We are human, Aren't we?

"The concept of 'human' is unthinkable without technology but we act as if it is"
(Shaw, 2008: p.81)

Shaw opens the chapter with a paraphrase of the quote from Stiegler (1998) where he claims "The human [..] invents himself in the technical by inventing the tool - by becoming exteriorised techno-logically" (p.141)

Shaw is talking about the means which we find out for ourself that we are human. The technological advancements in departments such as health and sports, help us program, monitor and test out bodies to see if everything is running as it should be. The idea that there needs to be blood pumping around out bodies to be alive, only came about after Galem understanding of our veins and hearts. This was later proved to be incorrect, when William Harvey's findings, which were aided by technology, showed that blood came from and to the heart. 

We can also look at different objects which hold a similar principle. For example, gender, race, age, class. These are things which are highlighted in our society, more than what they should be. Of course, race and gender have their obvious technicalities, but society uses these to categorise humans into separate groups, as if to divide us. Shaw re-refences to the quote made ealier in the chapter, which said that "bodies are obsolete", (Shaw, 2008: 81) and pushes this even further, saying that the human body in society is "dependent on accepted differentiations" (Shaw, 2008:87)

Gender is the most prolific of this differentiation. As with the first 30 seconds of being born, a baby is judged on whether it is male or female. Its a baby, a human, but according to society, it has already been deemed as to which class it will be placed in.

I can never imagine a society without these classes. It will never happen.

Bibliography
Shaw, D. (2008), Technoculture: The Key Concepts, Oxford Press.
Stiegler, B. (Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Stanford: Stanford University Press.