ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I consider how subject forming notions are experienced by posthuman subjectivities by extending humanist concepts such as aspects of “achievement” and how this lends itself to a sense of progression and betterment. Even in the context of an MMORPG, in a research project that specifically seeks to explore being posthuman, I am plagued by the desire to see the self as singular, and to make sense of my experiences in linear ways that conform to certain expectations of the good citizen. I therefore problematise those experiences and consider what it would mean to view our approaches to achievement, attention, memory, and development in a posthuman way. I explore how certain aspects of how we understand ourselves are historically contingent and therefore need “posthumanising”. This chapter demonstrates how certain humanist concepts of subject formation are prevalent even within the posthuman context of the avatar-gamer subjectivity, thus demonstrating humanism’s strong grip on our understandings of “self”. It then critically engages with these experiences of motivation, attention, progression, their links to neoliberalism and the entrepreneurial self, and what our histories mean to us from a posthuman perspective, to consider how our understandings of subjectivity need to be radically rethought.
