Although the myth of the vampire is older then Bram Stoker, Count Dracula stood as the standard reference for blood-drinking monstrosity for much of the twentieth century and functioned variously to stand in for the dangers of unbridled desire, the uncanny in the midst of domesticity and, more potently, the alien other infecting the natural order. F W Murnau’s Nosferatu, masterpiece though it is, nevertheless seems to develop this trope into a suggestion that Jewish infiltration would undermine the integrity of the fatherland and British renditions of the story similarly portray the monster as a foreign devil set to undermine the empire by stealth. Karl Marx, of course, famously identified the ‘Vampire like’ nature of Capital which ‘lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks’ and it is possible to see the more cuddly, indeed somewhat domesticated vampires of contemporary culture as representations of the insidiousness of post-Fordist labour where the diminishing boundary between production and consumption means that we bare our necks willingly in exchange for social and cultural capital. In the midst of a diminishing welfare state, the system that demands our conformity to entrepreneurial models of self understanding persuades us also that correct maintenance of our bodies is a mark of responsible citizenship. Indeed, it is in our best interests to welcome the vampire. He may suck our blood but, in return, he offers the potential of immortality and, more importantly, eternal youth.
Amid fears of an ‘ageing population’ – a population, perhaps more accurately, too precariously employed to invest in their old age, medical science increasingly turns its attention (and its funding) to cures, not for specific diseases, but for the condition of ageing in itself. Enter the vampire – set to gain a new lease of life (or undeath) via medical professionals experimenting with exchanging new blood for old. Elizabeth Bathory, the ‘Blood Countess’ scandalised sixteenth century Hungary with her lust for the blood of young virgins which she believed would restore her youth. Needless to say, it didn’t work and she died in prison at the age of fifty-four. But what Michel Foucault calls the ‘thematics of blood‘ continues to exert a powerful influence on the way that we understand the health and potential of the body, despite the nineteenth century turn to the deployment of sexuality as a disciplinary mechanism in the management of populations and the associated, but more recent, rise of genetics as the discourse which dominates debates about heredity and longevity. In popular discourse, genes take on a life of their own, driven largely by the wide acceptance of Richard Dawkins’ ‘selfish gene‘ theory, despite the fact that, as Dawkins himself would no doubt attest, there is no direct correlation between, for instance, genetic inheritance and the potential for a long and happy life. Aside from the combination of proteins which structure individual DNA, a variety of factors, including environment, individual psychology and the structure of social relationships all play a part in determining the outcome of any given lifespan. Nevertheless, the discourse of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ genes continues to influence the way that we understand biological and even behavioural heredity, driven by a cultural inheritance in which the thematics of blood confirmed both sovereign power and the legitimacy of colonialism and slavery.
The tagline of Michael and Peter Spierig’s 2009 vampire movie, Daybreakers, ‘The battle for blood begins…’ may prove prescient if the blood swapping techniques that have proved effective in reversing the ageing process in mice are found to also work on humans. In the movie, a bloated corporation harvests human blood to feed the dominant population of vampires. Despite the fact that the humans are dying out and one of the scientists accidentally discovers a cure for vampirism, the power elite remain committed to preserving the human species for vampire food, rather than become human themselves and thus relinquish their position at the top of the food chain. The mice in one of the recent experiments were literally spliced together so that the ‘stronger’ blood of the younger mouse could ‘infect’ the older body of its forcefully conjoined twin and restore it to youth and longevity. The parallels are striking. Organ harvesting and trafficking is already a thriving black market with organ brokers raking in the cash from the ageing rich. The source of their commodity is the young but desperate poor. Despite the fact that the experiments with mice are a prelude to isolating, and synthesising, the protein responsible for reversing age related damage to organs, it is not difficult to imagine the Daybreakers scenario becoming a reality, driven by the lure of the vampire myth and the residual cultural effects of the thematics of blood. How long before vampirism becomes a lifestyle choice for the wealthy elite?
Posthuman Remains 