Abstract
Assuming some version of a transhumanist future, what sort of relationship between the human and the posthuman should there be? The origin stories we tell ourselves contain a potential answer. In modern superhero origin stories, the difference between hero and villain is simply the hero’s determination to remain connected to his or her human identity. Although it is common to wonder whether we will recognize the human within the posthuman, it is just as important to consider whether the posthuman will recognize its own humanity—the question at the heart of so much anxiety about the posthuman. It is also important to consider how the Christian origin story provides the framework of created/creator relationship: Will we accept the responsibility of the creator for our creations?
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Notes
- 1.
Sandifer , “Amazing Fantasies: Trauma, Affect, and Superheroes,” 175.
- 2.
Ibid., 176.
- 3.
Ibid., 178.
- 4.
This simple dichotomy can be complicated by further analysis of particular superhero figures; for example, see the essays on Superman and Batman in Oropeza (editor), The Gospel According to Superheroes.
- 5.
Sandifer , “Amazing Fantasies: Trauma, Affect, and Superheroes,” 182.
- 6.
Graham , Representations of the Posthuman, 132–152.
- 7.
Thweatt-Bates , Cyborg Selves, 2.
- 8.
For a full discussion of dystopian science fiction narratives in dialogue with the contrasting optimism of transhumanism, see Dinello , Technophobia!
- 9.
Draper , “AI robot that learns new words in real-time tells human creators it will keep them in a ‘people zoo.’”
- 10.
And yet it is clear that Cavil’s hatred of humanity—and his own concomitant self-hatred for his biologically human form—is no ontological necessity, for Caprica Six and the other sympathetic Cylon models, despite their distrust of humanity and the history of genocidal violence, deeply desire to identify as human, paradigmatically explored in the narrative in the most intimate of relationships.
- 11.
Larson and Moore , Battlestar Galactica.
- 12.
Miles , “In the Garden.”
- 13.
I use “Mother” in the heading deliberately in recognition of the unfortunate distortions toward hierarchy, absolute and arbitrary authority, and relational distance that the role and relationship of “Father” has suffered within Western culture, philosophy, and theology—though by doing so I do not mean to endorse a gendered dualism of masculine and feminine natures.
- 14.
I am thinking here of both the current dehumanizing rhetoric in American politics around Islam and the realities of the carceral state which imprisons a disproportionate number of African Americans.
- 15.
Larson, Battlestar Galactica (original miniseries).
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Thweatt, J. (2018). Origin Stories: Superheroes, Cyborgs, Artificial Intelligences (and Other Humans and Posthumans). In: Donaldson, S., Cole-Turner, R. (eds) Christian Perspectives on Transhumanism and the Church. Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and its Successors. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90323-1_11
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