In his study of prosthetics across time, writer Joseph Hayes recognizes a theme: “that by transforming an artificial limb from a tool of medicine to a tool of violence, the attackers have shown themselves to be evil.”
Journalism also continues to link villainous actions and body prosthetics. Consider the media coverage of Abu Hamza, an Islamic fundamentalist who wears hooked prosthetics to replace the hands he allegedly lost experimenting with explosives. Nicknamed the “hook-handed hate preacher” by The Daily Express and others, Hamza’s prosthetics were used to represent his generally menacing nature.
But where 19th century journalists saw weaponized prosthetics as a sign of villainy, modern media are more likely to psychologize the subject. On June 3, 2016, The Irish Times reported that a man named Kenneth Parker had been jailed for kicking a law officer with a prosthetic leg. A similar case, that of Patrick Murphy, had been reported over a century before, in 1893. In the earlier case, his use of an artificial limb as a weapon led the attacker to be branded deplorable. But The Irish Times chose instead to focus on Parker’s alcoholism, heroin addiction, and the anguish he had felt since losing the limb.
Today, some transhumanists may welcome the chance to discard their fragile human body for a more durable artificial form. And it’s not just the hyper-futurists: In Military Medical Ethics for the 21st Century (Routledge), professors Michael L. Gross and Don G. Carrick write that “state of the art prosthetics” can “make warfighters smarter, stronger, alert and confident.”
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2i2YAIi
via IFTTT