In Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto", she introduces the concept of a 'cyborg' representing a technologically-developed sentient being that embodies the capacity for pushing the existing boundaries of today's world. It is an agent for the breaking down of dominant and mostly binary societal structures such as class and gender. As a woman in a patriarchal society she draws parallels between the struggles of feminism and that of dichotomies in ideology. In fact she claims her preference of the 'cyborg' over today's definition of a woman, namely that of a goddess. She conceives of this 'cyborg' by first pointing to scientific progress as invalidating the difference between animals and humans, between humans and machine (in terms of machine supported and enhanced humans). She also points to the pervasion of technology in our lives as a reason we should embrace it as it allows us to thrive despite having our identities become increasingly confused.
It's difficult to conceive of a world without technology being so ubiquitous, but not an impossible mental task. We found that Haraway underlines the importance of embracing technology because it is here to stay, and it can be harnessed to rebel against age-old ideologies. The 'cyborg', then, is the pinnacle of human and technology relations; it gives a mind to a body that, she argues, is increasingly losing its human element. We found the feminist aspect to the manifesto quite interesting and tied in well to the concept of boundary transgression, and how a re-thought "human" design could achieve what "traditional" humans have been unable to, up until now.
Do societal and identity struggles slowly wane from our collective consciousness as technology itself becomes more and more pervasive, overtaking our focus, softening us to hegemony? Can we ever get to creating a 'cyborg society' for the purposes that Haraway manifests?
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