From Construction to Life Upgrade: The Rise or the Crisis of Biopolitics?

Abstract

The article deals with biopolitics construction of life. Humanity is moving from the spontaneous use of life through a conscious choice of strategies for caring for life to technologies for the artificial construction of life. Different biopolitical strategies of the XIX–XX centuries aimed at accelerating the transition from carу for life to biourgy as a radical transformation of life, understood as an upgrade. Eugenics became a revolutionary form of ennobling life in the first half of the XX century. Eugenics as the doctrine of artificial selection for the sake of improving human qualities has had an impact on world politics. Behind the political opposition of the mid-twentieth century, competition between various biopolitical projects is revealed. The defeat of the nazi eugenics project and the collapse of the soviet biopolitical experiment brought the liberal biopolitical strategy to the forefront of history. However, the failure of eugenics did not stop experiments aimed at transforming life. During the implementation of possible scenarios of the biological transformation of man the humankind can suspend the humanity in ourselves and become like animals or insects like ants. The upgrade of life can lead to both the appearance of technologically modified Posthuman Creator, and the formation of Posthuman Destroyer. The relevance of the topic is due to the development of modern biotechnologies, which are on the threshold of a cardinal intervention in human life. The aim of the study is the simulation of possible scenarios biotechnological revolution.