초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Stem cell and nuclear weapon are a brilliant outcome of the instrumental reason developed since the Age of Enlightenment. Although the scientific inventions have not yet realized themselves, they share the modernistic tendencies of positivism, consensus, totality, and teleological progress. It has been often noted, however, that the enlightenment degraded itself to be myth and terror, from which it originally aimed to make individuals freed. The demystifying project of modernity has been carried into the irrational and unreal realm of fantasy and simulation. The two scientific outcomes are, in fact, more simulacra than real things, more a text (verba) than a thing (res). The stem cell, no more than a potential, has been propagated to be a discursive domain of non-experts from every corner of our society; the amalgamation of science and public myth, it is still effective to cover up its reality. Likewise, the nuclear discourse is not possible without fantasizing the horror of its end result. Mostly being composed of illogical and extempore exchange of diplomatic documents, the strategies for its deterrence replace the nuclear weapon itself. A repository of nuclear weapons is, in this sense, none other than an archive of texts. The stem cell and nuclear weapon of today are simulacra of the things to come, which displace the real and thereby obviate their realization. The project of modernity has dialectically turned into myth; ironically, postmodernity, in turn, undoes the mystified enlightenment by identifying logical blind spots (aporias) in it
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
stem cell, nuclear criticism, reason, enlightenment, simulation, myth, modernity, postmodern, apocalypse
