Alva Noë at NPR wrote an excellent opinion piece over the weekend on Lance Armstrong’s decision to stop fighting the United States Anti-Doping Agency—which accuses the seven-time Tour de France winner of ingesting performance enhancing drugs.
Noë argues not that Armstrong ‘didn’t do it’—on the contrary, most expert commentators agree that he probably did dope, along with all other high level cyclers—but that ‘doping’ is a logical component of competitive sports in a cyborg era. Noë concludes with a key point and a provocative question:
He didn’t win races on his own. No, Like each of us in our social embeddings, he created an organization, drawing on other people, and the creative and effective use of technology, the mastery of biochemistry, to go places and do things that most of us never will, that no one ever had, before him. That we now attack him, and tear him down, and try to minimize his achievements…what does this tell us about ourselves?
I want to take on this question, and in doing so, further flesh out the points that Noë brings to the fore.
I argue that our attack on Armstrong speaks to our collective discomfort with a cyborg nature, and that this discomfort is twofold. First, we are uncomfortable with categorical blurring, and second, cyborg bodies problematize deeply held myths and moral tenets of self-reliance.
Claude Lėvi-Strauss famously pointed to the categorical ways in which we order our social worlds, and the embedded nature of this categorical ordering through language. Indeed, social actors vehemently work to maintain these categorical structures, and staunchly resist their blurring both interpersonally and institutionally (despite the best efforts of queer theorists). The cyborg, as a construct, is inherently a-categorical. It blurs human, animal, and machine; it complicates gender, embodiment, and sexuality; it eschews separations of internal and external; and it applies to our own bodies, our own Selves. In short, the cyborg is a threat to categorical ordering, and this threat is amplified by its application to our very being. We are uncomfortable by our own blurriness, and we take it out on those who display the cyborgness of humanity in explicit ways. In this vein, we reject those who use steroids, ridicule those who use Viagra, and shame those who obtain cosmetic surgery at places like the local and pretty hidden vaginal tightening medical clinic around the corner.
But this explanation is insufficient. Indeed, there are cases in which we encourage technological embodiment. For example, I’ve written about/problematized elsewhere the way we celebrate technologies that allow people with paralyzed bodies to stand and walk upright. Similarly, we operate on Deaf children and babies, equipping them with cochlear implants. We spend billions of dollars (personally and institutionally) on pharmaceuticals that help normalize bodily processes. In short, we are okay with cyborgs, as long as the cyborg technology makes someone more human, not more than human. This brings me to the second-fold of our twofold discomfort with a cyborg nature—namely, that it implodes all notions of self-reliance to which we so desperately cling.
Lance Armstrong is the subject of the moment, but let us look also to Oscar Pistorius—the South African Olympic athlete with double below-the-knee amputation. This decorated paralympian had to overcome legal and social battles to fight his way into the 2012 able-bodied Olympic games, with detractors complaining about his ‘advantageous’ use of biomechanical shins and feet. Pistorius’ embodiment challenges us by throwing the technological bodily element in our collective face, and explicitly linking it to success among ‘Normals.’ This speaks to our narrow definition of humanity. Those who stand and walk are more human than those who sit and wheel; those who can communicate by voice and sound are more human than those who communicate by sight and sign; those who focus intently are more human than those who quickly and creatively flit from one social stimuli to the next. Cyborg technologies are fine for them, those less-than-human Others who need help achieving functionality, who need help achieving humanity. We are uncomfortable, however, when we must acknowledge the normalcy of an enmeshed relationship with technology, and even more so, when we must acknowledge our reliance on this enmeshment. As such, when technology enables or even suggests success at a level beyond the accomplishments of an organic body, our defenses go up and our discomfort shows through.
The Horatio Alger Myth, so often discussed in introductory level sociology courses, applies well to our relationship with technology. We want to believe we exist on a level playing field. We want to believe that the world is fair. We want to believe that those with talents and drive will rise to the top, and that those who lack these things will fall to their deserved social locations of mediocrity or utter failure. To maintain this myth is to ignore external factors associated with success and failure. Technology—and our enmeshed relationship with it—is an explicit artifact of externality. We can ignore this artifact, but only to a point. We can ignore it until it goes too far. We can ignore it until, at some point, our own cyborg nature intrudes our conscious space. We can ignore the aerodynamic clothes, the meticulously calculated bodily movements, the waxing technologies that free swimmers from body-hair drag. We cannot, however, ignore steel legs, just as we cannot ignore chemical changes to the physical body that make it stronger, faster, and longer enduring.
Our attack on Lance Armstrong is an attack on our own blurriness. It is a simultaneous defense of categorical boundaries, normative definitions of humanness, and individualist, internal, attributions of efficacy and personal outcomes.
Jenny Davis is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M University. She is a regularly contributing author on the Cyborgology blog. Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jup83
Pic Creds:
http://personalrecordinpr.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/the-marketing-of-the-livestrong-braclet/
Comments 24
alva noe — August 28, 2012
great work, jenny
JohnQ — August 28, 2012
"In short, we are okay with cyborgs, as long as the cyborg technology makes someone more human, not more than human."--What a point! This is the postulate for posthuman discourse! We should talk more about the construction of the narrative of what constitutes success/performance beyond the organic.
SAA — August 28, 2012
For more about marking theory and Cyborgs (Why some forms of Cyborg are socially acceptable and others are not), see my talk from CyborgCamp 2010 here:
(12:18 for cyborg social acceptability issues)
http://blip.tv/strange-love-live-talk-show/cyborgcamp2010-sallyapplin-4714838
BM — August 28, 2012
Why don't able bodied athletes compete in the Para Olympics?
Dave — August 28, 2012
From Noe: "That we now attack him, and tear him down, and try to minimize his achievements…what does this tell us about ourselves?"
It tells us that we do not accept cheating.
From Author: "I argue that our attack on Armstrong speaks to our collective discomfort with a cyborg nature"
No. This is being over-thought. Attacks on Armstrong are because he willingly cheated. There were rules and he broke them. It has nothing to do with a cyborg nature.
"Doping" can be very dangerous and the long term effects are not completely known. If one day, it can be proven to be 100% completely safe and LEGAL, then everybody can take them and it's a level playing field. Until then if you dope, you are a cheater. It's really that simple.
whitneyerinboesel — August 29, 2012
hi jenny -
thank you for a really great post! the point you make about "more human" vs. "more than human" is so important, and deserves a lot more attention than it's been getting.
i just have one really closely related point to add, which is that i draw a parallel between all the uproar about lance armstrong and our anxieties about new reproductive technologies (esp wrt the pressure to produce "blue ribbon babies"), or the anxieties about antidepressants that carl elliott writes about in 'better than well.' the basic idea is that we fear not only that some individuals are un-leveling the playing field by giving themselves unfair advantages, but that over time--as more individuals choose to do so--the enhanced or augmented state *becomes* the level playing field. at that point, the deviant choice is not to "cheat" by using enhancement technologies, but to "fail" to give ourselves (or our children) every opportunity by *not* using enhancement technologies. we don't like the sense that we no longer have a choice, and we don't like the idea that the way we are now will someday not be good enough. it's a very personal sort of keeping up with the joneses (or the armstrongs).
as embracing a particular enhancement technology shifts from "cheating" to a new moral imperative, i think our anxiety stems not only from discomfort with our cyborg nature, but also from fear of our own future inadequacy.
7 stories to read this weekend — Tech News and Analysis — September 1, 2012
[...] The tearing down of Lance Armstrong brought on this sympathetic rumination that is worth reading. And also worth reading is Jenny Davis’ commentary on the piece, which argues that attacks on Armstrong are mostly because we are uncomfortable with [...]
The Wright Computer Services » 7 stories to read this weekend — September 1, 2012
[...] The tearing down of Lance Armstrong brought on this sympathetic rumination that is worth reading. And also worth reading is Jenny Davis’ commentary on the piece, which argues that attacks on Armstrong are mostly because we are uncomfortable with [...]
7 stories to read this weekend - Cleantech Reporter | Cleantech Reporter — September 1, 2012
[...] The tearing down of Lance Armstrong brought on this sympathetic rumination that is worth reading. And also worth reading is Jenny Davis’ commentary on the piece, which argues that attacks on Armstrong are mostly because we are uncomfortable with [...]
7 stories to read this weekend | TekDefender — September 1, 2012
[...] The tearing down of Lance Armstrong brought on this sympathetic rumination that is worth reading. And also worth reading is Jenny Davis’ commentary on the piece, which argues that attacks on Armstrong are mostly because we are uncomfortable with [...]
Global Tech Review | 7 stories to read this weekend — September 1, 2012
[...] The tearing down of Lance Armstrong brought on this sympathetic rumination that is worth reading. And also worth reading is Jenny Davis’ commentary on the piece, which argues that attacks on Armstrong are mostly because we are uncomfortable with [...]
Robert — September 2, 2012
This article would serve as an excellent introduction to the ethics of transhumanism, or simple the development of new technology. Additionally, it suggests the dilemma of: how does a society that celebrates competition as a core virtue (isn't that the essence of capitalism?) cope with the availability of technology that shifts the competitive advantage away from the traditionally advantaged? While the image of fairness is well loved, competition in practice is more Machiavellian and pushing the limits of the rules (if not subverting them entirely) is admired. In truth, which is more egalitarian: being constrained through birth, environmental and genetic circumstances or having the opportunity to access technology to erase the significance of competition and allow open access to accomplishment?
In Their Words » Cyborgology — September 2, 2012
[...] “our attack on Armstrong speaks to our collective discomfort with a cyborg nature” [...]
John Dixon — September 6, 2012
You say the critics of Armstrong are under the spell of the Horatio Alger Myth. But isn't it Armstrong himself and the whole persona and myth he created around himself that thrives off of and exploits that myth? Didn't he exploit the myth by casting his own story in exactly its terms in order to take advantage of cancer fighters and survivors? Aren't Armstrong's defenders the ones who can't bear to see the myth tarnished and the critics the ones who deprecate the damaging effects of this myth? Your argument seems to twist white into black. The people who resist the Alger myth are the ones who criticize people like Armstrong. The athletes who don't do drugs are unsung heroes in the fight against this myth. They refuse to give in to the temptations of fame and to trample and bully their way up the ladder of success, as Armstrong did. They are the people who appreciate their own talents, but also the talents of others, are good sports, don't try to win at all costs, and live a social as opposed to rampantly individualistic life, where they play by the rules and live fairly, even if that means giving up fame and success, and finding satisfaction enough in friends, colleagues, and family. In other words, people unlike Armstrong, including many of the people who criticize Armstrong.
John Dixon — September 7, 2012
Since this is a sociology blog, let me suggest understanding Armstrong in terms of the old sociology of religion. The yellow "Livestrong" bracelet suggests a totemic image, a fetish like a piece of the true cross whose power followers and true believers can partake of and commune with thru its active presence in the symbol. It symbolizes the magical and priestly power to "beat" cancer, like the King's touch. And its is equated with the willpower of the "yellow jersey" of the Tour, where "Lance" (we only need his first name the way we only need the names "Moses" and "Jesus") was able to "conquer", if not move, the mountains. His story has been crafted as an archetypal one of death and resurrection. He is an athlete as secular saint or charismatic leader and savior. His going to France and winning the tour is the hero quest. His foundation is the secularization and routinization of the charisma of the religious savior who heals the sick.
The mythic individualism of "Lance"--who rose from the working class and "defeated" cancer, and then went on his hero-quest to France and like David against Goliath conquered the anti-American warriors at their own sport--powerfully reinforces the pervasive ideology that ours is a society of equal opportunity where anyone can "make it", where social inequalities are fair and just because they simply mirror differences of talent and initiative.
Your defense of "Lance" suggests you have not been immune to his charisma. In your commentary, you quote with approval the words that we "attack him, and tear him down, and try to minimize his achievements." That sounds like a passage from the New Testament decrying Jesus' treatment by the Romans. The tone suggests a religious panic that the sanctity and aura of the holy man is being profaned by the unwashed, those who dare to question his charismatic authority. To protect this aura you construct an ingenious sophistry that preserves the hero's aura, but now in a new form more appealing to multicultural sensibilities. Now he is invested with the aura of "the Other," the "hybrid," the "cyborg". He is being attacked by the custodians of the ideology of individuality and meritocracy with their simplistic notion of a "fair playing field" that tries to reduce us in our complex socially encrusted nature to some simple pre-social nature that can be compared, quantified, and rewarded accordingly. In your Manichaean worldview, these profane attackers are of course associated with some underlying force of evil, namely, capitalism. But "Lance" in his cyborg nature resists this and thus once again points us to the promised land.
Alex — September 25, 2012
You made some very strong arguments, but I wish you (and Alva Noe) had related our discomfort regarding cyborgs to the ethics and essence of sport. I agree that we are very uncomfortable with categorical blurring. But, it is not so clear to me whether it is in humankind's best interest to allow cyborgs to compete in sports. (This coming from a woman who is ambivalent about whether NASCAR should be considered sport!) I think that cyborgs are acceptable in other realms, but I am not so sure that they should be as such for sports. Perhaps sports should be considered analogous to academia. In academia, students are discouraged from taking shortcuts to success. (I.e. reading cliff notes on the internet instead of Shakespeare plays.) Academia prizes above all the "life of the mind" and a "life of inquiry" that is notably different from industries like business or law. Perhaps we should not permit "shortcuts to success" for sports because the essence of sport is the cultivation of self and body. We can achieve those objectives and have exciting, worthwhile competitions without steroids or doping.
Yes, we can also achieve the objectives of sport with cyborg technologies.. and legal and illegal technologies are in use already. (And possibly are already integral to sport.)
Yes, cyborg embodiment would "level the playing field" and allow access to sports for those who were previously not physically qualified. I'm wavering on my opinion... not quite convinced either way yet!
Cyborgology Turns Two » Cyborgology — October 26, 2012
[...] to learn on a regular basis. From my own post repository, however, my favorite essay of the year is “Resistant Cyborgs: Lessons from Lance Armstrong.” This post flowed easily for me, and was a moment of clarity and articulation of issues I had been [...]