Chapter One

Post-Humanism: Life beyond the Self

Braidotti opens with a sketch of the history of the concept of Man. From Protagoras
assertion that it is the measure of all things, to Da Vincis Vitruvian Man, the privileging of
the human (and, specifically, the human male) instills a set of mental, discursive and
spiritual values (13) which come to form the basis for political policies of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Europe. Man (and, crucially, this explicitly refers to White Men) is
understood as an intrinsically moral being, functioning as a kind of vessel for perfect
rationality and reason. Armed with these tools, Man is capable of a limitless expansion
toward his own perfection, and entitled to claim, as his own, whatever objects or others he
encounters along the way.
This humanist ideology was adapted by Europe, in the twentieth-century, into a
cultural model that allowed Europeans to view themselves as an unequalled force on the
planet, therefore entitled to use its resources as they saw fit. As Braidotti opines: [t]his
makes Eurocentrism into more than just a contingent matter of attitude: it is a structural
element of our cultural practice, which is also embedded in both theory and institutional and
pedagogical practices (15). Humanism became the ideological backdrop to Europes
imperialist foreign policy, in that it help develop the dynamic between self and other.
Europe views itself as the site of genesis for rationality, therefore elevating itself above the
non-European nations: Otherness, therefore, becomes synonymous with subordination. Entire
populations are reduced to non-human bodies upon whom the will of Europe can be
projected. For this reason, Braidotti points out that Humanisms restricted notion of what

counts as the human is one of the keys to understand how we got to a post-human turn at all
(16).
Braidotti goes on to outline the decline of humanism in the 1960s and 70s, starting
with the rise ideologies like fascism and communism. Both of these ideologies represent a
significant break from European Humanism: fascism promoted a ruthless departure from
the Enlightenment-era reverence for human reason, while communism advocated a
communitarian notion of humanist solidarity (17). Braidotti points out that one of the main
reasons for communisms popularity in post-war Europe was the role it played in defeating
the intellectually- and culturally-destructive forces of fascism, suggesting that for all ends
and purposes [communism] came out of the Second World War as the winner (18), as
Communist parties became emblematic of the defeat of fascism across Europe. Even in the
U.S., Anti-humanism began to take hold of intellectual circles in response to the Vietnam
War. Braidotti quotes Edward Said, who opines that Americas revulsion at the war was in
part the emergence of a resistance movement to racism, imperialism generally and the dryas-dust academic humanities that had for years represented an apolitical, unworldly and
obliviousattitude to the present (18-19). The anti-humanist Left that emerged in the U.S.
in the 60s and 70s represented an opposition not only to the Liberal majority, but also to
the Marxist Humanism of the traditional left(19).
Up until the 60s, the universality of human reason in philosophical discourse went
largely unchallenged. Even Sartre and Beauvoir, who connected the triumph of reason with
the might of dominant powers (20), advocated a universalist view of human rationality and
attempted to resolve these contradictions through a dialectical model. It wasnt until the
publication of Foucaults The Order of Things that intellectuals began to seriously consider
what exactly was meant by the human. In this way, radical intellectuals post-1968 rejected
both classical and socialist Humanism, and the Vitruvian ideal was literally pulled down

from his pedestal and deconstructed (23). What was learned from the deprivileging of the
human was, crucially, that [i]ndividualism is not an intrinsic part of human naturebut
rather a historically and culturally discursive formation (24). That is to say, the
individualistic greed that characterized much of Post-Enlightenment Europes foreign and
domestic policy was demystified to reveal that it was not the manifestation of Mans Destiny,
but rather a sort of psychosomatic cultural malady.
Having sketched the genealogy of the anti-humanism that informs her view of the
posthuman, Braidotti goes on to examine the tricky nature of actually enacting anti-humanist
ideals, writing: it is one thing to loudly announce an anti-humanist stance, quite another to
act accordingly, with a modicum of consistency (29). She points out that while humanism is
in many ways problematic, its individualist nature also makes it a valuable pragmatic
mechanism for progressive social change (i.e., individualism is what drives oppressed groups
to realize that they are oppressed). Braidotti admits that this is somewhat of a bind: For me it
is impossible, both intellectually and ethically, to disengage the positive elements of
Humanism from their problematic counterparts (30). There is a similar bind inherent in the
very act of declaring the end of humanism, in that such an act ironically seems to help itself
to a humanist conception of agency. In this way, Braidotti demonstrates what she
characterizes as The Posthuman Challenge, suggesting that rather than further enforcing the
binaric differences between humanism and anti-humanism, Posthumanism is the historical
moment thattraces a different discursive framework, looking more affirmatively towards
new alternatives (37). That is, Posthumanism can still base itself on the assumption of
decline of traditional humanism while productively avoiding the rhetorical paradoxes
embedded in the crisis of Man, instead focusing on new ways of understanding the human
subject.

With this in mind, Braidotti goes on to outline what she sees as the three major
strands of posthumanist thought: The first is (1) reactionary posthumanism, which
essentially denies the decline of humanism entirely, arguing rather that humanist ideals
provide the only workable model for adaptation to the globalized economy. What is so
problematic about reactionary posthumanism, argues Braidotti, is that it depends on a
universalist understanding of the individual, ignoring the insights of the anti-humanist
movement, and therefore is constricted to traditional Humanistic norms. As Braidotti
observes: There is no room for experimenting with new models of the self (39).
The second strand she identifies is (2) analytic posthumanism, which comes from
science and technology studies. This approach provides productive insights into crucial
ethical and conceptual questions about the status of the human (39), but is reluctant to
approach the development of a theory of subjectivity (Braidotti points to the influence of
Latours anti-subjectivity position as a possible source for this reluctance). Analytic
posthumanism is proving to provide a lot of practical insight into advances in technology and
science while ignoring the question of subjectivity, which creates what Braidotti describes as
a highly problematic division of labour on the question of subjectivity (42), as thinkers
such as Hardt and Negri avoid discussing technology and science with the same level of
sophistication with which they discuss subjectivity. Braidotti suggests that this segregation of
thought should be examined such that we can work toward a reintegrated posthuman theory
that includes both scientific and technological complexity and its implications for political
subjectivity, political economy and forms of governance (42).
With this in mind, she turns to the third strand of posthuman thought, namely (3)
critical posthumanism. Braidotti identifies herself as a part of this third strand, and states that
the goal of critical posthumanism is to move beyond analytic posthumanism and develop
affirmative perspectives on the posthuman subject (45). Critical posthumanism, she argues,

is rooted in critical schools like the poststructuralists, anti-universalist feminists, and postcolonialist, in that each of these groups is concerned with an understanding of the individual
subject, as well as each subjects place within the structure of humanity as a whole. She
points to post-colonial theorist Edward Said, who argues that [i]t is possible to be critical of
Humanism in the name of Humanism and that, schooled in its abuses by the experience of
Eurocentrism and empire, one could fashion a different kind of Humanism (47). This is an
idea that seems central to Braidottis project. She is a self-proclaimed student of antihumanism who seems to believe, deep down, that humanism is not fundamentally flawed but
sort of warped or infected by Eurocentrism1. She points to contemporary environmentalism as
another valuable source of a reconfiguration of the posthuman subject, as it resituates
humanity within nature, and values generic life force over the self-centred human subject
(Braidotti will echo this sentiment in her advocation of zoe-centric ethics in the next chapter).
The primary goal of critical posthumanism, then, can be understood as an effort to reject
individualism and turn not to nihilism or defeatism, but rather, forge a wholly new
understanding of a non-unitary subject, who is inherently embedded within a planetary (or,
even universal) whole.

Chapter Two
Post-Anthropocentrism: Life beyond the Species
Braidotti opens the second chapter with a quote from George Eliot:
If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the
grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other
side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk around well wadded with stupidity. (55)
1 Its probably worthwhile to note that Bradottis favorite philosopher is Spinoza, who was a big-time
believer in the ability of the human subject to transcend the affective prison of individualism and
become virtuous and publicly-spirited through education.

This passage, taken from Eliots Middlemarch, identifies a theme that informs much of
Braidottis argument against anthropocentrism. Following Spinoza, she argues that the
anthropocentric leanings of modern humanism that allow the development of urbanism and
civilization function to keep humanity in isolation from the rest of the raw cosmic energy
(55) of an absolute reality. Braidotti advocates a vital materialism, that identifies the whole of
the universe as one infinite and indivisible substance. Life is a property not of individual
entities, but rather a property of the substance as a whole 2. This monistic understanding of the
universe, argues Braidotti, is the foundation of a critical posthumanism that avoids traditional
anthropocentric humanism, and allows for the development of a new understanding of the
individual. She writes: there is a direct connection between monism, the general unity of all
matter and post-anthropocentrism as a general frame for reference for contemporary
subjectivity (57). The project of this chapter, then, is to provide an outline for what the postanthropocentric subject would actually look like.
Braidotti then outlines the problematic nature of the increasingly globalized economy in
relation to the individual posthuman subject. She admits that she will always side firmly
with the liberatory and even transgressive potential of these technologies, against those who
attempt to index them to either a predictable conservative profile, or to a profit-oriented
system that fosters and inflates individualism (58). Her awareness of her biases is praiseworthy, but her technophilic enthusiasm does not seem to inhibit her from exploring the
degree to which technological progress, in our advanced capitalist climate, is almost always
tethered to profitability for corporate interest (the planned obsolescence model that has
brought us iPhones 1 through 6 over the course of 7 years is a good example of this). The
individual drives this innovation through a desire for novelty, such that it is within the
interests of corporations to ensure (via television or other corporately-controlled media) that
2 This is notably similar to Karan Barads Agential Realism, as outlined in her book, Meeting The
Universe Halfway.

individuals are continuously interested in novel innovation that can be appropriated as an

expression of the subjects own identity as an individual, as opposed to, say, innovation with
the goal of reducing global suffering, etc. The implication seems to be that the globalized
consumerist structure of advanced capitalism already treats the consumer not as an individual
subject, but rather, as a collection of statistics that religate him or her into a specific
prefabricated identity. Advanced capitalism effectively profits from the commodification of
life itself, both in the emerging field of biotechnologies as well as the commodification of
individualist identity.
Braidotti goes on to present an alternative to this consumerist individualism,
advocating an emphasis on zoe, or the generic animating life force which is a property not of
an individual or species, but rather of the monolithic universe of matter. Zoe is the dynamic,
self-organizing structure of life itself (60), of which anthropos or bios is just a thin segment.
Braidotti points to a zoe-centric worldview, or a worldview that values generic life in all of its
iterations, as the central tenant of the post-anthropocentric turn, in that it effectively decentres
bios as the measure of all things. A posthuman theory of the subjective, therefore, could
emerge as an empirical project that aims at experimenting with what contemporary, biotechnologically mediated bodies are capable of doing (61).
This non-profit-oriented and experimental model for testing the boundaries of
technologically mediated bodies is in direct opposition to the values of advanced capitalism,
the success of which seems to be tethered to a predictable model of what the neo-liberally
individualistic subject wants. Braidotti points out that the global economy is already
perversely post-anthropocentric, in that it ultimately unifies all species under the imperative
of the market and its excesses threaten the sustainability of our planet as a whole (63). That
is to say, advanced capitalist values create a kind of pan-humanity through our collective
vulnerability: the commodification of life itself is linked to the high demand for products

which in turn is linked to growing crisis of climate change. Crucially, advanced capitalisms
post-anthropocentrism is not post-humanistic, in that it still advocates individualism such that
consumers can continue to pursue their own desires (i.e., products) while ignoring the
environmental or planetary implications of their consumerism. What is needed, argues
Braidotti, is a post-anthropocentric model that places the preservation of zoe at the centre. To
do this, Braidotti outlines a three-phase process, which she labels becoming-animal,
becoming-earth and becoming-machine (66)3.
The first process she discusses is Becoming-animal. She focuses her discussion on the
discursive practices that allow anthropos to set itself away from and above the rest of the
animal kingdom. To do this, she utilizes the mock taxonomy of Louis Borges, who classified
animals into three groups: those we watch television with, those we eat and those we are
scared of. Braidotti compellingly uses these three categories to demonstrate the way in which
our relationship to the nonhuman animal is wholly confined within classical parameters: an
oedipalized relationship (you and me together on the same sofa); an instrumental (thou shalt
be consumed eventually) and a fantasmatic one (exotic, extinct infotainment objects of
titillation) (68). The Oedipal relationship between human and nonhuman animals, Braidotti
observes, is inherently unequal and structured around the anthropocentric assumption that
these other animals exist primarily in relation to humans. This is expressed most explicitly in
our relationship to our pets, but is also in our language. Braidotti points out that animals have
long been reduced to metaphorical indicators of human virtues. In this way, nonhuman
animals become problematically reduced to symbols for human attributes, and thus violently
reinterpreted through human norms (trivial example: my understanding of what a mouse is
has less to do with the minimal experiences Ive actually had with real mice and more to do
with people who Ive heard described as mousy). Braidotti points out that to change this
3 She notes that these labels are in reference to Deleuze and Guattari, but also claims that she is very
independent in relation to them(66).

violent imposition of human attributes on nonhuman animals, what is needed is a system of

representation that matches the complexity of contemporary non-human animals and their
proximity to humans (70). Nonhuman animals can no longer be used as symbols to reaffirm
human centrality, but must instead be approached in a neo-literal mode as entities
independent of human construct.
She then turns to the rest of our animal relationships: those we eat and those we
are scared of, or animals that are understood through their instrumental or entertainment
value to humans. This category, she argues, is explicitly linked to the market economy. She
outlines the ways in which animals are embedded within advanced capitalist structures not as
individual entities but as statistics or products. In this sense, she argues, Orwells ironic
suggestion that some animals are created more equal than others has been flipped on its
head: In our post-anthropocentric globalized economy, no animal is more equal than any
other, because they are all equally inscribed in a market economy of planetary exchanges that
commodifies them to a comparable degree and therefore makes them equally disposable
(71). The effect of this, interestingly, is that humanity is no longer at the top of any
constructed hierarchy. All individual animals, both human and not, are levelled in their
interchangeable place within the market economy. Again, what is needed is a turn to zoecentric ethics, in which the sustained preservation of generic life is the primary goal, and
therefore living things are not reduced to their utility or their market value but rather, are
understood as distinct and non-symbolic entities.
Braidotti then turns to recent developments in the field of animal rights. She outlines
the influence of post-anthropocentric neo-humanist Frans de Waal, who, through his work
with higher primates, popularized the idea that empathy and moral resibility were
characteristics not exclusive to humans. This is a significant move for many reasons, but most
crucially it functions to reinscribe the human within the animal kingdom. Virtues that were

previously understood as tenants of humanism, and thus indicators of our elevation from the
rest of the animals, were reconceptualized as developmental or evolutionary tools. As
Braidotti explains, [t]he emphasis falls on the ethical continuity between humans and upper
primates (78). While Braidotti agrees that this turn is important (noting triumphantly that
Waals empathy theory dethroned Dawkins's selfish gene theory, which she describes as
definitely out(78)), she admits that she is still skeptical of post-anthropocentric neohumanism, on the basis that it is rather uncritical about Humanism itself (78-79). She
explains that the compensatory efforts on behalf of nonhuman animals is a deeply overdue
realization, as humanity is still reeling from two centuries of a self-inflicted superiority
complex, such that the response has been largely ambivalent. That is to say, we may be able
to recognize that humanity is not inherently superior to other animals, but our societies are
still structured largely as if we were 4. In this gesture of interspecies good will, humanism has
kind of subtly reinstated itself.
Braidotti then turns to the process of Becoming-earth. She identifies the two goals of
this section: the first is to develop a dynamic and sustainable notion of vitalist, selforganizing materiality; the second is to enlarge the frame and scope of subjectivity along the
transversal lines of post-anthropocentric relations (82). To achieve these goals, she first
points out the problematic aspects of previous approaches to humanitys relation to the earth.
She looks specifically at James Lovelocks Gaia hypothesis, which advocates a return to
holism and to the notion of the whole earth as a single, sacred organism (84). Although
Braidotti admits that this is an extremely seductive worldview in the face of our current
ecological crises, she points out that Lovelock problematically reinstates humanist values,
through the dichotomizing of nature and culture and earth and industrialization. In this way,
4 The fact that our current era is largely understood as The Anthropocene suggests that, through our
anthropocentrism, we have actually become the planet-altering force that we were beginning to
suspect we always were.

Lovelock fails to account for humanitys situation within nature, and in doing so,
problematically reimagines technological progress as a wholly negative enterprise. In his
efforts to understand the earth as an organism, Lovelock simply imposes humanistic values
onto the earth (i.e., essentially imagining what he would want if he was the earth), and
therefore fails to understand the earth for what it is to itself. Lovelock helps himself to
Spinozas monism, but filters it through a distinctly humanist lense: the earth becomes a kind
of idol in its relationship to humanity.
Braidotti offers another interpretation of Spinoza, influenced by the previous
rereadings offered by Deleuze and Guattari: [c]ontemporary monism implies a notion of
vital and self-organizing matter, as we saw in the previous chapter, as well as a non-human
definition of Life as zoe, or a dynamic and generative force (86). That is, Spinoza does not
call his infinite substance God because it is something to be worshiped, he calls it God
because it is the vital and animating force of the entire universe. For this reason, a posthuman
notion of subjectivity has less to do with flattening out all species to the organs of a planetary
animal, and more to do with empathetic recognition of an inter-species goal of keeping the
planet, as the only known habitable environment for all known iterations of zoe, alive.
Finally, Braidotti turns to the process of Becoming-machine. Similar to the process of
Becoming-animal, the move is beyond symbolism. The machine can no longer be understood
as a metaphor for humanity, but must be conceived as an object on its own. Braidotti
advocates a model of becoming-machine inspired by Deleuze and Guattari as well as the
surrealists, one of a playful and pleasure-prone relationship to technology that is not based
on functionalism (91). This technologically bio-mediated process is beneficial as it allows us
to think of ourselves as bodies without organs, that is, without a teleologically defined
organized efficiency. Rather, the posthuman subject is able to account for the increasingly
technologically-mediated environment in a manner that is experimental and not exclusively

profit-driven. The playful and mutually beneficial relationship between human and machine,
then, is reimaged not as a relationship between product and consumer, but as two distinct and
nonhierarchically ordered species experimentally pursuing a common ethics (which, again,
should be the zoe-centred ethics outlined above). This would inherently require empathetic
understanding of the evolution of machines outside of their relationship to humans, which
Braidotti identifies as an important aspect of the posthuman turn: the point of the posthuman
predicament is to rethink evolution in a non-deterministic but also post-anthropocentric
manner (94).
Braidotti concludes the chapter by noting that in her focus on these processes of
humanitys posthuman becoming, she does not mean to undersell the different aspects of
humanity or treat all of humanity as one largely self-similar whole, but in fact the opposite. In
blurring the distinction between Man and his naturalized others, Braidotti draws attention to
the dynamics of power that exist in society. Power, understood in the Foucauldian sense,
functions on a grid that the posthuman subject can experimentally resist. As Braidotti
observes: power is not a static given, but a complex strategic flow of effects which call for
pragmatic politics of intervention and the quest for sustainable alternatives (99). Ultimately,
Braidottis focus is on the not-One-ness 5 of the material field as the medium through which
diversity (both inter- and intraspecies) can be valued and celebrated.

5 And crucially, this is not in disagreement with the Spinozist conception of a monist substantial
universe, but rather to point of that the singular substance of reality is iteratively dynamic, or what
Karan Barad would call intra-active.