American Academy of Religion

Thoughts on the Status of the Cyborg: On Technological Socialization and Its Link to the
Religious Function of Popular Culture
Author(s): Brenda E. Brasher
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 64, No. 4, Thematic Issue on
"Religion and American Popular Culture" (Winter, 1996), pp. 809-830
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1465623
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Journalof the AmericanAcademyof ReligionLXIV/4

AARa
Thoughts
the

Cyborg:

the

on

On

Status

of

Technological

Its
Socialization and
Link
to
the
Religious
Function
of Popular Culture
Brenda E. Brasher

IN SCIENCEFICTION films and novels cyborgs are technological

golems that haunt dystopic and utopic chimericalworlds. Futuristicfabrications,cyborgsin this subgenreof the arts are imaginativeadmixtures
of humans and machines that mimic human life but remain outside it.
The replicantsof "BladeRunner,"the T800 of "TheTerminator,"
Datain
"StarTrek:The Next Generation":though differentin composition, each
belongs to a rank of fictive entities which comprise the general class of
the part-machine/part-human
artisticfantasyknown as the cyborg.Amid
the narrativesthrough which they saunter, cyborgs frequentlyserve as
a counterpoint to humanness which, by contrastwith it, reveals being
human as a desirableor (more rarely)an undesirabletrait.In the process,
cyborg narratives raise essential religious questions by marking the
boundariesof humannessmost often againsttechnology.
The birth date of the cyborg in the arts like much of its profile is
somewhat in dispute. In literatureits genealogyis linked to the onset of
BrendaE. Brasheris an AssistantProfessorin the Departmentof Religion and Philosophy,Mount
Union College,Alliance,OH 44601; brashebe@muc.edu.

809
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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

industrialization (Rushing and Frentz). Here, the cyborg's inception

occurredin MaryWollstonecraftShelley'snineteenth-centurynovel Frankenstein(Shelley). Not long after Friedrich Schleiermacherpenned his
speechesin defenseof religionarguingfor an identitybetween the human
self and the divine (Schleiermacher),Shelleywrote a very differenttale of
human alienation rendered through the crucible of a human cyborg.
Stitched together by the surgical skill of a young doctor named Victor
Frankenstein,Shelley'scyborg was a lumbering assemblage of human
parts made mobile and sentient by a fledgling surgeon'scollection of
"instruments."
As Shelley'stale unwinds, the namelesscyborgand its/his
creator,Dr. Frankenstein,clash over the cyborg'sdesire for human sociability. Consistentwith the romanticera of its/his genesis, the cyborg in
Frankenstein
longs to be recognizedas human or at least to have a human
Dr. Frankensteinfeels such revulsionfor the creahowever,
companion;
ture fromthe moment he spies its/his opened "dullyellow eye"(Shelley:
86) that he rejects and abandons his creation, refusing to assume
responsibility for the techno-life he assiduously had evoked. Chaos
results.Enragedat the callousrebuffof its/his creator,the cyborgkills the
doctor'sfamily and loved ones. The doctor retaliatesby attempting to
trackdown and kill his cyborgcreation.
At the novel'sclose, neither the doctor nor his creationtriumphs in
the outrageousstrugglebetween the two for control over the other. The
doctor dies fromexposureand exhaustionsufferedin his frustratedhunt
for his creation.1The cyborg discovers the doctor'sdead body and in
sorrowleaps onto an ice floe that driftsoff into darkness.Thus, Shelley's
imaginativeinvestigationof the interrelationshipbetween humanityand
technologyvia the fiction of the cyborgprovedinconclusive;nonetheless,
in the popularimaginationof the West, it is the cyborgwhich has had the
last synthetic laugh. Seemingly deathless, Shelley'scyborg has coopted
its/his fictional creator'sname and with it manifested a greatercultural
saliency than even the author'sown. For in Shelley'smorbid account
Frankenstein is the surname of the doctor; but as anyone who has
shopped for a Halloween mask can attest, in common idiom it is the
cyborgwho is Frankenstein.
In film the genesis of the cyborgcan be tracedto 1926, a year before
the medium saw its first talking film. Here it is linked to culturalreactions againstthe mass routinizationof labor entailed in WorldWarI. In

' Frankenstein'sdeath ratherironicallytakes place on board a ship captainedby another driven,

obsessive technologistwho, as oblivious to the consequences of his actions as Frankensteinhimself,
jeopardizesthe lives of his crew in an attemptto reachthe North Pole.

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ontheStatusof theCyborg
Brasher:Thoughts

811

the U.S. religious responses to the war ranged from Walter Rauschenbusch's social gospel (1918) to the rise of a militant, anti-modernist
movement that would come to be known as Christianfundamentalism
(Marsden). But mass-mediated culture was the site of a powerful response as well. Less than two decades after the first Ford Model T was
sold, a startlingly futuristic female-appearingrobot named Hel eerily
In Hel, Langvisumaterializedon the screenin FritzLang's"Metropolis."
ally presentedthe cyborgas an explicit mechanical/humansynthesis. At
firstan awkward-moving,metal-skinnedmachine,Hel receivesa transfusion of bodily liquid involuntarilyremoved from the saint-like but very
human Maria.As fluid drawn from Mariafloods Hel'smetallic structure,
Hel is transformedinto the first screen cyborg. Upon receivingan infusion of humanness, Hel'scountenance changes such that it/she appears
human, though not uniquely so. Hel becomes a defective copy of Maria
and proceeds to wreak havoc on the city of Metropolisfor much of the
rest of the film. The director,Lang,makes no attempt to use Hel'spostinfusion mirroringof Maria'scountenance to thrust the audience into a
state of suspense. Instead,he presentsthe audiencewith the entire alteration process, forcingviewers into a constantawarenessthat the humanlooking Hel is not human but a hybrid of human and machine. Given
Hel'ssubsequentdestructivenessand the Ludditephilosophy that drives
the film'splot (quietly undermined by the technological medium and
itself), the evil resonancesHel'sname set off canartistryof "Metropolis"
not be dismissed as coincidence. Throughout"Metropolis,"humanity is
far from perfect; but, Hel[1] is a cyborg, humanity gone amok due to
unrestrainedtechnologicalprowess.
While many scholars of religion are not strangersto science fiction,
the cyborgis an unusual topic to receiveserious academicattentionfrom
a religious studies scholar. No inscrutablemystery lies behind this fact.
The cyborgspranginto existence as a literaryand film fiction;therefore,
the cyborghas been on the academicturf of literatureand film scholars.
One of the principalpoints of my analysisis that this exclusive categorization of the cyborgas a fiction no longer holds (if it ever did). Todaythe
infiltrationof technology into daily life is transformingour patternsof
play,work, love, birth, sickness, and death such that the cyborgis not an
imaginativeplot device but a metaphorthat is lived by (LakoffandJohnson). The cyborgis a term of and for our times that aptly maps contemporarybodily and social realityas a hybridof biology and machine.From
the vantage point of the late twentieth century, Shelley's and Lang's
fictional cyborgs appear Cassandra-likewarnings of what was to come.
Consequently,the cyborg is, as never before, a concept of vital consequence for religionscholars.

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How has life managedto imitate art in this way?The cyborg'sbridge

acrossthe fictional/realdivide that enabled it to be replicatedas both fiction and fact, and the study of its characterto be approachedboth as
mythology and anthropology have a fascinating history. Intriguingly,
although the cyborg concept initially developed in the arts, the term
cyborgoriginatedin the sciences. Its first appearancewas in 1960 in a
speculativearticleon the futureof space travelauthoredby two research
scientists (Clynes and Kline). Rather than developing human-friendly
environments to travel through space, Clynes and Kline made the unorthodox proposalthat scientists try to alterthe human body so it could
thrive in space. They referredto these space-adaptedhumans as "cyborgs."In the sciences the term stuck. As advancesin medical technologies enabled medical specialists to replace certain defective or deficient
human organsand limbs with artificialor animalimplants,the specialists
involved referred to implant recipients as cyborgs (Rorvik; Halacy).2
Soon, this concrete"cyborg"becamethe standarddictionarydefinitionof
the term. By 1977 Webster'sDictionary defined a cyborg as, "aperson
whose physiologicalfunctioningis aided by, or dependenton, a mechanical or electronicdevice."3
Though the sciences gave birth to the word 'cyborg,'they quickly
lost definitional control of its meaning. As Shelley'sand Lang'sworks
illustrate, the aesthetic idea of the cyborg existed long before the term
'cyborg'was introduced;therefore,it was perhapsnot coincidental that
the pragmatic,scientific use of the cyborg was rapidlyjoined by its use
as a metaphorof culturalsemiotics. Still, since the culturalcyborg concept developed before cyborg terminologyitself was generated,many of
the earliestworks analyzing the cultural cyborg lack specific use of the
term. In anthropologythe work of French semiologist Roland Barthes
falls into this category.Though never explicitly employing the 'cyborg'
term, Barthes culturally decoded Albert Einstein as a kind of natural
cyborg. Too intellectual to fit comfortablywithin any normal range of
humanness, Einstein was dismembered in popular imagination to
become signifiedby his brainaccordingto Barthes.In this detachedstate
Einstein'sbrain was culturallyveneratedas a remarkablerobotic object,

2 Television
capitalizedon the public'sfascinationwith this developing medical specialtyby offering television programsthat featuredcyborgsincluding "TheSix MillionDollarMan"and later,"The
BionicWoman."Here, art imitatedlife. The fictionalcyborgsof televisionwere super-human.Their
senses and athletic skills far superior to human beings, television cyborgs were governmental
weapons.
ThirdNew International
3Webster's
Dictionaryof theEnglishLanguage,Unabridged,
s.v. "cyborg."

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Brasher:Thoughtson the Status of the Cyborg

813

a marveloushuman-machine(ergo, a cyborg). To the public, Einstein's

brain produced thought "asa mill makes flour"(Barthes:69).
Furtheringthe linguistictransformationof the cyborgfroma biological to a cultural metaphor, a small group of scholars enthusiastically
began to evaluatethe cyborgas a symbol of culturalmodernity.One who
achieved great notoriety in this regardis historian of science Donna J.
Haraway In the 1980s Harawaylaid out a thorough frameworkof the
culturalcyborg concept in her now renowned cyborgmanifesto(1985).
A pivotal article in cyborg deliberations, Haraway'smanifesto detailed
many of the acute ethical issues modem technology induces, including
the militarizationof human imagination by new media technologies.
In spite of the problems she foresaw,Harawayultimately took a stand
endorsing technology'sinfluence on human life. She insisted that cyborg
imagery offered "away out of the maze of dualisms in which we have
explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves"(81). In a move that
simultaneouslyanticipatedand ignored poststructuralistconcerns, Haraway not only invoked the cyborg in her analysis;her work overtly and
playfullycelebratedits existence.
Another who, like Barthes, never employed the term 'cyborg'yet
whose work offeredan important,earlycontributionto cyborgdiscourse
is Naomi Goldenberg. Five years after Haraway'scyborg-celebratory
"Manifesto,"
Goldenbergoffereda substantiallygloomierprognosisof the
on what she perceivedto be the psychologicalimplications
based
cyborg
of human/machine interdependency ([1990] 1993). Contra Haraway,
Goldenbergdecried the enlargingrole of machines in human socialization. The philosophical and religious heritage of the West, Goldenberg
claimed,leavesWesternerspredisposedto formharmfulattitudestoward
the technologies overtakingtheir lives. This heritagehas taught us "that
human life is a rough copy of something out there-something better,
wiser and purer . . ." (17). Consequently, Westerners possess a cultural

proclivityto respondto machinesnot as tools to use but as role models to

emulate.As people act upon this proclivity,the isolationand lonelinessof
modem life are being increased. Given the pro-technology direction of
Westerndevelopment,Goldenberg'spredictionfor the futureis a somber
one: "Weare, I think, engagedin a processof makingone anotherdisappear by living more and more of our lives apartfrom other humans, in
the company of machines"(11).
As academic decoding of the cultural cyborg progressed,poststructuralistsbegan to raise concerns about the project.Jamison argued that
writing on the cyborg was, itself, cyborgian, a novel form of humanmachine symbiotic pleasure (Jamison). Under an aegis of dispassionate
inquiry into technology'saffecton human identity,cyborgdiscoursewas

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constructingan uncanny symbolic world that furtheredhuman dependency upon machines.For academicdiscoursethis poststructuralistconcern posed an unanswerablechallenge. If to write on the cyborg was
invariablyprescriptive,the only viable option might be to halt the discussion;yet, the effectof this cessationwould be to stifle academicanalysis of what those involved in cyborg discourse believed to be a crucial
culturalphenomenon. Thus, academicanalysisof the cyborgcontinues,
althoughno convincingresponseto Jamison'spoststructuralistchallenge
has emerged.
For a substantialportion of human history overt, substantive religious groups have functioned as the cultural institutions where the
boundariesof the human customarilyhave been addressed.Among the
many cultural tasks religious institutions historically have performed,
each invariablyhas providedpotentialand actualadherentswith a communal response to the question of what it means to be human. In fulfillment of this cultural role, Buddhism, Christianity,Judaism, Islam,
Sikhism,Zoroastrianism,and other world religionspossess the common
characteristicof a well-developedreligiousanthropologythat situatesthe
human being in relationshipto the world and to the wider universe.It is
precisely because of this that the cyborg-a term through which the
characterof contemporaryhumanity is being deliberated-is a consequential topic for religiousstudies researchif only to note the dearthof
participationby religiousinstitutionsin ongoing cyborgdeliberations.
HOW TO BUILD A CULTURALCYBORG
To build a cultural cyborg you must start with an awarenessof the
profounddependencyupon others that marksall human life. Yearsago,
social constructivistsPeter Bergerand Thomas Luckmanndetailed the
dialecticalprocesses at work in human identity construction(1967). As
lucid as their analysiswas, it reallyonly delineatedwhat life experiences
teach everyone:becoming human is a social endeavor.People determine
who they are throughinteractionwith the environmentsthey encounter
and, in turn, shape by theiractions and inactionswith and towardthem.
Now, poised on the brink of the thirdmillennium,it is technology,material and ideal, that structuressocial life in the West. It begins with artifacts, but technology is more than artifacts.Technologyis a culture. It is

a "signifying system through which .

. .

social order is communicated,

reproduced,experiencedand explored"(Williams:13). Technologyis an

epistemology,a way of knowing in which new technologiesmaterializeas
the most plausible response to problemsthat arise. It is also a quality of
social relationshipsthat demand the production, distribution,and con-

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on theStatusof theCyborg
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815

sumption of goods and servicesusing technologyto survive(Gell). A flagrantresultof this technologicalsaturationis that people arebeing transformed into cyborgs:the simultaneouslyimaginativeand real creatures
evoked into existence through human/technology semiotics.4A quasihuman self, cyborg-identityis fed by the technological organizationof
contemporarylife as well as by the materialproductsof technology.From
traffic lights to advertising, from television to automated banking,
a logos-like list could be extended indefinitely that would make the
homogenization of the human by the technological into the cyborg
readilyintelligible.5Though some cannot affordor care not to invest in
modem technology'sseductive products (and these are not necessarily
mutually exclusive categories), no one evades cyborgian symptoms.
Becauseit calls attentionto the tremendousimpact technologyis having
on us, the cyborg which conceptually debuted in the arts has become a
key interpretivesymbol for the human self. Likevassal,lord, citizen, and
proletariatbeforeit, the cyborgpaints humannessin a historicalcontext.
It discloses how the organizationof contemporarysocial and politicallife
is workingin consortwith the reigningmeans of productionto influence
the rangeof humannesspossible in our era.
Technology'srapid progress in the late twentieth century in this
regard is not accidental. Within the economic paradigm of late capitalism, Disney/America,Microsoft,IBM,Eli Lilly,SONY/Columbia,and
a host of other techno-capitalistssurvive and thrive by hastening the
cyborging process. To generate profits they offer us sounds better than
life. They compose images more beautiful,more awesome than anything
we can naturallysee. They design and produce drugs that make us more
social, thinner,happier,sexier, putativelymore ourselves.Even "nature"
is not naturalanymore (i.e., changing and evolving in response to the
biological balance of ecosystem paradigms). It, too, is being cyborged
as techno-agriculturalistsslowly configure the seed market to privilege
hybrid plants that requirefarmersto purchasepatentedseeds each year.
4The technology that evokes cyborgianidentities can be as mundane as interlockingsystems of
tests and recordkeeping;thus, in its fullestrangeof meaning, "cyborg"describesthe individualpsychologies and behaviorscultivatedby institutionalpatternsand processes.
5The machine-driven,technology-saturatedenvironmentof the West thins the boundariesbetween
humans and machines for everyone;yet, humans and machines play varyingroles in the countless
formationsof cyborgthat exist. For many medical cyborgs,machine components make human survival possible. In manufacturing,human/machinecouplings createcyborgsthat are able to function
in environmentslethal to humans alone and are able to accomplish complex tasks which machines
alone cannot manage.
For those who cherish simplicity,an even more egregiouscomplexity looms along the cyborgtrail.
As technology increasinglydelineates culturalhabits, multiple varietiesof cyborg-identityoverlapping within a single individualwill become commonplace.

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As a result, we who act and interact in the contemporaryworld are

becoming "borged."
Cyberpunksimultaneously developed as a science fiction subgenre
and an outlaw youth identity that gloried in "thepostmodern identification of humans and machines"(Hollinger:30);however,the confusion of
boundaries between humans and technology underway that produces
exhilarationfor some bringsdistressto others.6The researchof Shoshana
Zuboff into the affect of computerizationon office environments disclosed how technological developments introduced to expand worker
skills can have an implosive affecton workersociability.At one company
Zuboffstudied office employees who had interactedas a team with ease
to solve problemsbeforetheir office was computerizedabandonedinteractivesociabilityonce computerswere introduced.Compelledto develop
new work patternscenteredarounda relianceupon machines,the newly
computer-outfittedworkerswould, when problemsarose, try to resolve
them on their own via individualcomputer-datalinks ratherthan ask the
person sitting in the cubicle next to them for help (Zuboff).
ACCESS AND CYBORG-TYPES
Although I characterizethe incursion of technology into human
socializationprocesses in a massive way, I do not mean to imply by this
that all cyborgsare identical.Demographicfactorsconstrainthe presence
and composition of biology/machinemixes, while widespreadresource
imbalancesserve up divergentexperiencesof cyborgsocializationacross
the globe. Consider computer-mediatedcommunications (CMC), for
instance.A substantialamount of recent public discoursein the U.S. has
praisedthe informational,commercial,and even the socialjustice potential of CMC.From personal experience, I can attest that cyborg experiences on the World Wide Web can be exhilarating.One can tour the
Vaticanmuseum, order airline tickets, or researchaboriginaltribes all
without leaving one's chair. The fusion with technology that yields this
techno-marvel can seem a wondrous thing; but these experiences are
availableonly to those who can read English,who have a chair,a desk, a
computer,a modem, an availabletelephone line, and enough computer
6 Balsamo
and Kellnersuggest that cyberpunkscience fictioncan be readas social theory(Balsamo;
Kellner).While I agreethat it is possible to interpretcyberpunkin this manner,I think a betterinterpretationcomes fromreadingcyberpunkas mythic depoliticizedstoriesof modernityThis allows for
multiple criticalreadingsof cyberpunkthat could take into account its religiousdimensions as well
as its political,economic, and social roots, somethinginterpretingthe genreas social theorydoes not
readilyallow.

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on theStatusof theCyborg
Brasher:Thoughts

817

savvy to put everythingtogetherand make it work. Billions do not possess these resources;and global biases are evident in theirunequal distribution. Computer owners are primarilynorthern, white, middle-class
males. In many parts of the world, most notably in the southern hemisphere, the existing infrastructuresimply will not support the spread of
CMC. In southern Africa there is one telephone line for every 5,000
people. In Peru there is one telephone line for every 30 people. In locations where the public infrastructureis so limited few readilysurf the net.
To privilegedfirst-worlderscyborgidentitycan bringwith it an explosion
of the self, an expansion of the human beyond precyborgianlimits. To
those less privileged becoming borged can entail one's humanity being
annexedby machines.7
TRADITIONALRELIGIONS,NEW RELIGIONS,
AND THE CYBORG
For the world'straditionalreligions cyborg-identitiesraise profound
issues. Foremost,they broachquestionsof normativehumanidentityand
social ethics, given the problematicpublic and privatevalues entailed in
their development; yet, cyborg-identitiessimultaneously challenge the
foundationaltheologies of traditionalreligions in ways that can impede
the capacityof the organicintellectuals(Gramsci)of these religiousfaiths
to locate within the religious assets of their tradition the meaning
resourcesnecessaryto rejoin the ethical issues involved. A notable measure of the internalcohesion of the world'smajorreligions derives from
concrete texts that representlayersof oral traditionsthat were the products of pastoralistand agrarianpeoples. While they are neither consistently nor uniformlyregardedas authoritative,canonicaltexts bind each
of the world'straditionalreligions together.These texts provide shared
storiesfor believersthat set out norms for human-to-humanrelationships
as well as for human relationshipsto the divine. The religious messages
they contain and convey assume embodied human existence as a given;
but, for cyborgs, universal embodiment is not the defining situation.
Instead, embodiment is a preeminent moral question as selves ambiguously colonized by technological tools confrontunique border quandaries:concernsabout the quantityand qualityof theirhumanityin light of
theirsymbioticrelationshipto technology,ambiguityover the loss of self
that follows fusion with technology, the challenge of cyborg intimacy,
7 For example, technologies that have made labor easier and more productivefor LatinAmerican
workingclass women simultaneouslyhave decreasedwomen'svalue and power as workersby making them more expendableand, at times, obsolete (Arizpe).

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confusion over techno-blurredboundariesof life and death, worry over

the vague duplicityinvolvedin spendingeight:plushours a day watching
television or a computer monitor in contrast to an averageof four minutes a day conversing with one's partner or children, sins such as disembodiedness, data lust, flaming, cracking, releasingviruses, excessive
upgrading.For agrarianand pastoralist-linkedtraditionalreligions to be
able to address these concerns, changes may need to occur within their
symbol systems--changes that may be beyond their capacityto make.
Christianity,the most prevalentreligion in the U.S., poignantlyillustratesthis dilemma.A focal religiousidea of Christianityis incarnational
theology. In all of its diverse manifestationsChristianitypivots around
the idea of the embodiment of the divine in human form;however, this
notion is problematizedby the coupling now underway of human and
machine. Ian Barbour,who has made one of the most serious attemptsto
draw fromChristiantraditionethical guidancefor contemporarytechnological society,ends up offeringan excellent appraisalof the problembut
little normativecounsel (Barbour).He chiefly recommendsreadingbiblical literaturethroughthe lens of process theologyto glean fromits stories
of small communities which survived countless crisis how to survive in
our own. YetBarbourprovidesno explanationof how readingthese stories will accomplishwhat he, himself, diagnoses as the criticalproblem:
"toredirecttechnologyto realizehuman and environmentalvalues"(24).
Though Barboursubmits that Christianitycontains religious resources
sufficientto addressthe ethical quandariesof a technologicalsociety,he
does not exhibit them. He also concedes that churchesas Christiandelivery systems are woefully unpreparedto carry out the tasks his ethical
assessment prescribes. Barbourstates, "Thechurches, themselves, will
have to change drasticallyif they are to facilitatethe transitionto a sustainable world . . " (26).

Technologicalsocialization places theological and sociological obstacles before Barbourthat hinder his ability as a Christianethicist to
constructa viable,persuasiveChristianmoralresponseto technologicallyderiveddilemmas.Not only must he attemptto develop a responseto the
problemsof a modem technologicalworld by drawingupon the religious
resourcesof a symbolicpool stocked with agrarian-basedimagesand stories, he must subsequentlyturnto Christiancommunitiesnurturedby the
contents of this same pool for the initial support of any moral vision he
managesto forge.These groupsareill-preparedto confronttechnological
issues as an outgrowthof theirfaith,becausetheirfaithhas takenshape in
tales. The two poles of this theologiresponseto agrarian/pastoral-rooted
cal/sociological quandaryfeed upon each other unrelentingly,muffling
Christian moral contributions to technological ethics throughout the

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Brasher:Thoughtson the Statusof the Cyborg

819

world. Since it is only through the physical coalescence of humans and

technology that cyborgidentities become possible, progressin Christian
ethics may necessitate this state of affairsbeing reconceived of, not in
termsof the classicaltheologicalanthropology,but perhapsas something
along the lines of theologicalcyborgology;however,this would requirea
decisive paradigmshift that will not easily be made. Toput it metaphorically,the question technologicalsociety poses to Christianfoundational
theologyis, if a cyber-saviorlogged on and opted to echoJesusin Matthew
8:29 by queryingher/his/its list membersregardingtheirunderstanding
of her/his/itsbeing, would the questionthis cyborgsaviornecessarilyasks
be [Who]or [What]do you say that I am?ToparaphraseYeats,the fearful
question of the day for Christiansis less who than what creaturefrom
cyberspaceslouches towarda virtualBethlehemto be born.
In the U.S. traditionalreligions are largely techno-avoidant.Still, a
small number of the adherents of the world'straditionalreligions have
plunged into new technologies with enthusiasm. In the rapidlygrowing
environmentof computer-mediatedcommunicationsone can find Lubavitchers in Cyberspace,ongoing sessions of Torahinstruction, a weekly
class in Buddhist meditation, and the Al Zafa MatrimonialService for
Muslims. There are web pages for the Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ),United Churchof Christ,Moravians,Jehovah'sWitnesses,Church
of the Nazarene, and so on. There are countless traditional religion
discussion lists ranging from a group reading Calvin'sInstituteson the
Internet, to Christiansingles on America OnLine, to interactiveprayer
groups on Compuserve (Kellner).Still, this techno-skimming does not
transforma traditionalreligious community into a cyborgian church,
synagogue, or mosque. The vast majorityof these effortsby traditional
religiousgroups imitate in-real-lifeevents ratherthan reconfigurethem.
On the Net it is new religiousmovements untetheredfrom ancient texts
that appear most at home. Synthesizing multi-dimensional, real-time
rituals, neo-pagan cyborg ritualists play in the medium they inhabit.
The few traditionaland new overt religiousgroups exploring the potential of technology tend to consider themselves "cuttingedge"and generally acquiesce to technological products, making little or no attempt to
reflect upon their economic, philosophical, or social price tags. In the
electronicdiscussions of even the most adventuroustraditionaland new
religiousgroups, moral questions about technology-about its influence
on the determinatefactorsof humanness,about its worrisomecapacityto
commodifylife experiences,about its frighteningpotentialto erode individual and group privacy,about whetherits expansionnecessarilyentails
the devaluation of human bodies-these questions are almost totally
ignored.

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820

Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

The extent to which technological socializationhabituallydistances

cyborgs from religious institutions is not a universal given. The understanding of religion that people acknowledge is an important determinant as well. A strict BarthianChristianor a traditionalMuslim might
dismiss technology'sinfluence as religiouslyirrelevantor, at best, a concern that affectsthe means by which one conveys to a proto-believerthe
sacred Words that are assumed unchangeablein content and meaning;
however, for those who bracket religion'ssubstantive characterto concentrate on the serious cultural role religious institutions customarily
have fulfilled, the challenge technology presents is not so easily dismissed.8 If a primarycultural function of religious institutions is to respond to the existential questions of their age as the twentieth-century
theologian and culturalcritic Paul Tillich would have it ([1952] 1980),
or, if the cultural role of religious institutions is, as CliffordGeertzhas
contended, to proffera symbol system that welds togethera description
of the worldand prescriptionsfor actionwithin it (Geertz),then the technologization of daily life appears to be undermining the ability of religious institutions to fulfill these cultural functions. Moving into the
insinuand "Metropolis"
culturalspace they arevacating,as Frankenstein
ated in their day,is a thrivingand vibrantpopularculture.
POPULARCULTURE'SRELIGIOUSFUNCTION
While overt religionshave either inadequatelyconstructedor left unconstructed timely moral responses to the intricate changes in human
identityand communitybeing induced by technology,culturaldreadand
excitement over the transformationof people into cyborgshave exhibited a postmodem independence from frameworksby surfacingnot in
techno-avoidantor techno-manipulativereligiousgroupsbut in multiple
locations in the U.S.'stechno-celebratorypopularculture. Consequently,
an undeterminednumber of cyborgshave turned fromwhat Baudrillard
once cynicallydescribedas "thedesert of the real"(in this case, the symbolic goods of real-life religious groups) to the hyperreal in order to
locate meaning resourcessufficientto respond to technology'sincursion
into their lives (1987). Their concerns about techno-life ignored or
8 Stephen O'Leary,Phil Mullins, and I are part of a small band of scholars working to assess the
impact of technological culture on traditionalreligions and their adherents. In an earlier article
O'Learyand I explored the implications that the enhanced importance of rhetoric in electronicmediatedcommunicationsmay have for Christianitygiven its tumultuoushistoricalrelationshipwith
rhetoric(O'Learyand Brasher).Mullinshas focusedhis attentionon how technologicalculturecreates
human "mentalhabits"that may alterthe way people readand relateto biblicaltexts (Mullins).

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ontheStatusof theCyborg
Brasher:Thoughts

821

shunted from overt religious realms, an unknown number of modem

technologically-socializedpeople are practicing religion by creatively
re-using the artifactsof contemporary mass-mediated culture.9These
cyborgsfind viable solace for their dreamsand nightmaresaboutmodernity more in the images, stories, and songs of cable and broadcasttelevision, radio,zines, and other alternativemedia than in the metaphysical
meaningofferingsof overt religiousinstitutions.
From the Frankfurtschool, Adorno, Lowenthal,Herzog, and Horkheimer called attention to the social conservatismof escalatingculture
industries. Coupled with the loss of what they rather idealistically
assessed as "autonomousart,"Horkheimerand Adorno most notably
decried the social power that culture industries wielded and that they
believed siphoned off humanity'sliberatoryenergies (Horkheimerand
Adorno). Morerecently,Fiske has counteredthis stance by insisting that
people can and do appropriatemass culture products in ways that contravenetheir producers'intentions. Ratherthan being bound by the intentions of its producers, Fiske contends, many moderns utilize the
productsof mass-mediatedcultureto constructa popularcultureof their
own (Fiske).
In assessingthe religiousfunction of popularculture, Fiske'scultural
theoryis quite useful. Confrontedwith the absenceof viablemoralvoices
fromovert religiousinstitutionsaddressingtechnology-provokedissues,
cyborgsso appearto be extractingsymbolicraw materialfromthe beguiling entertainmentartifactsof mass culture and transformingit into religions of their own devising. Maneuveringamong the contradictory
images, ethics, and narrativesof technologically-mediatedpopular culture,such meaning-seekingcyborgsreconfigurethe bits and bites of massproduced culture into popular culture faiths. Evidence attesting to the
religiousfunctionof popularcultureabounds.Ithas spawnedprophetsin
AfricanAmericanrap music (Kellner).It has given birth to a zealot: the
Unabomber,a bizarre,antisocialcyborgtryingto usher in a technological
apocalypseon his own. Today'sborgedhumans may or may not attendan
overt religiousgroup;but they probablydo view "Seinfeld"or "StarTrek:
The Next Generation"or "Oprah""religiously"and discuss them with
others, treatingtheir fictional or quasi-fictionalscenarios as a base for
determiningbehavioralnorms and creatingnew visions of community.I
suggest that these culturaltransactionsconstitute a formof religion;that
for a select group of cyborgs'human-technicalinteractionsconstitutethe

9See StewartHoover for a concise, nuanced argumenton the care that must be taken when ascertainingsubstantiveversus functionalreligionboth in the past and for today (Hoover:242).

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822

Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

social origins of much of their morality;and that, as a result, America's

diverse religious marketplacenow incorporates a plethora of distinct
popularculturefaithsalongsideits more traditionalreligions.
The eclectic popular culture religions cyborgs are assembling are
unlike any others. They have no priestessesor priests,no canon, no creation story; but they do have sacred images, sacred music, and sacred
theology. As Thomas Jefferson once treated the Bible, cyborgs razor
through the technologically-mediatedofferings of popular culture to
select what they find religiouslyuseful. Developingtheir social ethics on
television talk shows, their theology in science fiction television shows,
movies, and books, and their sacred songs in the explosively growing
rock music industry,cyborg religionistsrefashionthe pleasureofferings
of modernity into an anchor composed of the world to ground themselves within it.
If language framesaction, cyborgs on the leading edge of this trend
tellingly betraytheir religious bent by the traditionalreligious language
that permeatesfandom argot. Quentin Tarantinoadmirerson the World
Wide Web do not describe the web-pages they have constructed in
homageto this unlikelycelebrityas fansites but as the QuentinTarantino
worship page, the Quentin Tarantinochurch, and even the Quentin
Tarantinoworld. Trekkers,Elvisites,and other well-defined groups represent the extremes of this trend (Jindra).More difficult to assess but
more sizableis the umbrellaof cyborgswho participatein the movement
without totally capitulatingto it. Where popular culture religions'"true
believers"may dress like Romulansor invest days of their lives to constructa Nicole Kidmanworship page, there is a largernumber for whom
popularculture functionsmostly as a religiousstop-gap. Such moderate
believers simply turn to the stories, personalities,and songs of popular
culture to articulatethe content and meaning of their lives when other
culturalsources fail to perform.
This phenomenon has not gone unnoticed. A varietyof literary,film,
and culturaltheoristshave tackledthe topic of the excess meaning function of popularculture;yet perhapsbecause few of those who have taken
up this work have been scholars of religion, often there has been scant
attention given to the implications of this development for the historic
culturalrole of religions. Sometimes hints of its impact can be gleaned
fromthe marginalcomments of culturalcriticssuch as when Hugh Ruppersbergobserves,with thinlyveiled disapproval,that today'sextraterrestrial films are the contemporaryequivalentof Bible stories;and that the
aliens they featureare modem-day messiahs (Ruppersbergin Kuhn). At
other times the impact must be surmised, as in the work of Janice Radway who depicts how bold romanceheroinesinspiresome femalefans to

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on theStatusof theCyborg
Brasher:Thoughts

823

negotiate less patriarchalbargainswith their spouses (Radway).Occasionally, a straightforwardaddress of the religious function of popular
culture is made, such as Peter Brooks'sargumentthat melodramaprovides the emotionalexcesses necessaryto help its audiencesmake moral
and ethical decisions in a post-sacredage (Brooks).
As insightfulas Fiske'sinterpretivetheorycan be in understandingthe
mechanicsof how elementsof mass-mediatedculturecan be transformed
into popular-culturereligions,the cautiousconservatismof the Frankfurt
theoristscannotbe completelydismissed.The liberatorycapacityof these
emergent,popularculturefaithsremainsunclear.A suggestivelypositive
clue, however, can be found in the theology of popular culturereligions
primarilydrawnfromthe subgenreof science fiction. Duringits briefhistory this theologyhas not remainedstaticbut has shown signs of creative,
intellectual development. Where early science fiction offeringssuch as
RidleyScott's"BladeRunner"portrayedthe key problemof techno-future
as one of human identity, more recent science fiction novels and films
accept the premisethat cyborgizationis presentand have moved technosins to centerstage.10This is especiallynotablein post-urbanfilmssuch as
"JohnnyMnemonic"directed by Robert Longo and KathrynBigelow's
"StrangeDays."Here, human encounters with invasive cybernetictechnology areportrayedas providingnovel sites of economic-politicalexploitationand horriblenew dimensionsof criminality.In "StrangeDays,"this
includes a Mandelbrotfractalrape and murder.In "JohnnyMnemonic,"
the lead character,Johnny, acquiesces to a surgical brain implant that
removes his personalmemories but enables him to function as a human
diskette. Giving in to postmodern historical depthlessness (Jameson),
Johnny tradesin his personalidentity to become a human product.During the film flashbacksofJohnny'schildhoodhint of his loss. The disorientationthey causeJohnnyeach time they occur provokesa moralquestion:
who are you if you do not know who you have been? Longo'sanswer
reflectedinJohnny'sdisposabilityis, you aremerelyone morepurchasable
product.Movingto addressthe ethicallimits of techno-capitalism,cyborg
popularculturetheology shows signs of expansionencompassingpractical as well as foundationaltheologicalconcerns.
10When
analyzingpopularculture,it is criticallyimportantto promoteneithernaive nor automatically rejectionistreadingsof its products. For instance, much of the putative science presentedin
contemporaryscience fiction displays scant relationshipto actual or probablescientific technology
(Warrick)."TheNet,"a late 1990s techno-film, is a notable exception to this relativelytrustworthy
rule. Thus, it is not the potential devastationof actual technologicaldevelopments that many contemporaryfilms and novels address but a poorly-imagined,improbable,weird science. That nonscientific science fiction films and novels continue to draw huge audiences implies that it is not
genuine scientificknowledge that its fans seek.

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824

Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Religion

Religious studies scholars have been quick to note the religious implications of the excess meaning function mass-mediated culture has
accrued. GregorGoethals, for one, comparesthe culturalrole television
and other popular arts now play to that of the friezesof ancient Greece.
She writes:
Althoughseparatedby centuriesof symbolicandtechnologicalrevolufriezeandthoserepresentions,thebeautifuldepictedon the Parthenon
Inbothinstancesthe
tedin TVcommercials
arecomparably
value-laden.
visualimagesassistin performing
thelatent,legitimating
roleof religion:
the shapingof a commonlyunderstoodworld.
the framingof "reality,"
(162)
Takinga stand in significantaccord with Barbour,Goethalsasserts that
traditionalreligiousinstitutionsshould learn to use new technologies to
convey their messages while at the same standing " . . . a prophetic watch

over the making of meaning by the media"(188). By this Goethalssuggests that a sanguine response by Christianinstitutions to technological
socialization is possible; however, like Barbour's,Goethals' prognosis
regardingthe amenabilityof Christianadherentsto followingthroughon
such a programis equivocal. Accordingto Goethals, the believers who
make up the delivery systems of traditionalreligions "mayhave little or
no desire to take on either task"(189).
SUMMARYAND CONCLUSIONS
It was almost thirtyyearsago when RobertBellah'sindispensablearticle on civil religion in the U.S. was firstpublished. In that article,Bellah
harkened back to Rousseau for the term "civil religion"and depicted
what he asserted was an often unnoticed phenomenon: that the living
faith of the majority of American citizens was "an elaborate and wellinstitutionalized civil religion ...

" (1967). My article extends a com-

parable assessment of religious life in the U.S. It calls attention to a

phenomenon many have seen but few have written about: the rise of
an elaborateand well-institutionalizedpopular culture functioning as a
source of religious ideas and experiences for countless millions as technology permits its products to infiltrate the structuresof daily life. In
"CivilReligionin America"Bellahpredicted that the chief change ahead
for civil religionwould be its metamorphosisfrom a national to a global
scale. Almost three decades later,it is true that a global religious movement has developed as Bellah inferred;however, it is not the expanded
Americancivil religion he anticipatedbut the mining of popular culture
by technologically-socializedpeople for religious meaning that crosses
the politicalboundariesof nation-statesnearlyto encompass the globe.

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on theStatusof theCyborg
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825

Contradictingthe pervasivepessimismof culturalcriticsfromLaschto

Baudrillard,there is much that is agreeablein this situation as well as
much thatis troubling(Lasch;Baudrillard).Technologycan be fun. Popular culture can amuse, entertain,instruct, and relax us. If it inspires us
as well, is this necessarilybad?Though the ramificationsof this development for overt religiousinstitutions as well as for Americancivil religion
remainunclear,the fact that popularculturehas taken on importantreligious functions for a technologically-socializedpopulace is one of the
most unlauded but consequential developments in religion of the past
century.
POSTSCRIPTON THE CYBORG
As technological incursions into daily life increase, the cyborg may
become a key metaphor for those soon to comprise the pioneer generation of third millennium society. To the extent the cyborg accurately
represents human selves as affected by techno-life and thus reliably
orientsus in the world we inhabit, this development could be deemed a
positive one, albeit one that entails considerableambiguity.As Haraway
has noted, the cyborg is inherently pluralistic. Ratherthan employing
the foundationalWesterndualisticstrategyof identity that achieves definitional clarity through a hierarchicalcontrast of paired terms (male/
female, human/beast, self/other, white/black), the cyborg incorporates
dualism within itself by insisting upon an integral identity between
people and their materialenvironment. Presumingan inseparableconnection between the self and other, the cyborg offersa metaphoricplatform upon which complex human identities might be developed whose
connective links could stretch out like the World Wide Web itself to
embraceand encompass the world. Becauseit directlyfaces and accepts
the materialcomponentsof human life, the cyborgas a root metaphorfor
contemporaryhuman identity offersthe capacityto encouragea responsible awarenessof and interactionwith the materialworld.
For the better metaphoricpromises of the cyborg to be realized,the
destructivepotential of technology must be politicallyrestrained.Given
the prevailingglobal skewing of technological distribution, the current
situation is one where the "liberationof the few" is being bought at
the "expense of many" (Balsamo:161). Since it is unlikely that the
growth of technology will abate, political will must be brought to bear
upon the substantialbiases presentlyinherentin technologicalsocialization such that the enlivening possibilities of technology are not the
limited province of northern, male elites but are reasonablyavailableto
all. The design, production, cost, distribution,and access issues integral

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826

Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

to new technologies are much more than market concerns; they are
among the most importantpublic policy issues that now confrontus.
If all contemporarypeople are cyborgs, techno-beings whose identities are admixturesof the human and the technological, then it is I, a
cyborg,who constructsthis articleand entersit into academicdiscourse;
therefore,cyborgidentity does not necessarilypreclude intellectualfreedom or criticalreflection.Will consciouslyclaimingthe cyborgmetaphor
as an intentionally-bodiedself foster the formation of the micro- and
macro-politicaleffortsnecessaryto restrainand direct techno-capitalism
to addressthe common good, or will it insteadwork to underminethem?
Here, the religious function of popular culture may play a pivotal role.
Becauseof their profoundintimacywith technology,those who produce
the artifactsof mass-mediatedcultureare among those most keenly cognizant of technology'smany pitfalls.They also have advantageousaccess
to its abundantoutlets. Were these artistsand technicians to craftproducts that consistently supported technological ethics (a move that films
like "StrangeDays,""JohnnyMnemonic"and "TheNet" reveal is possible), they might generatesufficient symbolic cyber-mannato nourish
the development of a moral consensus on technological ethics. Should
these artist-technicianstake up the task, and were artistsand audiences
to come to a moralaccord,the capitalistmarketplacemust say "yes."Religious believershave changed the world before. Perhapscyborgreligionists, inspired by their eclectic mixtures of popular culture faiths, will
prove they can do so again.

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