We are moving beyond the “humanist” phase of history into a new level of combination of human and machines, an extremely suggestive assemblage in which the futures of the cyborg and cyberspace open vast unexplored territories … Perhaps the new modes of self-constitution encouraged in electronic forms of association will develop “postmoral” gestures and figures of well-being, in the sense of Nietzsche.
Predictor: Poster, Mark
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 e-mail interview with Erick Heroux, Mark Poster, a member of the humanities faculty at the University of California at Irvine and author of “The Second Media Age,” talks about the future of the world and the Internet’s potential impact: ”While some proclaim ‘the end of history’ in the victory of liberalism or capitalism, I think ‘history’ is just beginning. We are moving beyond the ‘humanist’ phase of history into a new level of combination of human and machines, an extremely suggestive assemblage in which the futures of the cyborg and cyberspace open vast unexplored territories. I think McLuhan glimpsed some of this, but so did Teihard de Chardin and the surrealists and dadaists in their way. I think the pace of history is heating up as ‘change’ becomes more frequent, more disruptive, more disconcerting, even more threatening. The fragile balances of the past two centuries are being transgressed, and people experience life as risky, edgy, nervous, deeply unsatisfying but also dizzying with possibilities. The best thing about the new developments, as I see them in the U.S., is the relative absence of postures of innocence or moral self-righteousness. If it requires the scruffy brutality of some youth culture to lower the level of moralism, then I’m for it. We need to find ways of feeling good about oneself other than those of tribal identification or moral autonomy, of group and individual legitimacy. Perhaps the new modes of self-constitution encouraged in electronic forms of association will develop ‘postmoral’ gestures and figures of well-being, in the sense of Nietzsche.”
Biography:Mark Poster wrote the paper “Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere” in 1995 while teaching at the University of California, Irvine. He also wrote about technology for Wired magazine. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: October 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Human-Machine Interaction
Name of publication: University of Oregon Web site
Title, headline, chapter name: Interview With Mark Poster: Community, New Media; Post-humanism
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~ucurrent/2-Poster.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney