Autopoiesis and (Prosaic) Heroism : Of Gods and Overmen (and Giant Insects)

Abstract

Autopoiesis lies at the centre of what we understand as modernity - the individual and society build themselves up from themselves, or so the narrative goes. This modern effort of the self-made man and the world is linked to a peculiar form of heroism, which is reflected by modern authors. In Hegel's work, we encounter the "world-historical individual", and in Nietzsche's work, we encounter the "overman". Their heroism is of a specific kind; it is founded on the dialectic of power and powerlessness. Man creates himself in his own image and then, having achieved this, realises that he, as an individual, holds no power over the world that he has created, that is, over society. Eventually, this emerges even in the most unheroic, even antiheroic, author of modernity, Franz Kafka. In his Metamorphosis, he presents a model that appears, though on the surface, to be a decisive separation from any form of heroism.