Black Transhuman Liberation Theology

Technology and Spirituality

Philip Butler

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350081956
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion & Wissenschaft

Mediating Black religious studies, spirituality studies, and liberation theology, Philip Butler explores what might happen if Black people in the United States merged technology and spirituality in their fight towards materializing liberating realities. The discussions shaping what it means for humans to exist with technology and as part of technology are already underway: transhumanism suggests that any use of technology to augment intellectual, psychological, or physical capability makes one transhuman. In an attempt to encourage Black people in the United States to become technological progenitors as a spiritual act, Butler asks whether anyone has ever been 'just' human? Butler then explores the implications of this question and its link to viewing the body as technology. Re-imagining incarnation as a relationship between vitality, biochemistry, and genetics, the book also takes a critical scientific approach to understanding the biological embodiment of Black spiritual practices. It shows how current and emerging technologies might align with the generative biological states of Black spiritualities in order to concretely disrupt and dismantle oppressive societal structures.

1

Thinking of Black Transhumanism: Non-Humanity, Moving Away From Transhumanism’s Roots

In this chapter I work to set the stage for thinking about the Black body as technology. It will begin with a reflection on the relationship between non-humanity and Blackness. Then it will shift to a brief discussion of transhumanist thought, which will lead into an examination of the racist shortcomings of transhumanism, serving as a point of entry into the conversation of transhumanism and Blackness.

Blackness and non-humanity

I begin this discussion on non-humanity by echoing Frantz Fanon. Black folks are not human.¹ We never have been. However, respect for humanity, and its uniqueness, has been integral to the foundation of Black liberation theologies, anchoring these liberative excursions in Eurocentric epistemologies whose linguistic designation for what it means to exist, as human, continues to situate Blackness as oppositional to proto-normative means for embodiment. The problem resides in the employment of the term itself. Saying that Black folks are not human suggests that any participation in the epistemic system associated with this term, even through rebuttals of what this term ought to mean, is a subscription to the cybernetic nature of its colonial roots. Thus, this chapter serves as an invitation to unsubscribe from its declension.

The ability of the term “human” to encapsulate an evolving physical form is a clear demonstration of its technological capacity. What we have come to recognize as “the” human form has not always been. Evolutionary biology positions human materiality as something having undergone chronological changes concurrent with each passing temporal period.² Similarly, the technologies that humans construct and cultivate have paralleled the temporalities of each evolutionary progression. The technological apparatus of linguistics is no different. It evolves by enhancing its cybernetic capacity through broad measures (dynamic semiotics presented in dialects or technology through emojis, memes, etc.), to shorten the distance of understanding and application while either reifying regimes of power, explicating them, destabilizing them or constructing them. It is important to note that Black transhuman liberation theology defines technology as any system that can manifest itself in the natural world. These systems can be open or closed, autopoietic (self-replicating) or allopoietic (other producing), complex or simple. They may also occur with or without human intervention. Thus, as a technological system tasked with facilitating meaning, the grammar of language situates entire realities that precipitate any perception of one’s own ability. So, the convergence of connotations, histories, value systems, and power dynamics connected to any word establishes language as potentially the most dangerous of weapons, given its connection to formulating the elements of existence—let alone its ability to deploy single words to pigeon hole, stymie, cut, buckle, and crush those who are shaped by them.

Linguistics functions as a dynamic technological apparatus which Black folks are capable of taking on and off, to an extent (think code switching). We put on and take off different versions of this linguistic prosthetic, recalibrating our personal epistemologies based upon our interactions within the environment we find ourselves. We use these pre-prescribed modes of meaning/understanding to safely navigate the unpredictable waters of existence. The problem is that the technological prosthetic of the term “human” can only be partially removed due to the level of investment we have in contemporary society. The problem associated with this technological prosthetic hints at the depth of our entanglement within this epistemologically delineated existence, which is so dependent upon Eurocentric codices for meaning making. It is both the matrix and the twilight zone all in one. We cannot articulate ourselves apart from the language provided, and the mere attempt to do so keeps us in conversation with that prescribed language. Attempting to distance ourselves from current linguist epistemologies places us in close relationship with them once more. It is this frightening recurrence, this thought that we will never be free, which haunts us. The idea that we cannot use the “master’s tools” is faulty, mainly, because we have trudged so far down this particular time line of existence that we cannot simply make our way out. Thus the only way out is as follows: through its logical end, through an intentional bursting of its seams, or through a demolition of the tunnel we darkly feel our way around. However, demolition is scary. Because it projects to be suicide since the tunnel may fall in on us. But, what if demolition is not suicide? What if we survive? Suppose we make it out alive, and are able to construct something new? How beautiful might that be?

I do recognize that the term “human” is the primary mode of linguistic currency when referring to bi-pedal, predominantly hairless and self-aware beings with supposedly superior intellects. I also recognize that certain rights are given to those who are classified as human. But, in America, those rights and protections evaporate in disparate proportions when the recipient is Black. The utility of the term “human” also evaporates when presented as currency for liberative exchange. Similar to the offering of Anthony Pinn’s reflection on the utility of the term “God,” I would like to move a step further. I propose that the term “human” which has been employed as a tool for claiming one’s worth has not served to produce any concrete manifestation of Black liberation.

In his book Black Skin White Masks, Fanon claims that “Black [folks] wants to be white. [Yet, white folks] slave to reach a human level.” While Fanon was attempting to speak to the fleeting relationship that both Black and white folks have with this term, it is also an allusion to the limitations of the term “human.”³ While Fanon claims that Black folks ought to forge a new (hu)man, which I argue has transhumanist implications, the reasoning he employs creates a double-layered conundrum that highlights the depth to which Black folks are buried in the struggle to break free from the white gaze. The first layer arises through the relationship Fanon rightfully exposes. Black folks want to be white, and white folks want to be human. For Fanon, this serves as a statement of clarity, because it exposes the never-ending problem of assimilation. Assimilation into white culture does not protect Black humanity. The second, and most entangling, layer of this conundrum can be found in Fanon’s use of the term “human”:

But, if we want humanity to advance a step further, if we want to bring it up to a different level than that which Europe has shown it, then we must invent and we must make discoveries. . . . We must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new [hu]man.⁴

Fanon’s declarative search for a new human hints at his recognition of the inherently problematic nature of the term. However, his maintenance of the term “h uman” only recycles the dilemma he highlights earlier. Trying to fit Black existence within Eurocentric codices confines the constructive potential of the chosen descriptor. So, when I say that Black folks are not human I am suggesting that the deeply racist and exclusivist history attached to the term needs to be considered. This is especially true since the use of the term continues to impose boundaries upon Black bodies regarding how we ought to live. The boundaries associated with the term stems from its weaponization. Molly Randell-Moon and Ryan Tippet call attention to the necropolitics associated with this weaponization in the introduction of Security, Race, Biopower, suggesting the human designation was used for the “economisation of . . . resources in favour of those who ‘deserve life.’⁵ Essentially, the human classification functions to protect the proto-normativity of white supremacy by upholding epistemological systems of anti-blackness, which are dependent upon the meaning disproportionately imbued upon those who bear its monicker. When we consider the role that the technological apparatus of language plays in undergirding anti-blackness, it could also be inferred that white people are not human either. White people are simply the benefactors of this technology, given their status within the cultural milieu in which it is employed. So, when Black folks insist upon participating within the supposedly protective schema of this term, Black folks are actively reifying anti-Black hierarchies inherently embedded within its cybernetic reach.

So, what is a new (hu)man? And why maintain the use of the term (hu)man at all? Why lay claim to a terminology that has been used to leave so many out of its designation, and create hierarchies of race? Why buy into a term that is part of the larger Eurocentric linguistic machinery? Most importantly, why employ a technology that was meant to subjugate the “Other” when it cannot adequately communicate the complexities of embodiment, let alone Black existence? Now, one could easily argue that the use of any European linguistic derivative maintains a connection to Eurocentric power dynamics. I would not disagree with that argument at all. This is not a departure from a term for the sake of being provocative. It is an intentional departure from the cognitive limitations associated with what it means to be human and Black. Nevertheless, until Black folks become linguistically liberated (something that I will not be able to unpack here) the very components that comprise the reality in which Black folks understand themselves will be influenced by Eurocentrism. The term “human” functions as an elusive value marker, of which Black folks have been unable to grasp due to our lack of control of the term. In this temporality, it is not a derivative of Black epistemic technology. So, in this invitation to unsubscribe to the use of the term “human,” I am taking into account the tumultuous history of the term and positing a temporary marker in its place, something a bit more generative—something a bit more true to form. W. E. B. DuBois’s testament to Black tenacity may be an indicator of the willingness of Black folks to combat maladaptive narratives surrounding Blackness, in order to usurp the suffocation of anti-Black power structures. It is with that in mind that Black transhuman liberation theology calls for a further deconstruction from the term “human,” and ultimately a separation from it. Black folks are transhuman, flexible, and adaptable. But why transhuman? Why utilize the very term I am asking Black folks to unsubscribe from as the root of this new label? Simply put, transhumans do not carry the same boundaries as humans. They are not limited by the constraints of their form, or situation. Transhumans are transcendent, yet grounded in materiality. Nevertheless, an adoption of the designation of transhuman for Black folks is rooted in the idea that Black bodies are technology—complex auto-/allopoietic biological systems undergoing constant change. But ever more so, it is a recognition that since transhumans are always in a state of becoming, the term “transhuman” is only a placeholder for categorizing Blackness. Thus, it is an invitation not only to depart from the human designation but also to wrestle with the uneasiness and potentiality of what Black folks might be. This is also an assertion that futuristic iterations of Blackness are unbounded. So, it has yet to be determined what Black folks are. We are just not human.⁶

Pulling away from transhumanism’s racist roots

Max More envisions the “transhuman” as being actively engaged in the politics of “rising above outmoded human beliefs and behaviours.”⁷ Being affixed in materiality, while intentionally directing one’s own evolution, is the underlying component of transhumanism. I briefly provided a basic definition of transhumanism in the introduction, but the formal definition is two pronged:

1. The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

2. The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.⁸

Essentially, transhumanism is a speculative philosophical humanistic disposition that views the merger of technology and human biology as the primary means for exploring the potential of human existence. It promotes an interdisciplinary approach that draws from bioethics, speculative fiction, broad approaches to current and emergent technologies, and literature to imagine the future of human existence. Given that the transhumanist telos is to guide human evolution, its intention is to move into the next phase of existence: posthumanity.⁹ The transhumanist posthuman is an entity that exists beyond humanity’s current form of embodiment, psychology, intellectual capacity, morals, etc. This is not to be confused with Aristotelian forms. As an extension of Darwinian thought, transhumanism posits that the human form is merely in its nascent stages. Further, it proposes that the human form can, and ought to, undergo guided evolutionary processes to greatly enhance the ways in which humans exist within the environments they inhabit.¹⁰ This implies that posthuman existence is grounded in the central idea that the final form of human materiality has yet to be conceived.¹¹

Transhumanists primarily assert two main paths that will produce the transhumanist posthuman. The first is in line with the concept of the singularity.¹² This type of transhumanist posthuman is speculated to be uploaded into the digital plane, potentially allowing for eternal digital embodiment. Unless there happens to be a large scale crash, power outage, or loss of digitized psychological backups one could potentially live forever. Digital eternality also implies a mind-body dualism, whereby the body can be bypassed, and replaced, through the digital plane or transference into another body altogether.¹³ The second transhumanist posthuman configuration would be the result of an extension of human abilities via technological enhancement. An early step toward this posthuman can be seen through the use of dietary supplements which aid in enhancing biological proficiency. This biohacking would lead to genetic enhancements, prosthetic limbs, brain computer interfaces, nanotechnology, etc., in efforts to produce a form of existence superior to the one we currently recognize.¹⁴ Now, while transhumanism presents itself in a primarily positive light, it does not negate the reality that technological advancement has its casualties. Transhumanism recognizes that progress is not guaranteed. It also purports to acknowledge the dangerous ways in which technology has been used in the past (especially by governing authorities who emphasized eugenics) and the potential for experimental technology (particularly genetic engineering) to have catastrophic effects, that is, disease, sudden maladaptive mutations, and the possibility of extinction level population drops.

However, when transhumanists talk about embodiment, race is seen as inconsequential. For transhumanists, race refers to the totality of humanity. However, the term for racialization within transhumanist literature is human biodiversity (HBD). This term is meant to encapsulate the varying degrees of phenotypical expression, experience, and life, all while absorbing and thereby invisiblizing the complexities of racial difference. The biocultural import of histories, cultures, socioeconomic classes, genders, sexualities, etc., associated with racial difference, are shelved during transhumanist discussions. These complexities are replaced by an overarching cry for equality in embodiment and faculty, except when cartographies of contribution are concerned. This invisiblization becomes increasingly problematic when transhumanists trace their own philosophical lineage.

Enlightenment thinking, or rational humanism, is the logical foundation for transhumanist thought.¹⁵ While notable Enlightenment figures, such as Immanuel Kant and David Hume, were pushing for daring intellectual determination to push humanity beyond its immature belief systems, these thinkers were simultaneously advocating for the dismissal, discrimination, and subjugation of Black bodies by Western civilization. For instance, it is well documented that Kant asserts that “the Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the ridiculous. . . . So essential is the difference between these two human kinds, and it seems to be just as great with regard to the capacities of mind as it is with respect to color.” He also demonstrates his willingness to dismiss the words of a Black man, purely on the basis of his skin, arguing that “there might be something here worth con...