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METAPHILOSOPHY
Vol. 28, Nos. 3, July 1997
0026–1068
ROBYN F. BROTHERS
For many scholars breathing the rarefied air of literary theory and philos-
ophy, the world of communications technology is light years away and has
seemingly little to do with the more pressing issues of human identity and
agency in an age of moral relativism. But like many of my colleagues in
the humanities, facing the beginning of my career in these extreme times
of uncertainty, I have become increasingly dependent upon new modes of
communication, new ways of transmitting my work, and new forms of
leisure activity. And I am also witnessing an increasing disparity between
the theoretical issues of my scholarly work and the realities of life in the
electronic age. There are some questions in my field that are not being
answered, indeed, not even being posed. First, postmodernism problema-
tized identity; then, cyberspace simplified postmodernism; and so what,
now, is becoming of personal identity as we know it? And more impor-
tantly, how are the moral and political moorings contingent upon that defi-
nition of personal identity loosening in an era transformed by information
technologies?
Armed with keyboard and mouse, we face a screen to which we are
wedded and in which we are losing ourselves, for better or worse. The
* I am grateful for comments by Terry Bynum, Martin Matusík, Sherry Turkle, Sanda
Golopentia, Inge Wimmers, and I. C. Bupp as well as the participants of ETHICOMP96
(Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca en Madrid, Nov. 6–8, 1996), where this essay was
originally presented.
249
250 CYBORG IDENTITIES AND THE RELATIONAL WEB
1
Predgrag Matvejevitch described at the 1995 UNESCO meeting in Paris the phenom-
enon of “ex” which concerns the constitution of personal and collective identities in their
geopolitical, social, spacial, psychological spheres and the impact of this phenomenon on
moral attitudes.
2
Seyla Benhabib (1992) stresses the interactive nature of a new definition of
Habermasian universalism, and thereby hopes to both grant justice its “dignity” and respect
the positionalities of those parties previously excluded in any discourses of democracy.
3
Cf. MacIntyre 1981, Nussbaum 1990, Rorty 1989, and Taylor 1989.
4
I am thinking in particular of Martin J. Matustík’s treatment of individualism (1993,
1995).
ular difficulties with regard to human agency. However, when the strivings
for objectivity are denounced in favor of so many petits récits, is not a
similar ideological foundationalist claim reproduced in this new alle-
giance to particularism? Telling stories needs to be balanced with a contin-
ued commitment to theory: we should not fall prey to an either/or choice
of our own devising.
While some of those discourses of postmodernism which emphasize
the Other, the dynamic process of becoming, and the excesses of meaning
inherent in any linguistic expression are intellectually exhilarating, there
remains a stinging question whose solidity refuses to melt into air. Moral
and political urgencies which have resulted from the deeply penetrative
inquires by postmodern theorists require us more than ever to expand our
conceptualization of the individual. I believe that a chiasmatic relationship
between theory and imaginative narratives (including those virtual
[ir]realities) will yield the most deeply penetrating insights in the ethical
issues of our increasingly global community.
We need to begin to examine some of the difficulties that have surfaced
in the liberal/communitarian debate, and the bearing that debate has on the
future—and ethical import—of the literary imagination. Narrative ethics
and ethical theory pose the same questions of what constitutes the good
life and how we should conduct ourselves within the framework of our
own individual lives. The actual form of narrative, however, invites us as
readers to involve ourselves in a sort of mental journey during which
certain ways of viewing ourselves, our lives, and others are subjected to
multiple, intertwining perspectives belonging to one or more characters.
Thus, right away the very act of reading a narrative text is in some ways
an invitation to self-exploration.
But perhaps the concept of the “literary” imagination could be broad-
ened to include the inner workings of the individual mind in relation to
different “texts” it encounters and/or coproduces, whether those texts
appear in print or electronically.5 With the humanities currently under
siege in the United States, the active, dynamic role of the “literary” imag-
ination must be expanded and clearly articulated beyond the confines of
the academy. Martha Nussbaum recently has clarified the integral role
literature can play in public policy formation and in legal affairs (1991).
But if it is true that within the decade leisure time will be spent increas-
ingly in front of a computer screen rather than the television screen (most
likely a merging of the two will erase the distinction), then we need to
expand our notion of how the “literary” imagination becomes operative.
5
An example of this is the MultiUserDomain, hereafter referred to as a MUD, in which
participants log on as a self-created character, interacting with other such characters in a
community-developed narrative. Sherry Turkle offers the following definition: “text-based
MUDs are a new form of collaboratively written literature. MUD players are MUD authors,
the creators as well as consumers of media content” (1995, 11).
Virtual Personhood
I mentioned earlier that I would consider the impact of virtual reality on
personal identity, particularly as it relates to self-understanding and the
assumed link between unity of self and moral accountability. Sherry
Turkle’s important study of negotiations of identity in cyberspace provides
many instances—more than I can address here—where identity is decid-
edly performative (1995). In our study here this negotiatory character of
cyberactivity raises the issue of how to determine the aspect(s) of human
identity which does not necessitate unity in order to assure moral account-
ability. By participating in such cybersites as MUDs, individuals imagina-
tively participate via self-created characters where they might be male,
female, human, animal or even a male masquerading as a female
masquerading as a male. This kind of activity is reportedly quite addictive,
many participants feeling that this imaginative activity is more “real” than
real life (ibid., 11–19). If it is true, as Turkel argues, that the nature of
cyberspace and its concomitant activities render the dense complexities of
the postmodern theory of Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze surprisingly
transparent (ibid., 15), then the issue of multiplicity within human indi-
viduality cannot be sidestepped or simply countered by a return to the
subject. I would argue that by beginning the serious exploration of the
relation between ethical theory and narrative ethics, one faces the addi-
tional task of delineating the contours of new, virtual (co-authored) narra-
tive sites which can dramatically inform personal agency equally well.
Is it viable to establish any system of ethics which privileges either the
community (changing on a global scale at an ever faster rate) or the indi-
vidual (whose agency is under siege by postmodern and poststructuralist
interrogations of human subjectivity)? How does one not ignore historical,
material determinations and still allow for an absolute, albeit qualified, free-
dom of the individual positionality? By losing ourselves in the act of read-
ing, whether in an imaginative literary text or in online imaginative
configurations such as hypertext or MUDs, how do we incorporate or
Brown University
Department of French Studies
Box 1961
Providence, R 02912
USA
Robyn-Brothers@postoffice.brown.edu
References