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We explored the history of the horse • The beginnings of human culture and our relationship with other species • Leading to the domestication of animals including our partnership with the horse in peace and in war
With the coming of civilization, we turned to the study of warriors before knights and heroes in ancient epics
Human identity, survival & social structure • Dependent upon tool making and technology • Tech + Human • We have always been Cyb-orgs
We looked at precursors to the rules of chivalry – the first peace treaty of Kadesh • One of the Greatest Chariot battle of the ancient world – tactical victory for Egypt over Hittites • Did not end in conquest by one group but in a mutually beneficial peace treaty
The Battle of Kadesh Ramses II at Kadesh Treaty of Kadesh
Epic Poetry • a hero who embodies communal, national, cultural, or religious ideals • a hero upon whose actions determine the fate of his people • a course of action in which the hero performs great and difficult deeds
We learned about Alexander and Caesar Augustus • The achievements of Graeco-Roman civilization • The Pax Romana
The Rise and fall of Rome • The end of civilization, roads left unrepaired, collapse of global trade, end of stability & safety • Lead to the emergence of feudalism • Isolated communities attacked by outsiders • Society divided into those who • Work • Fight • Pray
Armored knight becomes the ideal male figure in middle ages • Loyal, brave, skilled in combat • Courteous and devoted to his lady • Later a Bureaucrat, diplomat & gentleman
Age of Knighthood & Chivalry ends with new technology and ideas in the early modern period • Gunpowder • Printing press • Renaissance • Reformation • Scientific and Agricultural Revoluions • Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution
Modern World continues to be inspired by ideals of chivalry • Looking backward has both good and bad consequences • GOOD RESULTS • New versions of Arthurian romances that confront modern problems • Chivalry that inspired creation of Boy Scouts • BAD RESULTS • Southern Chivalry masking oppression & racism • Medieval Images concealing horrors of WWI
Arthur revived • In the 19th century, there was reawakened interest in King Arthur and the medieval romances. A new code of ethics for 19th-century gentlemen was shaped around the chivalric ideals embodied in the "Arthur of romance". This renewed interest first made itself felt in 1816, when Malory's Le Morted'Arthur was reprinted for the first time since 1634
After World War I - Social Impact • Men lost limbs and were mutilated • Birthrate fell markedly • Injured unable to work • Ethnic hostility • Influenza epidemic (killed around 50 million) • Dropped the U.S. life expectancy by 12 years (in 1 year) • Effected young adults (usually great immune system) • Poverty and massive rebuilding needed throughout Europe
The age of cyborgs is coming - Prosthetic devices • had long been in use before World War I. Benjamin Franklin Palmer, for instance, patented the first artificial leg in the United States in 1847, although even earlier technologies existed.
Again, chivalry & medieval imagery can be used for bad purposes as well as good
New heroes for modern times - Superman became popular for many reasons. • Like many Americans, Superman was an immigrant, albeit from an alien world. You could argue that Superman was the ultimate immigrant being away from his parents and his family. Secondly, Superman espoused the virtues of hard work, justice, and truth; a modern-day code of chivalry for the world of the 1930s, which was experiencing the Great Depression.
In the second half of the 20th century the romance of Arthur was popular in film and theatre as well • T. H. White's novel was adapted into the Lerner and Loewe stage musical Camelot (1960) and Walt Disney's animated film The Sword in the Stone (1963); Camelot, with its focus on the love of Lancelot and Guinevere and the betrayal of Arthur, was itself made into a film of the same name in 1967.
JFK and Camelot • in the 1960s the idea of Camelot remained powerful, and, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the name was used as a term to describe the years of his presidency.
The prophesy that King Arthur will return has come true again and again. • Today he coincides with comic book heroes. This legendary icon of Western civilization lives again in the popular culture novels of contemporary and futuristic literature. • While the king’s personality has changed little since Malory, the monarch is now often found as a superhero in new world settings: he has become a Celtic space traveler among the stars, a modern politician fighting corruption, a WWII fighter pilot, a battler of aliens, and even returns as a teenage boy.
In the 1980s comic Camelot 3000, Arthur has a limited understanding of what constitutes evil in the modern world • despite his worthy character as a role model, his grasp of action required to overcome injustice constitutes a major shortcoming.
Alongside comic books in the 1940s • the hero was being examined across time & cultural boundaries, as new forms of language were being developed for describing technological systems
Cybernetics 1948 – Cyber to cyborg • Cybernetics coined by scientists led by Norbert Wiener who wrote Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948). • "Cyber" describes person, thing, or idea as part of computer and information age from kybernetes, Greek for "steersman" or "governor,“ usages include cyborg, cyberculture, cyberpunk, and cyberspace.
Hero 1949 - Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) • was a world-renowned mythologist who helped modern society understand the true power that storytelling has in our culture and within our personal lives. • Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
60 years ago, Manfred Clynes • coined the word "cyborg" to describe an emerging hybrid of man's machines and man himself. The word itself combined cybernetics, the then-emerging discipline of feedback and control, and organism. • The word appeared in an article called "Cyborgs and Space," in the journal Astronautics' September 1960 issue.
Clynes & Kline 1960 • "For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we propose the term 'Cyborg,'" wrote Clynes and his co-author Nathan Kline, both of Rockland State University.
For most of us, cyborg ends at the human-machine hybrid. • The point of the cyborg is to be a cyborg; it's an end unto itself. • But for Clynes, the interface between the organism and the technology was just a means, a way of enlarging the human experience.
cyborg not less human, but more • That first definition? It ran under this section headline: "Cyborgs -- Frees Man to Explore." • The cyborg was not less human, but more.
The purpose of the Cyborg, beyond his own homeostatic systems
Humanity in new contexts • "Space travel challenges mankind not only technologically but spiritually, in that it invites man to take an active part in his own biological evolution" • "Scientific advances of the future may thus be utilized to permit man's existence in environments which differ radically from those provided by nature as we know it."
Like the first knights, the early idea of the cyborg is limited to a very specific set of circumstances particular to the 1960s • the unconscious integrated functioning of an exogenously extended organizational complex within a homeostatic system
Gender limited • Even when Clynes expands the definition it is limited by a dominant cultural perspective that excludes women • "Cyborgs -- Frees Man to Explore."
With the 1970s and 80s come New Myths for New Realities • Knights in a galaxy far, far away with a code of honor & justice, fighting with lightsabers instead of swords, flying starfighters instead of riding horses
George Lucas • was an avid admirer of Joseph Campbell's writings, and used them as a direct reference in his creation of Star Wars.
Jedi Knights, • like the Order they served, were guardians of peace and justice in the Galactic Republic, and served in key military command roles during the Clone Wars. At the war's end, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine—secretly the Sith Lord Darth Sidious—issued Order 66, declaring every Jedi an enemy of the state.
Darth Vader • Is a cyborg - his mortal wounds healed; his broken body augmented by technology. He is also a failed Jedi knight who has gone over to the dark side.
Luke Skywalker Darth Vader’s son is trained by Obi wan Kenobi to fight with a lightsaber and become a Jedi knight who rejects the dark side – later being fitted with a prosthetic arm becoming a cyborg like his father
But Luke is not the only hero in Star Wars • Chivalry and the Cyborg are not limited by gender anymore - It’s no accident that Star Wars has come to include many women as heroes
Ripley in Alien (1979) • Women as strong heroic figures reflected changes in the real world as seen in the character of Ellen Louise Ripley played by American actress Sigourney Weaver.
In 1985 Donna Haraway stretched the idea of the cyborg in new ways • In A Cyborg Manifesto Haraway defines the cyborg as "a creature in a post-gender world”
Her latest work is“Staying with the TroubleMaking Kin in the Chthulucene” (2016) • multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants in the midst of spiraling ecological devastation.
Like the Cyborg, Chivalry can and should be stretched too • Dictionary. com's definition: “the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms.” • Chivalry Today's Definition: “In short… chivalry is — a choice. The choice to do the right things, for the right reasons, at the right times.” • How do we know what the right thing is?
What is a knight for today and the future? More than just better weapons and technology
