“Some differences are playful; some are poles of world historical systems of domination. ‘Epistemology’ is about knowing the difference.” – Donna Haraway

What is nature?   That’s a useful question that people have been asking for a long time, but one that I prefer is: what does it mean to be natural, and with what consequences?

My fellow columnists Alex and Lisa are also concerned with issues of technology and nature, and the relationship of the two, and I would like to forward a way of looking at the use of technology and nature that I think will yield fruitful insights.   In this, I am deeply indebted to the writing and thought of Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto.”

Most progressives in the United States seem to insist that technology is always an instrument that dominates the organic, and call upon us to recognize our bodies as a sacred site of resistance against it.

I suggest, following Haraway, that a “slightly perverse” shift of perspective gives us more room to contest meaning, exercise power and experience pleasure.

The distinctions between organic and machine have been broken down. Our brains are computers, our hearts are run by pacemakers, our nervous system is electrical. Our robots climb stairs and have conversations.

At the same time, the boundary between physical and non-physical is broken down.   Like most binaries, the more we learn about them, the more we find that they run together.

I think that we are all already cyborgs.   Our worldview, our understanding of bodies and objects are already mediated by, through, with and against technology.

We can’t see bodies without understanding that they are a series of molecules and DNA structures. We have the capability to “flag” certain stories and events for later transcription into Facebook, blogs, etc. and everywhere we collect photographic images to aid in our memorization and ability to explain.

For many people and ideologies today, a cyborg world is a controlled one, a destruction of the planet in the name of defense based on an appropriation of women’s bodies.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We do not have to be afraid of or pick sides between our connections to animals and machines. There is no forced choice between iPhone and organic patchouli incense.

This is not to say that there aren’t problems associated with technology.   It can be used to control, discipline, hierarchalize, organize and violently destroy. Some people like being dominated, controlled and organized, but others don’t.

The relationships we have with our bodies and with other people are highly personal, but we should afford people the right to do what they please with their bodies and their minds.   To some this means plastic surgery and iPods, to others, dropping off the grid and living in a food forest with no shoes.

There’s nothing wrong with either of these paths. To take either is to remain and affirm our cyborgism.