A tail of two Cayennes

Like Marian has pointed out, to look at things from Haraway's point of view, we must understand that we are implicated. Despite her obfuscation, I certainly felt implicated--although probably not at the point Haraway expected. I'm not sure if it's coindence or just another odd, spiraling complexity, but our dogs share a name. Cayenne, named after the pepper (in fact my Cayenne has already made an appearance). But while it would seem a coincidence such as this might open up the circuits between us, as I tried to imagine her Cayenne and my Cayenne and pondered her question of 'who or what do we touch when we touch a dog?' I was left with one basic observation that Marian has pointed out here: things are complicated and connected, and we’ll never not be implicated in the web of individual-biological-technological-societal interactions. If Marian has stated the point here, I want to push further into Haraway's expression of that point. With this exerpt, with this book--who is she addressing that seems unaware of this fact?

I appreciated her discussions of “the Great Divide” as a particular problem, and thought that her lapdog/laptop example grounded her argument by pointing out that we usually view this as a dilemma. (Perhaps I should also go explore A Cyborg Manifesto.) At the same time (and at the risk of going too far with the metaphor) , I still don’t understand what she wants. Anyone who is as much of a homebody as me can probably tell you that it is entirely possible to balance both a lapcat and a laptop at the same time (or the cat might even forsake you altogether and choose the laptop as an heated sleeping pad on par with your lap). The lines are blurred to begin with and it doesn't take much to begin to imagine that 'the Great Divide' is an illusion. Isn't that what she wants? Where is the issue that Haraway is attempting to combat? 

Does she want us to wander around in awe of the complexity of the natural and technological worlds in which we are intertwined and implicated? I would argue that we do and can. What we demonstrate on a day-to-day basis is selective attention, and we do it for a reason. For example, the earbuds I plugged into to my laptop to hear as I was watching Purple Finch’s videos work because tiny magnets in each of them create sound waves. These magnets are neodymium, probably mined from Bayan Obo Mining District in Inner Mongolia, which is one of the largest deposits of rare earth metals. I can easily make myself aware of this connection, I can do more research on other pieces of technology that I use daily, and I can learn as much as possible about these interconnected systems both that we create and which simply exist that leads the world to existing and changing the way it does. Still, to listen to those videos, I needed to ignore all that information, simply reach for my headphones and listen. it doesn't mean that I am unaware of those connections, or that I value them less, it simply means that to get through the day I must ignore pieces of the constant influx of information (further complicated by my own imagination) around me. Selective attention.