Technobody

by Bryan Gooden

Our addiction to technological "progress" and unlimited consumption is the sign of a deep, unmet hunger and loss within. What we have lost - in part as inheritors of the Judeo-Christian patriarchy - is bodily wisdom: we have lost the body itself as the measure and ground of being. (Nelson 151-152)

Joyce Nelson, in "Reclaiming the Body: Beyond Media" (Sign Crimes/Road Kill: From Mediascape to Landscape, 1992), describes, and perhaps one could argue, laments the passing of our "body" in this age of media. This process, also described as "disembodiment" by Nelson, McLuhan and other media theorists-- and described by myself as "technobody"--is a process in which "we have replaced the body and its direct sensory feedback with the technologically reproduced image"(152). This disembodiment has had profoundly disruptive and destabilizing effects on Western society in particular, including destruction of the earth, instability of the individual and collective psyche, and unprecedented violence.

Nelson, an author, journalist, media theorist and eco-feminist, traces the beginnings of the process of disembodiment, or one might say the denial of the body, to "patriarchy’s hierarchical ranking of mind and spirit over body and matter....to the Garden of Eden cosmology, in which body and matter become the locus of the dark, feminine Eve-Satan collusion, resulting in original sin and the ‘fall of man’" (152).

This elevation and celebration of left-brain functionality, and of the spirit and mind over body and matter was heralded, in the ironically named Age of Enlightenment, as "a seeming salvation through science from the dark realm of matter" according to Nelson (152). This splitting off from, or denial of "the dark realm of matter" has in turn led to much destruction. In civilizations' attempts to deny this wondrous, chaotic, creative, holistic realm of matter, they have wrought destruction of the earth, of women and children, and ultimately of humankind itself. The present obsession with technology, and of media--which are physical and electronic manifestations of the obsession with technology--is a further extension of this worship. The great new GOD technology has its various media as electronic scriptures. The only difference being (but a very important difference) that this GOD is controllable and, in fact, created by man in his own image. The "other" god seemed, due to the continuing destruction that man has wrought, to be unreliable and punitive and, worst of all, frustratingly out of man’s control.

By now you are probably thinking that I am a Luddite in my thinking and therefore that I must believe that all technology is evil and should be destroyed. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. I am writing this essay on a most wonderfully efficient word processor that greatly aids my creativity and expression of ideas. My struggle is how best to use these tools of technology with a fully conscious mind, without denying or losing touch of my body and soul. To see all technology and media as evil would be to make the same mistake as our predecessors in the so-called Age of Enlightenment, only in reverse.

Rather than deny one side of the brain over the other, or one gender over the other, we need, as we have always needed, to work towards fuller consciousness and the embracing and integration of all sides of ourselves. In the process towards fuller consciousness and integration, we also need to let go of the deluded and dangerous notion that we need to have control over everything. As we surrender and let go of our addiction to control, and as we come to realize that technology and media are simply tools and extensions and externalizations of our consciousness, then we can consciously choose if and how we will use technology and media. The danger lies in remaining unconscious and continuing to worship and obsess about technology as the salvation of humankind.

Our salvation has never and will never rest outside of ourselves in our earthly manifestations. Rather, our salvation, if there is such a thing, more likely resides within the deeper realms of mystery of our unconscious mind and the universe (perhaps one and the same) and as such will never be under our control. We can learn, however, not to be afraid and to embrace this wondrous and chaotic mystery. We can also let go of our need to control and our pursuit of "tech no body," instead reclaiming and re-inhabiting our beautiful and miraculous bodies.

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