Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ing such means, Winner leaves us with the practical fear concerning the
untold consequences that will follow from our abandonment of a polit-
ical theory and praxis focused on social structures and their capacity for
oppression, including those that result from modern technoscience itself.
And so we are left to contemplate a paradox. There is little doubt that
humans as humans—whatever in the traditional sense that means—have
a long and storied history of wondering and tinkering with our under-
standing of our abilities and place in the world. This history has brought
us astonishing accomplishments, and now has brought us even to the
brink of altering our own nature. Yet, at what many see to be the moment
of our highest accomplishments, we find animating the turn toward
hybrids and cyborgs an impatience with the merely human—that is, with
a being whose biological limitations seem to be at the root of so much
violence, suffering, and unhappiness. In the final analysis, the challenge
raised by the question of this topic is quite possibly a weariness with the
human condition itself.
