Promethean Shame as a Prelude to the Faustian Claim of the Improvement of the Human Race

Abstract

Günther Anders determines that since the 20th century, the way of using humanity as raw material has not been accidental but is latent as an immanent possibility in the dialectical unity of industrial modernity between homo creator and homo materia. In The Obsolescence Of Man, Anders analyzes the problem of the discrepancy in the capacity of our various faculties as they cannot represent the effects and future scenarios of ontologically modifying the world. This situation gave rise to a Promethean shame in man, which refers to the shame of the things we produce, the high quality of which “makes us ashamed.” The feeling of pride was replaced by the feeling of one’s own inferiority and misery due to our imperfect and vulnerable nature. In this state, man’s desire to become a self-made man prevails. Dazzled by the perfection of his artificial creations, he aspired to integrate into that manufactured
world and then continue betting on the type of knowledge that yearns to improve the conditions of human life through technology. Now, according to Hermínio Martins, it is a techno-scientific knowledge with a Faustian vocation, whose goal consists not only in the improvement of the human species but in its improvement. Given this, it is up to us to ask ourselves about the implications of the reconfiguration of the bios and if, as Anders warned when detecting a Promethean gap, on this occasion, a Faustian gap is present.