A cult of technoscience?

Sophie Marie Huber
2020 unpublished
In the last decade, the world has seen an increasing prominence of the transhumanist movement. Whereas Silicon Valley has proven to be a center for the movement's visionaries, transhumanist political parties have risen as a global trend. As a philosophy that promotes the technoscientific transformation of the human, transhumanism strives to go beyond the limits of nature. While frequently criticized on a theoretical level, case studies about transhumanism are rare within and outside of Science
more » ... nd Technology Studies. The research at hand approaches this gap by focusing on the linguistic production of sociotechnical visions in two transhumanist documents: the constitution of the U.S. Transhumanist Party and the party program of the German Transhumanist Party. Two sociotechnical visions became visible: the vision of Technology = Magic and the vision of Paradise (Lost). While a proneness for prestigious culture and a romanticization of the Enlightenment era produced the vision of a paradise that was lost in a different time, technology was mystified as a magical fix and universal remedy for solving human problems. On the background of these findings, this thesis does not only elaborate on transhumanist understandings of culture – rather than nature – but also proposes that transhumanism can be conceptualized as a 'cult of technoscience'.
doi:10.25365/thesis.64670 fatcat:tlrr4bk7xjhs5dapegz5krx74a