Dialogue on Posthuman Life, Death and COVID-19

Abstract

This interview between Francesca Ferrando (New York University) and Asijit Datta (University of Calcutta) is an extended and exhaustive effort to weigh the pressing concerns of posthuman life, death, and philosophy in times of the Covid-19 pandemic. Philosophical discourse on matters related to dualism, humanism, anthropocentrism, during a phase when exposed human bodies are susceptible to a deadly, mutating virus itself, warrants some paradoxical attention. There has never been a more suitable age and a period to discuss the onto-epistemological anxieties against the background of biotechnological advancements. Akin to an inverse ouroboros, the latest medical equipment or a favourable vaccine for diseases is part of the reparation process undertaken to balance out the damage perpetrated by capitalism. Questions from the interviewer traverse topics involving the Anthropocene, non-human animals/others, genetic mutations, ethnic crises, ethical response towards the dead, posthumanism as spiritualism, and the posthuman multiverse. The conversation is initiated by Dr. Ferrando’s apposite response to the critical and desperate epoch facing the sixth mass extinction; she urges humans to recognize themselves as the most significant geological force impacting and contaminating the planet. The talk then shifts to the need for a harmonious ecological community and behavioural and dietary awareness of posthumanists. A major agitation in the first days of the compulsory lockdown in India had been the return of the migrant labourers and a reverse victim blaming to steer away attention from the failures of governmental policies and its impulsive decisions. Professor Ferrando rightly observes these as emanations from problems in humanization and socialization techniques and our collective negligence towards plurality. The Heideggerian understanding of technology as a revelation and Ferrando’s attachment of the concept of Brahman from the Hindu tradition bring the readers to her seminal book, Philosophical Posthumanism (2019). Spiritualism, Ferrando clarifies, is connected to post-dualism and assists in acknowledging multi-layered alterity and pluralism. Ferrando’s reply to Donna Haraway’s assertion of humans as compost conjoins her with Colebrook’s authentic human actions vis-à-vis the immediacy of extinction. Towards the end of the interview, Ferrando and Datta examine and explore the politicization of Covid deaths, mass burials, the hiding of data by governmental agencies, and the gravity of incomplete mourning as a result of these. The exchange concludes with a philosophical investigation into Nietzsche’s eternal return and a rhizomatic multiverse. Ferrando believes that the possibility that we are all networks and strings birthing multiple universes as we tread and vibrate along must propel us to act in ways that are more ethical, ecological, and interrelatonal.