The Tyranny of “Normal” by Keith Porteous
Several years ago, I learned that a friend who worked in music and television was experiencing a degenerative loss of their hearing, something that would be devastating to most anyone, and especially someone who worked with and loved sound so dearly. With the loss of their hearing, they were able to re-acquire some of their auditory capacities with the aid of a technological and biomedical procedure involving Cochlear devices, a neurological prosthesis surgically implanted. I remember getting a message from my friend following their recovery process, telling me they could hear the sound of rain on the roof. I was teary eyed upon receiving this joyful news.
Medical research and technology has moved to purposes and places only previously dreamed of in science fiction. Literally millions of people’s lives are improved and extended as a result. Replacing heart valves and installing stents to open arteries are commonplace examples of technological “miracles.” The cutting edge of technological research into helping those stricken with mobility issues and impaired sight, and a myriad of other maladies, seems a hopeful frontier of possibilities in improving our human experience. It appears as though we are on the threshold of advancing these technologies to where we will be able to repair, alter, and enhance our physiologies in some even more astonishing ways. This is often referred to as morphological freedom.
Morphological freedom suggests that our current human evolutionary status may be further evolved in a self-directed manner. At its core is the principle of bodily autonomy. As these technologies advance, our capacity increases to choose what kind of alterations and enhancements to our bodies we desire, and to what extent. Many of these alterations are cosmetic, but many more are intended as a repair or enhancement, some even improving on the body and mind we were born with, or at least that is one of its stated and primary aims. With the speed of technological breakthroughs and advances in artificial intelligence, how far can this go? How far will it go?
One of the streams of research in this field is the so-called “neurolink” technology, popularized by the deplorable Elon Musk. Is it inevitable that we shall have the ability to implant a device linked to the human brain that will rewire our capacities? This is often imagined to benefit those with mobility impairments, or repairing neurological damages from disease or stroke. The possibilities seem only contained by the limits of imagination. But as we cross the Rubicon of technological capability, it would be a very good time to take pause to contemplate where there is a need for some ethical, political, and philosophical concern to be expressed in relation to morphological freedom and the concept of Transhumanism.
Transhumanism is defined as a philosophical movement that advocates for the enhancement of humanity through artificial intelligence and converging technologies, with the goal of overcoming biological limitations. It suggests that morphological freedom will lead to a proliferation of radically different forms; enhanced humans, cyborgs, and genetically divergent lineages. Shared vulnerability and embodiment have historically grounded empathy and human rights, and without them, mutuality will fray. Morphological freedom promises emancipation, but risks shifting into coercion, inequality, commodification, and fragmentation. What is sold as freedom can become a new form of domination, unless tightly coupled with safeguards for equity, dignity, and shared humanity. Transhumanism creates the illusion of pure autonomy.
While morphological freedom is framed as individual choice, choices are never made in a vacuum. Market forces, social pressures, and cultural ideals will shape what “freedom” really looks like. For instance, if enhancement technologies become tied to employability, healthcare access, or social status, the supposed freedom could become coercion in disguise. You may not “choose” to enhance so much as submit to necessity. This can only lead to further entrenchment of inequalities. Enhancement technologies are expensive and will likely remain so. A freedom that can only be exercised by the wealthy ceases to be freedom in practice. Instead, morphological freedom risks embedding class divides into literal biological castes, where the rich become healthier, longer-lived, and cognitively sharper, while the poor remain “unaltered.” This can be described as a tyranny of “norms.”
Cultural standards of beauty, ability, and performance already exert intense pressure. If morphological modification becomes more normalized, what begins as freedom could become an obligation. Those who remain unmodified, whether for reasons of poverty, conviction, or health, will be stigmatized, marginalized, or excluded. Is this the next step in the full commodification of the human body? Treating the human body as a modifiable product risks collapsing distinctions between human dignity and market value. Cosmetic and performance modifications will become an extension of consumer capitalism, where bodies are branded, optimized, and marketed, further reducing identity to a purchasable commodity.
Transhumanism is a reduction of the human condition, treating humanity as a set of biological limitations to be solved, reducing human life to an engineering problem rather than acknowledging its complexity, unpredictability, and existential depth.
