Against Eternity: A Critical Reading of Transhumanism
Abstract
Amid ongoing global political and ecological crises, transhumanists proselytize visions of a more equitable, healthy future made possible by advanced computation. Beyond the curative potential of technoscience, transhumanism seeks to transcend the biological limits of the human body, including death. My research identifies a racist, colonial, patriarchal impulse in the transhuman pursuit of immortality. I begin by situating transhumanism biopolitically within the discourse of population control and genetic optimization. Tracing early transhuman thinking alongside sterilization and assisted reproduction, I identify a eugenic link between transhumanism and reproductive medicine. I then reveal how contemporary transhumanism functions through a paradigm of potential wherein value is determined by the speculations of venture capitalism. Analyzing the future-oriented rhetoric in both “afterlife” technologies and contraception techniques, I argue that, despite its speculative and dubious potential, the emergence of post-biological “life” suggests a transformation of class struggle in which the ruling class lives forever, and the proletariat is consigned to the finite terms of earthly existence. Building on Black feminism, care theory, and degrowth arguments, I conclude by advancing a countervailing materialism that centers the body’s vital-fatal politics inherent in reproduction.