Is the “Post” in “Posthuman” the Same “Post” as the “Post” in “Postmodern,” “Post-colonial,” “Post-feminist,” or even “Post-gender”?

Yes, yes, yes, and I don’t know, but probably.

My title is a take on an Anthony Appiah essay which asks, "Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial” (Critical Inquiry Winter 1991). His answer is, in a word, no. “Postmodernism” assumes modernity with all its problems (i.e., the belief in the uniqueness of the present day, not to mention rampant commodification of every damn thing), and wants to get over it, or at least get over worrying about it. The “Post-colonial” condition is one of trying to catch up to the modern. The post-colonial world can’t really afford the luxury of simply dumping every thing that colonialization brought (western languages, western parliaments, western hospitals, western schools) and starting over. On the other hand, it can’t simply accept it all.

The photo of a statue, above, right of a "Man on a Bicycle" is one Appiah cites, because it was chosen by James Baldwin for an exhibition, as embodying the disparate genealogoy of the post-colonial world.

Think of Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” which was a urinal entered into an exhibit (under the pseudonym “R. Mutt”; photo above, left). The timing is not quite right (1917), but the spirit is: this is the type of gesture that would become common among the post-moderns. Contrast that with the need for potable water and sanitary discharge throughout much of the “post colonial” world, and you get a sense of the gulf which separates these movements.

But the “post-“ is becoming increasingly more similar.

Increasingly, what we mean when we use this prefix is that we’re going to take what we want from the term we are prefixing, and leave the rest. Cultural context be damned. The post-feminist (supposedly) is tired of fighting for women’s rights, and wants to assume them, and then do whatever the hell he or she wants. Think of Terry MacMillan’s characters. They are not necessarily happy with their lot in life, but they are more interested in playing the deck of cards dealt them than in changing the world (note: many of her characters have a meaningful social engagement, but it is usually first and foremost another social outlet for them).

Think of Maureen Dowd salivating over George W. Bush. If you have the stomach…

I’ve never figured out what post-gender means. I think it refers to the idea that gender still defines us, we still think in terms of gender, even though we know that humans can’t really be defined that way.

The post humanist isn’t free to denounce all of the values of humanism (education, self-care, etc.) but must try to extricate these things from the racist, classist, sexist ideologies that underpinned them. We understand that because the genetics which gave life to an idea are imperfect, yet the idea (education, etc.) can take on a life of its own, independent of its parentage.