informs about goals, chances, effects and limits of transhumanism against the background of religious concepts like salvation and eternal life. The sequence is intended for CLIL courses (Religious Education & English) and applies the jigsaw technique.
To finish with, it is Ben Maré Dutschmann’s turn again. He makes students aware of the ambivalence of human enhancement, which can be both a blessing and a curse. The topics of designer babies, neural interfaces and CRISPR-Cas9 are discussed via group work, and rounded off with the good angel/bad angel technique.
These lesson scenarios as well as the theoretical and methodological contributions in this volume may help you to decide whether 16th century English philosopher Francis Bacon (“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed”) or modern-day transhumanist Chris Armstrong (“Nature, to be transcended, must be amended”) is right.
Referring to the famous opening sentence of Rousseau’s magnum opus The Social Contract and Karl Marx’ Communist Manifesto, transhumanist Simon Young solemnly professes: “Man is not born free, but everywhere in biological chains. People of the world, unite – you have nothing to lose but your biological chains.” Assuming that humanism freed us from the chains of superstition, he wants transhumanism to free us from our biological chains. Apart from the intricacies of collective appeals, unchaining nature and throwing off shackles, however, do not automatically lead to universal bliss.
In his science fiction novel, The Broken God (1992: 236), American author David Zindell presents this dialogue:
“What is a human being, then?”
“A seed.”
“A … seed?”
“An acorn that is unafraid to destroy itself in growing into a tree.”
Let’s hope that in this process, not too much of the essence is destroyed. And what would Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (V, i) finally reply?
“How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!”
A. Theory
Transhumanism in Language Teaching
Engelbert Thaler
Onco-mice and cloned sheep, drones and auto-automobiles, neuro-enhancement and prosthetic therapy: Is transhumanism a “movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity”, as the American libertarian science writer Ronald Bailey hailed it (2004), or rather “the world’s most dangerous idea”, as the well-known US political scientist Francis Fukuyama (2009) once called it. This paper attempts to elucidate what we understand by the term transhumanism, what topics and problems we face, what media are suitable for classroom use, what lesson scenarios seem effective, what benefits we may reap, and what challenges we have to cope with.
1. Terminology
Given the multitude of different directions, it is not surprising that we face almost as many definitions as there are people writing about the subject. There is no generally valid definition of transhumanism (Latin “trans”: ‘beyond’, and “humanus”: ‘humane’). Max More (1990) offers the following definition:
Transhumanism shares many elements of humanism, including a respect for reason and science, a commitment to progress, and a valuing of human (or transhuman) existence in this life rather than in some supernatural ‘afterlife’. Transhumanism differs from humanism in recognizing and anticipating the radical alterations in the nature and possibilities of our lives resulting from various sciences and technologies such as neuroscience and neuropharmacology, life extension, nanotechnology, artificial ultraintelligence, and space habitation, combined with a rational philosophy and value system.
In nuce: Transhumanism represents a line of thought that seeks to expand the limits of human possibilities by using various technological procedures. The evolution of life has promoted the development of higher and higher species – and probably did not end with man.
“Human is a step in evolution,
not the culmination.”
(Nikola Danaylov)
In the past, nature has brought forth new species, but today man has so much scientific and technical skill that we can consciously create new species.
Through conscious self-evolution, humans may perhaps transform themselves into higher beings who are physically, intellectually, ethically, culturally, aesthetically and emotionally much higher than they are today – as far above us humans as we are above the monkey:
from
Trans-Chimpanzees
to
Trans-Humans
The conceptual heterogeneity, on the one hand, results from the multitude of disciplines involved (biology and philosophy, cybernetics and artificial intelligence, political science and literary studies, nanotechnology and complexity theory, etc.), and, on the other hand, from the overlap with the concept of posthumanism. “We need to understand that five hundred years of humanism may be coming to an end, as humanism transforms itself into something that we must helplessly call posthumanism” (Hassan 1977: 843). Posthumanists (cf. i.a. Nayar 2014) deny the classical humanist paradigm, “in which an ideal human Self/Subject stands at the center of creation and commands all that is not made in … ‘His’ image” (Csicsery-Ronay 1999: 313), reject a human exceptionality (Snaza et al. 2014) and demand the decentering of the human being.
This implies a fundamental egalitarianism, which starts from a single matter, postulates an equality of all life and abolishes traditional binary oppositions (Braidotti 2014). That is why opposites such as nature – artificiality, body – spirit, material – virtual, organic – mechanical, human – animal are obsolete.
To further increase the terminological confusion, the affixes post- and trans- as well as super-, meta-, hyper- or anti- appear as prefixes of humanism. Although posthumanism is the most popular term, this “post” (‘after’) evokes either the departure from humanity and the paradoxical notion that man has the will and the power to proclaim his end, or associations with ‘against / anti’. Transhumanism seems to be a more appropriate term, because it is more neutral in value, not reminiscent of ‘after’ or ‘anti’, something that lies beyond common notions of the human being and does not have to be limited to technological innovations.
2. Issues
In view of these facets, the following thematic decalogue could be dealt with in foreign language teaching.
2.1 Practical Issues
What is the likelihood that the goals sought by transhumanists can actually be achieved?
Critics doubt the feasibility of predicted technologies and point to numerous failed prophecies concerning technological progress in the past (Jones 1998, Dublin 1992). However, one could also argue that in view of the enormous medical progress in recent decades, humanity is already transhuman.
2.2 Ethical Issues
To what extent do transhumanist positions threaten human values?
The Nobel Prize 2020 for chemistry was awarded for the development of Crispr/Cas 9, a method of genome editing. With the help of these genetic scissors, the dream of being able to cure inherited diseases may come true. This tool has taken the life sciences into a new era and can bring great benefit to humankind. Yet, what is a promise, can also be a peril. Due to its potential to alter human heredity, Crispr has become one of the most controversial developments in science.