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An Analysis of Francis Fukuyama's Arguments Exemplified on Contemporary Dystopian Cultural Production
Šinaľ, Martin ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
In this thesis I analyze and problematize Francis Fukuyama's position on posthumanism, largely expressed in his 2002 book Our Posthuman Future. In it he warns against the likely negative outcome of a potential biotechnological revolution, which could enable easy access to interfering with human genome via practices such as genetic modification or human cloning. Fukuyama's major assumption is that all members of society must meet some limited standards of humanity in order to be equal, because if people acquire different levels of artificially altered "human natures," the outcome will be stratification, irrecuperable inequality and perhaps even class warfare. For this reason, Fukuyama calls for a pre-emptive regulation of genetic manipulation so as to avoid a "posthuman future." I contrast this theory with a selection of transhumanist and feminist theorists as well as with examples from fiction, namely the trilogy Lilith's Brood (1987-1989) by Octavia Butler and the novel Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro. Drawing on these sources I conclude that Fukuyama's position is harmfully exclusionary and divisive; and also counter- productive in the sense that in his pursuit of securing freedom and equality he renders potential posthuman subjects fundamentally inferior, thus principally defeating his...
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