Abstract

In 1999, Peter Sloterdijk gave a lecture on the future of humanism in which he 'unmasked' it as part of the ongoing process of self-domestication of the human animal by way of literary media, and speculated that, taking account of the steady decline of literary Bildung in our technocultures, genetic engineering might one day become the key anthropo-technology for the further domestication of mankind. This lecture evoked much controversy, especially in Germany, where Sloterdijk was accused by some journalists of having dangerous, nazi-eugenic sympathies, promoting the breeding of a new Herrenrasse. In this article, the author wants to show that these accusations are unjustified by putting his lecture in its proper context: Sloterdijk's project of a new, radical-historical anthropology. Sloterdijk develops there a view on the 'humanity of man' as the product of a biocultural process of self-domestication of our proto-hominid ancestors. It is this para-natural evolutionary process, that has taken place within self-enclosed, selfmade 'spheres' under the influence of operative and symbolic 'anthropo-technologies', which, according to Sloterdijk, should guide our thinking on the possible uses of biotechnology on humans. Only when we know what homo sapiens in fact is, i.e., only when we know how he was made, can we meaningfully begin to think about his possible alteration through genetic engineering. Also discussed is Sloterdijk's characterization of biotechnology as a homeotechnology