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Goutam Manna

Morphological Freedom; Posthumanist Mirage in Medical Humanities

In the era of developed medical and technological science, everything has been a means of developing human life. Medicine increases human immunity and provides strength to fight against Nature; Internet and network system helps a lot for education, business, communication (and what not!) which are obviously a holistic approach of human well-being. The modern days are very much habitual of using cosmetics like anti-aging cream, body transforming, or organ transplantation. But it is again a nonhuman or machine or chemical which dominates and controls us, which we assumed with an error of judgment as a means for our well-being. We are like a foolish Caliban (in The Tempest) who got impressed by Stephano and his 'celestial liquor' (as Caliban himself took it) and also wanted to be Stephano's servant to be free from Prospero's colonization. He conspires with Stephano to forge a and fight against Prospero, which is quite foolish and humorous. But, quite tragically, this means
destruction and loss of existence for man, which is clearly shown in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (2003) through the super-pill called 'Blysspluss' that promises health and happiness for human being, but secretly causes sterilization, a synonym for the extinction of race! The nonhuman in every case formed a 'plane of immanence' to make their existence stable and so that they can forge a violent protest against man. Thus, to conclude, I may agree with the claim by Bruce Mazlish (1993) that, the machine became an object of human interest, a means to an end, accentuating the role of human being as a tool user. Medicine and medical technology is being used for attaining the human morphological freedom which is nothing but a posthumanist mirage!

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