Normality, Death and Posthuman Bodies in Ghost in the Shell and Great North Road

《攻殼機動隊》與《北方大道》中的正常性、死亡與後人類身體

In most sci-fi narrations, we find that the inventions of posthuman bodies originated from our intention to produce better bodies, i.e., such that can help us move towards a utopian future in which everyone is healthy and normal. Nevertheless, the so-called ''healthy'' and ''normal'' future is very problematic since it may lead us down to a path that constantly challenges our conception of what a ''normal'' body is, producing stricter and higher standards of normality. Our intention to （re）shape our bodies comes from the practical need to aid those who are disabled to regain the functions of their dysfunctional or missing organs and limbs. This intention inspires us to plumb the possibilities of modifying the human body, making it stronger and more powerful by means of technological enhancements. To counter some overoptimistic views of posthumanity, it is argued in this paper that we need to re-think the issue from the perspective of ''the strangers in the body,'' in Jean-Luc Nancy's words. Nancy's ''The Intruder'' in Corpus can be read as a dialogue with Donna Haraway's ''A Manifesto for Cyborgs'' in view of our desire to cross the boundary between death and life. Rubert Sanders' version of Ghost in the Shell and Peter F. Hamilton's Great North Road best illustrate to us the strangeness emerging from the process of our becoming posthuman bodies and the possible scenarios of posthuman societies. Via the image of a suffering cyborg, the movie Ghost in the Shell presents to us the crucial issue: how one suffers from resistance, competition, and the connection of multiple forces inside one's body during the process of becoming a cyborg. In Great North Road, Hamilton offers us three scenarios of possible posthuman worlds by imagining a prolongation of human life to fulfill the human desire to achieve the state of immortality.

在大部分的科幻敘事中，我們可以發現後人類身體的發明源自於人們想要創造更好的身體，我們想要一個每個人都健康、正常的烏托邦未來。然而所謂「健康」與「正常」的未來是有問題的說法，因為如此的概念會引領我們走向不斷挑戰何謂「健康」身體的概念之未來，並且會不斷產生更高、更嚴格的身體健康標準。我們想要改造身體的欲望來自於實際的需求，目的為幫助身心障礙人士恢復其失去的器官或四肢的功能。這種欲望也促使我們思考改造身體的可能性，藉由科技輔助讓身體更強壯。本論文將檢視一般樂觀的後人類論述，並且提出一個論點，亦即，我們需要從尚－呂克‧農西所提出的「身體裡的陌生人」觀點重新看待後人類議題。從人類想跨越生死界線的角度來看，農西在《身體》一書中的短文〈入侵者〉可被視為與唐納．海若薇之〈賽博格宣言〉對話之作品。羅伯‧桑德斯導演的《攻殼機動隊》與彼得‧漢莫頓的小說《北方大道》展現了我們成為後人類身體過程中出現的殊異性以及未來後人類社會可能的樣貌。透過受折磨之賽博格的意象，《攻殼機動隊》提出一個議題，也就是在成為賽博格的過程中，人必須經驗各種內外部力量的抵抗、競爭及連結。而《北方大道》則是藉由想像延長人類壽命的未來以達到永生的目的，檢視三種可能的後人類世界。