cyberpunk intro thoughts
[for section intro?]
Neuromancer is about a lot of things, but if you believe the critics, it is predominantly about technology.
The two major strands of critical approaches to this novel that I’ve seen are either postmodernism (of either the Baudrillard or Jameson variety) or cyborg (a la Haraway), both of which privilege the role of technology.
Postmodernism can be seen as “now we have all this communicative and memory technology, how does it alter how we view ourselves [or, as they would say, change the essence of our existence. I'm not sure our essence changes at all--sometimes, critics get carried away in their absolutes--but that is what they say]? For Baudrillard, technology has made representation so important, so central to our existence, that it is the defining feature. Moreover, technology has improved in its ability to capture reality, that it can now provide a more realistic image than can reality. If representation is more real than real, we are trapped in it and removed from reality…and by extension, ourselves, since we have only simulation with which to work, with which to use for context in subjectivity-building. Jameson says more or less the same thing, but he blames and explicitly ties this into the tendencies of late capitalism, and he makes more of a big deal about the loss of agency, perspective, and all that.
[tie that into the Famiglietti bit in N11]
Cyborg stuff sees a technological landscape which is remarkably similar, but the major difference is that instead of seeing the elimination of all these humanizing elements, the technology, having decentered everything including the dominant, offers new possibilities for transcending the political realities of our situation (in this, it is more in tune with the FJ than the JB pomo). Technology allows us to transcend humanisim, which is a good thing, because humanism brought along with it racism, sexism, otherism in general (in that you had humanity and not-humanity).
At least, this is how it initially was for the Haraway constructions of cyborg. Those who use her concepts have less success and therefore are often more pessimistic about tech. Plus, Haraway was (I believe…need to read it more) not tied to the tech as tightly as the other cyborg writers were.
[Do I import the technology Reaganism Star Wars stuff from Horror? It would make the chapter structure a whole lot more consistent]
