Mil-bot Fetishism: The Pataphysics of Military Robots

Abstract

This paper begins by identifying a tendency in the mass media to represent military robotics in a manner that endows the devices with a degree of automation and agency that is actually beyond the technology. Military robot fetishism is not simply based upon an irrational or mistaken belief about the real capacities of the robots but, instead, their fetish value stems from their positive valuation according to a code of functionality (Baudrillard) that rests upon the risk-transfer labour of the robot. Acting as (Western) soldier surrogates, the promise of the military robot is one of casualty reduction but asymmetrically so. This fetishism arises, as Mulvey proposes, out of the difficulty of representing military reality— namely that waging war has not become a scientifically guided rational-antiseptic enterprise but continues to be a gruesome and violent activity. The fetishization of military robots can be attributed to the need to ameliorate a reality that is politically difficult for western governments and their militaries. In this context, military robotics becomes a science of imaginary technical solutions to the problem of war legitimation. The promotion of military robot fetishism in the mass media means that the military robot as fetish comes to circulate within both martial and civilian lifeworlds, re-legitimizing warfare and affording further militarization of civic life.

Behind the curtain: Fetishism and the production of virtual reality treatment for PTSD

“…Turkle (2011) takes as a premise the human tendency to develop emotional investments in objects as a defense against existential threats, as well as feelings of helplessness, loss, and powerlessness. Roderick (2010) concurs in this emphasis on obfuscation in fetishistic uses of technology. Based on a content analysis of press materials related to military roll-out of robotics to protect soldiers from IED blasts, Roderick identifies technology fetishism by its system of cultural signifiers.…”

“…While no one actually -possesses‖ the phallus as fantasy object and promise of plenitude, the male subject is authorized to lay claim to its social symbolic currency. Feminist theorists argue that fetishism operates as a prototypical masculine defense in that it is organized around ways of making use of images to protect against feelings of helplessness and traumatic loss (Silverman, 1988;Roderick, 2010).…”

Prescription drones: On the techno-biopolitical regimes of contemporary ‘ethical killing’

“…Military experts are certain that the future of modern warfare will include robotic machines that can ‘hunt, identify, authenticate and possibly kill a target – without a human decision in the loop’ (Johansson, 2011: 280), all under the mandate of saving lives. This, as Ian Roderick (2010: 288) puts it, is a form of ‘mil-bot’ fetish, whereby military robotics becomes ‘a science of imaginary technical solutions to the problem of war legitimation’. In such a reality, the capacity for ethical thinking becomes purely a technical capacity, based on the assemblage of technical expertise and life data.…”