On Posthuman War
Computation and Military Violence
Listen: Have we ever been civilian? Podcast episode with Mike Hill, Robyn Marasco, and Warren Montag
winner of communication arts's typography competition award of excellence
Mike Hill delivers insights on the latest war technologies, strategies, and tactics while engaging in questions poised to overturn the foundations of modern political thought. Beginning with his personal experience training U.S. Marine recruits, he gleans insights from realist philosophy, the new materialism, and computational theory to show how the human being has been reconstituted from neutral citizen to unwitting combatant.
On Posthuman War offers a compelling new account of the systemic militarization of human experience. Describing the weaponization of thought that has turned the brain itself into a combat zone, Mike Hill shows that the most basic epistemological and ontological questions can now only be posed from within the war machine.
Jan Mieszkowski, author of Watching War
As military and other forms of political violence become the planetary norm, On Posthuman War traces the expansion of war beyond traditional theaters of battle. Drawing on counterinsurgency field manuals, tactical manifestos, data-driven military theory, and asymmetrical-war archives, Mike Hill delineates new “Areas of Operation” within a concept of the human being as not only a social and biological entity but also a technical one.
Delving into three human-focused disciplines newly turned against humanity, On Posthuman War reveals how demography, anthropology, and neuroscience have intertwined since 9/11 amid the “Revolution in Military Affairs.” Beginning with the author’s personal experience training with U.S. Marine recruits at Parris Island, Hill gleans insights from realist philosophy, the new materialism, and computational theory to show how the human being, per se, has been reconstituted from neutral citizen to unwitting combatant. As evident in the call for “bullets, beans, and data,” whatever can be parted out, counted, and reassembled can become war materiel. Hill shows how visible and invisible wars within identity, community, and cognition shift public-sphere activities, like racial identification, group organization, and even thought itself, in the direction of war. This shift has weaponized social activities against the very notion of society.
On Posthuman War delivers insights on the latest war technologies, strategies, and tactics while engaging in questions poised to overturn the foundations of modern political thought.
Awards
Winner of Communication Arts’s Typography Competition Award of Excellence
On Posthuman War offers a compelling new account of the systemic militarization of human experience. Describing the weaponization of thought that has turned the brain itself into a combat zone, Mike Hill shows that the most basic epistemological and ontological questions can now only be posed from within the war machine.
Jan Mieszkowski, author of Watching War
As Mike Hill demonstrates, war has become woven into the fabric of all our lives through the woof and warp of data and virtuality, and his discussion reaches deeply into the ontological import of this process. This is a book for our times, at once compelling and chilling, lively and optimistic.
Geoffrey C. Bowker, University of California, Irvine
Flowing between philosophy, communication methods and the politics of diversity and race, the book bridges fields and informatively navigates the politics of war.
International Journal of Communication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Preface: Supping with the Devil Dogs
Introduction: Number Rules
The Terrorist Recognition Handbook
Cybernetics and Netcentric War
The Lords of Things as They Are
Realism and Posthuman War
System-of-Systems
Summary of Remaining Chapters
1. War Demography
The Revolution in Military Affairs
U.S. Census Politics and the Coming White Minority
The Graveyard of the Human Race
Race War
The Algorithmic Unconscious
2. War Anthropology
The Human Terrain System Program
Data as Physical Transmission
National Character Study and World War II
Counterinsurgency Theory and the Vietnam War
Quantum Systems and Asymmetrical War
White Afghans
3. War Neuroscience
The Functional Combatant
Living Matter
Cartography and Virtual Reality
The Human Brain as Image Generator
Opto-Electronics
Virtuality and War
White Matter
Notes
Index
