Libertarianism in Gattaca
It seems there's three main stances on using technology to enhance human abilities (transhumanism): bioconservatism, libertarian transhumanism, and-the most recently conceived- democratic transhumanism. Bioconservatism is for those who feel hesitance about transhumanism, especially about the possibility of social class disruption. Gattaca manifests, libertarian, and it seems economic libertarian, transhumanism. As the name implies, libertarian transhumanists believe in an individual's rights to choose whether or not to gain extra genetic or cyborg-ish (or would genetic alteration be condsidered cyborg by Klyne's definition?) material. The economic libertarian then take a stance against government implemented human enhancement technologies, which brings to mind our earlier discussion of public versus private, Bill Clinton versus Tony Blair, but on the Bill Clinton side, leaning far more to privatization and exchange of capital and so on.
We've talked about how in Gattaca the nation seems entirely corporate, with the cash flow dividing the haves from the haves-nots. Marx could be applied here, with the rise of the new proletariat, blue-collar and with no means of gaining capital except selling their labor. Those with perfect genes control the means of production and where capital-in this case technology, mone and genes- flows and so are the new bourgeoisie. But, no revolution of the masses occurs. Vincent doesn't seem to care for the betterment of fellow dengenerates, only his own climb to the top of the 'gene ladder', thus propagating the libertarian mindsight of to each his own. So in the world of Gattaca, both genes and money are capital and since privatization seems to dominate, disruption of social order (as bioconservatives fear) has occurred. The direct contrast to this economic libertarian set is democratic transhumanism, as defined in the 2004 book Citizen Cyborg by James Hughes, where Hughes proposes making altering technology available to everyone, essesntially goverment funded and controlled, so there's equal distribution of enhancement. Democratic transhumanists still believe individuals should have control over their own bodies but instead root their beliefs in the "principles of democracy: the liberty, equality, and solidarity of persons" (quoted from the Wiki article on the book). I find the use of solidarity interesting here. It suggests all persons (note the ambiguity, not human necessarily) are in the same ship, our shared status as conscious beings, and our need to remain compassionate to one another.
What would Gattaca have been like if democratic transhumanism dominated? Any thoughts on if bioconservatism, democratic, or libertarian transhumanism should be implemented into actual policy?
We've talked about how in Gattaca the nation seems entirely corporate, with the cash flow dividing the haves from the haves-nots. Marx could be applied here, with the rise of the new proletariat, blue-collar and with no means of gaining capital except selling their labor. Those with perfect genes control the means of production and where capital-in this case technology, mone and genes- flows and so are the new bourgeoisie. But, no revolution of the masses occurs. Vincent doesn't seem to care for the betterment of fellow dengenerates, only his own climb to the top of the 'gene ladder', thus propagating the libertarian mindsight of to each his own. So in the world of Gattaca, both genes and money are capital and since privatization seems to dominate, disruption of social order (as bioconservatives fear) has occurred. The direct contrast to this economic libertarian set is democratic transhumanism, as defined in the 2004 book Citizen Cyborg by James Hughes, where Hughes proposes making altering technology available to everyone, essesntially goverment funded and controlled, so there's equal distribution of enhancement. Democratic transhumanists still believe individuals should have control over their own bodies but instead root their beliefs in the "principles of democracy: the liberty, equality, and solidarity of persons" (quoted from the Wiki article on the book). I find the use of solidarity interesting here. It suggests all persons (note the ambiguity, not human necessarily) are in the same ship, our shared status as conscious beings, and our need to remain compassionate to one another.
What would Gattaca have been like if democratic transhumanism dominated? Any thoughts on if bioconservatism, democratic, or libertarian transhumanism should be implemented into actual policy?
posted by Katie at 2:52 PM
1 Comments:
Katie -
I often use the metaphor of Gattaca to show how silly bioconservatism is: can you imagine how the average American would feel (especially after the murderous astronaut incident) if NASA were to discover that an astronaut in training had deceived them with faked blood and urine samples for a year in order to hide the fact that s/he was likely to die in space? That Gattaca became a story of heroic resistance to genetic enhancement instead of a horrifying tale of a guy who wanted to subject his corpse on fellow astronauts can only be explained by biocon yuck factor biases. But your question about how a dem-trans society would have handled the Gattaca dilemmas is also very interesting. By the way, we have switched to the terminology "technoprogressive" - its a little more melodious, and you are welcome to join at the ieet.org or technoliberation.net.
- J. Hughes, author Citizen Cyborg
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