Reading
from “Our Posthuman Future; Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution,” by Francis Fukuyama
I was born in 1952, right in the middle of the American baby boom. For any person growing up as I did in the middle decades of the twentieth century, the future and its terrifying possibilities were defined by two books, George Orwell’s 1984 (first published in 1949) and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (published in 1932).
The two books were far more prescient than anyone realized at the time, because they were centered on two different technologies that would in fact emerge and shape the world over the next two generations. The novel 1984 was about what we now call information technology: central to the success of the vast, totalitarian empire that had been set up over Oceania was a device called the telescreen, a wall-sized flat-panel display that could simultaneously send and receive images from each individual household to a hovering Big Brother. The telescreen was what permitted the vast centralization of social life under the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Love. …
Brave New World, by contrast, was about the other big technological revolution about to take place, that of biotechnology. … the hatching of people not in wombs but, as we now say, in vitro; the drug soma, which gave people instant happiness; the Feelies, in which sensation was simulated by implanted electrodes; and the modification of behavior through constant subliminal repetition and, when that didn’t work, through the administration of various artificial hormones. …
With at least half a century separating us from the publication of these books, we can see that while the technological predictions they made were startlingly accurate, the political predictions of the first book, 1984, were entirely wrong. The year 1984 … say the introduction of a new model of the IBM personal computer and the beginning of what became the PC revolution. … the personal computer, linked to the Internet, was in fact the realization of Orwell’s telescreen. But instead of becoming an instrument of centralization and tyranny, it led to just the opposite: the democratization of access to information and the decentralization of politics. … Just five years after 1984, … the Soviet Union and its empire collapsed, and the totalitarian threat that Orwell had so vividly evoked vanished. …
The political prescience of … Brave New World, remains to be seen. Many of the technologies that Huxley envisioned, like in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, psychotropic drugs, and genetic engineering for the manufacture of children, are already here or just over the horizon. But this revolution has only just begun; the daily avalanche of announcements of new breakthroughs in biomedical technology and achievements and achievements such as the completion of the Human Genome Project in the year 2000 portend much more serious changes to come.
Of the nightmares evoked by these two books, Brave New World’s always struck me as more subtle and more challenging. It is easy to see what’s wrong with the world of 1984 … .
In Brave New World, by contrast, the evil is not so obvious because no one is hurt; indeed, this is a world in which everyone gets what they want. … There is even a government ministry to ensure that the length of time between the appearance of a desire and its satisfaction is kept to a minimum. …
Since the novel’s publication, there have probably been several million high school essays written in answer to the question, “What’s wrong with this picture?” The answer given … usually runs something like this: the people in Brave New World may be healthy and happy, but they have ceased to be human beings. They no longer struggle, aspire, love, feel pain, make difficult moral choices, have families, or do any of the things that we traditionally associate with being human. They no longer have the characteristics that give us human dignity. Indeed, there is no such thing as the human race and longer, since they have been bred by the Controllers into separate castes of Alphas, Betas, Epsilons, and Gammas. … Huxley is telling us, in effect that we should continue to feel pain, be depressed or lonely, or suffer from debilitating disease, all because that is what human beings have done for most of their existence as a species. Certainly, no one ever got elected to Congress on such a platform. Instead of taking these characteristics and saying that they are basic for “human dignity,” who don’t we simply accept our destiny as creatures who modify themselves?
Huxley suggests that one source for a definition of what it means to be a human being is religion.
Meditation
All is a circle within me,
I am ten thousand winters old.
I am as young as a newborn flower.
I am a buffalo in its grave.
I am a tree in bloom.
All is a circle within me.
I have seen the world through an eagle’s eye.
I have seen it from a gopher’s hole.
I have seen the world on fire
And the sky without a moon.
All is a circle within me.
I have gone into the earth and out again.
I have gone to the edge of the sky.
Now all is at peace within me.
Now all has a place to come home.
-Joan Halifax
Sermon- Can Humanity Survive?
“Can Humanity Survive?” Between you and me, this is a little like fortune telling, right?
When I was a teenager, I had particular tools for coaxing the mystical powers of prophecy to respond to my most significant queries. For instance, if I needed to know what a particular boy in my class thought of me, I’d take a dictionary in hand, close my eyes, open to a page at random and then set my right index finger down somewhere on the page. And, if the answer turned out to be, “baste, v. to sew together temporarily with long loose stitches,” I might decide that I needed to concentrate harder, and try again.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I’d concentrate on my quarry, and repeat the ritual. Then, with great expectation, I would read what my finger came down on: “mundane, adj. 1. dull, routine.”
“He thinks I’m dull? Well, that guy’s a jerk! Who cares about him!”
I know! I know! We need more gravitas here. We’re all grown-ups, and the question on the docket today is worthy of some serious introspection.
So, a couple of days ago I asked the question, “Can Humanity Survive?” and looked in my daily Horoscope. It said, “What had been obscured will receive benefit of greater light. Don’t fear the unknown; exploit mystery, intrigue. Take care in dark hallways.”
Wooo! “What has been obscured will receive benefit of greater light.” Does that mean that my sermon will offer the benefit of greater light on what is hidden??? I guess so, as long as I stay out of dark hallways!
But … I have one more mystical oracle tool to consult. I mean, after all, this is a hard question and I need all the help I can get.
Remember those black 8-Balls? They were a shiney black sphere you could hold in your hand. It had on it the white circle with the number 8 – just like the pool ball. Inside was some dark liquid and a several-sided piece was floating around in there. Each side of the piece had something written on it, and there was a little window on the bottom of the 8-ball through which you could see it. You asked a question, shook the sphere, turned it over, and got your answer from the side of the piece that bobbed up in the window.
Now, it’s important how you ask your question. It will have everything to do with getting a productive, insightful answer. So, I picked up my magical 8-ball, stared at it, and finally came up with this way to ask the question.
“Ball!” I said, “Can Humanity Survive?”
It shook and could hear the slurry whirling my question around in its belly. I turned it over and stared into the window.
The answer bobbed up. “No!” it said.
“Oh dear!”
Then it started to shake all by itself in my hand. I watched as another answer appeared.
“Yes!” it said.
“Ahhh!”
And, it began to shake again. This time, in the window appeared the word, “Maybe!”
The little piece whirled around, yet again, then bobbed to a stop.
This time it said, “You go answer it. Leave me alone.!
So, here I am, behind the 8-ball, left, unaided, to face this miserable question all by myself.
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“Can Humanity Survive?” Part I – “No!”
Let’s explore the Christian take on the survival of humanity. If you happen to be Christian, and, of course, there are millions in this country, and many more millions around the globe, you know about the “End Times.” Eschatology is the word for the study of the End Times, the Second Coming of the Kingdom of God.
Apocalypticism is normative for Christianity. One doesn’t know when it’s coming, but the faithful believe it’s coming.
Jesus, the starting point for Christianity, was crucified the first time he came and is expected to come back a second time to finish what he started. Paul makes this point in First Corinthians 15 – that the Kingdom hasn’t been established until Christ comes back. In the Christian idea of history the church lives in a charged period between two poles of the First and Second Coming – it is intrinsic to the idea of Jesus Christ as a universal savior.
In the Bible we read that Jesus said, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” by which it is thought he was pointing to the end of normal time and the beginning of a reign of goodness and peace.
Although many prophesized dates of the Apocalypse have come and gone, the amazing thing about apocalyptic thought is that a specific prophecy can be disconfirmed, but the idea can never be discredited. You just recalculate and wait! You watch for signs – like the turmoil now, in the Middle East; these world events may be signaling impending apocalypse.
In the mid-nineteenth century, John Nelson Darby, a British theologian and preacher came up with a new system to interpret the prophecies in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation.
Darby sees a series of dispensations, which will culminate in a dramatic moment, the moment of Rapture, when true believers will be taken from the earth. After the Rapture, there is a period of 7 years called the Great Tribulation when the Antichrist arises and there follows tremendous persecution. The number 666 is emblazoned on the forehead and hands of his followers.
Then -- the battle of Armageddon! Christ returns from the skies with his saints as the Antichrist and his army gathers at Armaggedon. The Antichrist and his armies are destroyed. Christ establishes the Temple in Jerusalem, as well as the Thousand-Year Reign of justice and righteousness, the Millennium. After that period on earth we can expect the Last Judgment: all those who have ever lived will be consigned either to heaven or hell. It is then that human history ends.
There’s a very popular series of books that markets these prophetic beliefs. The “Left Behind” books, by Timothy LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, is a series of novels that deal in fictional form with Pre-millennial Dispensationalist beliefs. They begin with the Rapture. But, the old religious themes and traditional system of Bible prophecy are conveyed in a completely contemporary setting giving the series a very up-to-the-minute quality.
Apocalyptic beliefs have proven resilient over time, whether they be the dramatic, catastrophic version, or a milder, progressive working toward moral order as part of a Divine Plan. They address profound yearnings in the human soul: a time of justice when evil no longer flourishes and the good no longer suffer. It is a time when people make an evolutionary leap into a new social paradigm.
Because this faith is so pervasive in our culture, it must be considered as a factor influencing the realities of human survival.
Also, I must add a coda to my Earth Day sermon of last week. There is a growing fear that humankind’s contribution to the destruction of our environment is close to overwhelming it. We are wasting Earth’s resources, putting entire ecosystems in danger, accelerating the extinction of species. Because human and natural life is so interdependent one with the other, we are endangering our own existence as well.
Six billion people live on Earth. Most are poor; so many are starving. The planet’s resources are finite and being stretched to the limit. Forests have been cleared, frontiers are gone, animal and plant species are disappearing, global warming is a looming threat.
Edward O. Wilson, scientist, conservationist, and Pulitzer Prize winning author, wrote this in his recent book: “An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not cosmic war and fiery collapse of humankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity. The race in now on between the technoscientific forces that are destroying the living environment and those that can be harnessed to save it. The situation is desperate….”
I am really worried that when we ask if humanity can survive, when it comes to the environment, we have moved past “yes” and into the far reaches of “maybe” – where “no” is terribly close.
But, I’ll switch gears here, and speak about the “yes” answer to the question of humanity’s survival.
“Can Humanity Survive? – Part II: “Yes!”
Basic to Human Nature is hope, and it is in being positive and hopeful, that we call up our inner strengths of compassion and reason.
Hope grows the spiritual and ethical underpinnings of our Being in the world. With hope alive in us, we recognize that we are one – that all of life is made up of the same stuff; there is no separation; we are all profoundly and radically connected.
Free use of Reason and Compassion lead us to life-affirming choices and the ability to competently and persistently discover and develop solutions.
With hope, we create, we build; we face the night holding hands. We take life as the precious gift that it is, and keep moving, even when moving is the last thing we want to do.
Love is possible, and compassion must be the one spiritual discipline we become fully committed to.
I’d like to read this little piece to you; it’s written by Mary Gordon, from her book, The company of Women:
One night, I did leave the house and walked for hours, wishing to disencumber myself. But my bones failed me and the lights of an all-night diner were irresistible. I entered the steamy, greasy warmth, felt the meat-smell clinging to my clothing. I sat down at the counter and picked up a matchbox. One it was printed ACE 24-HOUR CAFÉ—WHERE NICE PEOPLE MEET. And tears came to my eyes for the hopefulness, the sweetness, the enduring promise of plain human love. And I understood the incarnation for, I believe, the first time: Christ took on flesh for love, because the flesh is lovable.
The waitress looked at me, an old man with a night’s growth of gray-green beard. My eyes, I knew, were feverish, the mad eyes she must have got used to on the late-night shift. She said, “How about another cup of coffee, dear?” I smiled and thanked her.
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Of course, all answers to the question, “Can Humanity Survive?” must be, “Maybe!”
Who can see the future? Who can know? It’s all conjecture. Your guess is as good as mine. There are bright and dark sides to everything, and very, very, very little we can truly control.
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“Can Humanity Survive?” – Part III – “Maybe!”
Francis Fukuyama has a new book out titled, “Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution.” Mr. Fukuyama is a Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University. He has authored 4 books, and this year he was appointed to the President’s Council on Bioethics.
The aim of his book is to argue “that … the most significant threat posed by contemporary biotechnology is the possibility that it will alter human nature and thereby move us into a ‘posthuman’ stage of history. … we appear to be poised at the cusp of one of the most momentous periods of technological advance in history. Biotechnology and a greater scientific understanding of the human brain promise to have extremely significant political ramifications. Together, they reopen possibilities for social engineering on which societies, with their twentieth century technology, had given up.”
We now have knowledge of the neurological or biochemical basis of the brain, and, genetic sources of behavior.
We have an ability to manipulate human nature. It is not in the realm of science fiction anymore. Technologies like genetic engineering and nanotechnology give us the power to remake the world, and sentient robots are a near-term possibility.
How soon could such an intelligent robot be built? Recently there has been rapid and radical progress in molecular electronics – where individual atoms and molecules replace lithographically drawn transistors. In, maybe, 50 years, we are likely to be able to build machines, in quantity, a million times more powerful than the personal computers of today.
As this enormous computing power is combined with the manipulative advances of the physical sciences and the new, deep understandings in genetics, nothing less than genuinely transformative power will be unleashed. Reproduction and evolution, once confined to the natural world, may soon become realms of human endeavor.
An idea out there is that we humans will gradually replace ourselves with robotic technology, achieving near immortality by downloading our consciousness into the computer.
And, well you might ask – if we are downloaded into our technology, what are the chances that we will then be ourselves or even human? On this path, our humanity may be lost. As I said earlier, we may survive, but not our humanity. Will we survive our technology?
Part of human nature is curiosity; the strong desire to explore and discover new truths; to gain more knowledge; to be creative and to risk. We have the capacity for compassion, for kindness, for love.
The dark side of human nature is evident everywhere; in hostility and war; in greed and the misuse of power; in the blinding force of self-righteousness.
Collectively, we do wonderful things, and we do terrible things.
Religious beliefs offer order, meaning, values, inspiration, comfort – and they offer control, conformity, rigidity of thought, and fear.
Our human relationship with nature is one of awe, wonder, kindness, collaboration, refreshment, and even, worship. It is also often blind to the extraordinary complexity of life. Nature for many represents pure survival, and thus cannot be understood beyond individual needs.
Humanity’s exploration, intelligence, creativity can be an incredible force for joy, wonder, good. What we come to know and how we use that knowledge can bring us, via hubris, to harm, despair, and destruction.
Will humanity survive? Yes! – No! – Maybe! It’s the only answer!
We see in a mirror, dimly. Our knowledge is imperfect, and our prophecy is imperfect. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Benediction
Be careful with the crumbs.
Do not overlook them.
Be careful with the crumbs;
the little chances to love,
the tiny gestures, the morsels
that feed, the minims.
Take care of the crumbs;
a look, a laugh, a smile,
a teardrop, an open hand. Take care
of the crumbs. They are food also.
Do not let them fall.
Gather them. Cherish them.
-Gunilla Norris
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Francis Fukuyam, “Our Posthuman Future; Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution,” New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
Bill Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.” Wired 8 (2000): 238-246.
Ray Kurzweil, “The Age of Spiritual Machine: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence.” London: Penguin Books, 2000.
©UUCA 2002
