Clones in Our Lifetime

Copies: Review of Catherine Anderson "Clones in Our Lifetime" Lecture.
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From movies, we gain a shallow understanding. The Island, a recent film, portrays a micro colony of post-apocalyptic survivors. It is a near utopia, but the governance and purpose of the group is mysterious. Eventually we learn that the protagonist and his whole world are clones. They are kept in this distopia which effectively functions as a warehouse of human "product," clones reserved for the very rich should they one day require a new organ or whatnot. The story becomes a story of Exodus and the clones/subhumans/slaves are eventually led to full humanity through emancipation. The moral predicament is surprising not for it's unique modernity but as it is an ancient story of exodus underneath, the morality is no different with clones than it is with slaves or any other class of the oppressed.

Catherine Anderson came to speak to us on behalf of the provincial genetics science education mandate. Cloning is such an overhyped issue, overused in Hollywood. It is a fashionable topic. We see that in the stories of people jumping the bandwagon on false human cloning news reports.

In reality, the technology of cloning is unlikely to be so simple. Our sexual biological paradigm is inherently against cloning. Sex is understood through evolutionary biology to be important primarily as it ensures diversity. Genetic diversity is necessary for large populations that won't constantly be brought down by plague. Cloning is a strategy used in biology rarely and in moderate amounts. It is simply too unnatural, too unsafe, for there to be large human populations of clones. It would not be sustainable. So the moral and ethical issues are partly pre-determined by nature. No is the answer. Realistically there are a plethora of ideas surrounding genetic engineering that are a lot more interesting to me and a lot more likely to challenge us. Yet somehow, we parcel up these ideas, and those ideas, into dramatically isolated topics. Perhaps this is due to the dramatic necessities of the motion picture arts; a more broad perspective is likely to yield understanding.

Obviously individuals should be treated as persons. But what about pigs grown with human organs? In many instances it is a simple case of technology being used for good or evil. Depending on circumstance, it's easy to imagine both good or evil consequences. Likewise, with a 'technology' such as a chair or a gun: I can use either for socially constructive or destructive aims. The morality is not in the object, but in the act or the politics. Obviously, a gun is easier to use for evil, and so deciding what technologies are widely available is a priority.

Politics is very central, therefore, as that is what this all boils down to. Social justice allows for just solutions to new problems, or rather often the same old problems in new forms. Our world is full of new types of problems. While there may be religious or traditionalist types who would like to turn back the clock and close the pandora's box of knowledge that technologies like genetic manipulation bring to us, it is impossible. It's a pandora's box after all. Politics is always central and the questions of playing God with our genes are more scary because we as a species have a terrible record of cooperating. Our Political History is a long endless list of wars about simple old problems. How can one expect more in facing complex new misunderstood problems?

Yet even Catherine, in her presentation, didn't know about the patenting of genes of Aboriginals or many such questions which are already in the public imagination. The goal of education, claimed by the body she represents under the BC government, is noble. Yet, how can they claim to be educating people when they are blind to the most dramatic signposts in the political debate? Hello colonialism! By feigning the impossible objectivity she is taking a stance; apolitical is a political stance.

The ethics oversight board is the only concept of dealing with these issues her group suggests. Their naive corporate approach that denies the possibility of unofficial technology is worrisome. This situation reminds me of early internet utopians, who could not imagine the commercial onslaught that the 'information superhighway' would face. How can they expect justice when the oversight board is in a position to be just as much a group of PR accenters to mollify the public as it is a group to oversee and protect the public from industry. The language of ethics board oversight is the language of corporate spin, it seems from the presentation and the seminar group's reaction.

However, I don't think that this group is malicious in intent, simply naive. BC is in violation of patents for breast cancer research, this is a case of the political realities right here and now; enough with the abstract future! I wish that Catherine had focused more on this. Intellecutal Private Property is one of the key issues defining our new era as much or more than the physically dramatic technology of gene manipulation.

Who wants to live forever anyway? Eternal youth is a metaphor for present day life, not practical reality. Look at Micheal Jackson to see how far away from common desire for eternal youth he is. I don't find these extreme moral challenges to be terribly useful, we are not likely to have to decide about living forever but more the grey areas. We face the same problems with these complex 'new' topics as we do with older more supposedly understood realities. The dangers of marketing and manufactured desires are still overwhelming. Common sense moral issues of murder, and individuality, are in fact what all this cloning stuff is about. The new age approach is unhelpful, it may even be said to be a type of marketing invading the public discourse.

I am not terribly worried about clones in our lifetime. I am worried about drones right now who accept and propagate propaganda. I am worried about simplifying and dumbing down the public discourse, which is inevitable with rapid fire mass media. I am worried about science becoming privatised wholesale so that all of our debate is moot.

Anderson, Catherine. "Clones in Our Lifetime." Lecture. Art History 333. Interdisciplinary Forums: Studies in Contemporary Praxis . Emily Carr Institute, Vancouver. 26 Jan. 2006.