Abstract:Peter Sloterdijk presented a reading of Heidegger's Letter on Humanism at a conference held at Elmau in 1999. Reinterpreting the meaning of humanism in the light of Heidegger's Letter, Sloterdijk focused his presentation on the need to redefine education as a form of genetic ‘taming’ and proposed what seemed to be support for positive eugenics. Although Sloterdijk claimed that he only wanted to open a debate on the issue, he could not have been surprised at the level of opposition this suggestion aroused. In t… Show more
“…In Guangzhou, government offices are fitted with sprinklers to spray homeless people intermittently, soaking their bodies and their belongings. Long (2017) summarizes the modern picture in the cities by stating that modern humanism 2 is taming human beings negatively because through humanism, cultural people are grouping themselves in zoos, parks, cities, domesticated spaces, and space stations in such a way that the best group emerges as the dominant group.…”
Section: Retinal Architecture and Social Implicationsmentioning
Architecture has significantly transformed in the last century with the development of modern technologies. Since the advent of the industrial age and the advancement of technological tools, architecture has developed, assuming diverse forms, while shaping humanity's immediate built environment. These advances didn't only shape our built environment but also changed our inherited culture. With the easy accessibility to more amenities, our reliability on extensions increased. Moreover, while corporations sought to increase more revenues from profitable products, new strategies were developed to attract more customers. These strategies were established on ocular pleasing products for more desirability. Such systems were not only implemented on micro appliances, but were also reflected on our built environment and urban planning. This paper highlights how societies became obsessed with ocularcentric products. However, it indicates how, in the past century, the visual sense became more dominant over the rest of the senses. This dominance has not only prevailed through literature, architecture, and art, but also ocularcentrism, advocating architects, stakeholders, and planners to prioritize aesthetically pleasing products over the social needs of residents. This paper highlights the ocularcentric phenomenon of societies by providing real-life examples of architecture that act as a repellent to a specific social class, in which it contradicts the sacred role of architecture as an answer to our existential thrownness.
“…In Guangzhou, government offices are fitted with sprinklers to spray homeless people intermittently, soaking their bodies and their belongings. Long (2017) summarizes the modern picture in the cities by stating that modern humanism 2 is taming human beings negatively because through humanism, cultural people are grouping themselves in zoos, parks, cities, domesticated spaces, and space stations in such a way that the best group emerges as the dominant group.…”
Section: Retinal Architecture and Social Implicationsmentioning
Architecture has significantly transformed in the last century with the development of modern technologies. Since the advent of the industrial age and the advancement of technological tools, architecture has developed, assuming diverse forms, while shaping humanity's immediate built environment. These advances didn't only shape our built environment but also changed our inherited culture. With the easy accessibility to more amenities, our reliability on extensions increased. Moreover, while corporations sought to increase more revenues from profitable products, new strategies were developed to attract more customers. These strategies were established on ocular pleasing products for more desirability. Such systems were not only implemented on micro appliances, but were also reflected on our built environment and urban planning. This paper highlights how societies became obsessed with ocularcentric products. However, it indicates how, in the past century, the visual sense became more dominant over the rest of the senses. This dominance has not only prevailed through literature, architecture, and art, but also ocularcentrism, advocating architects, stakeholders, and planners to prioritize aesthetically pleasing products over the social needs of residents. This paper highlights the ocularcentric phenomenon of societies by providing real-life examples of architecture that act as a repellent to a specific social class, in which it contradicts the sacred role of architecture as an answer to our existential thrownness.
“…Undoubtedly, the techno‐progressive agenda, along with its presumption concerning human enhancement as an educational augmentation, forces us to rethink the basic issues of human development: ‘When the body is enhanced for therapeutic reasons, there is generally little or no objection but in view of the general slippage from medical to non‐therapeutic uses in practice, the chemical and mechanical transformation of the body is now becoming central to the very idea of education at all’ (Long, , p. 180).…”
Section: Transhumanism: Between Science and Postmodernitymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…‘When the body is enhanced for therapeutic reasons, there is generally little or no objection but in view of the general slippage from medical to non‐therapeutic uses in practice, the chemical and mechanical transformation of the body is now becoming central to the very idea of education at all’ (Long, , p. 180).…”
Section: Transhumanism: Between Science and Postmodernitymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Nietzsche's ‘overhuman’ can indeed be perceived as a valid ontological foundation for transhumanism (Sorgner), and yet, at the same time, pose favourable grounds for a critical stance towards the reductive implications of techno‐science and its potential consequences for education (Babich). One way or another, the rise of biotechnological power demands a critical educational reflection that might be—apart from legislative safety precautions—the only way to effectively prevent a future that would enclose the individual within the network of techno‐science: ‘Is it not time for philosophers of education to return to an examination of the human and to forge new links between what is now appearing as the human and education as we know it?’ (Long, , pp. 190–191).…”
Section: Final Remarks: Educational Self‐creation or Self‐reductive Ementioning
Transhumanism promotes the application of emerging technologies and genetics in order to overcome the physical and cognitive limitations of the human species. In this article, the main question to be considered is the following: is Nietzsche's notion of educational self‐overcoming compatible with the idea of biotechnological self‐enhancement? After presenting some broad characteristics of transhumanist philosophy, the general line of reasoning in this article is based on two colliding interpretations of Nietzsche's ‘overhuman’ and its educational implications: Stefan Lorenz Sorgner's attempt to legitimise techno‐progressive aspirations through the ‘will‐to‐power‐ontology’ and Babette Babich's critique of transhumanism as a popular display of the ‘ascetic ideal’. In the final part, I argue that Nietzsche's post‐anthropology can only be regarded as a possible onto‐axiological legitimisation for a kind of transhumanism that would not aim at strengthening the tendency to approach human development from a solely technocratic point of view. I further conclude that the rise of biotechnological power demands a critical educational reflection that would effectively prevent the enclosure of the individual within the network of techno‐science.
“…Value-based data bank of modern cultural and educational projects such as "public humanities" receives criticism because they continue to proceed from "the Victorian values even when these values appear to be largely losing their force as an element of politics and education (Mullen, 2016) Another pole of criticism (and its object) is the nightmare of the future, foretold by P. Sloterdijk, with his idea of a "human zoo" where education is transformed into a new "kind of taming" in a negative sense: "Humanistic culture is viewed as a kind of taming in a negative sense, where people put themselves in parks, zoos, cities, space stations and domestication structures so that the best will emerge as those who dominate the flock" (Long, 2017). 6.2.…”
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