John,
I refer to your message of 18:25 20/07/00 -0400
I won't do a cut and paste job on your latest message because it will
become too bitty. Also, being a non-academic myself without much practice
in reading and writing sociological-type language, I found Darnovsky's
article difficult to read so I won't comment on your quotes from her. After
having to do double and triple takes on many of her sentences in the
original article I gave up quite early on. Instead, I was prompted by her
appendices -- that there are web sites which are pushing hard one way or
the other. (I actually applaud this when debate is carried out at verbal
level -- but one can already sense that the degree of polarisation is such
that we can be reasonably certain that large numbers of rent-a-crowd
malcontents will join in the "debate" fairly soon and we'll see the usual
violent demonstrations and so on.)
So let me make a couple of comments on your message:
1. I see you were thinking of a "perpetually disadvantaged" class
(undermenschen). From my reading of history there is no such thing. Sooner
or later, all classes (within an overall culture) benefit from economic
development. The so-called underclass within a culture is a snapshot, a
statistical artifact. In actuality, (young) people are generally moving
out of poverty as they get older and people are descending into poverty in
old age. I'm not at all suggesting that we should be complacent about this,
of course. All I am saying is that it is not a static phenomenon with a
fixed population. Of course, there are many pockets of poverty and despair
even in advanced countries due to the particular characteristics of their
own localities. These pockets may persist for generations, but this is not
the same as saying that there is a permanent underclass over the whole of
the larger society.* In short, benefits from bioscience may take time to
diffuse through society but, as they have to be funded, they'll make
progress initially from rich customers first who can afford to pay high
prices. I know that this "trickle-down" view of economic development is
derided by many, but it doesn't alter the fact that this is what happens.
2. In my original message I made no claim whatsoever to being an expert on
genetics -- as you (apparently) took me to be. I merely quoted facts which
are in the public domain.
(*Having said that, I am becoming increasingly worried that, in this modern
informational age, the state educational systems of advanced countries are
falling down badly on the teaching the necessary skills required for jobs.
Even basic skills are less well taught than they were in Victorian times.
In the UK, one person in five cannot use the Yellow Pages or can do simple
arithmetic. Illiteracy and innumeracy are growing steadily. For the first
time in history there appears to be a situation where increasing numbers of
people are unable to progress upwards because their motivations and
intellectual skills have become permanently blunted early in life. I hope
I'm wrong about this.)
Keith Hudson
At 18:25 20/07/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Hello Keith,
>
>Thanks for your reply. Work got in the way.
>
>> I refer to John McLarens message of 16:11 19/07/00
>> -0400:
>
>> > Shame on you Keith.
>
>> I'm totally non-plussed by this comment.
>
>I took it that you were trying to squelch debate from the lofty heights of
>learning. Who but someone on the same perch could debate this issue with
>you on the same ground, I wondered. Expertise has its privileges. Stifling
> public debate is not one of them, I thought.
>
>You have denied doing that. I take you at your word without any reserve.
>Perhaps that helps to clear away your puzzlement so the moderator can
>sally forth again. <g>
>
>As for the numerous mistakes in my post, I have learned from you that I
>need to be a good deal more meticulous about narrowing the gap between my
>thoughts and my words, not to mention other gaffes that I may commit ot
>out of simple ignorance. That's a tall order for someone not disciplined
>to academic standards of peer review, although I beg for no mercy on that
>account.
>
>I will never again confuse inherited wealth with what I was thinking at
>the time. I meant concentration of wealth. Your explanation was a
>revelation to me on the subject. Frankly, I wouldn't have believed it,
>even had I been thinking of it in that way. However, I can't doubt your
>authority on the subject and I appreciate the instruction. I would do well
>to keep the dust of whatever history books I may have, let alone read them.
>
>When I spoke of my profound contempt for those who promote their wares on
>the basis of some specious benefit to the 'perpetually disadvantaged', I
>was not thinking of individuals, either, but of a perpetual class:
>undermenschen, common people or even the not-so-rich. Especially the
>not-so-rich when it comes to medical benefits and heroic care. Marcy
>Darnovsky wrote:
>
>> > > Many people are reluctant to oppose human germline
>> > > engineering because they believe that "genetics" will
>> > > deliver medical cures or treatments.
>
>I don't have to tell you that this kind of sell is cynical, simply because
>those who make such claims don't make them for public benefit. They claim
>public benefit for very private / corporate enrichment. Support for
>projects designed to advantage a predatory upper crust of beneficiaries
>is routinely drawn from the ranks of common people and paupers alike,
>simply by playing upon their fears, or promising them crumbs that may fall
>from the altar on which the poor paupers are perpetually sacrificed to
>propitiate the gods of greed. Did I really write that? <g> Anyway,
>Darnovsky wrote:
>
>> > > But there is no reason that we cannot forgo germline
>> > > engineering and still support other genetic technologies
>> > > that do in fact hold promising medical potential. In
>> > > fact, the medical justifications for human germline
>> > > engineering are strained, while its ethical and
>> > > political risks are profound.
>
>Are they indeed? Is this declamatory? What are some of those risks, I
wonder?
>
>> > > Fortunately, the distinction between human germline
>> > > engineering and other genetic technologies (including
>> > > somatic genetic engineering) is a reasonably clear
>> > > technical demarcation. ...
>
>Clearly distinguishable? Something makes me think everyone could profit
>from your opinion on this. You say:
>
>> John has fallen into the trap of equating voluntary
>> eugenics with coercive eugenics as carried out by State
>> governments (and at a stage when eugenic knowledge was,
>> and remains, fairly primitive). How I tire of such
>> black-and-white moralistic statements. There are many
>> practices which are perfectly moral if done voluntarily
>> but which are immoral if enforced by others.
>
>Marcy Darnovsky wrote:
>
>> > > Silver understands that such scenarios are disconcerting.
>> > > He counsels realism. In other words, he celebrates the
>> > > free reign of the market and perpetuates the myth that
>> > > private choices have no public consequences. ...
>
>Not to put too fine a point on it, but I consider morality an attribute of
>individuals -- so, too, the fault of being moralistic. I fancy that
>something can be moral or the contrary from any individual point of view
>but still offend against a public code of ethics.
>
>I regard genetics an ethical issue -- an issue of public concern about
>individual choice -- and as such, eminently fit for open public debate,
>debate informed by honest scientific information, information which is not
>coloured by the third-party endorsements of campaign communicators. I am
>one of those who, as Darnovsky puts it, is inspired by
>
>> > > wariness of techno-scientific hubris and a reductionist
>> > > world view, or their objections to corporate ownership
>> > > of life at the molecular level, or their skepticism
>> > > about the drastic technological manipulation of the
>> > > natural world.
>
>More to your point of objection, I suspect, Darnovsky said:
>
>> > > Promoting a future of genetically engineered inequality
>> > > legitimizes the vast existing injustices that are
>> > > socially arranged and enforced. Marketing the ability to
>> > > specify our children's appearance and abilities
>> > > encourages a grotesque consumerist mentality toward
>> > > children and all human life. Fostering the notion that
>> > > only a "perfect baby" is worthy of life ... perpetuates
>> > > standards of perfection set by a market system that
>> > > caters to political, economic, and cultural elites.
>
>But if Darnovsky does declaim, I think she declaims against the the
>campaign behind human genetics for private and anti-social purposes of
>slight public benefit and great public and individual risk. She may
>surpass the foreseeable limits of the technology in her objections. But,
>if she does, does she not also claim to have been a reluctant convert of
>those who promote the 'technological manipulation of the natural world'
>without the slightest qualm, secure in the belief that 'corporate
>ownership of life at the molecular level' is a good thing?
>
>Darnovsky also observes (I thought rather profoundly) that
>
>> > > Channeling hopes for human betterment into preoccupation
>> > > with genetic fixes shrinks our already withered
>> > > commitments to improving social conditions and enriching
>> > > cultural and community life.
>
>I think you mistook the purpose for my professing atheism in relation to
>this issue, but I'll take your suggestion about agnosticism under
>advisement without raising your hopes. I counselled Prince Charles to
>dissociate his duties as pontifex from his views on GMOs, and just look
>what happened!
>
>I hope that the issue that Darnovsky puts so eloquently will not be lost
>in this intellectual gymnasium because of my own false steps. I'm a
>curious bloke who made a curious entrance, to be sure. But the issue, as
>you say is too damned important to be lost to discussion for the sake of
>artificial standards of academic propriety. Excuse me, while I get back to
>my seat in the bleachers where I belong.
>
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>--
>John McLaren
>Free Anti-spam service: http://www.brightmail.com
>
>
