a low-level bureaucrat, or as asemi-skilled or skilled laborer. Others who excel in verbalor analytic skills can move on to further education andtrain for a place in managerial, professional, or high-leveltechnocratic work. Those who are for any reason unable tocope with any part of the system are cast adrift.

The process of forcing out the incapable (whether theincapacity is due to physical, psychological, sociological,or economic reasons) takes time. Until it becomes clearwhich students are unable to “adapt” to the process, all areserved to insure that both the work force itself and theideological conditions for an efficient work force are con-tinually replicated. Given the significance of this general

82 Flesh Machine

process, one which the adult transcends by entering a morespecialized field, it is little wonder that behavior whichdisrupts the replication of the primary educational impera-tives will not be tolerated. Children must know that theymust be at certain places at certain times engaging inspecific tasks. They must know that they must focustheir attention on work, no matter how boring, whenthey are told to do so. They must know that they mustrecognize and obey those who are of a higher rank. Andif they do not, bureaucratic officials can only concludethat they are mentally ill or incapable (resistance toinstrumental consciousness is rarely viewed as a sign ofintelligence). For those who are found to be mentally ill(in this case suffering from ADD or hyperactivity),biochemical intervention is a necessity. Like the workeron antidepressants, the child treated with drugs canbetter integrate he/rself into the social environment,but these drugs will ensure that the teacher’s work is notinterrupted by the child, and that the other children’ssocialization process is not disrupted. After all, what useis a child who resists the given social order? What needis there for a child who would rather drift into the realmof the imagination instead of doing he/r boring assign-ment, or a child who would rather engage the emergentpossibilities of play than engage the overdeterminedstructure of work? Such children are not only disrup-tive, but potentially serve as damaging role models forother children, since they represent the beginnings of aformation of resistant thinking and activity. Unfortu-nately, educators who see a significant place for suchchildren and reject interventionist drug practices gearedtoward maintaining the status quo of the bureaucraticenvironment are marginalized as radical pedagogues.


An ailment like ADD, or any other anti-work disorder, isseldom diagnosed in the adult environment, because it isnot needed. Since it is assumed that an adult’s socializationprocess is complete, and hence the punishment for poorproduction is known (dismissal from duty), the option ofbiochemical intervention need only be suggested. Em-ployers expect that adults will acquiesce out of conditionedfear. However, if the socialization process has really workedeffectively, adults will volunteer for intervention as soonas they realize that production is dropping.

Relieving Anxiety and Stress

Like antidepressants, anxiety and stress relievers are designedprimarily for those who are still functioning adequately intheir social environments. In fact, for these drugs to beprofitable, individuals must be competent enough to real-ize that their mental/physical condition is not suitable fora particular social environment, and at least have modestknowledge of how and where to “get help.” Since anxietyand stress disorders are so common in everyday life, consid-erable research and development has been done to improvethe products for this mass market. The members of thisclass of interventionist drugs have been refined to mini-mize addictive characteristics, and to eliminate recreationaland other noninstrumental characteristics. Unlike in the50s and 60s when powerful and potentially addictingdrugs, like Seconol, could be prescribed for various stressdisorders, physicians now prescribe less powerful drugssuch as Ativan or Xanax. These drugs have less euphoricor stupefying effects than their predecessors while main-taining the desired effects on the individual, and hence are

84 Flesh Machine

perceived as improvements over their predecessors. Incases where drugs could not be cleansed of their recre-ational characteristics, nor be redeployed in specializedmedical markets, they were simply made illegal (meth-aqualone for example). The result is an array of productsthat will maintain the mass market for stress relief, whileminimizing unacceptable side effects.

Indeed such a market for pharmaceuticals is currentlymore profitable than ever. In the US, as work intensifies,the workday grows longer, and real wages dramaticallydecrease, stress levels rise. The stress effect is doubled inthe economy of excess: Individuals not only worry aboutsurvival, but are taught to fear losing the goods which theyhave accumulated. The pancapitalist medical establish-ment has responded to this social development by offeringtheir services as mental mechanics to keep unstable bodiesperforming at peak levels. Managed drug intervention is aprimary tactic used to accomplish this task. Even corpora-tions have begun to respond by offering their employeesaccess to exercise classes and gymnasiums, and a rare fewoffer access to on-the-clock tactical meditation, hypnosis,and rest. The important factor here is that the body isperceived as the culprit in need of normalization, becauseit is failing to adequately adapt to its environment. How-ever, since the environment in which pathologicallystressful conditions occur is intentionally designed toexceed human potential, the real culprit causing bodilydisruption is the social situation in which the individualfinds he/rself trapped. As to be expected, few attempts aremade to correct the pathological conditions which causeindividuals to work themselves into sickness, and therebyplace themselves in need of drug intervention. Quite the


opposite—environmental conditions in the space of pro-duction and service are becoming more detrimental tohuman well-being, and the responsibility for maintainingone’s body in this hostile environment is being placedsquarely on the individual.

Here the mandate of the flesh machine is to engineer thebody in a manner that increases its ability to more readilyadapt to cultural conditions that have transcended humanbiology. On the one hand, the flesh machine must selectcharacteristics that will increase production/service, suchas increased concentration and stamina, while on theother hand, it must eliminate stress mechanisms (sincefight or flight behaviors are becoming less necessary incomplex culture, the biological mechanisms which pro-duce them are perceived by some power vectors as havingoutlived their use). The flesh machine must accomplishthis task at a rate that at least parallels other pancapitalistdemands on the body, demands that cannot be solvedthrough technological intervention. The ebb and flow ofdrugs used to bring the body up to standard will depend onsuch developments. The further the flesh machine isbehind pancapitalist demands, the greater the use of suchdrugs (given the mass deployment of stress relievers, it isobvious that the flesh machine has a lot of work left to do).If the flesh machine meets its goal or surpasses it, use ofdrugs such as these will decrease or even disappear.

Smart Drugs

This class of drugs often complements the use of antidepressantsand stress relievers. In the best-case scenario, they consist

86 Flesh Machine

of nutritional supplements and “natural” medicines whichare supposed to enhance memory, stamina, immune sys-tems, and general health. These drugs tend to benefit boththe individual and the social system. They pick up wheredrugs such as stress relievers stop. Rather than bringing thebody back to normality, they push the body intosupernormality. For consumers, the downside of this cat-egory of smart drugs is that their high level of socialacceptance creates profitability, which causes a tremen-dous array of questionable products to appear on themarket. Some of these products seem to offer nothing morethan a placebo effect (such as the claim that melatonin canreset the biological clock or that ginseng improves sexualperformance), while others encourage very profitable use-less excess (such as megadoses of vitamins that the body isunable to process). Such corporate cons are bound toparallel any product trend, but what is most interesting isthat the desire for smart drugs, which has been manufac-tured through spectacle to further develop this market, hasthe potential of expanding their domain, increasing theintersection of smart drugs with other varieties of drugs. Interms of drugs used for body enhancement, those which aredeveloped for medical purposes (to restore normality) andfor recreational purposes can be used for “smart” purposes.

When smart drugs are used in this manner, they indicatea victory for pancapitalist socialization, since they are notbeing used to regulate the maladapted body, and areinstead being used to give an individual an “edge” withinthe space of production/service, indicating an extremeconformity to imperatives of production. The list of possi-bilities extends from everyday life chemical intervention,like excessive coffee consumption, to illicit and at times


counterproductive drugs such as methedrine and cocaine.When used in proper doses, these drugs allow the indi-vidual to work longer and harder due to artificialstimulation. Unfortunately, prolonged use of high-pow-ered drugs in everyday life leads to a point of diminishingreturns, and finally to counterproduction. This potentialproblem, combined with a lack of authoritative supervi-sion in the consumption of these substances, places themin a unacceptable category from the perspective ofpancapitalist power vectors. However, by submitting toand paying for proper supervision, alternative high-pow-ered drugs can be obtained. The most notable example ofthe use of social control drugs for body enhancement is theemergence of the “Prozac advantage” among professionaland managerial classes. Prozac is among the most com-monly prescribed antidepressants. For example, in 1993 inthe US, 650,000 prescriptions per month were written forpatients. (It is difficult to say how many were actually inneed of the drug as a means to cope with physicallygenerated depression or to cope with pathological socialconditions, as opposed to those using it for its smartqualities. It should also be noted that any skewing of thisstatistic toward the middle class is primarily indicative ofinequitable distribution of health care.) Given the ex-tremely wide availability of this drug, there are, at the veryleast, anecdotal cases of the adapted body searching forregulated flesh enhancers that catapult the user into arti-ficially accelerated instrumental action.

Smart drugs aside, the drastic deployment of social controldrugs in general indicates a growing intensity in thepathology of social space, from the domestic to the produc-tive. At the same time, it must be noted that a trend toward

88 Flesh Machine

social acceptance of the psychological/psychiatric indus-try as a necessary part of postindustrial life has paralleledthis deployment. Indeed, the growth and empowerment ofmedical authority and its industries is currently a structuralsocial necessity, somewhat akin to the structural need inearly capital to construct a massive bureaucratic class outof the displaced agrarian class. As late capital has maturedinto pancapitalism, all possible measures must be taken toresituate “significant” people in constantly and rapidlychanging conditions as quickly as possible. Smart drugswill obviously help in this endeavor. Whenever cyborgtechnology fails to meet social demands for body enhance-ment, biochemical intervention will function as a keysupplement—particularly in maintaining and enhancinginterior ideological inscription.

Steroids

In addition to drugs for mental/behavioral social control arethose which enhance the presentation of the body ineveryday life. Steroids are an unusual example, becausetheir use went through a significant transition during the70s and 80s. Steroids were originally and primarily task-oriented drugs which were used by athletes training toreach peak bodily performance. For sports which requiredinordinate amounts of bulk, strength, and stamina, ste-roids were a means to accelerate and enhance the trainingprocess. Unfortunately, they rapidly showed themselves tohave side effects that did not necessarily aid in accomplish-ing the goal at hand. The primary problem was thatsteroids produced psychological and behavioral effects(such as uncontrollable aggression) that were less than


“sportspersonlike.” As the use of steroids progressed, thedrug began to show serious signs of diminishing returns forthe physical body in the form of organ decay. Even withoutlong-term studies on the detrimental effects of steroids, theshort-term evidence of physical catastrophe was so over-whelming that steps were taken to eliminate steroid useamong those participating in spectacular sports, from theschoolyard to the stadiums. Spectacle had turned againstitself, as sports fans watched their heroes die at an early agein exchange for a successful but brief sports career. Thesituation was rapidly corrected by introducing mandatorydrug testing for athletes in institutionally sponsored sports.

Steroids thus became black market drugs. While they stillwere used as task-oriented body enhancers, this functionfell back into a secondary position. The former secondarycharacteristic rose to the primary position—it was now adrug of body spectacle. Since those who were using thedrugs could not compete in organized sports, steroidsbecame a drug for beach-side body builders, and those whodesired a sharply cut body. The spectacle of health andvitality (and to some, sexuality) signified by ripplingmuscles, washboard stomach, and a fat-free body is toodeeply etched in culture in the US to eliminate steroid useamong elements of the athletic star wannabes, and thosewho simply wanted to look “perfect.” The last holdout ofthe seemingly task-oriented user is in professional wres-tling. Ironically, in professional wrestling, there is no taskto accomplish, as the matches are predetermined; how-ever, if an individual desires a career in this theater of flesh,the bodily spectacle must fit perfectly with the designerconception of how a wrestler should look. Task and spec-tacle implode in a lovely Hollywood moment.

90 Flesh Machine

Sacrifices via steroids will be short-lived in the wake of theflesh machine. Disappearing along with the drama of bio-chemical human sacrifice for the sake of spectacle will besteroids themselves. As flesh products continue to expand,and genetic engineering services become more precise,designing a organic mirror of the spectacularized body, ordesigning a body predisposed for a certain task will be aseasy as taking steroids, although the designer body will bechosen for the individual rather than by the individual.

Weight Loss Drugs

Like steroids, drugs used to induce weight loss have taken radicalturns in their development. In the 50s and 60s it was notunusual for individuals to go to physicians and requestchemical intervention for the purpose of weight reduc-tion. (Women, of course, were the primary candidates forsuch treatment). During this period amphetamines wereoften prescribed. Needless to say, they worked very well tosatisfy the desire for weight loss, and even helped to boostproduction in a variety of social spaces. Unfortunately, theconsequences of prolonged use were so negative that thistype of medical intervention ceased to be a commonpractice. Medical intervention for weight reduction wasthen redirected toward cases of extreme obesity, and othernonpharmaceutical strategies of intervention were pur-sued. However, the legacy of this period continued in theform of a booming over-the-counter weight loss industry.

By the 70s all the necessary ideological factors were inplace for a successful diet industry. Obesity was conclu-sively linked to a variety of physical pathologies, so if one


wanted and valued a longer, healthier life, excessive weighthad to be eliminated. In conjunction with this medicalimperative came new aestheticized notions about thebody. The body beautiful was linked to the absence of fat.Media spectacle relentlessly presented the normalized,attractive body as slim and agile, to the point that the rateof pathologies (anorexia and bulimia) associated withweight loss dramatically increased. In conjunction, thebody beautiful was presented in an environment of mate-rial abundance, thus indicating a mythic correlationbetween a sleek figure and wealth. The legacy of theamphetamine diet clicked perfectly with this situation.Consumers wanted an easy method of intervention forweight loss like the ones that had existed in the past.Unfortunately they could no longer turn to medicine,which in turn left a substantial void in this market ofdesire. Corporations ran to fill the void with a variety ofweight loss supplements, thus creating a multimilliondollar industry. The problem was that these supplementswere just that, only supplements—a modest addition to astrict diet. Controlled caloric intake and exercise are theonly certain means of losing weight, and that methodreally needs no supplement. In addition, obesity correlatesvery strongly with genetic predisposition, and one can besure that no pill will change that. The diet industry, withits array of useless products, is among the greatest marketcons perpetrated on the public in this century.

While the profits from body presentation drugs are avaluable contribution to the economy of excess, the ideo-logical contribution of its spectacle is priceless. The dietindustry and its allies (the cosmetic and hygiene indus-tries) have managed to redefine bodily beauty as a series of

92 Flesh Machine

culturally constructed ideal types. Through exposure tothe spectacular deployment of these representations, alarge segment of the population has been convinced thatthe ideal types are replications of material reality, andhence represent normalized physical bodies. In order tolive up to these impossible standards of aestheticizednormality, consumers must purchase goods and services tosupplement their defective, underaestheticized bodies. Bodypresentation supplements are provided to meet any bud-get, so everyone with an income can participate in theprocess of bringing the body up to code. In this case, theterritory must conform to the map. In turn, this imperativewill act as the foundation for both current and future goodsand services provided by the flesh machine.

Pain Control

Drugs for pain control are among the most common medicationsused in everyday life. The market for over-the-counterpain relievers is of staggering size, and the market logic fordrugs which arrest modest pain fits perfectly with theimperative of body normalization; however, the logic ofdrugs used for extreme pain control is very fuzzy. Certainlythis category of drugs (narcotics and analgesics) resists theprocess of rationalization in that it cannot be easily cor-ralled within the limits of instrumentalism. Typically, theuser is provided with pain relievers under the carefulsupervision of medical authority. Pain killers are used tonormalize the body by eliminating intense pain so injuredpersons can rest during a post-trauma healing process, sothey may be somewhat comfortable during a terminalillness, or so they can avoid physical debilitation and

94 Flesh Machine

maintain normal productivity. When used in these con-texts, pain killers seem to benefit both the user and thesocial system. They work for the individual by minimizingan unpleasant and often totalizing factor of experience,and at times to aid the healing process. They work onbehalf of the social system in the best-case scenario byallowing an individual to maintain social functionality. Inthe worst-case scenario, they work by stopping an exces-sive flow of empathy from those who are intimate with thesufferer, and by stopping behaviors that may disturb thosewho share a common physical space with the user. Forexample, if a patient is convalescing in a hospital and is ingreat pain, no one (visitors, medical staff, roommates, etc.)wants to hear this person screaming in agony. Such behav-ior is debilitating in every sense for all who are withinhearing, and hence steps will be taken to neutralize theactivity.

The problem with pain killers is that they do not justneutralize pain—they also produce pleasure and euphoriain the user, and this is what makes them socially trouble-some. Pleasure negates some of the socially valuable qualitiesof pain killers. For those who must use pain killers tomaintain productivity, the contentment brought about bythe drug is likely to negate productivity by removing anindividual’s motivation to work. Also, pain killers of thisclass set a very dangerous precedent because they do morethan normalize the body: They give the user the addedbonus of temporary contentment. The worry here is not somuch the Christian fear of pleasure and belief in thecleansing qualities of pain, but fear of what might occur ifa consumer actually got a taste of satisfied desire (addictionis one common consequence, objectionable because it


removes the user from market-driven diversified con-sumption). The problem is doubled when power vectorsrealize that users obtained pleasure that was neitherintended nor paid for. The medical response to theseproblems has been to relieve the pain only enough tomake it barely tolerable. This policy clearly indicatesthat medical intervention for pain favors the demands ofthe social system far more than it favors those of theindividual. (It should also be noted that this situationheavily intersects imperatives framing the “war on drugs”).

In the US, the resistance to aggressive pain manage-ment, an unthinkable result of the need to perpetuatepancapitalist ideological imperatives, has reached suchsad proportions that individuals commit suicide ratherthan face the medical withholding of pain treatment.Part of the reason for the current legal debate over anindividual’s right to die stems from this very problem.Not even the flesh machine can imagine how to solvethis conundrum. It can supplement the medical policyof minimizing the arrest of pain by attempting to de-velop individuals with higher tolerance for pain, but itcannot make the pain/body problem go away. Unlike itscontrol of stress mechanisms, it cannot eliminate oreven reduce pain sensors in the body, since they arenecessary for an individual’s survival, and because thephysical ability to feel is a sense around which capitalhas produced a massive variety of products. Most un-thinkable of all would be to allow the individual tocontrol he/r own endorphin supply; this would lead tocertain and extreme counterproduction. In terms ofsocial control, a self-regulating endorphin mechanismdesigned by the flesh machine is a possible option, but

96 Flesh Machine

the consequences would be the elimination of the fiscalstructure of pain products and services already in place.The pharmaceutical industry would fight to stop imple-mentation of such a policy, and most capitalist agencieswould realize that the financial loss to the generaleconomy would not be worth the social control thiswould provide.

The fate of drugs used for bodily/behavioral normalization isuncertain as the flesh machine continues to mature. Itseems that such use of drugs will diminish in signifi-cance as power vectors become more adept at designingbodies that are predisposed to normative behavior. Inmatters of normative social activity, prevention of de-viance is always a superior strategy to arrest andcontainment of deviant persons. However, even pre-vention has its imperfections, and culture itself offersmany paths of deviation that cannot be controlled bybiological means. To complicate matters further, socialconditions are changing at such a fast rate that neitherhumans nor flesh technologies can keep up with envi-ronmental demands. Since lag time for bodily adjustmentto new conditions is economically unacceptable underthe metaprinciple of efficiency, other means must befound to rapidly bring the body up to code. For thesereasons, biochemical intervention by medical authoritywill remain a significant control strategy, and one canexpect that the flesh machine will maintain a researchwing dedicated to improving pharmaceuticals designedfor social control.


Notes

1 The primary exception to this scenario is mania, as longas it is directed toward accepted social goals. The exces-sively energized subject, when focused on production, canoften produce higher quality products than his normalizedpeers, and hence is not a candidate for biochemical inter-vention. However, the minute the mania becomesnonproductive, or manifests itself as consumption in amanner beyond the subject’s financial status, interventionis almost assured.

As Above, [So Below]*Faith Wilding

Confession

I desired to have full fruition of my Beloved, and to understandand taste him to the full. I desired that his Humanityshould to the fullest extent be one in fruition with myhumanity, and that mine then should hold its stand and bestrong enough to enter into perfection until I content him,who is perfection itself....To that end I wished he mightcontent me interiorly with his Godhead, in one spirit,without withholding anything from me.... For that is the

[As Above], So BelowCritical Art Ensemble

Confession

More than anything in this world, I wanted to have a child. Mygynecologist had always told me that I would never be ableto conceive a child by natural means due to blockedfallopian tubes. She suggested adoption to me, but alsosuggested that if I was prepared financially, and psychologi-

*This article was originally published in Left Curve, No. 21.

5

100 Flesh Machine

most perfect satisfaction: to grow up in order to be Godwith God.... In this sense I desired that God give himselfto me, so that I might content him....Then it was to me asif we were one without difference. So can the Beloved,with the loved one, each wholly receive the other in all fullsatisfaction of the sight, the hearing, and the passing awayof the one in the other. After that I remained in a passingaway in my Beloved, so that I wholly melted away in himand nothing any longer remained to me of myself; and I waschanged and taken up in the spirit.

(Hadewijch of Brabant, “Visions,” c. l200s)

cally prepared for potential disappointment, I could possi-bly have my own child given proper medical assistance. Iwas prepared to do anything, and I did. The process wasgrueling both psychologically and physically, and the worstpart was the harvesting of my eggs and their subsequentimplantation. These procedures were as invasive as theywere uncomfortable—all variety of surgical instrumentscutting, puncturing, sucking, and sliding around my pelvicand vaginal regions. To stay sane, I just kept repeating tomyself, “You are going to have a baby.” At the end of theprocess, I cannot describe the excitement, pleasure, andrelief when my doctor appeared before me in a glowing whitelab coat and said, “You’re pregnant.” Life was inside of me.

(Anonymous, c. 1990s)

As Above, [So Below] 101

The Paradox of Creation: Temptation and Salvation

Medieval body maps reflect Christian beliefs about the humanbody as a microcosm of the macrocosm—the attunementof each organ to a heavenly body, of each bodily fluid to anearthly element. Medieval medical practice was largelybased on the idea of homeopathy, that like cures like, andof correspondences: As above, so below. Though muchhomeopathic practice was based on ancient (pagan) sourcesof herbal knowledge, it was adapted to a Christian beliefsystem that placed the (souled) human being at the centerof God’s great world plan, and at the center of the cosmos.

Medieval theology had to grapple with paradoxical con-ceptions of sexuality, reproduction, and the relationshipbetween body and soul. On one hand, the body was

The Paradox of Reproduction

Capitalism has always had an ambivalent attitude toward theprocess of reproduction. On one hand, the economicsystem requires that labor and market populations beconsistently replenished. On the other hand, the sexualactivity associated with reproduction has been viewed asan unfortunate evil that can detract from the overallefficiency of the system—people engaged in sexual behav-iors are neither producing nor consuming; rather, they areexercising personal sovereignty which, ipso facto, iscounter-productive and confounds top-down hierarchies.This situation has led to a peculiar opposition in which theproduct is embraced but the process is rejected. Unfortu-nately, one requires the other, and the problem is doubled

102 Flesh Machine

regarded as a necessary evil which housed the soulduring its sojourn on earth. In this view, the lapsed bodyinherited from Adam’s fall is a site of temptation andsin; flesh is imperfect and decaying, and must be con-stantly monitored, controlled, and punished intosubmission and obedience. On the other hand, thehuman body was regarded as the pinnacle of God’screation; the body was a means of access to the divineand a means of salvation. As such, it exhibited theCreator’s gifts to Adam and Eve—beauty, the senses,and the marvelous powers of generation. These para-doxical readings of the body had to be continuallynegotiated by the Church which sought to control boththe believer’s body and soul, and to control humansexual relations through the sacrament of reproductive,heterosexual marriage.

because engaging the process does not necessarily yieldthe product. In turn, various secular attempts have beenmade by power vectors to streamline sexuality in orderto limit it to activities which have some benefit to thepolitical economy.

The primary strategy used by institutions of authority toeliminate sexuality beyond that needed for purposes ofreproduction is to label all other sexual practices as devi-ant, and thereby punishable socially and/or legally. Withone mighty blow, gay, lesbian, and all varieties of fetishistsexualities are eliminated from “public” acceptability.While such measures in no way stop individuals forciblyplaced in these categories from secretly or defiantly exer-cising their individual sovereignty, they serve as a reminder


The contradictory medieval conceptions of the body be-came particularly charged when they were applied totheories and images of sexuality and reproduction. CarolineWalker Bynum has pointed out that medieval body imagesexhibit a preoccupation with fertility and decay. TheChurch fathers needed to naturalize the idea of sexualityfor reproductive purposes only, and to reinforce mother-hood as a redemptive state for women. The figure of Marywas constructed to support this ideology. Modeled partlyafter desirable characteristics of local pagan goddesses, andpartly constructed to accord with programs of religiousbody control, the image of Mary represents paradoxicaland miraculous qualities. She is a virgin, yet fertile;mother of a divine son with whom she is also joined inmystic marriage; and she is an intercessor between heavenand earth. Mary was associated with mother, vessel, and

that participation in any activity not compliant withcapitalist imperatives will bring punishment(s) from whichthere is no escape.

To intensify the situation, even straight heterosexual-ity is in a continuous process of streamlining. Themethods employed by the capitalist power vectors againstindividuals vary in accordance with the person’s classposition. These methods are most visible in the US—theavant-garde culture of pancapitalist authoritarianism.For the underclass, punishment is aimed almost exclu-sively at women. The domestic labor required to producea work force socially engineered to maintain a popula-tion intended for low-end service work and/or as areserve labor army is not considered labor that should be

104 Flesh Machine

willing womb—characteristics and qualities that all womenof the time were expected to emulate. According to Catholicdogma, as a reward for her virtue, Mary was never subjectto decay and she was physically taken into heaven. ThusMary was reconfigured to fit the Church’s strategy tocontrol the female reproductive process, while preservingthe idea of the body as the site of purity and salvation.

The figure of Mary was always contrasted with the figure ofEve, who represented the body as a site of temptation andsexual pleasure. God punished Eve’s sexual pleasure byafflicting women with painful childbirth, and by subjugat-ing women to their husband’s will in all matters. A womancould redeem her flesh only by becoming a mother inChurch-sanctioned heterosexual marriage, or through celi-bate asceticism, in which the body was renounced with the

rewarded; rather, population production is punished inpart due to its association with sexuality. In spite of thefact that having sex can yield a functional product,underclass women in the US are now increasingly beingdenied government subsidies for the necessary popula-tion production they contribute to the economy. Sexualpleasure is covertly taxed, and underclass women paythe tax by giving their domestic labor to the state free ofcharge. The current welfare reform acts intensify thesituation by doubling the labor demands on underclasswomen. Not only must they pay their sexuality tax, buttypically, they must also work in the service economy atjobs that pay wages below what is necessary to maintainthe domestic labor space in which they are enslaved.

106 Flesh Machine

exception of its use to perform good works. The reward forbringing the flesh into spiritual submission was salvationin a heavenly life hereafter. It took rigorous institutionaldiscipline and the creation of a mythology of self-sacrificeto naturalize the idea of separating sexual pleasure fromreproduction.

Compulsory motherhood as a means of salvation, and asthe only sanctioned way to experience sexuality, wenthand in hand with a profound change in the developmentof medical practice in the Middle Ages. From the 5th tothe 13th century, the Church consistently scorned secularintervention in bodily processes; during that time thepeasant classes were often treated by women lay healers,herbalists, and midwives, while priests ministered to roy-alty and the aristocracy. In the l3th century—just as the

For the middle class, the situation is very different sincewages are generally high enough to subsidize householdmaintenance. Middle class individuals in the US (what-ever their sexual preferences) are threatened by civil law.For example, sexual harassment initiatives in the workplace are a tremendous aid to capitalist institutions ineliminating disruptive sexual expressions in the space ofproduction. Since any unwanted sexual expression could begrounds for a civil suit that could cost the perpetrator he/rjob and potentially all the wealth s/he has accumulatedover he/r years of work, the only survival technique open toindividuals is to repress themselves and behave as asexuallyas possible. To be sure, for capitalist agencies the sexualharassment initiative is a gift from heaven that helps toinsure that all employees will engage only in rational and


cult of the Virgin Mary was reaching its zenith—univer-sity-trained male doctors began to turn medicine into aquasi-scientific profession from which women were com-pletely banned, causing the loss of their extensive practicalexperience with and knowledge of the body. Thoughwomen still continued to act as midwives and herbalists forcenturies thereafter, they were often condemned as witchesand put to death for doing so. Thus dual controls, religiousand secular, were put in place to ensure that like Mary,women would remain passive and compliant in theirrelationship to the body.

Even so, compulsory marriage and motherhood seemed aless desirable choice for a minority of women. This wasespecially true of literate women from the upper echelon ofsociety who entered celibate female communities such as

instrumental activity throughout the working day. Thissituation is doubled with the emergence of victim-drivenharassment policies. Here, any sexual behavior an indi-vidual witnesses that could be construed as “offensive” mustbe reported to harassment investigators (literally, bureau-cratic sex police) on the premises. Failure to report whatcould be construed as an act of harassment leaves onepotentially liable in the event of a civil lawsuit. In this case,one does not have to be the “victim” or the “perpetrator,”s/he only has to witness a sexual expression to be involved inthe legal process. This way all employees in institutions witha victim-driven policy are coerced into becoming sex police.

Where then is sexual expression acceptable? It is alive andwell in the spectacle. An individual can watch all the

108 Flesh Machine

convents or Beguinages. These communities were open toall, so on rare occasions, women of the peasant classes werealso accepted into the communities. Some of the women,who practiced extreme voluntary asceticism, holy fasting,and mortification of the flesh as a means to resist compul-sory motherhood, presented the Church fathers with adilemma. On the one hand, in acquiescence to Churchdogma, holy women renounced secular human sexualexperience as the Church required of those who desired tosave themselves from the sins of Eve. On the other hand,these women escaped the instrumentality of reproductionand used their bodies as a means to individual sovereigntyand social power. In a truly homeopathic reversal, the bodywas reformatted as a site for autonomy. The flesh wasexplored as a means to freedom through sensual pres-ence—female mystics physically embraced God in the

Hollywood passion s/he wants, or s/he can have all thecybersex s/he desires. As long as sex is out of the materialworld, and safely on the screen where it becomes an objectof consumption or an object to motivate consumption, itgenerally stays within the bounds of public acceptability.Sex must not be an act of direct participation; it can onlybe passively witnessed during leisure hours, if an indi-vidual wishes to escape punishment. Hence, individualsof the middle class are caught between spectacularsexuality or state-sanctioned monogamous heterosexu-ality. By accepting the latter option, individuals arerewarded with relative tolerance of their private, uselesssexuality. For the underclass, the situation is worse, asmembers of this class are limited to spectacular sexual-ity, because engaging heterosexuality only serves to


ensouled flesh of His decaying creations by tasting thewounds of lepers and the vomit of the sick, and in feelingthe pain of their own emaciated bodies. Decaying flesh wastransubstantiated in the holy fire of the mystic’s desire toindependently commune with God. These powerful (albeitrare) acts of spiritual rebellion were a theological knot thatthe Church patriarchy was at a loss to untie.

Flesh Redeemed: Separating Sin and Creation

In separating sexual pleasure (sin) from reproductive creation,the relationship of matter and spirit (body and soul) had tobe articulated, and a means of mediating the two ordershad to be created. In order to redeem sinful flesh, Christhad to become flesh in a redemptive act of creation—a

increase the probability of enslavement to the forcesand spaces of production.

Flesh Redeemed:Separating Sexuality and Reproduction

While pancapitalism’s Orwellian anti-sex campaign is certainlya success, it can always be improved. Improvement is partlymeasured by the degree to which sexuality and reproduc-tion are separated. Once separation becomes a legitimizedand accepted element of everyday life, totalized intoler-ance of sexuality can be initiated in the middle class. Thefirst experiments in the practical separation of sexualityand reproduction are currently underway. (Sexuality and

110 Flesh Machine

homeopathic strategy. In a structure of correspondence, hebecame the new Adam and perfected human matter throughhis birth, death, and resurrection. Mary, as the repro-grammed Eve—the pure vessel, fruitful though not taintedby human fertilization—had the special task of redeemingfemale bodies, especially the organs of sexual reproduction(materia mater). Christ was a virtually conceived embryothat became both human and immortal (resurrected)flesh. Mary was the ethereal flesh machine (the hardware),who interfaced with God (the programmer) through thedisembodied Word transmitted by the bodiless angelGabriel (software). In terms of a reproductive narrative,this is an example of the creation of perfect flesh producedwith perfect efficiency: no wasted sperm, no ovulationproblems, no failed implantations or blocked fallopiantubes, and no repeated attempts at conception. As noted

reproduction have long since been separated symbolicallyby the division between psychology and biology). Byobtaining volunteers for this flesh experiment from poolsof individuals intent on having children of their own, butwho are unable to do so without medical intervention,medical science hopes to demonstrate that a “better baby”(one better adapted to the imperatives of pancapitalism)can be produced through rationalized intervention. Oncesuch a demonstration occurs, there are empirical groundsfor the argument that medical mediation of the totalprocess of reproduction is both desirable and necessary.The promise of a “fitter” child can act as a spectacularresource to convince those members of the middle classnot in need of medical intervention to reproduce thatseparating sexuality from reproduction is beneficial to

112 Flesh Machine

above, after incorporating and giving birth to divinity,Mary’s body too became metaflesh which did not die ordecay as sinful flesh does, and was taken into heaven foreternity.

The Church understood the need for providing inspira-tional and concrete representations of the mysteries ofdivine creation. The narrative of Mary’s miraculous con-ception and virgin birth was encoded in increasinglyhyperbolic and beautiful images which served as exemplaryand devotional guides for an illiterate lay population. Inparticular, the great medieval cathedrals dedicated toMary—such as Chartres, Notre Dame, and Autun—pro-vided ecstatic sensual environments in which soaringarchitecture, glowing rose windows, colored frescoes, or-nate shrines bedecked with jewels and gold leaf, and sublime

both parents and offspring. Rather than letting nature takeits course in reproduction, representatives of medical sci-ence are inserted as mediating efficiency experts. Hence,not only are sexuality and reproduction practically sepa-rated, but so are the parents. This way, reproduction betterconforms to the capitalist necessity of efficiency: Nouseless activity occurs in the reproductive process, and lessgenetic material is wasted. Excess genetic material isreconfigured into a substance for commodified process, asopposed to becoming one of nonrational potential. In thismanner, the reproductive process becomes practicallyreclassified as a purely medical process.

Since the market for rationalized reproduction hadalready been structurally established before the neces-


music exemplified the rewards of obedience, self-abnega-tion, and self-surrender.

By following Mary’s example and becoming obedient wombsin sanctioned marriages, women could aspire to transcen-dence and salvation. In essence, women passively sacrificedtheir subjectivity to the church-state. In the ecstatic sur-render of self to the divine order, the excess of sinfulsexuality was transformed into the excess of instrumentalreproduction. At the same time, the saints of this ordercould find solace in the knowledge that they were usingtheir bodies to further providence, rather than satisfyingtheir own selfish desires. The belief that they were producingnew Christian souls (soldiers) to populate the earth and carryout God’s plan for creation functioned to help many womenendure painful cycles of endless pregnancy and childbirth.

sary methods and technologies became available, theinitial volunteers for the rationalized reproductive ex-periments serve also to fund further investigation (aswell as providing products for spectacularization). Here,research actually generates profits, but the essentialelement in this experiment is currently not so muchprofits as market share. With “nature” functioning as aprime competitor, seducing people away from construc-tions of natural reproduction will be difficult. This iswhy the product itself and its spectacularization arecurrently more important than profits. If the middleclass is not persuaded to accept interventionist prac-tices, the experiment will stagnate, and the desiredpractical separation of reproduction and sexuality willnot be fully realized.

114 Flesh Machine

The mediation of the Church in this process was anextremely powerful instrument of enforcement, as well asan effective monitoring mechanism. If a woman did notproduce a child every year or so, she was answerable to herhusband, the priest, and ultimately the whole congrega-tion. Statues and shrines of the Virgin Mary often werecovered with the offerings and the messages of womenpraying for Her intervention in conception and child-birth. In surrendering themselves to the ecstasy ofdivinely-mediated reproduction, these saints were sus-tained by the vision of perfect flesh—the resurrectedflesh—which was from the beginning the reward promisedby Christianity to the devout. In the image of the resur-rected flesh, paradoxical aspects of the body are finallytranscended and resolved. Like the ecstatic mystic whosebody does not decay after death, the resurrected mother’s

Should the reproductive research wing of the flesh ma-chine fail in its project, the loss to pancapitalism as a wholewill be tremendous. The long desired production of aperson who uses he/r body solely for purposes of productionand consumption (and who is thereby perfectly orderly)will never occur. From the perspective of pancapitalism,nothing less than production of capitalist saints will do.The new Saints of the Pancapitalist Order will be those ofperfect flesh. From their genetic code to their culturalcode, they will reflect capitalist order and follow its com-mandments. They will sacrifice their minds and bodies toimprove and refine the pancapitalist order. The Saints ofthe Pancapitalist Order will know a different kind ofexcess—not one emerging from convivial sociability orerotic, convulsive pleasure, but one dictated by commun-


flesh will be gathered up with the community of Saints tobecome one perfect body in eternity. And for this ecstasyno sacrifice could be too harsh. Today, this pervasivereligious narrative of reproduction as a means of personalsalvation and transcendence still lies at the heart of thecompulsion for biological reproduction, even though thenarrative has become secularized, and the interventions ofscience have replaced those of divinity.

ion with the means of production and by localized proxim-ity to the commodity. The life of a Saint will be one of dutyand service to the bureaucratic and the technocraticagencies from which one has received he/r genetic andcultural design. To act against these agencies will be toturn against the Creator—a lost cause suited only for theunfit. All of this the Saints of the Pancapitalist Order willdo, and they will do it even if denied a reasonable share inthe profits of their production. The reward for their holi-ness is a higher probability of genetic survival—a promiseof life everlasting in which their redeemed flesh conquersthe limits of mortality by spreading its canonized codeacross space and time.

116 The Flesh Machine

Conclusion

The mythic structure separating sexuality from reproduction/creation has been fairly constant in the development ofWestern culture. The one major disruption is a directionalshift in the ultimate purpose. Currently, the dynamic ofthis separation is moving toward the material rather thanthe ethereal, toward the rational rather than thenonrational, and toward the visible rather than the invis-ible. However, what is truly interesting is not so much thedynamics of the situation, but the manner in which con-tingent elements are replaced within the general mythicstructure. The medieval vision of human corruption inneed of intervention has remained. The contingent ele-ments—the institution of intervention and the process bywhich successful intervention is obtained—have beentransformed. Rather than the Church, with its connectionto angelic saviors, acting as the institution of redemptionin regard to the sin of sexuality and the finitude of the flesh,the scientific/medical establishment, with its connectionto nature’s Code, has become the institution of mediationfor those who hope to achieve the grace of peacefulimmortality. If maximum access to the secrets and myster-ies of the Code is desirable, more is needed than faith in itsomnipresent being. Devotees must also complete the ex-pected round of works required of each individual. Worksare no longer those of rigorous prayer, engaging the sacra-ments, pilgrimages to sacred sites, self-flagellation, andasceticism; rather, they have become repetitive work,power breakfasts, daily commutes (physical or electronic),fitness training, and sexual self-suppression. The drivetoward immortality through successful reproduction ofperfect offspring requires eternal vigilance and constant

As Above, So Below 117

institutional and self-surveillance. While diligently en-gaging in daily works in no way guarantees access to theCode, it is the only chance for grace. Yet those who arefruitful in their endeavors and collect the necessary assetscan buy the desired access to the Code; this in turn, willassure their immortality. In spite of Luther’s reformation,indulgences are still the primary currency of salvation.

Eugenics never died after its failed implementation during theearly portion of the 20th Century. It has merely been lyingdormant until the social conditions for its deploymentwere more hospitable. Why would it disappear? Eugenics isa perfect complement to the capitalist political-economicimperative of authoritarian control through increasedrationalization of culture. Why should the body or thegene pool be sacrosanct? Like a city, a factory, or any otherconstruction of culture, these phenomena can be molded,enhanced, and directed to fit the dominant values of aculture, so that they might efficiently progress into thefuture. Eugenics, however, is still waiting on the margins ofthe social, partly because the first wave had a conspirato-

*Portions of this article were originally published in Coil, No. 4.

6Eugenics: The Second Wave*

120 Flesh Machine

rial aura about it. Once eugenics was associated withNazi social policy, it was perceived as a top-down mani-festation of social intervention and control that reflectedthe values of a fascist ruling class, and which negateddemocratic principles of choice. Eugenics is also stillwaiting in the wings because medical science did nothave the methods and technology to efficiently imple-ment eugenic policy during its first wave (eugenic policycould only be carried out by mandatory sterilization,selective breeding, and genocide). Not until medicalscience began to radically improve its interventionistpractices (particularly on the microlevel) after WorldWar II did all the various sectors of culture face a crisisconcerning the limits of organic intervention. Whilethe public could accept intervention in the process ofdying, intervention in the process of birth was suspect.To inscribe the body as a machinic system that could berepaired or maintained through medical and scientifictinkering was (and is) perfectly fine, as long as medicalscience does not attempt to appropriate the role ofcreator. For example, to biologically support the im-mune system through vaccinations that strengthen theorganic system can only be perceived as desirable andwell worth voluntarily acquiring in a secular society,while creating a new and improved immune systemthrough genetic intervention is not so desirable (at leastnot yet). The goals for eugenicists thus became finding away to import the spirit of voluntarism associated withinterventions designed to maintain life into those used tocreate it; and, discovering how to construct the perceptionthat the body, as a machinic system that can be repaired,maintained, and purified through medical intervention,can also be improved through genetic intervention.

Eugenics: The Second Wave 121

The eugenic visionary Frederick Osborn already had theanswer to these questions as early as the 1930s when he wasthe director of the Carnegie Institute. Osborn argued thatthe public would never accept eugenics under militarizeddirectives; rather, time must be allowed for eugenic con-sciousness to develop in the population. The populationwould have to come to eugenics rather than vice versa.Further, eugenic consciousness did not have to be aggres-sively and intentionally micro-manufactured; instead, itwould develop as an emergent property as capitalisteconomy increased in complexity. All that was needed wasto simply wait until a specific set of social structuresdeveloped to a point of dominance within capitalist cul-ture. Once these structures matured, people would acteugenically without a second thought. Eugenic activity,instead of being an immediately identifiable, monstrousactivity, would become one of the invisible taken-for-granted activities of everyday life (much like getting avaccination).

The set of social structures that Osborn believed had tobecome dominant were consumer economy and what isnow known as the nuclear family. To be sure, both of thesesocial tendencies have come to pass, and are providing thefoundation for a more clandestine second wave of eugenicpractice. Consumer economy is a necessary foundationalcomponent for two reasons. First, if the question of produc-tion is solved, and needed goods (water, food, shelter) aregenerally taken for granted, citizens of the economy ofsurplus accept all remaining legitimized goods and servicesas mere purchasable commodities to be chosen or refused.Health care is just another service to be acquired. Itbecomes neither an unexpected luxury, nor a human right,

122 Flesh Machine

but just another business component of the economy.Regular medical intervention in everyday life becomes adesirable taken-for-granted service. If eugenic practicesare offered as just another commodity under the legiti-mized authority of medical institutions, as Osborn predictedthey would, they too will be taken for granted.

The second foundational characteristic that consumereconomy offers is purchase strategies that are based ondesire. Consumer economy provides an unending streamof goods, such that a consumer can always desire more.While the wealthiest class can take full advantage of thesurplus, and wander into territories of profound waste,uselessness, and excess, the middle class is also offeredlimited participation. Participation in the rituals of surplusbecomes a status symbol, a marker of prestige, a goal-ladenvalue, if not the reason for existence itself. When thiseconomic situation develops in tandem with the rise of thenuclear family, the perception of reproduction begins tosignificantly change.

It is very clear that the extreme reduction of the family unitis a necessary development in late capitalist economy. Theextended family, which functions so well in agrarian-basedeconomies, becomes an anachronism in an economy witha capacity for industrial farming. The situation becomesworse when the extended family is placed in the context ofnational/global economy; then it actually stops function-ing efficiently from the perspective of power vectors, andbecomes a detriment to corporate goals. Allowing theextended family to continue offers individuals participat-ing in that institution a social and economic power basewhich gives them the opportunity to refuse corporate


culture. In addition, it creates a social process that has thepotential to be more satisfying than participation in con-sumption processes. Individual loyalty to an institution(i.e., the extended family) that potentially contradicts ornegates capitalist imperatives of production and consump-tion is simply not a possibility that can be allowed tocontinue. In an effort to eliminate this social possibility,capitalist economy has configured itself to make entranceto or maintenance of middle-class status dependent uponaccepting the nuclear family as the model of choice.People are financially rewarded for showing an alle-giance to participation in the production andconsumption processes, over and above participation inextended family processes.

The process of socializing individuals into nuclear unitsbegins with the education process. Children are immedi-ately taught that “success” in life depends on a division oflabor, and on separation from other family members; i.e.,the adults work, while the children train in school to enterthe workforce. At the end of secondary education, they arefully adjusted to the idea that it is time to leave home tojoin the workforce, or to attend university. In the US, thisprocess of separation begins almost immediately, becauseover the past 30 years, production rates have increasinglyintensified, while real wages have decreased, thus requir-ing both parents to work if they want to maintainmiddle-class status. Children are placed in daycare untilit is time for them to attend school. Hence, domestictogetherness in the middle-class family has nearly ceased,and children spend more time with their socializers—education services and mass media—than with“significant others.”

124 Flesh Machine

The reward for power vectors in promoting this variety offamily structure is twofold: First, since people are generallydenied social possibilities outside of rationalized contexts,a profound alienation emerges. The only cures offered bycapitalist society for this condition are “satisfaction”through success at work, or through acquisition of con-sumer goods. Second, the geographic mobility necessaryfor the efficient deployment of the upper echelons of theworkforce is assured. People go where their employers sendthem without a second thought. Whether individuals arenear their family or friends is of secondary importance;maintaining class rank (and more and more, simply toremain employed) is of primary importance.

The nuclear family guarantees both the physical and theideological replication of the workforce; however, in termsof eugenic development, it offers even more. The nuclearfamily offers a specific set of concerns that complementvoluntary eugenics. Since the middle-class nuclear familyis generally small, thereby increasing the chances of totalfamilial erasure, its members express a profound concernfor reproduction. The extended family is also just asconcerned with familial reproduction; the difference be-tween the two, however, is that while the extended familyis content with the quantity reproduced as a safeguard offamilial survival, the nuclear family is concerned with the“quality” of reproduction. Quality, in this case, is dictatedby capitalist demands. Quality means the extent to whicha child will be successful, i.e., will be able to obtain a goodjob in order to maintain or heighten class rank. Whatnuclear family parents lose in nonrational association withtheir child, they gain in rationalized association. They cansend the child to good schools. They can provide the child


with health care. They can offer the child a safe and secureenvironment in which to mature. The reason parents wantto provide their children with these “advantages” is so thechild will give society he/r best economic performance. Inthis thoroughly rationalized situation, quality of life is

equated with economic performance. The perception is thatthe better the child performs economically in later life, thebetter s/he will be able to satisfy he/rself within the struc-tures of production and consumption, and the greater theprobability that s/he will be upwardly mobile.

Once the structural conditions of the economy of desireand the nuclear family are in place, which in turn lead toequating quality of life (perhaps even social survival) witheconomic performance by parents obsessed with their owngenetic and/or cultural replication, the environment isripe for voluntary eugenics—a situation which Osborn wascertain would come to pass. If parents are offered goodsand services which will give their few offspring a greateropportunity for success, would they not purchase them?Osborn thought that they would, and he believed thatthese goods and services would include services whichwould genetically engineer the child to insure he/r bettereconomic performance. He predicted that parents wouldwant to participate in the design of their children to helpthem to adapt economically and socially—eugenic par-ticipation would be a sign of benevolence. To be sure, onceeugenics is perceived as a means to empower the child andthe parent, it loses its monstrous overtones, and becomesanother part of everyday life medical procedure. Capital-ism will achieve its goals of genetic ideological inscription,while at the same time realizing tremendous profits forproviding the service.

126 Flesh Machine

A Brief Note on Class and Eugenics

Traditionally, eugenic ideology has been deployed in the wealthierclasses. Cleansing the gene pool of the lower classes hasgenerally been perceived as unnecessary, since the tasksthat the lower classes perform are simplistic and thereforealmost any genetic configuration will do. Most likely,traces of this ideological tendency will continue in regardto the working class. At the same time, however, eugenicideology will be vigorously deployed down the class scale,until a point is reached where the purchase of the servicesis no longer financially possible. Unlike in the past,power vectors believe including all levels of the middleclass in genetic design to be more essential than ever, sothat all “significant” populations can make the “evolu-tionary” jumps necessary to keep abreast of rapid culturaldevelopment.

The working class will probably not be called to participatein the new wave of eugenic practice. Since the poor arereproducing at a rate beyond that needed to keep low-endlabor conditions stable, no reason exists for power vectorsto construct interventions in their replication process(perhaps with the exception of slowing it down). In theUS, it is riduculous to think that members of the lowerclasses—who are not even granted health care—will beable to participate in costly eugenic practices. Currently,infant mortality among the poor is absurdly high simplybecause of a lack of prenatal care, so it seems unlikely thatthe lower classes will be presented with less necessaryelements of “medical care.” In European nations, wherehealth care is provided for all citizens, a different scenariocould emerge. Eugenic practices may be promoted all the


way down the class scale. Much depends on whether or noteugenics delivers on its promise to rationalize the genepool in a way that seems economically and socially produc-tive to capitalist forces. Should eugenics fulfill its promises,the US would also have to comply with full-scale deploy-ment, in order to stay competitive in the global economy.

Another element that will affect the deployment of eu-genic practices will be the degree to which cyborgtechnology seeps down into the lower classes. If organicplatforms are needed for duties below those filled bymembers of the middle classes, then eugenic deploymentcould go all the way down the class scale. However, thisscenario seems unlikely, as the past record shows thatwhen modified by technology, working class tasks tendeither to go completely robotic or shift to a smaller numberof low-end technocrats.

More Utopian Promises

As one would expect, eugenic practices are already receivingmass media support in an effort to build eugenic conscious-ness in consumers. Certainly, “eugenics,” “geneticcleansing,” or any other term suggesting the horror of thefirst wave of eugenics is never mentioned in these mo-ments of spectacle, and the spectacularized narratives ofbio-tech are presented to individuals in a seductive ratherthan a forceful way. For example, a consumer can purchasegenetic testing (cleansing) services that promise to assurethe parent of a healthier child. At the four-to-eight-cellstages, an embryo can be tested for a variety of geneticdiseases and deformations. Some genetic defects can be

128 Flesh Machine

repaired. At the very least, a defective embryo can beterminated, and the parents can try again to produce ahealthy, normalized one. Of course, no one is forced totake the test (it must be desired and purchased), and if anyabnormality is found, no one is forced to terminate thecreature. One can even choose to let the creature grow tothe 16-cell stage, at which time it will self-terminate if itis not implanted in a uterus (perfectly natural). As prom-ised, services such as this one allow concerned (obsessive)parents greater assurance that their child will be normaland healthy, and that they will be spared the financial andpsychological burden of an abnormal child. The subtext,however, is just as Osborn predicted: The parents make thedecision regarding termination in accordance with theimagined child’s probability of success in life. They chooseto accept or terminate the imagined child, not so much tofulfill their own needs as to fulfill the needs of pancapitalistculture. In spite of all the can-do spectacle regarding theproductive and happy lives of the “differently-abled,” theemphasis here is not on the “happy” (the nonrational) buton the “productive” (the rational). To be sure, “healthy”and “normal” correlate with the projected potential of theimagined child’s productivity, combined with the parents’continued need to participate in particularized modes ofconsumption that do not include purchasing goods andservices for the defective. Rational patterns of productionand consumption in the economy of desire are presented asdeterminants of a happy parent-child relationship, insteadof the happy parent-child relationship being determinedby nonrational characteristics such as love, concern, andunderstanding. If the parent-child relationship were basedon these latter qualities, and not those of potential produc-tion and consumption, what need would there be for the


test in the first place? The spectacle promises its viewersthat testing benefits the parents and child by eliminatingsickness, but what these half-truths lead to is a eugenicconsciousness that serves ideological directives implantedin consciousness by pancapitalist initiatives.

The spectacle of reproductive bio-tech also promises toassure fertility in a majority of cases. Even if a reproduc-tive system is in disrepair, it can be technologicallymodified and/or coaxed to function as expected. Thedemand for such technological insurance is peculiar,since there is no shortage of children in need of a parent.Certainly, nonrational beliefs explain much of thiseconomic riddle: Perhaps parents value participation inthe “magic” of the reproductive process; perhaps theywant to see their own physical characteristics dupli-cated in the next generation; or perhaps successfulreproduction validates their (essentialized) gender po-sitions. The list of entries and the manner in which theycan be combined is quite extensive, but not exhaustive.While nonrational associations with reproduction areuseful in selling reproductive goods and services, ratio-nal concerns also come into play. Would-be parentstend to find it desirable to have total control over thephysical care and early socialization of the child, so theycan be certain that nothing can disrupt the futuresuccess of the child. The only way to have this assuranceis to be a primary participant in these processes fromconception until the child is turned over to the educa-tion system. (This would, in part, explain why obtaininggenetic materials from outside sources is preferable toadoption).

130 Flesh Machine

One must also ask, why are there problems with individualfertility in the first place? Much of the answer lies outsidethe realm of cultural design, but part of the answer lies inthe economy of investment for medical research: In regardto funding, research which could help to prevent infertilitytakes second place behind research that can insure fertil-ity. (For example, funding for research aimed towardeliminating pelvic inflammatory disease, which can causeinfertility in some women, is relatively meager whencompared to investments in research to create productsand services for assisted pregnancy). This funding ten-dency creates an expanded demand for the fertility productsand services by underfunding research that could lead to acure for root causes of infertility. Rather than investing inresearch that could produce preventive care, funding agen-cies invest in research to develop more profitable means torepair an injured reproductive system. In turn, the in-creased likelihood that women will need assistedreproductive care channels the target population intomedical institutions where they are likely to engage addi-tional reproductive services.

Extending fertility has similar consequences. This utopianpromise does seem desirable for women in many ways. Ifreproductive assistance can increase the span of yearsduring which a woman can reproduce, she would have fargreater choice in how to plan her life. (Currently, thefertility range has not been significantly altered, since thesuccess rate for assisted pregnancy drops dramatically afterthe age of 40). If a woman knew she was able to have achild after age 40, it would allow her uninterrupted time toestablish herself in the workforce and acquire the wealthneeded to best provide for the child. The option of being


both a successful mother and a professional woman wouldincrease in likelihood. Obviously, the state would alsobenefit by delaying reproduction to later years (a trendwhich is occurring among middle-class women), sincethere is a greater structural demand for women to enter theworkforce, and deferral of reproduction would allow themto function better within it. In addition, the prevalence ofmiddle-aged pregnancy would channel (middle-class)women into medical institutions where they would bemost likely to engage in voluntary eugenic practices. Aswith most seeming social benefits, the majority of themare gains for the state, while those the individual re-ceives are primarily incidental consequences of statesanctioned social policy.

The Spectacle of Anxiety

The spectacle of anxiety also hides itself in utopian spectacle, butrather than aiming the presentation at individuals, thisspectacle is normally directed at social aggregates. Forexample, there is considerable coverage of breakthroughsin medical science in media ranging from knowledge-specific journals to popular newscasting. The mostglamorous subjects tend to be concerned with the rational-ization of death (cancer, heart disease, AIDS, and so on),but genetic research, concerned with the rationalization ofbirth, also makes the list. For the most part, these discov-eries are framed by a national identity. On the individuallevel, the nationality of the scientists who made a givenbreakthrough is fairly irrelevant, and most are relievedthat medical science is constructing a healthier tomorrow.However, at the national level, who discovered what has

132 Flesh Machine

very deep economic implications. Each announcement ofa surge in applied medical science that is beyond thenational borders represents lost profits and an increase inthe national research gaps. (The real loss, of course, is toother competing multinationals, rather than to nationstates). The public perception of losing national economicadvantage is a tremendous fuel to create a popular consen-sus for high-velocity research (a permanent corporateR&D policy, whether the public agrees or not) as opposedto cautious and critical low-velocity research. As with theindividual purchase of goods and services that offer aneconomic advantage, will the development of goods andservices that are perceived to give a nation an economicadvantage also be pursued without question? This hascertainly been the case in the past, and continues to be truenow. Such a situation seems to indicate that the time isright for eugenic practices to flourish on the macro as wellas on the micro levels of society.

Jamming the Eugenic Failsafes

In addition to utopian promises, medical science makes numer-ous ethical promises to the public designed to reassurepopulations that the eugenic beast will not be reborn. Asfar as involuntary eugenics is concerned, these promiseshave merit, although the promise not to engage in state-sanctioned involuntary eugenic practices is an easy one tokeep, since the strategies to develop privatized voluntaryeugenic practices are proceeding so smoothly. On theother hand, the ethical promises to forbid practices whicheither lay the foundation for the implementation of volun-tary eugenic policy, or which are eugenic in and of

134 Flesh Machine

themselves, can be looked upon with a great deal ofskepticism. For example, one key promise from medicalscience is that human organic matter will not and cannotbe sold. In some cases, medical science has lived up to thispromise. In the case of organ sales, there are other optionsto pursue, such as artificial, cloned, and transgenic organs(all of which are still in various stages of experimentation).These organ replacement products can be sold. The prom-ise of zero sales of human organs is also fortified by the factthat it is difficult to find donors willing to sell their organs,since doing so will either kill them or decrease their lifeexpectancy. However, with human reproductive matter,the situation is much different. Sperm and eggs can beharvested without threatening the life of the provider. Inthis situation, medical science has legally kept its promise.Sperm, eggs, embryos, etc., are not being bought and sold;they are being donated. However, while the organic mat-ter cannot be bought and sold, the harvesting and theimplanting processes are salable services. The medicalestablishment has jammed this ethical failsafe simply bybuilding the fiscal structure of the industry around theprocess, rather than around the product.

To make matters worse, eugenic screening practices areused to acquire suitable reproductive materials. Potentialdonors are thoroughly tested physically and psychologi-cally to make sure they meet industry standards of healthand normalcy. Family histories are acquired and scruti-nized so that those receiving the materials can be sure thatthere are no latent genetic defects that could lead to aproblematic outcome. If a potential donor is found to besuitably pure, then s/he can become an actual donor. Ofcourse, no clinic would admit that it is constructing a pure


gene pool—a purity which is dictated by the political andeconomic demands of pancapitalism. Rather, such institu-tions claim that they are only attempting to provideconsumers with top value for their purchasing dollar, andpreserving their own reputations as institutions of highintegrity that provide high-quality products and services.Screening is done for economic purposes, and not forpolitical purposes. To an extent this is true. It seems veryunlikely that conspiratorial teams of doctors are plotting anew master race; however, just as Osborn predicted, eu-genic mechanisms are emerging out of the rationalizedreproductive process which reflect the ideological valuesof the social context in which the process occurs (theprimary value, as Osborn believed would come to pass inconsumer economy, is that people’s value is determined bytheir economic potential).

This same process is replicated in the implementation ofselective reduction. To increase the probability of a suc-cessful implantation procedure, a small set of embryos(three to eight) is placed into the uterus; the numberdepends on the quality of the embryos and the age of thewoman. The results vary; however, the probability ofsuccessful implantation (when a embryo attaches itself tothe uterine wall) is increased. At times, the procedure istoo successful, and produces more than one fetus. Thisleaves the client with the choice of bringing all the fetusesto term, or of reducing their number. Many times, thereduction is necessary as the number of fetuses conceivedcould pose a threat to the life of the client, but just as often,fetus reduction is implemented because the client desiresa specific number of fetuses. The client can select (often inaccordance with viability) which fetuses she wants to

136 Flesh Machine

keep. In the cases where the fetuses are equally viable, theclient can select for aesthetic characteristics (such as thenumber of children, the gender, or the gender combina-tion). Like donor screening, there is nothing geneticallyconspiratorial about the process; clients are simply pur-chasing the specific goods that they want. Yet once again,the desire for a specific product is manufactured by spec-tacle that is directed by ideological as well as marketingconcerns. The process of selective womb cleansing is politi-cal and eugenic, and is an emergent byproduct ofrationalized reproduction.

Conclusion

Osborn’s predictions are coming to pass. The time is right for thesecond wave of eugenics because the economic foundationhas been laid. Eugenics complements the grandpancapitalist principle of the total rationalization of cul-ture. The foundation for consumer consciousness isreplicated in the foundation for eugenic consciousness.Reproduction is spectacularly represented and publiclyperceived as an object of surplus that can be produced tomeet consumer desire. Desire itself does not emerge fromwithin, but is imposed from without by the spectacularengines of pancapitalist ideological inscription. However,the situation has yet to reach catastrophic proportions.Eugenic practices are still crude and experimental; theystill have to work their way across class levels and down theclass ladder. Thus far, power vectors have not been able toturn perception into activity (the product is recognized,but few are buying). In order to truly accomplish the goalof making eugenic activity a part of everyday life, the


public must be convinced that rationalized processes ofreproduction are superior and more desirable than thenonrational means of reproduction. In other words, largesegments of the population (with an emphasis on themiddle class) must still be channeled into this frontiermarket. This will take time, during which counternarrativesand resistant strategies and tactics can be developed.Unfortunately, in order to seduce all who look upon it,eugenics has masked itself in the utopian surface of freechoice and progress. In this sense, power vectors havestolen and are cautiously using the strategy of subversionin everyday life to create a silent flesh revolution.

The need for Net criticism certainly is a matter of overwhelmingurgency. While a number of critics have approached thenew world of computerized communications with a healthyamount of skepticism, their message has been lost in thenoise and spectacle of corporate hype—the unstoppabletidal wave of seduction has enveloped so many in itsdynamic utopian beauty that little time for careful reflec-tion is left. Indeed, a glimpse of a possibility for a betterfuture may be contained in the new techno-apparatus, andperhaps it is best to acknowledge these possibilities here inthe beginning, since Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) has nodesire to take the position of the neoluddites who believe

Appendix:Utopian Promises—Net Realities*

*This article was originally an address to Interface 3 in Hamburg 1995,and was published in the conference proceedings.

140 Flesh Machine

that the techno-apparatus should be rejected outright, ifnot destroyed. To be sure, computerized communicationsoffer the possibility for the enhanced storage, retrieval,and exchange of information for those who have access tothe necessary hardware, software, and technical skills. Inturn, this increases the possibility for greater access to vitalinformation, faster exchange of information, enhanceddistribution of information, and cross-cultural artistic andcritical collaborations. The potential humanitarian ben-efits of electronic systems are undeniable; however, CAEquestions whether the electronic apparatus is being usedfor these purposes in the representative case, much as wequestion the political policies which guide the Net’s devel-opment and accessibility.

This is not the first time that the promise of electronicutopia has been offered. One need only look back atBrecht’s critique of radio to find reason for concern whensuch promises are resurrected. While Brecht recognizedradio’s potential for distributing information for humani-tarian and cultural purposes, he was not surprised to seeradio being used for the very opposite. Nor should we besurprised that his calls for a more democratic interactivemedium went unheeded.

During the early 1970s, there was a brief euphoric momentduring the video revolution when some believed thatBrecht’s call for an interactive and democratic electronicmedium was about to be answered. The development ofhome video equipment led to a belief that soon everyonewho desired to would be able to manufacture their owntelevision. This seemed to be a real possibility. As the costof video equipment began to drop dramatically, and cable

Appendix: Utopian Promises—Net Realities 141

set-ups offered possibilities for distribution, electronicutopia seemed immanent, and yet, the home video studionever came to be. Walls and boundaries confounding thisutopian dream seemed to appear out of nowhere. Forinstance, in the US, standards for broadcast quality re-quired postproduction equipment that no one could accessor afford except capital-saturated media companies. Mostcable channels remained in the control of corporate me-dia, and the few public access channels fell into the handsof censors who cited “community standards” as their rea-son for an orderly broadcast system. While productionequipment did get distributed as promised, the hopes of thevideo utopianists were crushed at the distribution level.Corporate goals for establishing a new market for elec-tronic hardware were met, but the means for democraticcultural production never appeared.

Now that giddy euphoria is back again, arising in the wakeof the personal computer revolution of the early 80s, andwith the completion of a “world-wide” multi-directionaldistribution network. As to be expected, utopian promisesfrom the corporate spectacle machine saturate the every-day lives of bureaucrats and technocrats around the firstworld, and once again there seems to be a general belief—at least within technically adept populations—that thistime the situation will be different. And to a degree, thissituation is different. There is an electronic free zone (theaggregate of domains that have characteristics resistantto pancapitalism), but from CAE’s perspective, it isonly a modest development at best. By far the mostsignificant use of the electronic apparatus is to keeporder, to replicate dominant pancapitalist ideology, andto develop new markets.

142 Flesh Machine

At the risk of redundantly stating the obvious, CAE wouldlike to recall the origins of the internet. The internet iswar-tech that was designed as an analog to the US highwaysystem (yet another product which stemmed from themind of the military, and which was primarily intended asa decentralized aid to mobilization). The US militarywanted an apparatus that would preserve command struc-ture in the case of nuclear attack. The answer was anelectronic network capable of immediately rerouting itselfif one or more links were destroyed, thus allowing surviv-ing authorities to remain in communication with eachother and to act accordingly. With such an apparatus inplace, military authority could be maintained, even throughthe worst of catastrophes. With such planning at the rootof the internet, suspicion about its alleged anti-authoritar-ian characteristics must occur to anyone who takes thetime to reflect on the apparatus. It should also be notedthat the decentralized characteristics for which so manypraise the Net did not arise out of anarchist intention, butout of nomadic military strategy.

Research scientists were the next group to go online afterthe military. While it would be nice to believe that theirefforts on the Net were benign, one must question why theywere given access to the apparatus in the first place. Sciencehas always claimed legitimacy by announcing its “value-free” intentions to search for the truth of the materialworld; however, this search costs money, and hence apolitical economy with a direct and powerful impact onscience’s lofty goals of value-free research enters the equa-tion. Do investors in scientific research offer money withno restrictions attached? This seems quite unlikely. Sometype of return on the investment is implicit in any demand


from funding institutions. In the US, the typical demandis either theory or technology with military applications orapplications that will strengthen economic development.The greater the results promised by science in terms of thesetwo categories, the more generous the funding. In the US,not even scientists get something for nothing.

The need for greater efficiency in research and develop-ment opened the new communication systems to academics,and with that development, a necessary degree of disorderwas introduced into the apparatus. Elements of free zoneinformation exchange began to appear. But as this systemdeveloped, other investors, most notably the corporations,demanded their slice of the electronic pie. All kinds offinancial business was conducted on the Net with rela-tively secure efficiency. As the free zone began to grow, thecorporations realized that a new market mechanism wasgrowing with it, and eventually the marketeers were re-leased onto the Net. At this point, a peculiar paradox cameinto being: Free market capitalism came into conflict withthe conservative desire for order. It became apparent thatfor this new market possibility to reach its full potential,authorities would have to tolerate a degree of chaos. Thiswas necessary to seduce the wealthier classes into using theNet as site of consumption and entertainment, and sec-ond, to offer the Net as an alibi for the illusion of socialfreedom. Although totalizing control of communicationswas lost, the overall cost of this development to govern-ments and corporations was minimal, and in actuality, thecost was nothing compared to what was gained. Thus wasborn the most successful repressive apparatus of all time;and yet it was (and still is) successfully represented underthe sign of liberation. What is even more frightening is

144 Flesh Machine

that the corporation’s best allies in maintaining the gleam-ing utopian surface of cyberspace are some of the verypopulations who should know better. Techno-utopianistshave accepted the corporate hype, and are now dissemi-nating it as the reality of the Net. This regrettable alliancebetween the elite virtual class and new age cybernauts isstructured around five key virtual promises. These are thepromised social changes that seem as if they will occur atany moment, but never actually come into being.

Promise One: The New Body

Those of us familiar with discourse on cyberspace and virtualreality have heard this promise over and over again, and infact there is a kernel of truth associated with it. The virtualbody is a body of great potential. On this body we canreinscribe ourselves using whatever coding system we de-sire. We can try on new body configurations. We canexperiment with immortality by going places and doingthings that would be impossible in the physical world. Forthe virtual body, nothing is fixed and everything is possible.Indeed, this is the reason why hackers wish to becomedisembodied consciousnesses flowing freely throughcyberspace, willing the idea of their own bodies and envi-ronments. As virtual reality improves with new generationsof computer technology, perhaps this promise will come topass in the realm of the multisensual; however, it is cur-rently limited to gender reassignment on chat lines, orgame-boy flight simulators.

What did this allegedly liberated body cost? Paymentwas taken in the form of a loss of individual sovereignty,


not just from those who use the Net, but from all peoplein technologically saturated societies. With the virtualbody came its fascist sibling, the data body—a muchmore highly developed virtual form, and one that existsin complete service to the corporate and police state.The data body is the total collection of files connectedto an individual. The data body has always existed in animmature form since the dawn of civilization. Author-ity has always kept records on its underlings. Indeed,some of the earliest records that Egyptologists havefound are tax records. What brought the data body tomaturity is the technological apparatus. With its im-mense storage capacity and its mechanisms for quicklyordering and retrieving information, no detail of sociallife is too insignificant to record and to scrutinize. Fromthe moment we are born and our birth certificate goesonline, until the day we die and our death certificategoes online, the trajectory of our individual lives isrecorded in scrupulous detail. Education files, insurancefiles, tax files, communication files, consumption files,medical files, travel files, criminal files, investmentfiles, files into infinity....

The data body has two primary functions. The first purposeserves the repressive apparatus; the second serves themarketing apparatus. The desire of authoritarian power tomake the lives of its subordinates perfectly transparentachieves satisfaction through the data body. Everyone isunder permanent surveillance by virtue of their necessaryinteraction with the marketplace. Just how detailed databody information actually may be is a matter of specula-tion, but we can be certain that it is more detailed than wewould like it to be, or care to think.

146 Flesh Machine

The second function of the data body is to give marketeersmore accurate demographic information to design andcreate target populations. Since pancapitalism has longleft the problem of production behind, moving from aneconomy of need to an economy of desire, marketeers havedeveloped better methods to artificially create desires forproducts that are not needed. The data body gives theminsights into consumption patterns, spending power, and“lifestyle choices” of those with surplus income. The databody helps marketeers find you, and provide for yourlifestyle. The postmodern slogan, “You don’t pick thecommodity; the commodity picks you” has more meaningthan ever.

But the most frightening thing about the data body is thatit is the center of an individual’s social being. It tells themembers of officialdom what our cultural identities androles are. We are powerless to contradict the data body. Itsword is the law. One’s organic being is no longer a deter-mining factor, from the point of view of corporate andgovernment bureaucracies. Data have become the centerof social culture, and our organic flesh is nothing morethan a counterfeit representation of original data.

Promise 2: Convenience

Earlier this century, the great sociologist Max Weber explainedwhy bureaucracies work so well as a means of rationalizedsocial organization in complex society. In comparing bu-reaucratic practice to his ideal-type, only one flaw appears:Humans provide the labor for these institutions. Unfortu-nately humans have nonrational characteristics, the most


notorious of which is the expression of desire. Rather thanworking at optimum efficiency, organic units are likely toseek out that which gives them pleasure in ways that arecontrary to the instrumental aims of the bureaucracy. Allvarieties of creative slacking are employed by organicunits. These range from work slowdowns to unnecessarychit-chat with one’s fellow employees. Throughout thiscentury policy makers and managerial classes have con-cerned themselves with developing a way to stop suchactivities in order to maximize and intensify labor output.

The model for labor intensification came with the inven-tion of the robot. So long as the robot is functional, it neverstrays from its task. Completely replacing humans withrobots is not possible, since so far, they are only capable ofsimple, albeit very precise, mechanical tasks. They are datadriven, as opposed to the human capacity for conceptrecognition. The question then becomes how to makehumans more like robots, or to update the discourse, morelike cyborgs, thereby getting the best of the mechanicaland the organic. At present, much of the technologynecessary to accomplish this goal is available, and more isin development. However, having the technology, such astelephone headsets or wearable computers, is not enough.People must be seduced into wanting to wear them, at leastuntil the technology evolves that can be permanentlyfixed to their bodies.

The means of seduction? Convenience. Life will be somuch easier if we only connect to the machine. As usualthere is a grain of truth to this idea. I can honestly admitthat my life has been made easier since I began using acomputer, but only in a certain sense. As a writer, it is

148 Flesh Machine

easier for me to finish a paper now than it was when I usedpen and paper or a typewriter. The problem: Now I am ableto (and therefore, must) write two papers in the time itused to take to produce one. The implied promise that Iwill have more free time because I use a computer is false.

Labor intensification through time management is onlythe beginning. There is still another problem to be solvedin regard to total utility: People can still separate them-selves from their work stations—the true home of themodern day cyborg. The seduction continues, persuadingus that we should desire to carry our electronic extensionswith us all the time. The latest commercials from AT&Tare the perfect representation of consumer seduction.They promise: “Have you ever sent a fax....from the beach?You will.” or “Have you ever received a phone call....onyour wrist watch? You will.” This commercial is mostamusing. There is an image of a young man who has justfinished climbing a mountain, and is watching a sunset. Atthat moment his wife calls on his wrist phone, and hedescribes the magnificence of the sunset to her. Now whois kidding who? Is your spouse going to call you while youare mountain climbing? Are you going to need to send a faxwhile lounging on the beach? The corporate intention fordeploying this technology (in addition to profit) is sotransparent, it’s painful. The only possible rejoinder is:“Have you ever been at a work station....24 hours a day,365 days a year? You will.” Now the virtual sweat shop cango anywhere you do!

Another telling element in this representation is that themen in these commercials are always alone. (This is agendered element which CAE is sure has not failed to


catch the attention of feminists, although CAE is unsureas to whether it will be interpreted as sexism or a stroke ofluck). In this sense, the problem is doubled: Not only is thework station always with you, but social interaction willalways be fully mediated by technology. This is the perfectsolution to abolish that nuisance, the subversive environ-ment of public space.

Promise 3: Community

Currently in the US, there is no more popular buzz word than“community.” This word is so empty of meaning that it canbe used to describe almost any social manifestation. For themost part, it is used to connote sympathy with or identifi-cation with a particular social aggregate. In this sense, onehears of the gay community or the African-Americancommunity. There are even oxymorons, such as the inter-national community. Corporate marketeers from IBM toMicrosoft have been quick to capitalize on this empty signas a means to build their commercial campaigns. Recogniz-ing the extreme alienation that afflicts so many under thereign of pancapitalism, they offer Net technology as a curefor a feeling of loss that has no referent. Through chatlines, news groups, and other digital environments, nostal-gia for a golden age of sociability that never existed isreplaced by a new modern day sense of community.

This promise is nothing but aggravating. There is not evena grain of truth in it. If there is any reason for optimism, itis only to the extent mentioned in the beginning of thislecture; that is, the Net makes possible a broader spectrumof information exchange. However, anyone with even a

150 Flesh Machine

basic knowledge of sociology understands that informa-tion exchange in no way constitutes a community.Community is a collective of kinship networks whichshare a common geographic territory, a common history,and a value system—one usually rooted in a commonreligion. Typically, communities are rather homogenous,and tend to exist in the historical context of a simpledivision of labor. Most importantly, communities em-brace nonrational components of life and of consciousness.Social action is not carried out by means of contract, butby understandings, and life is certainly not fully mediatedby technology. In this sense, the connection betweencommunity and Net life is unfathomable. (CAE does notwant to romanticize this social form, since communitiescan be as repressive and/or as pathological as any society.)

Use of the Net beyond its one necessary function (i.e.,information gathering), is, from CAE’s perspective, ahighly developed anti-social form of interacting. Thatsomeone would want to stay in his or her home or officeand reject human contact in favor of a textually mediatedcommunication experience can only be a symptom ofrising alienation, not a cure for it. Why the repressiveapparatus would want this isolation to develop is veryclear: If someone is online, he or she is off the street and outof the gene pool. In other words, they are well within thelimits of control. Why the marketing apparatus woulddesire such a situation is equally clear: The lonelier peopleget, the more they will have no choice but to turn to workand to consumption as a means of seeking pleasure.

In a time when public space is diminishing and beingreplaced by fortified institutions such as malls, theme


parks, and other manifestations of forced consumptionthat pass themselves off as locations for social interaction,shouldn’t we be looking for a sense of the social (that is, tothe extent still possible), direct and unmediated, ratherthan seeing these anti-public spaces replicated in an evenmore lonely electronic form?

Promise 4: Democracy

Another promise eternally repeated in discourse on cyberspaceis the idea that the electronic apparatus will be the zenithof utopian democracy. Certainly, the internet does havesome democratic characteristics. It provides all its cyber-citizens with the means to contact all other cyber-citizens.On the Net, everyone is equal. The shining emblem of thisnew democracy is the World Wide Web. People canconstruct their own home pages, and even more peoplecan access these sites as points of investigation. This is allwell and good, but we must ask ourselves if these demo-cratic characteristics actually constitute democracy. Aplatform for individual voices is not enough (especially inthe Web where so many voices are lost in the clutter of datadebris). Democracy is dependent on the individual’s abil-ity to act on the information received. Unfortunately,even with the Net, autonomous action is still as difficult asever.

The difficulty here is threefold: First, there is the problemof locality and geographic separation. In the case of infor-mation gathering, the information is only as useful as thesituation and the location of the physical body allows. Forexample, a gay man who lives in a place where homopho-

152 Flesh Machine

bia reigns, or even worse, where homosexual practice is anillegal activity, is still be unable to openly act on hisdesires, regardless of the information he may gather on theNet. He is still just as closeted in his everyday lifepractice, and is reduced to passive spectatorship inregard to the object of his desire, so long as he remainsin a repressive locality.

The second problem is one of institutional oppression. Forexample, no one can deny that the Net can function as awonderful pedagogical tool and can act as a great means forself-education. Unfortunately, it has very little legitimacyin and of itself as an educational institution. The Net mustbe used in a physical world context under appropriatesupervision for it to be awarded legitimacy. In the case ofeducation, in order for the knowledge-value gained fromthe Net to be socially recognized and accepted, it must beused as a tool within the context of a university or a school.These educational contexts are fortified in a manner tomaintain a status-quo distribution of education. Conse-quently, one can acquire a great deal of knowledge fromthe Net, but still have no education capital to be ex-changed in the marketplace. In both of these cases, theremust be a liberated physical environment if the Net is tofunction as a supplement to democratic activity.

The final problem is that the Net functions as a disciplin-ary apparatus through the use of transparency. If peoplefeel that they are under surveillance, they are less likely toact in a manner that is beyond normalized activity; that is,they are less likely to express themselves freely, and tootherwise act in a manner that could produce political andsocial changes within their environments. In this sense,


the Net serves the purpose of negating activity rather thanencouraging it. It channels people toward orderly homoge-neous activity, rather than reinforcing the acceptance ofdifference that democratic societies need.

To be sure, there are times when transparency can beturned against itself. For example, one of the reasons thatthe PRI party’s counteroffensive against the Zapatistas didnot end in total slaughter was the resisting party’s use of theNet to keep attention focused upon its members and itscause. By disallowing the secret of massacre, many liveswere saved, and the resistant movement could continue.Much the same can be said about the stay of execution wonfor Mumia Abu Jamal. The final point here is that it mustbe remembered that the internet does not exist in avacuum. It is intimately related to all kinds of socialstructures and historical dynamics, and hence its demo-cratic structure cannot be realistically analyzed as if it werea closed system.

Taking a step back from the insider’s point of view,achieving democracy through the Net seems even lesslikely considering the demographics of the situation. Thereare five and a half billion people in the world. Over abillion barely keep themselves alive from day to day. Mostpeople don’t even have telephones, and hence it seemsvery unlikely that they will get computers, let alone goonline. This situation raises the question, is the Net ameans to democracy, or simply another way to divide theworld into haves and have-nots? We also must ask our-selves, how many people consider the Net really relevantin their everyday lives? While CAE believes that it is safeto assume that the number of Net users will grow, it seems

154 Flesh Machine

unlikely that it will grow to include more than those whohave the necessary educational background, and/or thosewho are employed by bureaucratic and technocratic agencies.

CAE suggests that this elite stronghold will remain, andthat most of the first world population that will become apart of the computer revolution will do so primarily aspassive consumers, rather than as active participants.They will be playing computer games, watching interac-tive TV, and shopping in virtual malls. The stratifieddistribution of education will act as the guardian of thevirtual border between the passive and the active user, andprevent those populations participating in multidirec-tional interactivity from increasing in any significantnumbers.

Promise 5: New Consciousness

Of all the Net hype, this promise is perhaps the most insidious,since it seems to have no corporate sponsor (althoughMicrosoft has tapped the trend to some extent). Thenotion of the new consciousness has emerged out of newage thinking. There is a belief promoted by cyber-gurus(Timothy Leary, Jaron Lanier, Roy Ascott, RichardKriesche, Mark Pesci) that the Net is the apparatus of abenign collective consciousness. It is the brain of theplanet which transforms itself into a cosmic mind throughthe activities of its users. It can function as a third eye orsixth sense for those who commune with this globalcoming together. This way of thinking is the paramountform of ethnocentrism and myopic class perception. Asdiscussed in the last section, the third world and most of


the first world citizenry are thoroughly marginalized in thisdivine plan. If anything, this theory replicates the imperi-alism of early capitalism, and recalls notions such asmanifest destiny. If new consciousness is indicative ofanything, it is the new age of imperialism that will berealized through information control (as opposed to theearly capital model of military domination).

Of the first four promises examined here, each has provenon closer inspection to be a replication of authoritarianideology to justify and put into action greater repressionand oppression. New consciousness is no exception. Evenif we accept the good intentions and optimistic hopes ofthe new age cybernauts, how could anyone conclude thatan apparatus emerging out of military aggression andcorporate predation could possibly function as a new formof terrestrial spiritual development?

Conclusion

As saddened as CAE is to say it, the greater part of the Net iscapitalism as usual. It is a site for repressive order, for thefinancial business of capital, and for excessive consump-tion. While a small part of the Net may be used forhumanistic purposes and to resist authoritarian structure,its overall function is anything but humanistic. In thesame way that we would not consider an unregulatedbohemian neighborhood to be representative of a city, wemust also not assume that our own small free zone domainsare representative of the digital empire. Nor can we trustour futures to the empty promises of a seducer that has nolove in its heart.

critical art ensemble flesh machine

Documents