I was intrigued by the techniques Haraway used to present her “Cyborg Manifesto.” Within the first paragraph Haraway tells her readers that her “political myth” should be regarded as “blasphemous” and “ironic.” It is not often that authors call attention to their flaws before even presenting their thesis. While reading this piece, I realized the many ways in which postmodernism is conducive to feminist thought. Haraway is attracted to the cyborg precisely because it reconditions feminism in a “postmodern, non-naturalist mode.” Without any gender to identify itself with, the cyborg stands as the ultimate anti meta-narrative. The cyborg has no need for a Western origin or heterosexual mate or even a nuclear family. In her discussion of the “border crossings,” Haraway makes it clear that feminists will never be able to “return to nature.” This inability makes the cyborg a perfect emblem for postmodern feminism.
The chart of dichotomies was a perfect representation of the transgression into the postmodern, sci-fi world we now inhabit. However, I was curious about why she referred to the new networks as scary. Was Haraway implying that these new modes were scary to her or the general public? And also what did people think was the deeper explanation behind the dichotomy between heat and noise?
I think Haraway is implying that these new modes are scary to her, and should be to the general public because of the fact that they "cannot be coded as 'natural.'" Due to the fact that they are not natural, one cannot trace these categories back to their "essential properties, but in terms of design, boundary constraints, rates of flows, systems logics, costs of lowering constraints" (162).
If one does follow the natural, primitive reasoning of dichotomies, all Haraway believes we will find is irrationalism in this world that has transformed all these dichotomies into, essentially, politics. I am not positive, but I think this transition is why she finds these new modes scary.
To respond to your initial comment, my reader of her self-introduction as 'blasphemous' and 'ironic' was not so much one intended to point out flaws, but instead a disclaimer that she is making contextually radical arguments. She offers some profound critiques of feminist socialism and radical feminism; this is her way of warning us that, to some (especially those identify their feminism along such lines), may take offense to the cyborg discussion. She describes irony as a rhetorical strategy and political method, which I think offers another variation on creative attempts at narrative resistance and subversion. (She is speaking specifically about this context, but perhaps this offers a tool to be used in the larger space of conceptual shifting).
With regard to the 'scariness' I think CA92075 is correct in that it is what has caused the entrance into this second space of politics. I would also argue that, yes, she is engaging in a productive political project by naming the dichotomies of this shift, but that in no way is she arguing that this recategorization is necessarily productive, in and of itself. It seems that the project itself is being hailed as necessary, but what it points to and highlights in an inherently frightening state of the world.
Finally, I think the 'heat/noise' dichotomy might be about a distinction between physical, tangible oppression that has been replaced by elusive, invisible oppression of sound space. Just a thought.