6 - Nietzscheanism and posthumanism

Summary

I write for a species of man that does not yet exist.

(WP 958)

Posthumanism is a recent intellectual and popular trend in which Nietzsche has been both an influence and a focus for debate. Most basically, posthumanism means “beyond humanism”. Like most –isms, however, the term posthumanism is used in a number of differing ways. Here we shall use the term in two ways that are antagonistically related. First, it is used more or less synonymously with “transhumanism” (to be defined below). Second, it refers to antihumanist currents of thought in the recent and contemporary humanities. After a first approach to Nietzsche's relation to transhumanism, we shall see how posthumanism in the second (antihumanistic) sense can also be found in Nietzsche's thought, and how this can in fact be used to critique transhumanism.

Transhumanism

Transhumanism is a relatively new movement, the origin of which can be traced to the early 1990s. It crystallized with Ed Regis's humorous survey of some of the “wacky” ideas being pursued by some scientists, Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition (1990). Transhumanism admits of a number of currents, including Max More's extropianism (“extropy” is a term coined to express the opposite of entropy, that is, unlimited development), singularitarianism (which endorses the idea of a sudden coming of the posthuman condition through a rapid technological acceleration, dubbed “the singularity”), David Pearce's “Hedonistic Imperative” (a hedonistic utilitarian form of transhumanism), democratic transhumanism (which foregrounds social and political issues) and survivalist transhumanism (which focuses of the achievement of longevity) (see Bostrom 2001).