NotNormativelyHuman 191
in a highly differential way, reminding us that the biologically non-
normative is always also an experience and not just a construct.
Biological normalization does not define a standard so much as it
organizes differences, and, in doing so, it can serve as a litmus test
whichmakesvisiblethevaluesthatsustainthepubliccultureofagiven
politicalformation(Rajan,esp.7-9)
In the meantime, the emerging field of bio-technology (especially
for-profit interventions into the genetic or otherwise biological
endowment of human beings) is yet another site where the polemical
powerofbiologicalnormsmanifestsitself.Thistimetheir"role...isto
devalue existence by allowing its correction" (Canguilhem 77). The
promise to overcome biological shortcomings or malfunctions of the
body through state-of-the-art and paid-for interventions, has spurred the
emergence of whole new epistemologies of human life. These
essentially technology-based epistemologies are already now claiming
powersofdefinitioninlayandexpertcirclesalikeoverwhata"normal"
human being should be like and thus also over what can count as a life
worth living and a body worth having. A whole new biological
imaginary, today most pronouncedly perhaps in the form of a "genetic
imaginary" (Franklin qtd. in Clarke et al., "Theoretical and Substantive
Introduction" 19), has been forming, in which matters of biology are
wedded to norms concerning what makes up a good human life, worth
having and living, individually and collectively. The power of this
imaginarydoesnotexhaustitselfin subjectinghumanphysicality to the
calculus of the market (which would itself be important enough):
biotechnology is turning life itself, whole or aggregate parts (cells,
blood, tissue, or body organs), the prophylaxis as well as the treatment
of bodily malfunctions, into capital,lively capital.^38 And this takes us
backfullcircletotheworkingsofneoliberalism.
Overall, human life has become the scene, and a very lively one at
that, of capitalist activities. Growing amounts of capital worldwide are
invested into biotechnological R&D. In a recent statement, the United
StatesInternalRevenueServicefound:
(^38) Although the term has many uses, its presence in this argument here
references a recent collection of essays of that title edited by Kaushik Sunder
Rajan(2012).