New Humanity of the Future and Its New Barriers of Otherness – Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix as a Science Fiction Speculation on Trans/Posthuman Evolution
New Humanity of the Future and Its New Barriers of Otherness – Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix as a Science Fiction Speculation on Trans/Posthuman Evolution

Summary/Abstract: The possible future of mankind features prominently among SF topics. Despite a long record of failures, like unsuccessful grappling with the scourge of war, present day humanity has come a long way to assume a degree of unity it has never enjoyed before. The process of globalization has its anti-globalist opponents, but its idealistic aim is a better world without racial, social, economic and in some areas even national barriers separating people. This picture of multiracial, multicultural but otherwise ontologically uniform humanity amounts to a vision of a sentient species that is close to achieving its mature form. However, what may look like the final stop of our journey is treated by both the advocates (e.g. Ray Kurzweil) and critics (e.g. Fukuyama) of humanity’s trans/posthuman development as the beginning of a new stage of our existence. A question arises if the new paths of evolution involve a danger that humans will fall victim to a policy of metaphysical laissez faire that will put the race’s unity and continuity in jeopardy. Will the old walls of racial prejudice and social inequality between people that we have striven to break down be replaced by new ones? The objective of this paper is to use Bruce Sterling’s Shaper/Mechanist universe as a literary illustration of the new barriers that the prospective trans/posthumanity may have to face and seek to surmount or leave behind.

• Details
• Contents