Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/2624
67 www.hplusmagazine.com and his (paraphrasing) economy built on rock, not sand," (taken from The Sermon on the Mount) and it is bolstered by a new Chicago school of behavioral economics that claims to identify the new "Homer (Simpson) Economicus" in all of us, and argues for a new paternalism to steer (or "nudge") us towards healthy social and economic outcomes. But a play ethic also has its grounding in neuro-research that emphasizes the plasticity of the brain: the deeply-founded creativity that generates our consciousness in the first place. Across the op- eds, blogs and book review pages, those who want to found their "theory of political institutions" in the next wave of Third Culture science headlines will always have their opportunities. Yet transhumanism, it seems to me, transcends these familiar political uses of evolved human nature in the sense that it asks us to squarely face our increasing ability to transform that very nature itself, intentionally and by design. And if play operates as dynamically and unpredictably in our unamended nature as I suggest, we are in a moment where we will have to begin to imagine what kinds of "politics" or "ethics" are possible when play's energies are given the most powerful of chariots to drive. The debate in the late nineties between the German philosophers Peter Sloterdijk and Jürgen Habermas — Sloterdijk a partial enthusiast for transhumanism, Habermas a resolute opponent — generated much heat in certain intellectual circles, but much light too. But it began to hint at exactly what a "play ethic for transhumanism" might be. In his essay, the "Operable Man", Sloterdijk suggests the kind of living-well-together that a profoundly (and materially) playful society might generate: Biotechnologies and nootechnologies nurture by their very nature a subject that is refined, cooperative, and prone to playing with itself. This subject shapes itself through intercourse with complex texts and hypercomplex contexts. Domination must advance towards its very end, because in its rawness it makes itself impossible. In the inter-intelligently condensed net-world, masters and despoilers have hardly any long-term chances of success left, while cooperators, promoters, and enrichers fit into more numerous and more adequate slots. There may be something a little lost in the translation… but the idea that the conditions of transhumanity may lead to subjects that are "refined, cooperative, and prone to playing with themselves" at least splits the difference between the polarities on offer. Richard Sennett in his recent book The Craftsman talks of two Greek myths that dramatize our anxiety about technology. It's either Pandora and her box, unleashing all manner of unstable horrors; or the club-footed Hephaestus, whose diligent labor and craft built the palaces of the Gods. But what of Proteus, Prometheus or Bacchus — those shape-shifters, firebringers and lovers of sensual conviviality? Is there no place for the energetic, mutable, sociable player in transhumanity? No hope for a livable zone that can assuage the fear that transforming technology generates anarchy, and thus demands order? Sloterdijk may be an optimist, but optimism — a deep species- based optimism — fuels the play that lurks in all of our breasts. Whatever transhumanists seek to transform in human nature, they would do well to respect the innate transformativity of play itself. Pat Kane is the author of The Play Ethic (www.theplayethic.com), and one half of the Scottish pop band Hue And Cry (www.hueandcry.co.uk). ResouRces The Play Ethic http://www.theplayethic.com/ Peter Sloterdijk http://www.petersloterdijk.net/international/texts/en_texts/en_texts_PS_ operable_man.html Jurgen Habermas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas Richard Sennett The Craftsman http://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-Prof-Richard-Sennett/dp/0300119097