Consent and Other Fringe Values of Mine

Upgraded and adapted from the Moot, "Elithrion" responds to an older post of mine, Eugenicism and the Denigration of Consent:

Transhumanism does not inherently bear any definitive political prescription of either the libertarian or socialist sort, or of any other political position. While many of its adherents may subscribe to similar ideologies this is more coincidence of appeal than an implicit feature. Indeed, one can easily imagine transhumanism tinged with communism, socialism, centrist positions, fascism, libertarianism, or anything else. What you demand in your "critique", in particular when referring to the requirement of "informed, nonduressed consent", which you repeat as a sort of mantra, is that every transhumanist adhere to your particular political ideology. This is absurd as while I am sure that there are certain transhumanists who do just that, there is no particular reason why any more of them should embrace it than the number who embrace it in society at large. That number being sufficiently small that I am comfortable calling it a "fringe position", with which appellation you seem to take such issue. Thus, I claim that your real issue lies with society for not embracing this position as mainstream, not with transhumanists for reasonably reflecting society.

Although "Elithrion" addresses their concerns to my critique of transhumanists in particular, it is worthwhile to note that in the piece to which they are responding itself I am equally critical of the eugenicism of transhumanist and bioconservative formulations, and also that I regard both of these viewpoints as marginal extremes that, while certainly quite ugly and pernicious enough on their own terms, importantly illuminate troubling eugenic attitudes that prevail (often in more muted or ambivalent ways) in mainstream developmental discourses as well. It is thus not only "transhumanism" that is the focus of my argument in the piece itself, nor certainly "transhumanist-identified" people to whom I am addressing that argument.

Be that as it may, it is quite true that transhumanists, like many other techno-enthusiasts, often like to imagine that their developmental views, emphases, and aspirations are somehow politically neutral or autonomous, when of course the reality is that such reductionist gestures are always profoundly political themselves. I have written elsewhere that such "technical apoliticism" is a move that conduces in general to incumbent-elitist politics of the right -- a structural tendency that is importantly indifferent to the professed politics of its adherents, however sincerely intended.

The notional political diversity among the Robot Cultists to which "Elithrion" refers is, as often as not, an expression of indifference to the salience of political differences in matters of technodevelopment in my view, an indifference that expresses antipathy to stakeholder politics and yields reactionary political effects. Also, I have often noted that the Robot Cultists who flog this particular line about the political diversity of their "big tent" tend in the main to be defensive avowedly left-leaning Robot Cultists trying to provide rationalizations for their participation in a movement with such a conspicuously reactionary political history and which skews anti-democratic in its politics right up to the present. Not to put too fine a point on it, eugenicism is finally incompatible with democracy, as is elitist technocracy, as are, to be sure, the libertopians and Randroids still to be found in comparatively high numbers among the Robot Cultists. I consider these declarations about ideological diversity in the Robot Cult to be PR moves more than anything else, usually involving quite a bit of data massage and terminological hanky-panky.

You are quite right that I would demand that every transhumanist respect the value of consent, inasmuch as I would demand every single human being on earth respect consent. I guess that's what you mean when you call it my "mantra." It is rather hilarious that you seem to imply this is a kind of tyrannical intolerance on my part. As it happens, it is possible to champion both equity and diversity while recognizing the tension that obtains in the implementation of these democratic values. You may be shocked, by the way, to discover that the intolerance of my "fringe position" and "particular political ideology" also extends to murder, torture, and fraud.

I can't say that I feel particularly alienated in my secular democratic values. While there is no small amount of progressive democratizing, consensualizing, diversifying work to be done and the demand for resistance to the evils of corporate-militarism is more urgent than ever, I don't feel that my vantage or aspirations are particularly unintelligible in my society even if they are not yet reflected to my satisfaction in its institutions. I certainly have no trouble recognizing that Robot Cultists are incomparably more "fringe" in their views than secular democrats like me. Thus your claim about my "real issue" with Robot Cultists amounting to an expressions of ideological alienation simply makes no sense to me at all.