Superhumans and Mutants

The light-speed of the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki forces a recalibration of other speeds as well. The succeeding Cold War witnessed one such recalibration in the animal speed of the moving body: while proxy wars were fought in the jungles of the underdeveloped world, they were contested in the sporting arenas of the overdeveloped world as well. East versus West sporting competition launched a total rationalization of the athletic body as object of science that could be engineered for the optimal pursuit of speed in the name of ideology. The fallout from this proxy sporting war was most notably witnessed with the national teams of East Germany, which implemented programs of steroid use to increase speed and power for both its male and female athletes, resulting in short-term athletic success at the expense of substantial physical deformities later in life. From state-sponsored subhumanization to state-sponsored superhumanization and its mutant consequences in a matter of three decades, the jackboot march of progress carried on.

From the forthcoming essay:
"La Bombe Philosophique: An Archaeology of the Stereoscopic Present (Or, Sorting Through the Shrapnel)"