Cressida Hayes
states in Fixed that the function of
“erasing disability sends a very clear message that there is nothing productive
or valuable in disability.” This assumption that disability has no value
(implied by trans-humanist Stuart Hughes) highlights the problem of imagining a
future world where technologies of human enhancement attempt to deliver
unlimited abilities, acceptable eugenics and a perpetual and incommensurable
definition of bodily normalcy. I have no problem with the technological
collaborating with the body to assist and adapt embodied living, and to even
enhance bodies in ways only imagined in science fiction. I do have a problem,
like many (but not all) in this film, with perceptions of normalcy (in the
present and the projected future) that position disability as valueless and
establish the so-called normal body as something that can be restored with the
aid of technology.
More than
delivering a utopian treatise on technologically enhanced bodily futures, I
would argue that Fixed calls
attention to the continuing problem of bodily normalcy or the problem Disability
Studies scholar Lennard Davis articulates as “the way that normalcy is constructed to create the ‘problem’ of the
disabled person.”[1]
As Patty Berne submits in the film “the problem isn’t within the body but a
social regard or lack of integration of people with disabilities,” something
that Dr. Gregor Wolbring demonstrates aptly by stating that he has no personal
problem with his own body. He says “I am happy with who I am” and “I am just
who I am.” Then Wolbring shows the place where he does have a problem, a
building that doesn’t provide access and epitomizes the unenhanced physical
world that socially disregards or doesn’t integrate different kinds of bodies. Moreover, within the film, when human enhancement
is articulated as a misplaced priority, when basic human requirements are
desired more than advancement and the concept of being better than well is seen
as superficial it seems that the larger problem facing all our futures exists
beyond the body itself and in the relationships between bodies and minds. Therefore,
my concern, when watching Fixed, is
not with the possibilities of different bodily futures or to maintain the
desire to socially enhance the body according the fantasies of consumer choice.
My concern, like Hugh Herr, is with normalcy and how it is maintained in social
relations and bodies and spaces to eventually imagine the erasure of
disability.
Instead of
adopting a trans-humanist perspective of “more abilities for everybody” centred
on the body to go beyond definitions of human functioning, why not ask for more
access for everybody to go beyond “normal” definitions of societal functioning?
Instead of imagining a future without disabilities why can’t we imagine a
future of variation instead of impairment or a technologically enhanced world
that provides access to and for bodily variation? There is a more pressing
social enhancement required for humanity, and not one provided by the desire to
maintain standards of bodily normalcy, but the possibility of redefining,
enhancing, augmenting, adapting and collaborating with the very world we live
in and erasing the larger societal disability that conceives of disability as a
problem.
John Hockenberry
argues there is value in disability and states “people with disabilities have
very important information to deliver” equally as a means to understand
human/machine collaboration, human adaptability and disability itself, and how
it has been conceived and continues be conceived as very much part of the human
story. Consequently, if we are to live in a world where “all kinds of bodies
and minds are delightful” we need move beyond the idea of bodies and minds as
problems. If we are to evolve as species with technological enhancement to be
able to witness exciting futures of human development we cannot go forward
until understanding the problem of a society that conceives of problematic
bodies (that need to be fixed) and fixing that problem first. As the film
establishes inequality is a problem, despite trans-humanist assumptions, and
that problem, which could only allow those with the financial means to enhance
their body socially and physically, maintains bodily hierarchies and the very
ableism that positions the disabled body as a body that needs to be fixed.
Furthermore, it
should be stated that the desire to enhance, augment and develop the human body
does not have to be dismissed in order to tackle with the problem of bodily
normalcy. It is not an either/or choice, as stated in the film, whether that
choice (rather simplistically shifts) from channelling money from healthcare to
The Superbowl. We should embrace human/machine progression, as many others do
in this film but we shouldn’t imagine that technology will provide embodied
utopias, especially, as established, machines are burdened with their own
frailties. We should also embrace the potential freedoms that technology can
bring to the body but we should also be aware of who will have access to these
freedoms or namely the financial freedom to receive technological bodily
enhancement. These are all important points that Fixed raises that require our attention before we embark on
whatever futures our bodies and our worlds have in store for us.
To conclude I
want to paraphrase the host of speakers who appear in the film and say yes, I
am making a judgement. I say yes, let us leave the island of normal, if the
normal means inequality, a lack of access and witnessing social enhanced bodies
living in a socially regressive society. I want to live in a world where it is
not utopian to ask for basic requirements. I also want to live in a transformed
technologically enhanced world of bodily variety. Let us disrupt civilisation
if civilisation has only got us this far. I believe we can do better than we
are doing and I am excited about a future that might contain us doing better in
our mental and physical varieties, probably as much as Hugh Herr is excited
about the future of technologically assisted bodies. I don’t believe we can
conquer death or disease but I do believe we can conquer our own lives, and help
the lives of others, and overcome the desire to discriminate against bodies and
minds, have the ability to embrace variation, technologically assisted or not,
and the knowledge to provide access for all. That is the kind of enhancement I
would like and hope it is one that the future will contain.
