The aff misunderstands and invalidates China by assuming a

unified, simplistic China that can be engaged with as a

whole.
Parenti 13 [International Institute Lorenzo de Medici in Rome, Italy. Oct. 10, Geography, Chinas Path And State-Society Relations: Redressing Western Misinterpretations, Human Geography: A New
Radical Journal, 6(2): 137-150.] GK

The complexity of Chinas is often underestimated by state-society relations , or completely neglected,

Western commentators, journalists, politicians and, , academics. at times There especially seems

The outcome of underestimation is

to be a lack of theoretical ideas and systematic analysis in geographical studies. overall said the proliferation of

misinterpretations on the meaning of power, people and -sense evolving relational configurations between

places in China. Hence the Western ability ) to understand (institutions and common people and judge, as

, is concretely invalidated
objectively as possible, ongoing socio-economic and political trends in China, its hybrid experimental path and general development trajectory . Starting
from this standpoint and drawing from different sources, this paper first suggests that the changing characteristics of the current Chinese multi-scalar politico-socio-economic processes cannot be simply reduced to capitalism.
Secondly, to get a better understanding of China in a comparative perspective by analyzing the countrys direction of development and governance I summarize some instructive traits of state-society relations, arguing that

the nature and significance differ, of these when they are not quite the reverse, from the prevailing

(mis)interpretations by Western agents. I specifically refer to the need to (re)interpret two points from a comparative standpoint: a) the states
popular legitimacy and socio-economic dynamism, and b) the variegated modes of conflict resolution and financial governance.

The affs construction of China is inherently rooted in the

ontology of the Orient.
Rosen 2k (Steven L. Rosen, Faculty of Intercultural Communication Hiroshima
Women's University, Intercultural Communication, November 4 th Issue, Japan as
Other: Orientalism and Cultural Conflict,
http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr4/rosen.htm) RR Jr
Orientalism is a total mis-seeing of the other through a veil of interpretations of
reality which are relatively impenetrable and resistant to change . It is a form of ethnocentrism
which has evolved into cultural myth, invariant in its imaginings, and imperialistic in its aims. This paper argues that so-called
Orientalism is a way of life, and not just an out-dated way of knowing from the
colonial past; it is an integral part of modern consciousness . Ethnocentrism is the imposition of
one's own culturally mediated system of understandings onto others. It is the interpretation and evaluation of
others through this epistemological screen, with the implicit assumption that one's
own mode of understanding is superior because it is invariantly true . (Erchak 1992:90) In
psychological terms we can say that ethnocentrism is a kind of cognitive orientation which understands the world in terms of rigid
schemata; Orientalism is a particular historical manifestation of this ethnocentric
orientation. It is based on a Western consciousness which "includes a battery of desires, repressions,
investments and projections." ( Said 1993:90) Orientalism as cultural myth had been articulated
through metaphors which characterize the East in ways which emphasize its strangeness and otherness.
The Orient (whatever that term may signify) is seen as separate, passive, eccentric, backwards,
"with a tendency to despotism." (Said 1993:36) What Edward Said says of stereotypes of Middle-Eastern peoples
applies to East Asian stereotypes as well: the Oriental person is a single image, a sweeping
generalization; an essentialized image which carries with it the taint of inferiority . (51)
The cultural myth of Orientalism is, as Said convincingly demonstrates, fueled or
reiterated by academic Orientalism. Although in the United States it is now more politically correct to refer to
"East Asian studies" when speaking about research related to China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the University of London
still boasts The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)- perhaps a throwback
to colonial days. This is an appellation which lumps just about all the peoples from Turkey to Tokyo under one rubric, which
all its connotations of exoticism and foreignness. Below we will be looking at some examples of how academic
Orientalism has helped perpetuate certain stereotypes of Japan as Other.
The affs invocation of scientific reasoning plays into the
Orientalist axiom of controlling the way in which Eastern
knowledge is managed. Arab studies have been discredited
due to the Wests conception of the East
Samman and Al-Zoby 8 (Khaldoun, PhD in Sociology from Binghamton
University, Mazhar, PhD in International Affairs from Qatar University, Published in
2008, Published by Paradigm Publishers, Page 205) RR Jr
Said, in his famed study of orientalism (1979), chose not to study the Islamic and Arab
This explains why Edward

world and how they represent themselves, since orientalism is really not about what
the ruled actually is and how it represents itself , but about how the imperial self,
in this case the West and its ideological representatives in academia,
imagine and justify ruling the East. "... Orientalism has in fact been read and written about in the Arab world," Said
notes, "as a systematic defense of Islam and the Arabs, even though I say explicitly in the book that I have no interest in, much less, capacity for, showing
what the true Orient and Islam really arc" (Said, 1979: 331; for further critical reflections on Said's position, see Ahmad 1994 and Tamdgidi 2005). From

one may conclude that a non-orientalist attitude toward the East would
the foregoing, then,

involve modes of knowing the Other that allow for respect for the Other to represent
itself, and that engage with the complexities such efforts in self-representation may
pose in the context of historical marginalization and amnesia resulting from the
colonial experience. It involves making conscious and intentional efforts at empathizing (if not sympathizing) with the historical conditions
and intellectual traditions shaping the Other, while recognizing and empowering the Other to develop self-determining modes of knowing, representing,

In what way, then, may we explore whether or not the methodological,

and transforming itself.

theoretical, historical, and/or practical premises informing world-systems analysis as

a critical tradition in social science may have themselves been tinged by the
orientalisms which have given rise to and maintained the modem world-system ?
Paramount in detecting such an attitude, in my view, is noting the tendencies to readily dismiss
the contributions made by the Other, in this case Islam, in the intellectual
or practical spheres mentioned above by taking for granted their
inferiority and instead utilizing Western approaches to historical social
scientific inquiry to interpret them.

The aff reduces the orient to a subpoint tacked on to the end

of a disgustingly western aff, only utilizing China as a
trivialized method of adhering to the resolution- their calls to
solve racism further always fail because of Western domination
of global knowledge production- they are two halves of a
whole that dont add up
Vukovich, PhD in English and Criticism and Interpretive Theory at U of
Illinois, 13
(Daniel, The New Orientalism: An Interview with Dan Vukovich, Part II, The North
Star, http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=10427)//cmor

Are there any ways in which the current liberalizing elements within China use a
Sinological-Orientalism to their own advantage in a cynical manner? Oh, absolutely
but I dont think Id call it cynical (though we should allow for some of that too). I
think it is sincere, if also sincerely occidentalist and seriously misinformed about
both the Maoist past and the virtues of Western/capitalist modernity . There is an
official Occidentalism as well: the post-Mao power elite aping the American/Western
path in some ways (automobiles versus bicycles, say), or totally buying into the idea
of growth and capitalism and a stereotypical captalist modernity as progress. In
fact they just dont like the multi-party democracy part, but otherwise love them
some America, even as opposed to a social democratic Europe/Canada. I will note
that the important Party types by and large dont give a hang for neo-Confucianism
or traditional China in fact I dont know if they even understand it. They are
businessmen and technocratic after all. Though they again I mean the big power
elite here are more receptive to it recently (some vague notion of Chinese
tradition/ancient statecraft). More so the last several years but really: growth is
good, money is good, more is better. There can also be an anti-Western
Occidentalism I suppose the kind of thing that retrograde liberals like Ian Buruma
talk about but one has to be more circumspect in diagnosing it. Because anti-
West or anti-America can also be meaningful nationalism, anti-imperialism and so
on. This is what the retorgrade liberals dont get imperialism or humanitarian
intervention is a moral abomination to many people outside the USA. And really the
far bigger problem and phenomenon is pro-West Occidentalism. This
Occidentalism is, in my view, internalized orientalism, the flip-side of the
latter and probably a by-product of it. Two halves of a whole that dont
add up. Now, as you know, the liberalizing elements within the Party and
official/elite circles are for the most part just neo-liberalism and grossly economistic.
Some might want political reform and gradual democratization but only in terms of
more social/regime stability, not democracy as mass-democracy or
social/distributive justice. They might even want more rights and legal protections
(private property included, unfortunately). But hard to say what rights they have in
mind I read these folks as speaking to their class interests and ideologythe
middle class and rich who are not part of the state-owned enterprises. Basically a
line struggle between the private/free market types and the state capitalist ones.
These liberals (and even the so-called hard-liners or conservatives) fit the zeitgeist
of neo-liberalism and the cold war/colonial discourse about developmenteconomic
and political. My hope is that enough pragmatic minds will prevailChina has had
far too much of the Dengist reform-absolutists in charge for far too long, and the
Chinese state is on the brink of being totally subsumed/incorporated/captured by
capital. Well see what Xi Jinping et al get up todont hold your breath. At the
same time I have to say that these functionaries and technocrats are probably great
leaps ahead of the good folks who run the US-Western countries (and there are
opposed sides here enemies if you will). I can see them muddling through for
another generation or three or twelve before the CCP implodes/dissolves itself. If
they can alleviate inequality and environmental damage.

The homogenizing lens of orientalism creates a mindset that

justifies colonialism, hypersexualization, and otherization
Bakli 14 (Sara, Free-lance writer and blogger, Published by Jenn Incorporation, Published April 17 2014, What is Orientalism, and how is it also racism?, http://reappropriate.co/2014/04/what-is-orientalism-and-
how-is-it-also-racism/) RR Jr
 Orientalism led to a Western fascination with Asia as
While an exotic land equal parts captivatingly romantic and

barbaric
terrifyingly perhaps the most important aspect of Orientalism is how it defined Asian men and women against the Western norms of gender identity. Compared to stalwart European men and chaste

Asian men and women

European women, recast as specific counter-points were in the European imagination

to norms: Asian women became hypersexualized,

these expected gender , unsatiable creatures in one Medieval text
described as standing thirteen feet tall and having ox-tails emerging from their genitals, whereas described by Marco Polo as either dainty courtesans or voracious prostitutes whereas Asian men are portrayed as slight, stooping,

meek and unassertive barbarians who attack in faceless hordes to make up for their easy defeat in single combat by European men. Furthermore, in Orientalism, the land of the Orient is,
itself, feminized, which invites subsequent conquest in overtly sexual language by the virile West. Polo discusses the many Asian wives that

Orient
Western traders take, literally wresting the Asian woman from the Asian man. Columbus endeavour to discover Asia by sea was cast as taking possession of these lands. Thus, in Orientalism, the is not merely

stands as a prize or trophy, to be

the Other of the West, but an Other that conquered dominated or by the West. Importantly, when

the West is the standard against which the Orient is defined, the Orient
cannot , be a point of empath
, by definition y. As defined in its distance from norm, Asia instead becomes a thing to be possessed, and populated with a people who are not

Orientalism becomes
quite normal and therefore not quite human. In short, when the Orient becomes a land of the Other, the people of the Orient become the Other, too;

dehumanization. This, not surprisingly, paved the way for multiple Western efforts to colonize economically, culturally, and militaristically Asia. I neednt go into the many examples of the

perception that the West has a moral and cultural

Wests incursions into the East, all of which share at their core the

imperative to subdue the Eastern Other through whatever means necessary the bizarre traditions and abnormal people of based entirely upon
the Orients deviancy.

Thus me and my partner advocate for the adoption of the

cosmic perspective while rejecting the idea we can engage
with China.

And this abandoning of the search for engagement with

China in favor of critical analysis of representations and
discourse solves. This is a better methodology and framework.
Pan 12 Chengxin Pan, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Deakin University, former visiting professor at the University of Melbourne, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Peking
University, holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the Australian National University and an LL.B. and LL.M. from Peking University, 2012 (Preface, Knowledge, Desire and Power in Global Politics: Western
Representations of China's Rise, Published by Edward Elgar Publishing, ISBN 1782544240, p. vii-viii)

Among the most reported stories in the first decade of the twenty-first century, topping the list was not the global financial crisis, the long-running Iraq War, or even the 'September 11' terrorist attacksit was the rise of China.1
These findings, announced by Global Language Monitor in 2011, were based on a study of global media reporting trends among 75000 print and electronic media sources. Were there a similar survey on the issues concerning the
international scholarly community, China's rise would almost certainly rank among the most closely scrutinised as well. Long gone, it seems, are the days when an American publishing company did not publish a single book on China
for fifteen years.2 With such extensive coverage on China's ascendancy today, there seems hardly a need for yet another study on this subject. Existing commentaries, books, and articles must have already covered a sufficiently

wide range of perspectives. Despite or precisely because of the vast amount of literature on this issue, I feel compelled to join the chorus. However, in doing so this book does not , as do many other books, seek to examine

whether China is rising or not, or what its rise means. This is not because I believe such questions are unimportant or have already been settled; I do not. Rather, I believe what China's rise means cannot be
independently assessed in isolation from what we already mean by China's rise. Though tautological it might sound, the latter question draws attention to the meaning-giving subject of China watchers. It turns the spotlight on our

this is not a cunning

thoughts and representations of China's rise, which constitutes the main focus of this book. Though it may appear that way in the eyes of some, going along path

attempt to score cheap points while dodging

of finding a literary niche in an increasingly crowded field some all the the heavy lifting of

complex 'real-world' issues

tackling surrounding China. Nor is it to deliberately court controversy or strike an affected pose of malaise about an otherwise vibrant field of

this is a necessary move justified on both theoretical and practical

study. To me, book

grounds the book rejects the assumption about the dichotomy

. Theoretically, prevalent

between reality and representation we cannot bypass thoughts and . Contra positivism,

representations to come into direct contact with China as it is. What we

see as 'China' cannot be detached from discourses and representations various

of it. Works that study China's as if it were empirically

purport to rise, a transparent and

observable then become

phenomenon out there, are always already inextricably enmeshed [end page vii] in representations. In all likelihood, those works will

themselves part of such representations, focus on through which still later studies will gaze at 'China'. In this sense, my

representation is an ontological and epistemological necessity

less expedient choice than . On practical

study of discursive representation is

grounds, given the inescapable immanence of representation and discourse in the social realm, a proper not a

a genuine engagement
retreat from the real world but with it in the full sense of the words. Perhaps with the exception of sleepwalking or unconscious twitching, no human action
(let alone social action) can do without thought and representation. Constructivists are right in saying that words have consequences. But we may add that all social domains and human relationships are mediated through and
constituted by thought and representation. China's relationship with the West is certainly no exception. With regional stability, prosperity and even world peace at stake, there is now an urgent, practical need to understand how the
various strains of representation and discourse pervade and condition this critical and complex relationship. For these reasons, this book turns to Western representations of China's rise. In particular, it focuses on two influential
paradigms: the 'China threat' and the 'China opportunity'. Commonly held by their respective exponents as objective truth about the implications of China's rise, both paradigms, despite their seemingly contrasting views, are
reflections of a certain Western self-imagination and its quest for certainty and identity in an inherently dynamic, volatile and uncertain world. While understandable, such a desire often proves elusive in the social world. With no
lasting law-like certainty in sight, the desire for certainty then often comes full circle to two subsets of desire: namely, fears and fantasies. For these forms of desire can provide some emotional substitutes for the holy grail of
 discursive embodiments
certainty and truth. In this book, I will argue that the two China paradigms are, respectively, of these two popular types of emotional substitutes. As such,

are not objective China knowledge, but are

they Western self- closely linked to habitual

imagination and power practice. By probing the interrelationship into

between knowledge, desire and power, aims to deconstruct the book

contemporary Western representations of China' s rise. Although it will tentatively point to some methodological openings for

promises no ready-made alternative

what one might call 'critical China watching', due to its scope and ontological stance as well as limits of space, it

toolkit through which to better understand China as it is the 'China as it . Alas,

is' simply does not exist except in our ingrained desire and conventional
imagination .
 2
They cause error reps
Baudrillard 94
(Jean, The Illusion of the End, p. 66-71)

We have long denounced the capitalistic, economic exploitation of the poverty of the 'other
half of the world' [['autre monde]. We must today denounce the moral and sentimental
exploitation of that poverty - charity cannibalism being worse than oppressive violence. The
extraction and humanitarian reprocessing of a destitution which has become the equivalent
of oil deposits and gold mines. The extortion of the spectacle of poverty and, at the same
time, of our charitable condescension: a worldwide appreciated surplus of fine sentiments
and bad conscience. We should, in fact, see this not as the extraction of raw materials, but
as a waste-reprocessing enterprise. Their destitution and our bad conscience are, in effect,
all part of the waste-products of history- the main thing is to recycle them to produce a new
energy source. We have here an escalation in the psychological balance of terror. World
capitalist oppression is now merely the vehicle and alibi for this other, much more ferocious,
form of moral predation. One might almost say, contrary to the Marxist analysis, that
material exploitation is only there to extract that spiritual raw material that is the misery of
peoples, which serves as psychological nourishment for the rich countries and media
nourishment for our daily lives. The 'Fourth World' (we are no longer dealing with a
'developing' Third World) is once again beleaguered, this time as a catastrophe-bearing
stratum. The West is whitewashed in the reprocessing of the rest of the world as waste and
residue. And the white world repents and seeks absolution - it, too, the waste-product of its
own history. The South is a natural producer of raw materials, the latest of which is
catastrophe. The North, for its part, specializes in the reprocessing of raw materials and
hence also in the reprocessing of catastrophe. Bloodsucking protection, humanitarian
interference, Medecins sans frontieres, international solidarity, etc. The last phase of
colonialism: the New Sentimental Order is merely the latest form of the New World Order.
Other people's destitution becomes our adventure playground. Thus, the humanitarian
offensive aimed at the Kurds - a show of repentance on the part of the Western powers after
allowing Saddam Hussein to crush them - is in reality merely the second phase of the war, a
phase in which charitable intervention finishes off the work of extermination. We are the
consumers of the ever delightful spectacle of poverty and catastrophe, and of the moving
spectacle of our own efforts to alleviate it (which, in fact, merely function to secure the
conditions of reproduction of the catastrophe market); there, at least, in the order of moral
profits, the Marxist analysis is wholly applicable: we see to it that extreme poverty is
reproduced as a symbolic deposit, as a fuel essential to the moral and sentimental
equilibrium of the West. In our defence, it might be said that this extreme poverty was
largely of our own making and it is therefore normal that we should profit by it. There can
be no finer proof that the distress of the rest of the world is at the root of Western power and
that the spectacle of that distress is its crowning glory than the inauguration, on the roof of
the Arche de la Defense, with a sumptuous buffet laid on by the Fondation des Droits de
l'homme, of an exhibition of the finest photos of world poverty. Should we be surprised that
spaces are set aside in the Arche d' Alliance. for universal suffering hallowed by caviar and
champagne? Just as the economic crisis of the West will not be complete so long as it can
still exploit the resources of the rest of the world, so the symbolic crisis will be complete only
when it is no longer able to feed on the other half's human and natural catastrophes
(Eastern Europe, the Gulf, the Kurds, Bangladesh, etc.). We need this drug, which serves us
as an aphrodisiac and hallucinogen. And the poor countries are the best suppliers - as,
indeed, they are of other drugs. We provide them, through our media, with the means to
exploit this paradoxical resource, just as we give them the means to exhaust their natural
resources with our technologies. Our whole culture lives off this catastrophic cannibalism,
relayed in cynical mode by the news media, and carried forward in moral mode by our
humanitarian aid, which is a way of encouraging it and ensuring its continuity, just as
economic aid is a strategy for perpetuating under-development. Up to now, the financial
sacrifice has been compensated a hundredfold by the moral gain. But when the catastrophe
market itself reaches crisis point, in accordance with the implacable logic of the market,
when distress becomes scarce or the marginal returns on it fall from overexploitation, when
we run out of disasters from elsewhere or when they can no longer be traded like coffee or
other commodities, the West will be forced to produce its own catastrophe for itself, in order
to meet its need for spectacle and that voracious appetite for symbols which characterizes it
even more than its voracious appetite for food. It will reach the point where it devours itself.
When we have finished sucking out the destiny of others, we shall have to invent one for
ourselves. The Great Crash, the symbolic crash, will come in the end from us Westerners, but
only when we are no longer able to feed on the hallucinogenic misery which comes to us
from the other half of the world. Yet they do not seem keen to give up their monopoly. The
Middle East, Bangladesh, black Africa and Latin America are really going flat out in the
distress and catastrophe stakes, and thus in providing symbolic nourishment for the rich
world. They might be said to be overdoing it: heaping earthquakes, floods, famines and
ecological disasters one upon another, and finding the means to massacre each other most
of the time. The 'disaster show' goes on without any let-up and our sacrificial debt to them
far exceeds their economic debt. The misery with which they generously overwhelm us is
something we shall never be able to repay. The sacrifices we offer in return are laughable (a
tornado or two, a few tiny holocausts on the roads, the odd financial sacrifice) and,
moreover, by some infernal logic, these work out as much greater gains for us, whereas our
kindnesses have merely added to the natural catastrophes another one immeasurably
worse: the demographic catastrophe, a veritable epidemic which we deplore each day in
pictures. In short, there is such distortion between North and South, to the symbolic
advantage of the South (a hundred thousand Iraqi dead against casualties numbered in tens
on our side: in every case we are the losers), that one day everything will break down. One
day, the West will break down if we are not soon washed clean of this shame, if an
international congress of the poor countries does not very quickly decide to share out this
symbolic privilege of misery and catastrophe. It is of course normal, since we refuse to allow
the spread of nuclear weapons, that they should refuse to allow the spread of the
catastrophe weapon. But it is not right that they should exert that monopoly indefinitely. In
any case, the under-developed are only so by comparison with the Western system and its
presumed success. In the light of its assumed failure, they are not under-developed at all.
They are only so in terms of a dominant evolutionism which has always been the worst of
colonial ideologies. The argument here is that there is a line of objective progress and
everyone is supposed to pass through its various stages (we find the same eyewash with
regard to the evolution of species and in that evolutionism which unilaterally sanctions the
superiority of the human race). In the light of current upheavals, which put an end to any
idea of history as a linear process, there are no longer either developed or under-developed
peoples

them, in keeping with the objective illusion of progress, to technological salvation is a

criminal absurdity. In actual fact, it is their good fortune to be able to escape from evolution
just at the point when we no longer know where it is leading. In any case, a majority of these
peoples, including those of Eastern Europe, do not seem keen to enter this evolutionist
modernity, and their weight in the balance is certainly no small factor in the West's
repudiation of its own history, of its own utopias and its own modernity. It might be said that
the routes of violence, historical or otherwise, are being turned around and that the viruses
now pass from South to North, there being every chance that, five hundred years after
America was conquered, 1992 and the end of the century will mark the comeback of the
defeated and the sudden reversal of that modernity. The sense of pride is no longer on the
side of wealth but of poverty, of those who - fortunately for them - have nothing to repent,
and may indeed glory in being privileged in terms of catastrophes. Admittedly, this is a
privilege they could hardly renounce, even if they wished to, but natural disasters merely
reinforce the sense of guilt felt towards them by the wealthy by those whom God visibly
scorns since he no longer even strikes them down. One day it will be the Whites themselves
who will give up their whiteness. It is a good bet that repentance will reach its highest pitch
with the five-hundredth anniversary of the conquest of the Americas. We are going to have
to lift the curse of the defeated - but symbolically victorious - peoples, which is insinuating
itself five hundred years later, by way of repentance, into the heart of the white race. No
solution has been found to the dramatic situation of the under-developed, and none will be
found since their drama has now been overtaken by that of the overdeveloped, of the rich
nations. The psychodrama of congestion, saturation, super abundance, neurosis and the
breaking of blood vessels which haunts us - the drama of the excess of means over ends
calls more urgently for attention than that of penury, lack and poverty. That is where the
most imminent danger of catastrophe resides, in the societies which have run out of
emptiness. Artificial catastrophes, like the beneficial aspects of civilization, progress much
more quickly than natural ones. The underdeveloped are still at the primary stage of the
natural, unforeseeable catastrophe. We are already at the second stage, that of the
manufactured catastrophe - imminent and foreseeable - and we shall soon be at that of the
pre-programmed catastrophe, the catastrophe of the third kind, deliberate and
experimental. And, paradoxically, it is our pursuit of the means for averting natural
catastrophe - the unpredictable form of destiny - which will take us there. Because it is
unable to escape it, humanity will pretend to be the author of its destiny. Because it cannot
accept being confronted with an end which is uncertain or governed by fate, it will prefer to
stage its own death as a species.
 3
Their calls to change are only permitted, because it will get co-
opted by academia.
Occupied UC Berkeley 9
(The Necrosocial: Civic Life, Social Death, and the UC;
http://anticapitalprojects.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/the-necrosocial/, 11/19)

He and his look forward to a reproduction of the logic of representative governance, the
release valve of the university plunges us into an abyss where ideas are wisps of etherthat
is, meaning is ripped from action. Lets talk about the fight endlessly, but always only
in their managed form: to perpetually deliberate , the endless fleshing-out-ofwhen we
push the boundaries of this form they are quick to reconfigure themselves to contain us: the
chancellors congratulations, the reopening of the libraries, the managed general assembly
there is no fight against the administration here, only its own extension. Each day passes
in this way, the administration on the look out to shape student discourseit happens
without pause, we dont notice nor do we care to. It becomes banal, thoughtless. So much
so that we see we are accumulating days: one semester, two, how close to being this or
that, how far? This accumulation is our shared history. This accumulationevery once in a
while interrupted, violated by a riot, a wild protest, unforgettable fucking, the overwhelming
joy of love, life shattering heartbreakis a muted, but desirous life. A dead but restless and
desirous life. The university steals and homogenizes our time yes, our bank accounts also,
but it also steals and homogenizes meaning. As much as capital is invested in building
a killing apparatus abroad, an incarceration apparatus in California, it is equally invested
here in an apparatus for managing social death. Social death is, of course, simply the
power source, the generator, of civic life with its talk of reform, responsibility, unity. A life,
then, which serves merely as the public relations mechanism for death : its garrulous
slogans of freedom and democracy designed to obscure the shit and decay in which our
feet are planted. Yes, the university is a graveyard, but it is also a factory: a factory
of meaning which produces civic life and at the same time produces social death. A
factory which produces the illusion that meaning and reality can be separated; which
everywhere reproduces the empty reactionary behavior of students based on the values of
life (identity), liberty (electoral politics), and happiness (private property). Everywhere the
same whimsical ideas of the future. Everywhere democracy. Everywhere discourse to
shape our desires and distress in a way acceptable to the electoral state , discourse
designed to make our very moments here together into a set of legible and fruitless
demands. Totally managed death. A machine for administering death, for the proliferation
of technologies of death. As elsewhere, things rule. Dead objects rule. In this sense, it
matters little what face one puts on the universitywhether Yudof or some other lackey.
These are merely the personifications of the rule of the dead, the pools of investments, the
buildings, the flows of materials into and out of the physical space of the universityeach
one the product of some exploitationwhich seek to absorb more of our work, more tuition,
more energy. The university is a machine which wants to grow, to accumulate, to expand, to
absorb more and more of the living into its peculiar and perverse machinery: high-tech
research centers, new stadiums and office complexes. And at this critical juncture the only
way it can continue to grow is by more intense exploitation, higher tuition, austerity
measures for the departments that fail to pass the test of relevancy. But the irrelevant
departments also have their place. With their pure motives of knowledge for its own
sake, they perpetuate the blind inertia of meaning ostensibly detached from its social
context. As the university cultivates its cozy relationship with capital, war and power, these
discourses and research programs play their own role, co-opting and containing radical
potential. And so we attend lecture after lecture about how discourse produces
subjects, ignoring the most obvious fact that we ourselves are produced by this
discourse about discourse which leaves us believing that it is only words which
matter, words about words which matter. The university gladly permits the
precautionary lectures on biopower; on the production of race and gender ; on the
reification and the fetishization of commodities. A taste of the poison serves well to
inoculate us against any confrontational radicalism. And all the while power weaves the
invisible nets which contain and neutralize all thought and action, that bind revolution
inside books, lecture halls.
 4

The affirmative seeks a discursive fix to worldly problems this

creates an artificial binary between the machine and the
human that traps us into purely calculative modes of thought
Introna 10 Professor of Organization, Technology and Ethics at Lancaster
University
(Lucas, The Measure of a Man and the Ethos of Hospitality: Towards an Ethical Dwelling with Technology, AI and
Society Vol 25 no 1, pg 93-102, dml)

When referring to an ethics of technology or an ethics of the artificial, I am referring to it in two very distinct ways. In the first, more traditional sense, I mean the values and interests

In drawing upon the

built into the very materiality of the technologies we draw uponinscribed in their flesh as it were (Winner 1980).

possibilities presented by these technologies, we become wittingly or unwittingly

enrolled into particular scripts and programmes of action (in the actor network theory sense of the word).
These scripts and programmes make certain things possible and others not, include certain
interests and others not (for example the increased use of ATM may have lead to the closure of bank branches which exactly excludes those that can not use ATMs, such as physically

disabled people). In this sense of use, the ethics of machines is very important and is in desperate need
of our attention (an example of this type of work is the paper by Introna and Nissenbaum (2000) on search engines and the work of Brey (2000) as proposed in his
disclosive ethics). However, this paper is not primarily concerned with this sense of technological ethics. It is rather concerned with the question of the moral and ethical significance of
technological artefacts in their technological being, i.e. the question of the weight of our moral responsibility towards technological artefacts as artificial beings. In order to develop and
structure the discussion, I will draw on a particular episode of Star Trek (2003) titled: The measure of a man. 1 In this episode, the ethical significance, and therefore subsequent rights,

of the android Data becomes contested. This case studyif I may call it thatwill give us some indication of how the problem of ethical
significance of the artificial can become apparent and considered. In discussing this case, I will argue that its approach to the
issue, as well as the work of Levinas, is essentially anthropocentricultimately the measure of ethical significance is the measure of a [hu]man . I will

argue, with Heidegger (1977a), that it will ultimately fail to provide us with an adequate way to consider

the ethical significance of the artificial . I will then proceed to suggest, with the help of Derrida, a more radical
interpretation of Levinas as a possible way forward towards an ethics (or rather
ethos) of hospitalityan ethical dwelling with the artificial other that so pervade our
everyday being in the world. 2 Commander Data and the measure of a [hu]man Those familiar with Star Trek will know that Commander Data is a
highly sophisticated android designed by Doctor Noonien Soong. Dr Soong created only one Data in his lifetime. Lieutenant Commander Data is now one of the officers on the USS
Enterprise, which is part of the Federations Starfleet. The acclaimed robotics expert Commander Maddox has been authorised by Star Fleets Admiral Nakamura to remove Data from the
USS Enterprise for study, with the intention to refit and replicate him. Maddox intends to download Datas brain into a computer for analysis, and then reload a copy back into a refitted
and upgraded Data. Due to certain technical complexities, the procedure is risky and he could not guarantee the end result. Data objects to the procedure by claiming that the end result
would not be him. He suggests that there is an ineffable quality to memory that [would not] survive the shutdown of [my] core. As such he is concerned about the continuity of his
identity, for him it would be like dying and waking up as somebody else. After considering a number of options, Data decide to resign as officer of the Starfleet in order to prevent the
possibility of being disassembled. Commander Maddox responds by arguing that Data does not have the freedom to resign since he is a machine and as such the property of the
Starfleeta view shared by Admiral Nakamura. He argues that they would [not] permit the computer on the Enterprise to refuse a refit, why should Data be accorded such a right? The
matter is referred to Captain Phillipa Louvois of the understaffed local Judge Advocate Generals (JAG) office for a decision. After considering the legal position, she issues her own
summary ruling that Data is not a sentient being but mere machine, and therefore, as property of the Federation, lacks the legal right either to refuse Maddoxs refit or to resign from the
Starfleet. The USS Enterprises Commanding Officer, Captain Picard, immediately challenges her decision. Due to resource constraints of the JAG office, an impromptu hearing is
arranged by Captain Phillipa Louvois where Captain Picard will defend Data and Commander Riker, the direct subordinate of Captain Picard, will represent the Starfleet view that Data is a
machine and as such cannot resign or refuse the refit. Commander Riker is profoundly disturbed at being placed in this position as his relationship with Data leaves him in no doubt as to
the status of his colleague and trusted friend. However, if he refuses Captain Louvois ruling will stand, thus, he agrees. The court case starts with Commander Riker outlining the case
for the Starfleet, i.e. that Data is a machine and as such cannot resign or refuse the refit RIKER Your honor, there is only one issue in this case and one relevant piece of evidence. I call
Lieutenant Commander Data. Data seats himself in the witness chair, and places his hand on the scanner. COMPUTER VOICE Verify, Lieutenant Commander Data. Current assignment,
USS Enterprise. Starfleet Command Decoration for RIKER Your honor, well stipulate to all of this. PICARD (leaping to his feet) Objection, your honor, I want it read. All of it. PHILLIPA
Sustained. COMPUTER VOICE (resuming) Gallantry, Medal of Honor with clusters, Legion of Honor, the Star Cross. RIKER Commander Data, what are you? DATA (looking to Picard for
guidance, Picard nods to him to answer) An android. RIKER Which is? DATA Websters Twenty-Third Century Dictionary, Fifth Edition, defines Android as an automaton made to resemble a
human being. RIKER (musing) An automaton. Made. Made by whom? DATA Sir? RIKER Who built you, Data? DATA Doctor Noonien Soong. RIKER And he was? DATA The foremost authority
in cybernetics. RIKER More basic than that. What was he? DATA (puzzled, but groping for the right answer; he says questioningly) A human? *** [He removed Datas hand after a
demonstration of Datas strength] *** RIKER (continuing) Data is a physical representation of a dream, an idea conceived of by the mind of a man. His purpose? To serve human needs
and interests. He is a collection of neural nets and heuristic algorithms. His responses are dictated by an elaborate software program written by a man. The hardware (slapping the hand
[of Data] against his palm) was built by a man. [Riker has been preambulating around the courtroom, each step bringing him closer to Data. He is now at his side, and without warning
he leans down, presses the switch, and turns him off. Data collapses like a broken toy]. RIKER (continuing) And this [hu]man has turned him off. Pinocchio is broken, the strings are cut.
Riker lays the hand down next to Data. Shocked silence fills the room. Picards reactionshock and certainty that he cannot win. PICARD I request a recess. PHILLIPA Granted. Riker who,

Data is an artificial
as he walks to his chair, is in agony. A single tear runs down his cheek. He has destroyed a friend. Rikers argument is simple and clear.

machine, made by a [hu]man for serving the purposes of man, as such he is subjected to mans choicehe can be switched off. As a machine, he has no
intrinsic value or significance other than his value to those who made him, his
owners. Since they wish to replicate and upgrade him they are free to do so. There is of course an interesting contradiction in the proceeding, as hinted by Picard, in that Data
has previously been awarded the Command Decoration for Gallantry, and medals of honour for services rendered. Presumably such distinctions have not been awarded to the computer
on the Enterprise. In his defence, Captain Picard realises that he cannot deny the obvious, i.e. that Data is a machine, once made by a man. He opens his defence: PICARD (making his

opening statement) Commander Riker has dramatically demonstrated to this court that Lieutenant Commander Data is a machine. Do we deny that? No. But how is this relevant? We
too are machines, just machines of a different type. Commander Riker has continually reminded us that Data was built by a
human. We do not deny that fact. But again how is it relevant? Does construction imply ownership? Children are created from the building blocks of their parents DNA. Are they
property? We have a chance in this hearing to severely limit the boundaries of freedom. And I think we better be pretty damn careful before we take so arrogant a step. Picard argues

it is plausible for us to think of ourselves as machines. It is not whether we are or

that

not machines. It is rather the status we attribute to the machine when interacting
with it. If we award a machine medals are we not implicitly according the machine a sort of autonomy that would make it meaningless to award the medals to his designer or to a
chair? Presumably if we award it medals we will also hold it, rather than the designer, accountable in the event of a mistake or inappropriate behaviour. Picard proceeds with his defence
with Commander Maddox on the stand. Maddox suggested that Data is a machine because he is not sentient. He defines sentience as having intelligence, self-awareness and
consciousness. He reluctantly agreed that Data seems to conform to at least the first two of these. Nevertheless, he insists that Picard is sentient and Data not. Picard proceeds: PICARD
But you admire him? MADDOX Oh yes, its an outstanding PICARD (interrupting) Piece of engineering and programming. Yes, youve said that. Youve devoted your life to the study of
cybernetics in general? PICARD And Data in particular? MADDOX Yes. PICARD And now youre proposing to dismantle him. MADDOX So I can rebuild him and construct more! PICARD How
many more? MADDOX Hundreds, thousands. Theres no limit. PICARD And do what with them? MADDOX Use them. PICARD How? MADDOX As effective units on Federation ships. As
replacements for humans in dangerous situations. So much is closed to us because of our fragility. But they PICARD (interrupting; he picks up an object and throws it down a disposal
chute) Are expendable. MADDOX It sounds harsh but to some extent, yes. PICARD Are you expendable, Commander Maddox? Never mind. A single Data is a curiosity, a wonder, but a
thousand Datas, doesnt that become a new race? And arent we going to be judged as a species about how we treat these creations? If theyre expendable, disposable, arent we? What
is Data? MADDOX What? I dont understand. PICARD What is he? MADDOX (angry now and hostile) A machine! PICARD Is he? Are you sure? MADDOX Yes! PICARD But hes met two of
your three criteria for sentience, and we havent addressed the third. So we might find him meeting your third criterion, and then what is he? MADDOX (driven to his limit) I dont know. I
dont know! PICARD He doesnt know. (to Phillipa) Do you? Thats the decision youre facing. Your honor, a courtroom is a crucible. In it we burn away the egos, the selfish desires, the
half-truths, until were left with the pure producta truthfor all time. Sooner or later its going to happen. This [hu]man or others like him are going to succeed in replicating Data. And

The decision you reach here today stretches far

then we have to decidewhat are they? And how will we treat these creations of our genius?

beyond this android and this courtroom. It will reveal the kind of a people we are . And what (points to Data) they are going to be. Do you
condemn them to slavery? Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. (indicating Data) Well, there he sits, your honor, waiting on our decision. You have a chance to make law. Well, lets
make a good one. Let us be wise. PHILLIPA This case touches on metaphysics, and thats the province of philosophers and poets. Not confused jurists who dont have the answers. But
sometimes we have to make a stab in the dark, and speak to the future. Is Data a machine? Absolutely. Is he our property? No The courtroom erupts in joy. It seems to me that there
are at least three distinct steps in Picards argument for us to consider. Firstly, he argues that the whole court case is meaningless since the Federation has already confirmed Datas
status as more than a mere machine since they have placed him in a role of responsibility and have allocated him certain duties in which they expected him to be accountable. They
have also judged him to be doing these duties exceedingly well by awarding him medals. Therefore, all their past interaction with Data already suggests a status that this case now
attempts to deny. His second step is to suggest that Data is not a machine but a person since he conforms to all the criteria of sentience suggested by Maddox: intelligence, self-
awareness and consciousness. He gains agreement that Data is intelligent and self-aware, both of which suggests consciousness. Although he cannot prove it, the court (and in particular
Maddox) can equally not prove that he, Picard, possesses all of these, except by some form of intuition. Such intuition would suggest that it is evident to any human being that they
possess these capacities and therefore other human beings should also. However, this intuition would not tell us anything about androids such as Data. Nevertheless, it is possible to
imagine that we could construct a Turing type test for sentience, and that it seems entirely feasible that Data could succeed in passing such a test (based on the evidence of Datas

behaviour in the Star Trek series). However, the most important point in his defence, for my argument, is that he takes the measure of ethical
significance to be the measure of a [hu]man, i.e. machines are ethically significant
if they are like us, sentient beings. It would be an interesting thought experiment to imagine a world in which the
androids were the majority and they would decide that , besides sentience, having a reuseable
body is the ultimate measure of ethical significance. Such a suggestion points the
intimate link between ethics and politics. I will return to this matter in the next section. The final step in his defence, which draws on the
first two, is that ultimately we are going to be judged as a species about how we treat these

creations of ours; and if they are expendable, disposable, arent we? This is an interesting
step and captures the essence of Heideggers argument against western metaphysics

which is humanistic and in which everything is valued in human terms and

subsequently everything (also humanity) is robbed of its worth: [I]t is important finally to realise that precisely
through the characterisation of something as a value what is so valued is robbed
of its worth. That is to say, by the assessment of something as a value what is
valued is admitted only as an object for mans estimation. But what a thing is in its
Being is not exhausted by its being an object , particularly when objectivity takes the
form of value. Every valuing, even where it values positively, is a subjectivizing . It does no
let beings: be. Rather, valuing lets beings: be validsolely as the objects of its doing (Heidegger 1977a, p. 228,

emphasis mine). In this regard, neither Riker nor Picard escape this anthropocentric valuing. Riker argues that machines are instruments of

[hu]man, at its disposal. They should be valued in terms of their value for us . However, in
the sociotechnical assemblages of contemporary world, it is increasingly difficult to draw a clear boundary

between them and us. If they are merely for us, then we all are a for us . As Heidegger
(1977b) argues in his essay The Question Concerning Technology, in such a world we all become standing reserve (at

the disposal of the network). Picards humanistic defence invokes a hierarchy of values in which Data becomes valued because he is like us (sentient
beings). However, if Heidegger is right then even where valuing is positive it is always subjectivising. Thus, neither of these positions escape

the technological world view in which the world is rendered present as a for us
(Gestell/enframed in Heideggers terminology). As enframed beings not only the artificial but also [hu]man

becomes mere standing reserve within which other possibilities for being are
concealed. Not only this. In framing beings (and itself) in its own terms the very concealing
of other possibilities for being itself becomes concealed. Instead of creating value
systems in our own self-image, the absolute otherness of every Other should be the
only moral imperative, so argues Levinas and Derrida. We need an ethics of the artificial that is
beyond the self-identical of human beings. Such an ethics beyond anthropocentric
metaphysics need as its ground, not a system for comparison, but rather a recognition of the impossibility
of any comparisonevery comparison is already violent in its attempt to render
equal what could never be equal (Levinas 1991[1974]). How might we encounter the other, ethically, in its otherness? This is what I will no turn to.

Their framing of existence in terms of human value creates the

world as standing reserve and legitimizes endless genocide
the only way to escape this cycle is to vote negative to affirm
the infinite value of all forms of Being
Introna 9 Professor of Organization, Technology and Ethics at Lancaster
University
(Lucas, Ethics and the Speaking of Things, Theory, Culture & Society 2009 vol 26 no 4, 25-46, dml)

In the ethics of hybrids our ethical relationship with things is determined beforehand by us , it is
anthropocentric. In this encounter with things we have already chosen, or presumed, the framework of values that will count in determining moral significance. In this ethics,

things are always and already things-for-us objects for our use, in our terms, for our purposes.
They are always inscribed with our intentionality they carry it in their flesh, as it were. The defining
measure of the ethics of hybrids is the human being the meaning of the Latin root of man is measure. Indeed our
concern for things is what they might do to us humans , as was suggested above. Our concern is
not our instrumental use of them, the violence of our inscriptions in/on them, but
that such scripts may ultimately harm us. As things-for-us, or objects as we will refer to them, they have no
moral significance as such. In the value hierarchy of the modern ethical mind they are very far down the value line. What could be less morally significant
than an inanimate object? Their moral significance is only a derivative of the way they may

circulate the network as inscriptions for utility or enrolment . For example, they may become valuable if they can
be sold in a market where they are valued, as is the case with works of art. The magnitude and diversity of our projects are mirrored in the magnitude and diversity of the objects that

surround us. As things-for-us they are at our disposal if they fail to be useful , or when our
projects drift or shift, we dump them. Images of endless scrap heaps at the edges of our cities abound. Objects are made/inscribed, used
and finally dumped. We can dispose of them because we author-ized them in the first place.

Increasingly we design them in such a way that we can dispose of them as

effortlessly as possible. Ideally, their demise must be as invisible as possible. Their entire moral claim on our conscience is naught, it seems. One
can legitimately ask why should we concern ourselves with things in a world where
the ethical landscape is already overcrowded with grave and pressing matters such
as untold human suffering, disappearing bio-diversity and ozone layers to name but a few. It is our
argument that our moral indifference to so many supposedly significant beings (humans, animals, nature,

etc.) starts with the idea that there are some beings that are less significant or not

significant at all. More originally it starts with a metaphysics that has as its centre the ultimate measure us human beings a metaphysics which has been at the
heart of Western philosophy ever since Plato (Heidegger, 1977a). Thus, when we start our moral ordering we tend to value

more highly things like us (sentient, organic/natural, alive, etc.) and less highly, or not at all, things most
alien to us (non-sentient, synthetic/artificial, inanimate, etc.). It is our argument that one of the reasons why this anthropocentric ethics
of things fails is because it assumes that we can, both in principle and in practice, draw a definitive
boundary between the objects (them) and us . Social studies of science and technology have thrown severe doubt on such a
possibility. If it is increasingly difficult to draw the boundary between our objects and us, and if in this entangled network of humans and non-humans objects lack moral significance from
the start, thenit is rather a small step to take for an ethics to emerge in which all things
human and non-human alike circulate as objects: things-for-the-purposes-of the network. In ordering society as
assemblages of humans and objects we ultimately also become ordered as a for-the-purposes-of . Thus, the

irony of an anthropocentric ethics of things is that ultimately we also become objects in programmes and

scripts, at the disposal of a higher logic (capital, state, community, environment, etc.). In the network, others and our objects objectify
us. For example, I cannot get my money out from the bank machine because I forgot my PIN number. Until I identify myself in its terms (as a five digit number) I am of no significance to

we have all
it. Equally, if I cannot prove my identity by presenting inscribed objects (passport, drivers licence) I cannot get a new PIN number. In Heideggers (1977b) words

become standing reserve , on stand by for the purposes of the network

enframed (Gestell) by the calculative logic of our way of being. Enframed in a global
network that has as its logic to control, manipulate and dominate: Enframing is the gathering together
which belongs to that setting-upon which challenges [hu]man and puts him in position to reveal the actual, in the mode of ordering, as standing-reserve (Heidegger, 1977a: 305). The

The fate of our

value hierarchy presumed in an anthropocentric ethics is in fact a dynamic network of values and interests there never was a hierarchy.

objects becomes our fate. In the ethics of hybrids we are also already objects indeed
everything is already object. Instead of a hierarchy of values we find a complete nihilism in which

everything is leveled out, everything is potentially equally valuable/valueless ; a nihilistic

network in which the highest values devaluate themselves (Nietzsche, 1967: 9). If this is so, then we would argue that we should not extend our moral consideration to other things,
such as inanimate objects in a similar manner that we have done for animals and other living things, in environmental ethics for example. In other words we should not simply extend

the reach of what is considered morally significant to include more things. Rather, we should abandon all systems of moral
valuing and admit, with Heidegger, that in the characterisation of something as a value
what is so valued is robbed of its worth and admit that what a thing is in its Being
is not exhausted by its being an object, particularly when objectivity takes the form of value, furthermore, that every valuing, even where
it values positively, is a subjectivising (Heidegger, 1977a: 228). We must abandon ethics for a clearing beyond ethics

to let beings be in their own terms. We must admit that any attempt at humanistic
moral ordering be it egocentric, anthropocentric, biocentric (Goodpaster, 1978; Singer, 1975) or even ecocentric (Leopold, 1966; Naess, 1995) will fail.
Any ethics based on us will eventually turn everything into our image , pure will to
power (Heidegger, 1977a, 1977b). As Lingis (1994: 9) suggests: The man-made species we are, which produces its own nature in an environment it produces, finds nothing
within itself that is alien to itself, opaque and impervious to its own understanding (emphasis added). Instead of creating value systems in

our own image, the absolute otherness of every other should be the only moral
imperative. We need an ethics of things that is beyond the self-identical-ness of
human beings. Such an ethics beyond metaphysics needs as its ground not a system for comparison, but rather a recognition of the impossibility of any comparison
every comparison is already violent in its attempt to render equal what could never
be equal (Levinas, 1991 [1974]). How might we encounter the other in its otherness? Levinas (1991 [1974],
1996, 1999) has argued for the radical singularity of our fellow human beings. But what about all other

others? In the next section we will argue that Heidegger, especially as presented in the work of Harman (2002, 2005), might provide us with

some hints towards the overcoming of ethics, towards an ethos of letting-be of all
beings.