Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium . . . by Donna J. Haraway,
Routledge, $18.95/拢14.99 (May in Britain), ISBN 0 415 91245 8
DONNA HARAWAY writes about science like nobody else. She鈥檚 exploring new
territory, she鈥檚 drawing new maps, she鈥檚 onto something鈥攖he metaphors come
thick and fast. Love her or loathe her, you ignore her at your peril.
Professor of the history of consciousness at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, Haraway is a developmental biologist, a historian of science, a
cultural studies scholar, a feminist. Yet none of these labels comes close to
describing what she does. Her writing is a kind of intellectual anti-conjuring
trick. She toys with ideas and images, she plays with metaphors and myths, she
鈥済ets鈥� the joke鈥攁nd more鈥攊n cartoons and advertisements. Her mission
is to unravel the 鈥渟ticky threads鈥�, the web of often hidden connections, between
the supposedly separate worlds of 鈥渃ulture鈥�, 鈥渘ature鈥� and 鈥渢echnoscience鈥�. These
are dangerous waters.
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Long ago, science erected its Berlin Wall between 鈥渢echnical鈥� matters and
鈥減olitical鈥� concerns, and between 鈥減ure鈥� science and 鈥渢echnology鈥�. These
fiercely defended boundaries date from those heady days of the early Royal
Society when gentleman 鈥渟cientist鈥� Robert Boyle fought 鈥減hilosopher鈥� Thomas
Hobbes for the moral high ground.
Haraway chips away at the Wall, drills through it, burrows under it, abseils
down it. She tells tales that unsettle our preconceptions and routine
compartmentalisations. But her special power and originality spring from her
ability to respect, and even love, science鈥攖o see its appeal, its allure,
to acknowledge and even celebrate its seductive powers鈥攚hile at the same
time being acutely aware of its limitations and distortions. Haraway鈥檚 writing
is not a kneejerk, ill-informed, antiscience rant.
Haraway is best known for her powerful, if guarded, celebration of
machine-human hybrids, or cyborgs, in a deeply enigmatic essay that ends, 鈥淚
would rather be a cyborg than a goddess鈥�. This essay, entitled 鈥淎 manifesto for
cyborgs鈥�, was published in 1985. It was rapidly acknowledged as a cult text,
which inspired scores of discussion groups, seminars, conferences and academic
texts.
Playing with Hollywood science-fiction characters such as Robocop and the
Terminator, Haraway suggested that increasingly we, too, are organisms (animal
or human) coupled with machines. It鈥檚 a confusion of boundaries between human,
animal and machine that can give pleasure, as well as concern.
It can also create new possibilities for progressive social change, Haraway
argues. Technoscience is not all bad: above all, we must engage with it, from
inside the belly of the beast, so to speak, if we are to build a more
democratic, egalitarian society.
No wonder, then, that the title of Haraway鈥檚 latest book is an e-mail address
Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan漏_Meets_OncoMouse鈩�. Always
up-to-date, Haraway has many new stories up her sleeve. The birth of the
Internet is one鈥攂orn, fittingly, from the coupling of a secret weapons
communications system and an open academic network.
To understand the address that is the title, you must read the book: here I
can only hint at the meanings Haraway has in store.
In Boyle鈥檚 time, the scientist, as a (male) 鈥渕odest witness鈥�, came to be seen
as inhabiting a space perceived to be 鈥渢he culture of no culture鈥濃�攁 sphere
beyond, above, or at least utterly divorced from the messy political concerns of
everyday l ife. This remains the scientific ideal, the fairy tale of the
profession. It is the notion that we, as scientists, are simply witnesses of
nature; natural truths come to us directly, without interpretation, rather like
a divine revelation.
Haraway has much to say about the power and the limitations of this
time-honoured stance in the contemporary technoscientific world. But in
鈥渕utated鈥� form, this modest witness is also Haraway鈥檚 alter ego, reared in the
grand tradition of universal science, but increasingly attuned to its
vulnerabilities. 鈥淚 will critically analyze only that which I love and only that
in which I am deeply implicated,鈥� she writes.
The modest witness鈥檚 address at the Second Millennium highlights another
鈥渘ode鈥�, or theme, that also resonates for Haraway, who was brought up as a Roman
Catholic. This is science as 鈥渟alvation drama鈥�. The promise of technoscience is,
鈥渁rguably, its principal social weight鈥�. Think of all those stories that we tell
about how we might live to 120, without hunger and disease, without energy
shortage, without pollution. Today, talk of genetic salvation is particularly
salient: 鈥済enes are a bit like the Eucharist of biotechnology鈥�. Perhaps, she
jokes, 鈥渢hat insight will make me feel more reverent about genetically
engineered food鈥�.
One day, we might 鈥渓earn to live without the bracing discourses of salvation
history,鈥� Haraway writes. We cannot live without stories altogether, she says,
but changing the stories we live by is a 鈥渕odest intervention鈥� worth making.
鈥淕etting out of the Second Millennium to another e-mail address is very much
what I want for all mutated modest witnesses.鈥�
As FemaleMan漏 meets OncoMouse鈩�, Haraway introduces the reader to two more
boundary-disrupting figures.
FemaleMan springs from the eponymous science-fiction novel by Joanna Russ,
where four cloned women disrupt traditional notions of identity, sexuality and
gender across space and time. OncoMouse also transgresses boundaries of culture
and nature: it is the first genetically engineered patented animal, commercially
proffered as a 鈥渟ister鈥� species born to develop breast cancer.
How do we move on? Haraway wants to break down barriers between practitioners
of science and those who look critically at that practice. In academic circles,
much has been made in recent years of the notion of 鈥渞eflexivity鈥濃�攁 style
of self-criticism that has made some science studies scholars reluctant to take
any political stance. Haraway rejects this in favour of another optical
metaphor, that of diffraction, in which 鈥渟ituated knowledges鈥� do not 鈥渞eflect鈥�
or reproduce some putative given, but rather generate novel forms that are
always open to contest.
This metaphor, she argues, may help us to escape the false choice between
realism (we have access to truth about the world) and relativism (no knowledge
claims have absolute authority). Haraway argues for a third way, her 鈥渟ituated
knowledges鈥�. For Haraway, the subject of knowledge is always located somewhere,
with a perspective that is necessarily partial. No claim to knowledge can be
innocent, she argues.
But in the end, scholarly disputes over philosophical terminology are not
Haraway鈥檚 prime concern: 鈥渢he point is to make a difference in the world, to
cast our lot for some ways of life and not others鈥�. Safely ensconced in the
ivory tower, Haraway none the less wants to promote feminism, antiracism,
democracy, knowledge and justice. To that end, she says we must work to make
science-in-the-making, the 鈥渒nowledge-making technologies鈥� of our time,
visible and open to critical intervention from the public.
Yet despite her democratic sympathies, Haraway鈥檚 texts could not be said to
be accessible. In fact, her mental acrobatics can be quite hard work: and she is
not for the faint-hearted. Her saving grace is that she is neither pompous nor
po-faced.
Indeed, comedy is her object of study and method: her insightful discussions
of race and genetics, for instance, build on scientific 鈥渏okes鈥� in cartoons and
advertisements and magazine artwork. 鈥淛okes are my way of working,鈥� she says,
鈥渕y nibbling at the edges of the respectable and reassuring in
technociences and in science studies.鈥�
Be forewarned that the sections that introduce and link what can be read as
free-standing essays are among the most impenetrable sections of the text.
Haraway has also included meditations on eight New-Age-style paintings by Lynn
Randolph which at times do tend to remind one of Private Eye鈥檚 Pseuds
Corner.
But if you persist, or skip such passages altogether, there could be a payoff
worth having: the chance to view familiar categories in a fresh light, to see
the world anew. As one science studies scholar put it, 鈥渞eading Haraway changed
my life鈥�.