| As digital technologies continue to develop at a breakneck pace,the human-machine relationship,being one of the most important issues in posthuman,has received widespread academic attention since the latter half of the 20th century.As a main subject in the humanmachine relationship,the cyborg has always occupied the center of academic discussion.In 1985,Donna Haraway published "Manifesto for Cyborgs:Science,Technology,and Socialist-Feminism in the 1980s".The cyborg manifesto improved the cultural phenomenon of the cyborg to theoretical heights and focused the public’s attention on cyborgs once again.In particular,Haraway’s introduction of "the breakdown of three boundaries",that is,the boundary between man and animal,between man and machine,and between physical and non-physical,became the origin of cyborg’s hybridity.However,despite the fact that cyborgs are seen as an essential part of posthuman,Haraway and many post-humanists hold different views on the relationship between humans and machines.Thus,to some extent,there is a gap between the cyborg manifesto and the cyborg in the posthuman context.Not only that,but the human-machine relationship embodied in the cyborg manifesto and that in science fiction also presents a different degree of difference.Based on that,this paper aims to trace the history of Haraway’s cyborg manifesto,analyzes its main themes and compares it with the post-human cyborg imagery and the cyborg characters in Neuromancer,thus presenting the different human-machine relationship among the three,and exploring the motivations behind such differences and the future directions of cyborgs.This paper consists of three main chapters.It first traces the history of cyborgs by taking the "breakdown of the three boundaries" in the cyborg manifesto as a clue.Darwinism challenges the boundary between humans and animals,Wiener’s cybernetics blurs the boundary between humans and machines,and the ongoing cybernetic revolution in human society provides the technological basis for the rupture of the third boundary.Chapter two follows the development of the cyborg,focusing on the cyborg images in the initial phase,in the information age,and in the human fantasy.Based on the analysis,this chapter aims at comparing and contrasting the human-machine relationship embodied in the cyborg manifesto and other mainstream cyborg images.However,unlike the decentralized humanmachine relationship embodied in the cyborg manifesto,the mainstream cyborg images in the posthuman context and the cyborg characters in Neuromancer exhibit different degrees of mind-body dualism and anthropocentric tendencies.This difference stems from the unbreakable anthropocentric sentiment rooted in the minds of post-humanists.On the road to deconstructing anthropocentrism,post-humanists are still trapped by anthropocentrism.Faced with the rapid development of technology,post-humanists regard machines as a tool for human empowerment,while at the same time fearing the vivid dynamism behind intelligent machines.Faced with such a dilemma,Haraway turns from cyborgs to companion species in an attempt to detach cyborgs from post-human and to shed light on the human-machine relationship in the information age from an alternative perspective.Drawing on the companion species relationship between humans and dogs,Haraway paints an illuminating picture of the human-machine relationship:the breakdown of boundaries exists within the relationship,not on the surface of the species.In the Internet age,the human-machine relationship has long become inseparable.Since 2020,the outbreak of the COVID-19 has further pushed the human-machine relationship to a new level.Cyborgs have been integrated into everyday life and have become people’s new identities.In this regard,rereading Haraway’s cyborg manifesto and The Companion Species Manifesto can help people to re-examine the human-machine relationship in the new era,while also prompting an optimistic perspective on the development of information technology. |
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