Ad imaginem suam. The Adamic Model and Exclusive Monoanthropism in Human Simulacra
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Ad imaginem suam. The Adamic Model and Exclusive Monoanthropism in Human Simulacra
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Matteo Zupancic
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Ad imaginem suam. The Adamic Model and Exclusive Monoanthropism in Human Simulacra
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              Ad imaginem suam.
               The Adamic Model
         and Exclusive Monoanthropism
              in Human Simulacra

                               Matteo Zupancic

Abstract
      The aim of the present paper is to trace the Nachleben of the logics
characterizing the Adamic episode within the fictional reflection on human
simulacra. In fact, Judeo-Christian ‘exclusive monotheism’ is based on
the strict ontological differentiation of God, the unique Creator, from the
World, as his Creation. Such a conception of monotheism is, as Jan Assmann
pointed out, strictly connected to a repressive exercise of violence and to
God’s opposition against every possible form of ontological rivalry. In the
Genesis, Yahweh turns this law machinery even against his simulacra, the
creatures made «in his own image»: Adam and Eve are removed from Eden
and condemned to mortality only as a result of their attempt to become «like
God, knowing good and evil». By means of a brief analysis of some exemplary
literary cases, an attempt will be made to show how the fear and violence
exercised by man towards his simulacra are deeply linked to a secular revival
of the theological-juridical complex intertwined with the Adamic model.

Keywords
    Adam; Genesis; Simulacra; Frankenstein; Isaac Asimov; Ernst Jünger;
Transhumanism; Posthumanism; Antihumanism




Between, vol. XII, n. 24 (novembre/November 2022)
issn: 2039-6597
doi: 10.13125/2039-6597/5170
Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam




        Ad imaginem suam.
    Adamic Model and Exclusive
 Monoanthropism in Human Simulacra

                               Matteo Zupancic




         1. Introduction and methodological premises
      Human simulacra. Copies, emulations of the human being, modelled
in his own image. Artificial anatomical creatures, golems, clones, androids.
In an almost stereotypical fashion, we are used to look at them as a mockery
of the Genesis. Victor Frankenstein plays the game of God, thus creating a
second Adam. He emulates the ‘miracle of life’. The imagery of the Gene-
sis is so widespread throughout the fictional and theoretical reflection on
human simulacra that it would be impossible to recollect it into a single,
comprehensive study. It is a cultural, almost pop-cultural trope. But what
is the attractive force behind this facade? Surely, the Adamic episode is one
the most cardinal mythologies of all western thought and a simple refer-
ence to it provides a powerful narrative background for such stories. But
maybe it is also possible to look beyond that. Our main thesis is that such
iconographies and the apparatus of motifs surrounding a specific subject
(the Adamic episode) should rarely be taken as mere narrative ornaments,
namely as the diegetic guise of otherwise independent, self-sufficient con-
tents. Following this presupposition, in fact, we could either fall into the
oversimplifications of an exclusively infraliterary Stoff- and Motivgeschichte,
or resort to the more sophisticated, but ideologically problematic ways of
Gadamerian hermeneutics, which proposes to extrapolate the hidden ‘se-
mantic dimension’ of a textual material from its detachable linguistic ‘ex-
pression’. Following the latter option, we could even be tempted to apply
the category of secularization in order to describe the movement of the
Adamic episode from its religious roots to its artistical and philosophical
adaptations in contemporary science fiction. Quoting Blumenberg’s reflec-
tions on the subject, in fact, we could look at the narrative garments of the


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Genesis as some sort of «trojan horse» (Blumenberg 1986: 89) that secretly
propagated a religious agenda of patriarchy, speciesism and ontological
difference between creature and creator in the very heart of a secularized
modernity. This represents a strong ideological stance, which could provide
interesting theory-building cues but could also deeply affect the way we
perceive the history of the adaptations of the Adamic episode. Regardless
of ideological biases, we think that the multifaced Nachleben of the Adamic
episode in contemporary science fiction must be understood in any case as
a proof of its inherent expressive potential. In fact, it seems to provide not
only a quite effective narrative material, but also a theoretical framework
that allows different authors to assert, criticize and rethink a specific par-
adigm concerning the relationship between creator and creature, between
Man and his simulacra. In other words, the Adamic ‘episode’ can as well
be seen as an Adamic ‘model’: an expressive formula describing a certain
way of thinking about and regulating the power dynamics between a sov-
ereign subject and a subjugated copy made from the mold. Like Warburg’s
Pathosformeln, form and content are one, fused together by a theoretical
structure that we will try to identify1. In the present paper we will firstly
trace the dynamics of the biblical Adamic episode, in order to recognize
a possible pattern. Thereafter, we will shift this structure to the field of
human simulacra and build some theoretical framework. Through a brief
series of paradigmatic examples, we will then try to explore and test the
limits of our theory, looking dynamically at its wandering through differ-
ent works, narrative situations, and cultural contexts.




    1
       As can be inferred from our terminology, we will try to navigate this
precarious field through a mixture of Warburgian iconological perspective,
Foucauldian analysis of discourse (2002) and Agambian ‘paradigmatic’ meth-
od (2008). Loosely speaking, the common ground between those similar but
also diverging approaches can be found in the controversial concept of mor-
phology, which is recently gaining noticeable traction, at least from the history
of theory (Vercellone-Tedesco 2020; Gilodi-Marfè 2021; Axer-Geulen-Heimes
2021). Offering a combination of synchronic clarity and diachronic perspective,
the study of dynamic forms can indeed be seen as a flexible method for cultural
and literary enquiry, able to identify theoretical structures without plunging
into the pitfalls of ahistorical structuralism or neglecting the specificity of each
case study.


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Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



             2. The dynamics of the Adamic episode:
                      exclusive monotheism
      In order to grasp the basic structure of the Adamic model, we need
to look briefly at the dynamics of the system in which it is embedded: Ju-
deo-Christian monotheism. As Jan Assmann has pointed out, this kind of
monotheism shows a revolutionary character that sets it apart from other
monotheistic-related theologies of antiquity. This difference is summa-
rized by the so called ‘mosaic distinction’, that is the distinction between
true and false religion (Assmann 1996: 44). This ideological position was
uncommon in the ancient world. In fact, polytheism worked through a
practice of cultural translation, by which different deities could be inte-
grated and accepted across foreign pantheons. «Gods were international,
because they were cosmic», writes Assmann: «nobody contested the real-
ity of foreign gods and the legitimacy of foreign forms of worship» (ibid.:
49). In a temporary phase between polytheism and the development of
monotheistic religions, this practice of translation also led «to a form of
inclusive monotheism - the idea that “All Gods are One”» (id. 2008: 57):
a heterogeneous set of different gods could be connected analogically to
one overarching deity and included in a single, ‘softer’ paradigm. On the
contrary, the mosaic revolution introduced an irreconcilable distinction
between God’s covenant and all other religions, marking it as a form of
‘exclusive monotheism’ (cf. ibid.: 106 ff.). As Jan Assmann says:

         We may call this a “counterreligion” because it not only constructed
      but rejected and repudiated everything that went before and everything
      outside of itself as “paganism”. It no longer functioned as a means of
      intercultural translation; on the contrary, it functioned as a means of
      cultural estrangement. Whereas polytheism or rather, “cosmotheism”,
      rendered different cultures mutually transparent and compatible, the
      new counterreligion blocked intercultural translatability. (Id. 1996: 50).

      Judeo-Christian monotheism as ‘exclusive monotheism’ means that
its identity is not shaped through the definition of what it is, but rather
through the declaration of what it is not. This idea sits at the core of its
whole belief system and informs God’s stance not only toward other de-
ities, but also toward his own Creation. Indeed, unlike the cosmic identi-
fication of ancient polytheisms, the God of Isaac, Jacob and Abraham is
characterized by a radical distinction from immanence itself, his maior dis-
similitudo from the rest of the world. Both those aspects (distinction from


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other gods, distinction from Creation) are perfectly expressed by the first
of the Ten Commandments, which constitutes the juridical backbone of the
exclusive monotheism itself:

           Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
           Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
        of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
        that is in the water under the earth.
           Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the
        Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers
        upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that
        hate me. (Ex 20:3-5).

      This incipit of the Mosaic law structures what we can call the theolog-
ical-juridical complex of exclusive monotheism. God is one and ontologi-
cally divided from the rest of Creation. The distinction is guaranteed and
lawfully enforced by the first of the Ten Commandments, which prevents
every other entity from being equal to the one and only God. Every trans-
gression has to be met with condemnation and with the exercise of repres-
sive violence. This applies not only to rivaling pantheons and believers,
but also to all the creatures that try to challenge divine exceptionality. The
Bible provides at least two notable examples: the conflict with Lucifer and
the original sin of Adam and Eve, that is, the Adamic case.
      Here we come closer to our main topic: the relation with simulacra. In
fact, Adam and Eve, as well as Lucifer, were all creatures made in the very
image of God. It is important to stress the concept of ‘image’, which ties to-
gether both the simulacral quality of God’s creations and the aniconic im-
perative that reinforces the First Commandment2. In the Biblical text (Gen
1:27), as said, Adam and Eve are created in God’s likeness (demuth) and im-
age (b’tselem Elohim). Both expressions appear in wildly different contexts
of the Biblical text, usually with a derogatory meaning. Given its more ma-
terial connotation, deriving from the root ‘to carve out’, tselem is used to de-
scribe carved images or statues, whose idolatry is explicitly prohibited by
Ex 20:4. Adam and Eve are then tselem of God’s tselem: they are, in a sense,
artifacts, luminous idols carved out from God’s own matrix. This likeness


    2
       «Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth» Ex 20:3.


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Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



to God’s tselem also serves a double function. On one side, Adam and Eve
are set aside from the rest of Creation, granting them a dominion over the
earth that depends on their analogy with God (cf. Seidenberg 2015: 97). At
the same time, however, this likeness emphasizes the subsidiary nature
of the first Men, who are ‘just’ similar, but cannot achieve equality to the
tselem Elohim. That is the twofold essence of man’s relationships with God,
as expressed by the theologian Erich Przywara (2014: 234-235) through the
analogia entis: an undeniable positive similarity (tanta similitudo) is always
matched by a far greater, negative dissimilarity (maior dissimilitudo). With-
in the Scriptural tradition, correspondingly, the concept of resemblance,
demuth, is also usually marked by a negative connotation. One of the most
prominent examples is precisely that of Lucifer, who in Isaiah 14:14 de-
scribes his desire to ‘make himself like the Most High’ (‘edammeh le-elyon).
Interestingly, some kabbalistic sources have also tried to equate the very
name of Adam to the expression ‘edammeh le-elyon, thus parting themselves
from the Scriptural etymology adamah, meaning ‘earth, soil’ (Wolfson 2014:
4-5). As we can notice, the notions of ‘similarity’ and ‘image’ are able to
tie together all these otherwise very different loci of the Biblical text, thus
forming a coherent semantic whole that hints to the real nature of the con-
flict between God and its simulacra: the attempt to overcome a pejorative
similitude in order to achieve equal likeness. Before this, in fact, both Adam
and Eve and Lucifer did not show any uncanny trait and were embedded
in a non-threatening relationship with their Creator. Although, when they
tried to cross the line that separates God from the rest of Creation – thus
emancipating themselves from a subsidiary position and gaining an onto-
logical equivalence with their master3 –, they violated the first of the Ten
Commandments, which prescribes the existence of one and only divine
Being. This action triggers a juridical mechanism of condemnation and ex-
ercise of repressive violence, through which God preserves his status and
secure the hierarchy prescribed by the exclusive-monotheistic system. Lu-
cifer is banned from Heaven and turned into Satan, the Enemy; Adam and
Eve are banned from the Garden of Eden and turned into sinful, mortal
beings. In this interesting antecedent of the question about human simula-
cra, das Unheimliche (uncanny) does not arise, as in Freud’s interpretation
(1919), from the sudden emergence of the unfamiliar from the familiar, or
from the unsettling interplay between animate and inanimate matter etc.
There seems to be no room for psychological interpretations. What is at


      «For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
      3

opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil» Gen 3:5.


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stake here is an almost Foucauldian question of power and its preserva-
tion4, which is deeply connected with the theological-political content of
the book of Genesis (Reichenbach 2003).


              3. The dynamics of the Adamic model:
                    exclusive monoanthropism
      Given the self-evident fortune of the Adamic trope within the fiction
on human simulacra, we could try to identify a possible homological con-
nection between the secular transposition of the creature/creator dynamic
and its religious prior formulation. It is well established by the second-
ary literature that many loci classici of this theme are actually based on the
explicit or implicit analogy between God-as-creator and Man-as-creator.
Above all, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein provided not only an in-depth anal-
ysis of this cultural lineage, but also became one of the most well-known
vessels of the stereotype. In a rich intertextual game with Milton’s Para-
dise Lost (Tannenbaum 1977; Gilbert 1978; Cantor 1984: 103ff; Lamb 1992;
Shohet 2018), in fact, the catastrophic bond between Victor Frankenstein
and his creature is read precisely through the lenses of the relationship be-
tween God and his rebellious simulacra (Satan and Adam). Victor displays
clear resemblances with the God of Genesis, wanting to create a being in
his own image5 and even paraphrasing the famous verse «And God saw
everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good» (Gen 1:31)6.
Moreover, the creature conversely looks at humans «as superior beings»


    4
       A similar interpretation has been proposed by Posner (2009) in his reading
of Milton’s Paradise Lost: «The distinctively monarchical punishment (in Michel
Foucault’s sense) to which God subjects Satan reflects a typically monarchical
anxiety about the ability to maintain order without extravagant displays of pow-
er» (Posner 2009: 256).
     5
       Cf. «I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like
myself or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was too much exalted
by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as
complex and wonderful as man» (Shelley 1992: 55).
     6
       Cf. «His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beauti-
ful. Beautiful! – Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles
and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a
pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with
his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in
which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips» (ibid.: 58).


                                                                                    557
Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



and refers to them as «arbiters of my future destiny» (Shelley 1992: 102),
thus putting himself in the inferior position of Adam. Trying to convince
his Creator to provide him with a female companion, he also clearly states
his unwillingness to cross the ontological gap between them7 and embrac-
es his creaturely and servant condition: «I am thy creature, and I will be
even mild and docile to my natural lord and king» (ibid.: 90).
      As we can see, the premises of the theological-juridical complex in-
scribed into the biblical exclusive monotheism are all present. It seems that
the substitution of the actors of the Genesis-scheme has led to a recreation
of the dynamics of exclusive monotheism on a human scale. That applies
also to the epilogue of the story: «I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather
the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Every where
I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded» (ibid.). In the eyes
of the Creature, Victor is a careless and irresponsible divine Father, but in
the eyes of the Creator, the Creature is something rivaling with his own,
undisputable human status: «Begone! I will not hear you. There can be
no community between you and me; we are enemies» (ibid.: 90-91). The
ontological threshold that divides the one and only Mankind from its sim-
ulacrum had already been partially crossed during the birth of the crea-
ture, as Victor’s horror proves, but the process is completed only when the
creature finally aspires to be like other humans, that is, capable of sharing
love. This circling around the line between Human and Simulacrum comes
off strikingly clear in Victor’s reaction to the creature’s heartfelt request:

            His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him, and
          sometimes felt a wish to console him; but when I looked upon him,
          when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened,
          and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. (Ibid.: 126)

     Victor is not horrified by the allegedly monstrous features of the crea-
ture. As we know, indeed, he created him to be a beautiful, well-propor-
tioned and almost Olympian figure. The repulsion seems to derive from a
moral, rather than a physical dimension: Victor’s expression «filthy mass
that moved and talked» can then be read as an attempt to dehumanize and
maintain an ontological difference with a lesser simulacrum made in his
own image. This radical Other-from-the-human stood in front of Victor
showing knowledge, articulated thought, almost illuministic rationality


      7
           Cf. «I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee» (ibid.: 90).


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and, above all, the capability of feeling and desiring love. Summarizing,
the Creature is a Not-Human that suddenly appears in the eyes of his Cre-
ator as human all-too-human. This further realization removes any pos-
sible common ground between the two figures and triggers a mechanism
that replicates the one found in Genesis: From tormented Adam, the Crea-
ture is turned definitively into Satan (condemnation) and, in the eyes of the
Creator, needs to be destroyed (exercise of repressive violence).
      After this brief analysis, we can now formulate some theoretical
key-concepts. If the system, upon which the theological-juridical mecha-
nism of the Adamic model is built, is that of ‘exclusive monotheism’, its hu-
man version could be defined as ‘exclusive monoanthropism’: there is one
and only possible form of the Human (mono-anthropism) and its identity
is defined, ex negativo, by the violent distinction from any ‘other-from-it-
self’8 (exclusivity). As we can see, that is the very model of counterreligion
as explained by Assmann: monoanthropic humanity constructs its identity
by «opposing and rejecting what went before and what goes on outside of
itself» (Assmann 2008: 7). Moreover: just as exclusive monotheism blocks
the possibility of intercultural translation, by which, as in the case of in-
clusive monotheism, different and ‘alien’ deities could be subsumed into
a single, enlarged paradigm, Victor’s exclusive monoanthropism prevents
him from translating the alterity of his creature into an inclusive concept of
the Human, thus starting an ‘inter-anthropic’ conflict with his simulacrum.
      As can be inferred, the presence of this basic formula and its many de-
viations could actually be traced in a far wider array of texts, which spans
from further sources of early and late Romanticism (e.g. the demiurgic
interplay between Coppelius, Melchior, and Olympia, the robotic Eve of
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Sandmann) to the classical age of modern science fic-
tion (Eeando Binder’s Adam Link Robot, Asimov’s robot stories, Philip K.
Dick’s rebellious androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? etc.), and
survives in a countless number of more contemporary high and pop-cul-
tural products, from film (Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the genesis of the
Matrix as described by the Wachowski sisters in Animatrix, Alex Garland’s
Ex Machina, Neil Blomkamp’s Adam-trilogy etc.) to literature (above all,
Ian McEwan’s Machines like Me). Unfortunately, a complete recollection of
all those works largely exceeds the scope of the present contribution and,


    8
         Interestingly, this coincides with the considerations that Fred Botting
made in his famous study of Frankenstein: «What is human cannot be defined in
itself, but only by what it is not, by its difference from others» (Botting 1991: 95).


                                                                                    559
Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



therefore, a limited selection of heterogeneous, but highly paradigmatic
cases has been necessary. In fact, given the aim of this article, that is, the
presentation of a theoretical framework and the explanation of its funda-
mental features, they have been chosen due to their heuristic quality, in
order to describe the inner workings of the Adamic formula through dif-
ferent epochs and cultural contexts.
      Before moving on to a more in-depth differentiation of the possible
applications of the Adamic model, let us summarize once more the dy-
namics of exclusive monoanthropism through a more contemporary case
study: Isaac Asimov’s short story Robot Dreams (1986). The protagonist
LVX-1 (Elvex) is a classic example of Asimovian robot: It is a simulacrum
of the Human and is subjugated to the famous Three Laws of Robotics,
which can be easily seen as the «postbiblical Three Commandments» (Bai-
ley 2005: 180) of monoanthropism. Thanks to a reconfiguration of the code
encrypted in its positronic brain, the robot starts to experience a psychic
phenomenon which can be assimilated to human dreams. At the same time
interested and unsettled by it, the famous robopsychologist Susan Calvin
tries to understand this unexpected evolution of Elvex’s mind and seeks
to evaluate its dangerousness. In a series of dialogues, the android shares
with her a recurring dream in which a crowd of robots is depicted as en-
slaved and exploited under human rule. But there is one crucial point that
reveals all the hidden power of the Adamic model:

         “Did your dream continue? You said earlier that human beings did
      not appear at first. Does that mean that they appear afterward?”
         “Yes, Dr. Calvin. It seemed to me, in my dream, that eventually one
      man appeared.”
         “One man? Not a robot?”
         “Yes, Dr. Calvin. And the man said, ‘Let my people go!’”
         “The man said that?”
         “Yes, Dr. Calvin.”
         “And when he said, ‘Let my people go’, then by the words ‘my
      people’ he meant the robots?”
         “Yes, Dr. Calvin. So it was in my dream.”
         “And did you know who the man was? – in your dream?”
         “Yes, Dr. Calvin. I knew the man.”
         “Who was he?”
         And Elvex said, “I was the man.”
         And Susan Calvin at once raised her electron gun and fired, and
      Elvex was no more. (Asimov 2004: 29-30)




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At the very moment in which Elvex declares his ontological equivalence
with the Human («I was the man»), the threshold of the theological-jurid-
ical complex has already been crossed. Consequently, he is immediately
perceived as a threat, resulting in his condemnation and in the exercise of
repressive violence by Susan Calvin. Furthermore, it is also worth notic-
ing how Elvex introduces a subtle twist within the ideological narrative of
this Creator/Creature dialectics – a twist which is also, interestingly, struc-
tured around a religious hypotext. By quoting the famous Exodus 5,19, the
android strips away his role as subjugated Adam in order to become the
positronic counterpart of Moses, leader of his people and prophet of a new,
competing idea of the Human. This Foucauldian recodification of the pre-
vious power dynamics leads to a corresponding destitution of the Human
from a godlike status. In fact, by equating himself to Moses, Elvex also
forces his former masters to fit into the biblical analogy, making them the
equivalent of pharaoh Ramses II. Instead of legitimate and ontologically
superior rulers, the Humans have thus been re-semanticized into secular
tyrants, no more human than their own slaves. This interference in the es-
tablished discourse of exclusive monoanthropism and in the hierarchical
power-structure that underlies it shows clear subversive connotations and
lets us observe the mechanics of the Adamic model in their most paradig-
matic form.


               4. An inclusive monoanthropism?
          Isaac Asimov’s The Bicentennial Man (1974)
     Next to exclusive monoanthropism, we could also speculate about the
existence of an inclusive monoanthropism, namely a (still) single ideal of the
Human which is open to the ‘translation of alterity’. An interesting example
of the difficulties of such a process within the monoanthropic system can
be found in another famous novel by Asimov, The Bicentennial Man (1974).
Andrew, the main protagonist, is an experimental domestic android whose
story can be read as a sort of replica of the Genesis: he does not want to be a
perfect, prelapsarian Adam, but rather wants to be included in the covenant


    9
       «After that, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the
LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let My people go, so that they may hold a feast
to Me in the wilderness» Ex 5:1. Asimov’s interest and high competence in the
Biblical Scriptures is testified to by the monumental Asimov’s Guide to the Bible,
published in two volumes (Asimov 1968-1969).


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Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



of his masters, which is, ironically, that of imperfect postlapsarian Adams.
For example, following the growth of his positronic mind, Andrew starts to
wear clothes. This event is received with perplexity by his family: «But why
do you want trousers, Andrew? Your body is so beautifully functional it’s a
shame to cover it» (Asimov 1974: 146). The argumentation is clearly based
on the presumed Edenic condition of the android, who should be incapable
of feeling shame. Andrew replies: «Are not human bodies beautifully func-
tional, George? Yet, you cover yourselves», adding also that he feels «bare»
(ibid.) without clothing. Just like Adam and Eve, who opened their eyes
after the Fall and «knew that they were naked» (Gen 3:7), Andrew’s journey
into the human condition is marked by the acquisition of self-consciousness.
At this point, we could foresee a violation of exclusive monoanthropism
and a possible, violent epilogue of the story. But this does not happen. Lin-
gering on the very limits of exclusive monoanthropism, Andrew does not
force his way through the emancipation from the subsidiary condition of
the simulacrum. Instead, he chooses to work within its theological-juridical
boundaries, aiming not to a conflictual revolution but rather to a categorical
extension of monoanthropism itself. He aspires to be legally recognized as
human. In order to do so, he wants to close the physical gap between him
and his creators through a pioneering work in the field of prosthetics: «Peo-
ple will say you did it only for yourself. It will be said it was part of a cam-
paign to roboticize human beings, or to humanify robots; and in either case
evil and vicious» (Asimov 1974: 167). As in the previous examples, the at-
tempt to overcome the ontological distinction is immediately liable to moral
and vaguely religious condemnation, by which the human simulacrum can
be turned – like Satan or Adam – into an evil and vicious being. In the long
run, however, the android manages to progressively humanize his physical
appearance, while, at the time, fostering the acceptance of a debiologization
of the human condition. We can clearly see how this operation within the
theological-juridical framework is then marked by a bilateral confluence.
The more Andrew strives towards the Human, the more the Human comes
closer to a hybridization with the Machine:

         We’ve done two things […] both of which are good. First of all,
      we have established the fact that no number of artificial parts in the
      human body causes it to cease being a human body. Secondly, we
      have engaged public opinion in the question in such a way as to put it
      fiercely on the side of a broad interpretation of humanity, since there
      is not a human being in existence who does not hope for prosthetics if
      they will keep him alive. (Ibid.: 168)



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      This passage is crucial for our analysis, especially for what concerns
the «broad interpretation of humanity» mentioned in the novel. In order
to humanize himself and be recognized as such by the system, Andrew
needs to promote nothing else than transhumanism, which could be seen
as the perfect expression of a loosely broadened but still exclusive monoan-
thropism. In fact, as an «intensification of humanism» (Wolf 2010, XV), the
transhumanist movement does not abdicate from «Reinassance humanist
ambitions for the cultivation of human virtue» (MacFarlane 2020, 15) and,
therefore, limits itself to the technological prosecution of the very same an-
thropocentric worldview and the very same monoanthropic ideal of Man
that have produced the distinction between Human and Not-Human in
the first place. What is being challenged in transhumanism are, in fact, the
mere boundaries of human potential – the questions about what it means
to be human or if it is actually possible to posit an ontologically defined hu-
man ‘entity’ (Nayar 2014) are not fully addressed. In view of those aspects,
the transhumanist enhancement as conceived in the Bicentennial Man does
not represent the formalization of an actual inclusive monoanthropism,
but only an intensification of the core values of exclusive monoanthropism
itself. This comes off strikingly clear if we look at the epilogue of Asimov’s
tale. In spite of his achievements and this broadening of the paradigm, An-
drew stills succumbs to the prescriptive power of the exclusive monoan-
thropism that he tried to soften. In fact, the trajectory of his quest towards
the Human leads to a formal recognition, but at the cost of his own alterity.
As stated by the android:

        Who really cares what a brain looks like or is built of or how it was
     formed? What matters is that brain cells die; must die. […] Isn’t that the
     fundamental barrier? Human beings can tolerate an immortal robot,
     for it doesn’t matter how long a machine lasts. They cannot tolerate an
     immortal human being, since their own mortality is endurable only
     so long as it is universal. And for that reason they won’t make me a
     human being. (Asimov 1974: 170-171)

     Even though the biological foundations defining the ‘humanness’
have been dismantled, this monoanthropism reveals its old-fashioned hu-
manist stance and, therefore, its normativity by setting mortality as the
ultimate condition for inclusion. In fact, Andrew will then renounce com-
pletely the last thing that defined him as a simulacrum or as a potential al-
ternative to the dominating human standard, in order to satisfy his longing
for recognition: he will give up the immutability of the positronic brain,


                                                                                   563
Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



undergoing a medical procedure that sentences him to mortality. Because
of this, Andrew’s final proclamation as the bicentennial ‘man’ cannot be
seen in the light of inclusivity, but rather as the triumph of an untouched
exclusive monoanthropism, which accepts the android only because of a
complete ‘conversion’ to its (lawfully enforced) idea of ‘anthropos’.

   5. Beyond inclusion and exclusion: unravelling the
  Adamic model in Ernst Jünger’s Gläserne Bienen (1965)
      The final case study of this brief journey through the forms of the
Adamic model comes from a very different cultural field and takes us nine
years backwards. After a sequence of allegorical and utopian novels (Auf
den Marmorklippen, Heliopolis), the German writer Ernst Jünger published
the sci-fi novel Gläserne Bienen (1957), the narrative transposition of a se-
ries of reflections on time and the role of technology started three years
before with the collection of essays Das Sanduhrbuch (1954-1957). The main
protagonist, Richard, is an ex-Rittmeister, a cavalry officer whose job faded
into obsolescence owing to the introduction of panzers in modern warfare.
He is portrayed as a veteran of two World Wars, a man from the ‘long
century’, lost in an epoch that is evolving at a quite unsettling speed. His
story revolves around a job interview, which ironically is held at the very
heart of the same phenomenon that led him to unemployment. In fact, he
applies for a position at the famous enterprise Zapparoni-Werke, a giant of
the technological and entertainment industry specialized in robotics. The
company CEO is the brilliant entrepreneur Giacomo Zapparoni, whose
Italian name is just one of numerous intertextual references to E.T.A Hoff-
mann’s Der Sandmann that can be found throughout the novel (cf. Diebitz
1994). Depicted as a techno-demiurge or a posthuman Walt Disney, Zap-
paroni has placed his residence and headquarters in an ex-monastery. His
reign is described in fabulous as well as in uncanny terms, in allusion to
the two-faced nature of technological advancement10, and Richard looks
at him with both admiration and suspicion. After an initial meeting with
Zapparoni, Richard is taken to the walled garden of the monastery and



       Cf. «Im Großen glichen die Zapparoni-Werke einem Janustempel mit ei-
      10

nem bunten und einem schwarzen Tore, und wenn sich der Himmel bewölkte,
quoll aus dem dunklen ein Strom von ausgeklügelten Mordinstrumenten hervor,
die sich durch eine widerwärtige Art der Nachstellung auszeichneten» (Jünger
1978: 483).


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let there waiting for the prosecution of his job interview. This artificially
enhanced hortus conclusus represents a sort of technological Eden, where
nature is being perfected through rigorous gardening practices and the cal-
culated introduction of nanorobots. As a sort of Adam, Richard is put into
the garden11 by Zapparoni, while the entrepreneur, looking down from an
elevated terrace, shouts the warning «Seien Sie mit den Bienen vorsichtig!»
(Jünger 1978: 497), which recalls God’s admonition about the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil12. All the basic iconography of the Adamic
model falls into place, but with one important deviation from the norm.
This point needs further analysis. As Richard will discover, the bees are in
fact the only ‘living’ simulacrum of the novel: resembling the creation of a
demiurge13, they are unmanned aerial drones, whose features are inspired
by a rich intertextual game with various religious and legendary sourc-
es. The drones are transparent and made of glass like the homunculus of
Paracelsus, and their entomorphic appearance resembles the mechanical
fly allegedly created by the mathematician Regiomontanus14. Next to them,
Richard will then discover the second, inert simulacra of the garden: look-
ing at the bottom of a pond, he will see a number of severed human ears,
which, later on, will be revealed as artificial as well. Here is where the
usual mechanics of the Adamic model come into play. When confronted
with the uncanny perfection of the glass bees, Richard showed concern but
also fascination, because the ontological dominance of the Human was not
involved. Facing the perfect replica of a human body part, his viewpoint
changes completely, and we can clearly see the ‘activation’ of the whole


    11
        Cf. «And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden
to dress it and to keep it» Gen 2,15, and «Ich betrat den Gartenpfad mit dem Ge-
fühl, mit dem wir bei der Prüfung die Glocke hören, die eine Pause ankündet»,
(Jünger 1978: 497).
     12
        «But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die» Gen 2:17.
     13
        Cf. «An diesem Wesen konnte ein Demiurg in fremden Reichen geschaf-
fen haben, der einmal von Bienen gehört hatte» (Jünger 1978: 504).
     14
        Cf. «Zapparoni wollte jedoch den Automaten im alten Sinne, den Auto-
maten des Albertus oder des Regiomontanus verwirklichen» (Jünger 1978: 511).
Regarding the mechanical fly, we can just look at the word ‘Automat’ from the
widespread Meyers Konversationslexicon (1905): «Der Android von Albertus Mag-
nus öffnete die Tür und grüßte die Eintretenden; Regiomontanus verfertigte eine
laufende Fliege und einen Adler» (Meyers Großes Konversationslexikon 1905:
189).


                                                                                    565
Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



theological-juridical system:

          Hier aber war der Geist am Werke, der das freie und unberührte
       Menschenbild verneint. Er hatte diesen Tort erdacht. Er wollte mit
       Menschenkräften rechnen, wie er seit langem mit Pferdekräften
       rechnete. Er wollte Einheiten, die gleich und teilbar sind. Dazu mußte
       der Mensch vernichtet werden, wie vor ihm das Pferd vernichtet
       worden war. (Ibid.: 547)

      When the «free and untouched» image of man is concerned, there
could be no room for fascination. Enraged, Richard grabs a golf club and
smashes an approaching mechanical device with a gesture that clearly em-
ulates the story about Thomas Aquinas’ destruction of the android created
by his master Albert the Great15. The procedure is always the same: threat
to the ontological gap, metaphysical horror/condemnation, and exercise
of repressive violence. Where, then, is then the deviation from the Adamic
formula? In Jünger’s novel, we find a godly creator and an Eden, but no real
‘simulacral’ Adam as in the previous examples. There is a reason for this. As
Jünger suggested, in fact, the main consequence of posthuman technology
does not lie in the substitution of the Human with a simulacrum made in
his own image (such as an ominous glass man16, a real homunculus). Rath-
er, what the German writer is trying to describe is the complete dissolution
of an established idea of the Human, which could be interpreted in con-
trasting ways. In fact, as Richard says: «Menschliche Vollkommenheit und
technische Perfektion sind nicht zu vereinbaren. Wir müssen, wenn wir die
eine wollen, die andere zum Opfer bringen» (id. 1978: 521). Here, Richard
speaks like a pre-industrial and religious humanist, who cannot even see



       Jünger knew this part of the tale, as we can read in Sanduhrbuch: «Ab-
      15

ertus, der ähnlich wie Gerbert der Nachwelt als Zauberer erschien, hatte ein-
en Androiden erschaffen, der in Köln seine Gäste begrüßte und ihnen die Tür
öffnete. Bekanntlich zerstörte Thomas von Aquin, den der unvermutete Anblick
erschreckte, dieses Wesen durch Stockschläge» (Jünger 1979: 178).
    16
       As Ernst Jünger wrote in the collection of essays Das Sanduhrbuch (1954):
«Heute, wo wir in einen Zusammenhang, in eine Welt von Automaten einget-
reten sind, erblicken wir in den Androiden kaum mehr als eine Spielerei. Dort,
wo wir Androiden formen, kommt es uns nicht mehr auf äußere Ähnlichkeit
mit dem menschlichen Körper an. Wohl vermögen wir sie zu schaffen, wie der
Gläserne Mensch beweist, der schon vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg das Prunkstück
der Dresdner Hygiene-Ausstellung bildete» (ibid.: 172).


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the possibility of an enhancement of the human condition by means of
technological advancement. In his worldview, which corresponds to the
observations made by Friedrich Georg Jünger in his essay Die Perfektion
der Technik (1946), Man and Technology are two insoluble domains, and
one involves the destruction of the other. Because of that, Richard does
not face an antagonizing reproduction of the Human in Zapparoni’s tech-
no-Eden, but rather a formless, radical alterity, which stands for the true,
autonomous essence of technology itself. As Jünger wrote in Sanduhrbuch,
the Uhrwelt, the clockwork-world (or the clock-world) of technology does
not proceed analogically, through the imitation of the exterior appearance
of things, but rather functionally, through the reproduction of their inner
working principles (id. 1979: 172). Technology has then its own nature, an
anti-nature, which does not correspond to the image of the world as Cre-
ation. This explains Jünger’s interesting twist in the tradition of the Adam-
ic model: instead of a robotic humanoid, Richard confronts the featureless
but highly efficient Ungestalt (Horn 2009: 103) of a swarm of nanorobots.
Both the Vitruvian Man and the old Adam dissolve into the faceless collec-
tive lifeforms of technological perfection and what is left behind is only a
severed, artificial ear. Also: the anthropocentric scale of human simulacra
is completely removed and substituted by the unhuman nanoscale of en-
tomic simulacra, as Devin Fore (2008) has pointed out.
      Even though these considerations can make sense in the logic of the
text, we have to remember the ideological background of Richard’s obser-
vations and consequently look at his Luddist horror with caution. As Ber-
nd Stiegler noticed, in fact, the gaze of the Rittmeister is largely influenced
by the romantic dualism of man and machine, nature and culture (Stiegler
2012: 307) – a dualistic thinking that has been completely obliterated by
Zapparoni’s idea of modernity17 and that represents the most posthuman
feature of his techno-Eden. The whole episode concerning the severed hu-
man ear speaks of the impossibility of distinguishing between natural and
artificial within the garden, and it is also revealing of Richard’s inability to
renounce this distinction18. In other words, Richard is the old Adam, a man
from the past, a byproduct of humanist anthropocentric preconceptions,


    17
       Post-humanism and post-dualism are deeply connected, as explained by
Ferrando 2019.
    18
       Cf. «Als ich das Ohr betrachtet hatte, war es mit dem Wunsch geschehen,
daß es ein Spuk, ein Kunstwerk, ein Puppenohr sei, das niemals den Schmerz
gekannt hätte» (Jünger 1978: 546).


                                                                                 567
Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



like the technological nihilism by which he is frightened. His humanist
stance and his conception of the nihilistic religion of technology are, indeed,
two sides of one ideological complex19: The very same exclusive monoan-
thropism that made man ‘the crown of Creation’ is also the one that, after
the death of God, tries to make him the Creator himself. Following those
premises, we can infer that the whole relationship between Richard and
Zapparoni has been structured around this duality. In the eyes of our old
humanist beholder, Zapparoni looks profoundly like the expression of a
nihilistic technocratic power that we have described so far, but, in reality,
his status is way more subtle. Interestingly, Zapparoni is described in fact
as a Nietzschean «Übermensch», a notion which «has been recognized as
a source of inspiration by Transhumanism, Posthumanism, and Antihu-
manism, for different reasons and with divergent interpretations» (Ferran-
do 2019: 48). In the same way, Zapparoni tries to overcome the Human,
but it is not clear if this attempt has to be understood as the enhancement
of human power and freedom through technology (Transhumanism), as
the proclamation of the death of man (Antihumanism), or as the critical
revision of all humanist and dualistic thought, overcome by an amorphic
mixture of nature and technology as in the case of the techno-Eden (Post-
humanism).
      In such a fragmentation of different perspectives, we can only glimpse
Ernst Jünger’s own position, which is suspended between Richard’s reli-
gious concerns and the titanic possibilities offered by Zapparoni. Along
with Heidegger, indeed, Jünger saw the necessity of overcoming the an-
thropocentric worldview but, at the same time, feared the radical auton-
omy of technology and, in some ways, the death of man as such. As an
old Adam in a post-Adamic age, he hesitated at this doorstep till the very
end of his century-long life, looking at the future with apprehension but
also with the cold, analytic gaze of one of the greatest Kulturkritiker of the
twentieth century: «Der Homunkulus öffnet die Tür – und diesmal nicht
für einen Thomas von Aquin, der ihn erschlägt» (Jünger 1990: 138).




       In this regard, we can quote the words of Gregor Streim, who analysed the
      19

complex dialectics between humanism, nihilism and theology in Jügers Heliopo-
lis: «Humanismus und Nihilismus sind nur verschiedene Spielarten anthropoz-
entrischen Denkens» (Streim 2008: 159).


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                             6. Final remarks
      After this heterogenous series of case studies, some final remarks are
necessary. First of all, it is important to stress that the present work does
not aim to assert any causal relation between religion and negative an-
thropism. In fact, what seems problematic both in exclusive monotheism
and in exclusive monoanthropism is only the combination of the logics
of ‘mono-’ and ‘exclusive’, which means the glorification of one category
over the others (one God; one Man), paired with the restriction of this cat-
egory to an unchangeable and non-negotiable set of core features. Quoting
Assmann: «Violence – always understood as propensity and not as con-
sequence – is inherent not in the idea of the One God but in the exclusion
of other gods, not in the idea of truth but in the persecution of untruth»
(Assmann 2008: 110). Where the idea of One Entity and One Truth is, at
least from our point of view, still problematic and open to dangerous in-
terpretations, the most destructive consequences arise only from its fusion
with the parameter of exclusivity. Together they form the basic grammar
upon which any (religious and non-religious) dialectics of oppression can
be built20.
      What direction can we take as humans? A possible answer seems to
come from critical posthuman studies. As Donna Haraway has written in
the influential When Species Meet (2008), in fact, «“posthumanities” is an-
other word for “after monotheism”» (Haraway 2008: 245). Historically, this
comment is undeniably true: the whole reflection on our idea of Man was
unthinkable under the weight of metaphysical preconditions. Conceptually,
however, the question is more problematic. The end of exclusive monothe-
ism, in fact, does not involve the end of exclusive monoanthropism. Jünger’s
text shed light on that: the two phenomena can be culturally related, but
exclusive monoanthropism is way more resistant than God itself. We could
renounce God, but we could not easily renounce the image of ourselves.
Nevertheless, we think that the Adamic model, together with its rhizom-
atic subsystems (exclusive and inclusive monoanthropism etc.) could serve
as a powerful tool for contemporary Posthuman Studies. First of all, its ba-
sic structure can function as a litmus test in order to evaluate the transfor-


    20
      Cf. «The dialectis of otherness is the inner engine of humanist Man’s power
[…]. All other modes of embodiment are cast out of the subject position and they
include anthropomorphic others: non-white, non-masculine, non-normal, non-
young, non-healthy, disabled, malformed or enhanced people» (Braidotti 2013: 67).


                                                                                  569
Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



mations at work within different epochs, cultural spheres and individual
Weltanschauungen, as our examples have shown. Jünger’s substitution of the
human simulacrum with its entomic counterpart, as well as Asimov’s play
with the boundaries of the theological-juridical complex in the Bicentennial
Man, are nothing more than morphological deviations from a basic formula,
which, however, signalize monumental conceptual differences regarding the
approach to the problem of human simulacra. In other words, the Adamic
formula is a powerful hermeneutical grid, which enables the reader to rap-
idly recognize the diegetic scheme of a text, as well as to identify its subtle
variations and their conceptual repercussions. Following the same premises,
it can be argued that the focus on the concept of ‘anthropos’ and its relation-
ship with alterity (exclusivity, inclusivity) described by the Adamic model
could also work well along the different critical labels (posthumanism, trans-
humanism, humanism) already used in the present research field. In fact,
when the theoretical framework of traditional Humanism can be seen as an
archetypical form of exclusive monoanthropism, the transhumanist stance
fluctuates between an exclusive and an inclusive form of monoanthropism,
dealing with the development of a single idea of the Human and a more
or less open confrontation with its technological reproductions. Converse-
ly, the wildly different streams of critical posthumanism seemed to have
identified the dangerous nature of these two forms of monoanthropism21, as
well as their connection with the metaphysical bequest of Judeo-Christian
culture, and gravitated toward a reflexion on the ‘anthopos’ freed from the
Commandment of uniqueness22. Whether such a deconstructive approach
is leading us to an anthropic counterpart of ‘atheism’, in which the idea of
Man is totally dismantled, or to some form of ‘polyanthropism’, in which
the ‘anthropos’ is completely detached from its original referent and used to
denote every form of self-aware being, is up for debate. In this sense, howev-
er, the Adamic model functions as a roadmap to further differentiate those
labels, while hooking them to the history of religious forms on which they
so strongly depend.


       Cf. Rosi Braidotti’s reference to our concept of monoanthropism: «Post-an-
      21

thropocentrism displaces the notion of species hierarchy, and of a single, com-
mon standard for ‘Man’ as the measure of all things» (Braidotti 2013: 67).
    22
       Cf. «The posthuman overcoming of human primacy, though, is not to be
replaced with other types of primacies (such as the one of the machines). Posthu-
manism can be seen as a post-exclusivism: an empirical philosophy of mediation
which offers a reconciliation of existence in its broadest significations» (Ferrando
2013: 29).


570
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      One final note: nowadays, it is clear that our self-investiture as mas-
ters of the natural world and the establishment of a unique imago hominis
to which all humans need to conform have played a crucial role in vari-
ous forms of exploitation and oppression throughout the history of the
Western world: speciesism, sexism, racism, heteronormativity, ableism, to
quote but a few examples. Frankenstein’s frontier, the actual problem of
human simulacra, has only been confined to the realm of speculative fic-
tion and has worked mainly as a device of self-reflexion, through which
the episteme of the ‘anthropos’ could observe itself. With the rapid ad-
vancement of artificial intelligence, however, the necessity of a serious di-
alogue on roboethics23 is becoming more and more urgent. That is where
Posthuman Studies and the Adamic model are actually drifting away from
fiction and entering the field of science: are we ready to renounce the pri-
macy of self-awareness? Or, in other words: would we let an android eat
from the tree of knowledge, and be like us? In this sense, roboethics should
be ethics regulating robotic behavior as well as ethics regulating our be-
havior towards the robots themselves. Looking at history, in fact, the main
concern of such an ontological trespass is not what they could do to us, as
our dystopic Adamic phantasies have always projected, but, instead, what
we could do to them.




    23
         On this topic see Campa 2015: 77-108.


                                                                                   571
Matteo Zupancic, Ad imaginem suam



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                                    The Author
      Matteo Zupancic

      Matteo Zupancic has received a PhD in Discipline Linguistiche e Let-
terature Straniere/Neuere Deutsche Literatur (2022) from the University of
Pisa and the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen. Previously (2013-2018),
he studied German and Italian literature at the Scuola Normale Superiore
and the University of Pisa. In 2019, he was Stipendiat at the Deutsches Lit-
eraturarchiv, Marbach. His PhD thesis was focused on the development of
a theoretical and methodological proposal for the analysis of the Sprachre-
flexion in German modernity.

      Email: matteo.zupancic@phd.unipi.it




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                                    Between, vol. XII, n. 24 (novembre/November 2022)



                               The article
     Date sent: 31/03/2022
     Date accepted: 31/07/2022
     Date published: 30/11/2022



                       How to cite this article
     Zupancic, Matteo, “Ad imaginem suam. The Adamic Model and Ex-
clusive Monoanthropism in Human Simulacra”, Entering the Simulacra
World, Eds. A. Ghezzani - L. Giovannelli - F. Rossi - C. Savettieri, Between,
XII.24 (2022): 551-575, www.betweenjournal.it




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