새로운 주체의 가능성: 포스트휴머니즘과 윌리엄 깁슨의 『뉴로맨서』를 중심으로

Abstract

A Possibility of New Subject in Posthumanism and William Gibson's Neuromancer Ha, Sang-BokThis article is an attempt to study the idea of the subject suitable for the digital, cybernetic and genetic age through the discussion about the subject in posthumanism and William Gibson's Neuromancer. In the technophile and technophobic perspectives in posthumanism, there are many opinions about the subject constituted within the distorted framework of liberal humanism. So the perspectives work as a limit to the constitution of the new subject, for liberal humanism has played an important part in causing the subject's present painful problems. These perspectives also help to accelerate the circumstances that the subject is fully controlled and subordinated in the dominant scientific and technological order ruled by the logic of capitalism. The perspectives are revealed in Neuromancer. Most of characters including the hero, Case, follow the paradigm which regards the human subject as an informational-material entity, estimate other subjects and objects by it. The paradigm that they accepted naturally is the typical one in posthumanism which has been discussed within the distorted framework of liberal humanism, and make them caught in the perverted dominant technological order. They also adapt themselves for the circumstances that everything is controlled by the advanced technology linked with the logic of capital. In this regards, they can not become the desirable and new subject suitable for the advanced technological age.Therefore, to globe for the possible ways to constitute the new subject, this paper proposes that the subject should know the logic of liberal humanist mechanism and paradigm which is projected into the posthumanism. It also proposes that the subject should not follow blindly the logic of capital, and should reflect dominant technological conditions made by the logic.