Apparently, since I am being attacked in the Aberdeen American News, they have run my column on Eric Cohen's new book, In The Shadow of Progress: Being Human In The Age Of Technology. You have to have read my piece in order to understand the attack. Read both. Needless to say, the difference between one choosing to be an organ donor and the willful destruction of a human embryo is fairly obvious so I will not add to that obvious point. Here is what I wrote:
Our technological
age allows us power over nature that our ancestors could only dream of. In his new book, “In The Shadow of Progress:
Being Human in the Age of Technology,” Eric Cohen reminds us that human life is
made up of tragedy that technology cannot remove and hope that it cannot
replace.
Technology has
surely made our lives better in countless ways. We are blissfully liberated from much of the drudgery of past times,
using machines to cook our food, do our dishes, and clean our homes. Science and technology give hope to the child
stricken with cancer, who only a few years ago would have been sentenced to
death. Only a fool wishes to return to
the harsh past.
Cohen warns
us, though, that technology also alienates us from the human experience. The fervent belief in inevitable progress blinds
us to the costs of technology as we increasingly use technology to manipulate
our very humanity in the service of progress. Science runs the danger of seeing man as just more matter to be
manipulated. In this sense man is both a
beast and god. He is at once raw
material and the master of it.
“The
methods of science,” Cohen writes, “cannot vindicate the ends of science.” Many
scientists see it as their duty to ameliorate human misery, “to seek power in
the name of human charity.” But science, in itself, cannot tell us, for
example, why it is wrong to kill some in order to benefit others. Science is, after all, just a method. Scientific
knowledge gives some the power over others, but it does not give wisdom as to
how to use that power.
Science
cannot define its own limits. There is
much about us that is limits us. We did
not choose when we were born, we did not choose our sex, and we do not get to
choose when we die. “It is this truth about our natures,” Cohen writes, “that
the grand dreamers of the biotechnology revolution too often forget, precisely
because they seek bodies that never decline and souls that never sorrow.”
In this
sense the scientist and the bohemian are partners. There is “a connection in the belief that
human limits should be overcome, taboos are anathema, and human shame is an
illusion.” Both are interested in liberation from
nature.
Some wish women
to be liberated from their child-bearing nature, so we create artificial contraception
and abortion to rid us of unwanted children. Some hope for the day when genetics will allow
us to make better babies than nature. We
use technology to liberate us from aging through cosmetics and plastic
surgery. We can avoid sorrow through
drugs that can make sure we never really feel bad. All of this suggests a frustration with
nature’s unwillingness to cater to our desires.
So we
become like Dr. Frankenstein, manipulating life to satisfy our own
desires. In the case of embryonic stem
cell research we literally use the parts of dead human beings for our own
benefit.
We are also
tempted to offend our nation’s deepest held belief, the belief in the equality
of all. We define some lives as
“valuable” others as “invaluable,” thus worth letting die. Some children are “wanted,” others “unwanted”
and thus discardable. Genetic testing
allows us to eliminate Down syndrome not by curing the ailment but by killing in
the womb those who suffer from the disability. Cohen writes, “We will replace
the hard work of human love for the disabled with a false compassion that
simply weeds out the unfit. It is hard
to see how the equal dignity of persons with Down syndrome is served by
treating Down syndrome as a legitimate reason to abort.”
Some say we
should take the politics out of science. But politics is really just the act of discussing how we ought to live
with each other. In his new book, Eric Cohen gives us some of the language we
need to engage in that politics.
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