http://www.biopolitix.com/
This is the official Web site
of the English translation, by Catarina Lamm, of
Interview with Stefano Vaj
on Biopolitics and Transhumanism
by Adriano Scianca (ed.)
Rome, May 2007. Festival of Philosophy. The cream of Italic official bigwigs convening. Here are the titles of some of the speeches featuring in the program: “Science at the Frontiers: Potentiality, Limits, Guarantees,” “Real, Virtual, Imaginary: Where are the
Boundaries?” “The Confines of Life and Euthanasia. An Ethical and Scientific
Perspective,” “Second Life: the New Frontiers of Experience,” “Is Man Obsolete?
Human/Posthuman,” plus thematic lectures on Charles Darwin, Gunther Anders and
Philip Dick. Stefano Vaj, am I wrong or is there a spectre haunting Europe, and is it the spectre of biopolitics?
(STEFANO VAJ) Europe – even today – remains the epicentre, at least culturally, of paradigm shifts.
And there is no doubt that we are facing a growing awareness that what I call
“biopolitics” represents the crucial issue of the day, our next horizon, and the really political level, in Carl Schmitt’s sense of the word, meaning the level that renders all
other persuasions and affiliations secondary. Since the time when I began to work on the essay Biopolitics. The new paradigm, which is now online full-text [in Italian TN] at the address http://www.biopolitica.it, this has little by little become ever clearer, to the point when it downright stares you in the face. At the turn of the second millennium of our era, there isn’t a corner of the Earth’s biosphere that is immune to the hand of man. As a widely circulated article in the review Science remarked some years ago, “there are no more places on Earth that are not in the shade of humans”. Today humankind exerts its influence on the entire surface of the planet, either by directly transforming it or by modifying its biochemical and physical equilibria. Of course we are far from mastering its processes, but there is no more part that is immune to man’s influence.
(ADRIANO SCIANCA) And also vice versa…
(STEFANO VAJ) Exactly.
Our nature and identity are obviously shaped by our environment, and not just
culturally, but also biologically, if anything through the varying reproductive
success of our genes. Once the environment in which we grow and evolve and the
selective pressures acting on our genetic heritage become altogether artificial, then it becomes clear that it is no longer just a matter of our responsibility in defining our environment in relation to a project, but that of having a project defining in the first place what we want to be, a project allowing us, in Nietzsche’s words, to “become what we are”. Heidegger writes: “Nietzsche is the first thinker, who, in view of the world history emerging for the first time, ask the decisive question and thinks through its
metaphysical implications. The question is: Is man, as man in his nature till now, prepared to assume dominion over the whole earth? If not, what must happen to man as he is so that he may be able to 'subject' the earth and thereby fulfill the world of an old testament? Must man, as he is, then, not be brought beyond himself if he is to fulfill this task? […] One thing, however, we ought soon to notice :
this thinking that aims at the figure of a teacher who will teach the Superman
concerns us, concerns Europe, concerns the whole Earth – not just today, but
tomorrow even more. It does so whether we accept it or oppose it, ignore it or
imitate it in a false accent.”
CONTINUA
The full text of the interview
- The PDF version
- Link to the original work, published in print in Italian
- The bios
- Link to the official Web site of Biopolitica. Il nuovo paradigma by Stefano Vaj
*STEFANO VAJ *THE LEFT TRANSHUMANISTE IN THE ENGLAND CONVENTION
(10-2011) http://humanityplus.org.uk/#bh_sv