Haraway: An Exclusory State

Haraway: An Exclusory State?

Abstract
This article will examine conventional scholarly accounts of Haraway as a classic exclusory state, and conclude they are lacking in that they essentialise Haraway and do not pay proper attention to it’s its motivation and internal memetic structure.

It will conclude that Haraway’s policy is best examined through the lens of its own internal ideology rather than using the classic discourse of an exclusory state.

Haraway’s World has been subjected of a great deal of European scholarship, especially since the end of the breakdown. For instance Josephine Mitchell (Mitchell 2180), Leon Dubled (Dubled 2173) and Hans Wagner (Wagner 2182) have all written extensively on its society. All of them have come to the conclusion that Haraway is a classic exclusory state, as defined by Tadeusz Cordell at the end of the last century (Cordell 2099).

Without wishing to rehash material the reader may well know, it is at this point best to examine Cordell’s definition of an exclusory state (Cordell 2099). An Exclusory State is one where power and rights flow primarily from and primarily too a single social group, with others enjoying less rights, whether socially or politically (Cordell 2099 p11). Sometimes these states will even go so far to exclude other groups from power all together (Josfield 2150) or completely from the state (Cordell 2110). This usually comes along with a dislike of the excluded group and in some cases full persecution (Cordell 2110).

Practical examples of this trend in history abound, with 20th century South Africa (Umbuto 2123) and 20-21st century Israel (Mitchell 2180) and 21st century Malaysia (Johansson 2183). Cuchulainn is perhaps the clearest example in the modern day (Harolds 2185).

This trend is said mostly to have died out on earth, (Dubled 2173 p8) though some theorists, especially those who consider transgenics to be a separate ethnic group would disagree (Donald 2170 pp21-52) however many theorists see it as alive and well in the colonies, especially those not under the control of one of the Core powers (Wagner 2182 p98).

Haraway is often analysed (and criticized) using this body of theory (Greenfield 2185), as are other ZOCU powers. I have however chosen Haraway to be the subject of this article for several reasons. First, it is often seen as the worst offender among the ZOCU powers (Wagner 2182 p4) a racist, sexist, isolationist state which seeks to hold onto an entire high biosphere world despite only having a few tens of millions people (Mitchell 2180). Second, due to it’s proximity to the EU colonial space (it’s one of the closest ZOCU powers) it has become one of the most written about Expanse worlds (Greenfield 2185). Third and finally, due to the nature of its democratic system, Haraway produces large amounts of its own information, making analysis far more practical.

While there are some powers off earth that could be described as exclusory states, I do not believe Haraway fits Cordell’s definition. Simply put, if Haraway was an exclusory state, it would be unable to maintain the alliance it does with ZOCU, who currently include many male, and indeed many baseline leaders, and entire baseline polities, such as Hampshire.

Despite any policy differences Haraway continues to maintain a strong ideological commitment to the ZOCU alliance, even while this alliance having several prominent members who it should, if it was truly an exclusory state in the 21st century mould, and feel as greater animus towards as the any of the core powers.

Before proceeding to the thrust of my arguments I will first briefly examine the arguments usually put forward to explain Haraway’s behaviour. Theorists, especially American theorists (Joshua 2179) (Ramirez 2182) (Gallardo 2183) have argued the primary motivation behind ZOCU is one of realpolitik (Ramirez 2182 p7).

I believe this argument is lacking however, especially in the case of Haraway. First, as we know from the case of the EU, pure realpolitik behaviour does not tend to be endure or be successful over the long term (Kemo 2183), but more importantly, Haraway has never justified its alliance with ZOCU in anything other than ideological terms (Lornheart 2174).

Studies by writers such as Edwin Lornheart (Lornheart 2174) have shown that those alliances tied together exclusively by realpolitik concerns tends to be justified in those terms to the population. Further, given the high degree of direct democracy on Haraway (Evin 2150) it would be very difficult for an ideological commitment to exist as a smoke screen for a realpolitik alliance.

With this in mind, I believe that those who talk about Haraway as an exclusory state miss the point. Haraway does wish to exclude various groups from involvement in its society, not because it has any particular dislike for those groups, but rather because their inclusion would fundamentally change the nature of that society for important memetic, geographical and cultural reasons.

The rest of this article will cover those reasons in detail.

Transhumanism & Geography

Haraway is a poisonous world (Hinburg 2180) it’s seas and atmosphere, while quiet capable of bearing life have concentrations of heavy metals which will give an unprotected, and unaugmented humans outside special suits and pressure domes have a life expectancy measured in days at best (Stebins 2184).

Despite this, Haraway would not be a hard world to terraform (Stebins 2184). Its temperature, levels of water and oxygen are all within human tolerances, and it has an existing biosphere, apparently created by long ago precursor architects (Hinburg 2180).

Haraway’s initial settlement group apparently knew about the conditions ahead of time, the original settlements being a series of post human supplied pressure domes on the planets equatorial island chain (Jas 2190) however, there was a strong environmentalism, (not preservationism) (Jas 2190) at work in the initial colony. Haraway’s founders wished to avoid the kind of mass die offs and extinction events that marked human progress on earth (Enheart 2188). With this goal in mind, and given the necessity of bio-engineering on an all female colony anyway, a high level of transhumanism were seen as a logical choice (Frankson 2187).

Over the hundred and fifty odd years of the colonies existence, transhumanism has become integral to many aspects of Harawayian society (Ani 2187). Not only are the overwhelming majority Harawayians transgenics of an advanced kind (Ani 2187), with the original genetypes now having become several different species, but even normal Harawayians integrate cybernetics for uses as varied as allowing them to breath underwater to enhancing their participation in direct democracy. (Lilith 2190)

Haraway’s society is now set up to be used mostly by transhumans baseline humans have a difficult time surviving there even without the atmospheric conditions (Ani 2187). Further, while it would be possible to terraform the planet to allow for baseline occupation, doing so would cause ecological changes at least as great (if not greater) than those that earth experienced during the 20th and 21st centuries (Michaels and Richards 2192).

For these reasons, Haraway remains committed to transhumanism, despite it’s potential dangers (Ani 2187) It would be all but impossible for their society to accept significant numbers of baselines without virtually starting from scratch, and reinstalling a large amount of the infrastructure, not to mention building an entirely new form of government, based more on representative than direct democracy (Lilith 2190). It is for these reasons, rather than any anger against baselines that Haraway maintains such a staunchly pro-independence and anti colonial line.

Feminism

Another common narrative of Haraway is one of sexism (Mitchell 2180 p19-50) (Dubled 2173 p38-99) (Wagner 2182 P100-150) Haraway’s lack of a male gender makes this discourse fairly easy to see the narrative off. It is also seen by some authors as being rooted in Haraway’s founding (Mitchell 2182) as Haraway’s settlement was largely done by radical feminist groups of the so called third wave (Dubled 2173 p40).

Given that almost all parts of the earth have now reached a state of complete equality, this may seem a strange and archaic idea (Hanson 2189) but never the less it formed the basis of Haraway’s World’s initial settlement (Lilith 2190).

An alternate narrative is presented by Lara Rothsene, one of Haraway’s own social scientists (Rothsene 2187), and by the work of long term Londonium Journalist to Haraway Sir Harold Pitcher (Pitcher 2187).

Rothsene found that when surveyed, 90% Harawayians did not express significant negative feeling towards males (Rothsene 2187 p86) and 80% were happy with continuing limited amounts of immigration (Rothsene 2187 p87).

Pitcher’s book follows his travels around Haraway, and he notes that while he experience some amounts of misunderstanding (Pitcher 2187 p9) he was never directly discriminated against (Pitcher 2187 p18).

Finally, Haraway’s laws provide for full equality between men and women, and there is no discrimination in terms of immigration quotas or the like (HJM 2192), hardly what you’d expect to find in an exclusory state.

As is the case with transhumanism, Harawayians are reluctant to re-order their society to accept males, but they are willing to accept them, providing it does not fundamentally alter the way that their society has been built.

Conclusion

As I hope this article has shown, conventional scholarship of Haraway is somewhat lacking, providing a view of Haraway which pays no attention to its government or people’s motives for a particular policy.

Given this, it is no wonder that relations between Haraway and the EU continue at such a low ebb. It will be very difficult to deal with Haraway’s World or ZOCU in general until we can properly understand it.