Transcending Power: Investigating the European Union as a Mouthpiece for Transhumanist Thought

Abstract: This study arises from an existential concern that there is an obliviousness in academia with regards to the recent eruption of the transhumanist movement–an ideological force imbued with potentially calamitous socioecological consequences. With the support from recent claims that the transhumanist ideology exerts powerful influence on Western politics, this study seeks to investigate how the transhumanist ideology has become diluted into parts of the European Union and why this should be a concern from a human ecology lens. This is done by conducting a genealogy and a Foucauldian discourse analysis from a poststructural and Buddhist ontological stance on selected documents published by the European Union. The results show that the European Union acts as a mouthpiece for transhumanist imaginaries, amplifying transhumanist concepts albeit in implicit ways. Using the theory of sociotechnical imaginaries (STIs) and Gramsci's theory of hegemony, I argue that the transhumanist ideology functions as a panoply of techno-prophetic imaginaries that, through the support of governments and Big Tech corporations, has successfully transcended into some of our most respected organisations such as the European Union. Finally, drawing from the results, this study critically discusses some socioecological implications that could follow should the transhumanist ideology continue to expand unabated.