The problem with being a prophet is that, all too often, no one understands that you're a prophet until it's too late. No one believes you when the predicted doom is far off on the horizon. They treat you like an alarmist fool right up until the end. The predicted doom then occurs. Everyone sees that you were right after all—just in time to make no difference.
So it was with C. S. Lewis' sounding of the prophetic alarm in The Abolition of Man, published in 1943 in the midst of World War II. The alarm was not about the war itself, but about the ominous tendencies of technology, or more properly, a particular kind of Faustian technological spirit. Let us allow the prophet to speak for himself, and then we'll examine the results of our not heeding his warning.
"In what sense is Man the possessor of increasing power over Nature?" asks Lewis. Lewis calls our attention to one particularly important sense, our increasing power over human nature. The result of increasing our power over human nature is ominous: "what we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument." Inherent in the modern attempt to fully master nature by ever-increasing technological power is the irresistible temptation to use our mastery of nature upon human nature itself. If we can change nature to suit our needs and desires, why not change human nature to suit our needs and desires? But here's the rub. While such power is often sold as benefiting everyone, it soon falls to the hands of a very few to use it upon everyone else.
Lewis knew the ambitions of the eugenicists of his day, who had a great desire to remold the future through remolding human beings. Of course, at the time of Lewis' writing, the technology of manipulation was, relative to ours today, quite primitive. The science of human reconstruction was therefore largely, as yet, science fiction. Lewis wanted to sound the warning before it became science fact. He knew the dark aspects of human nature well enough to prophesy that treating human beings as objects of applied technology would end in a new kind of tyranny:
"Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men….Each new power won by man is a power over man as well….
The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man."
Hence the title of his book, The Abolition of Man. It might well be called a meditation on the kind of paving stones laid down by good intentions, and where they all too invariably lead. That is, Lewis understood more than anyone else that this drive to master human nature would be undertaken in the name of humanity, by those who wanted so desperately to fix our problems that they were willing to violate our nature, especially our moral nature, to do it. For Lewis, this was the fateful step that takes us to the abolition of man. For once we treat human nature as mere clay, and take upon ourselves the role of master potter, there is no limit to what we can or will do.
Now what about those monkeys? The four sibling macaque monkey babies were created from three parents: sperm from the father, DNA from one female, an egg cell from another female. Of course, the procedure will soon be used on human beings. The reason given is not "We just wanted to see if we could do it." Rather, the procedure is touted as a way to circumvent genetic diseases latent in the mother's genes. It is all made possible by the reproductive technology, in vitro fertilization (IVF), which was originally developed as a way to help married couples to have babies who could not do so naturally.
So what's the problem? It is all contained, very nicely, in three consecutive sentences in one of the newspaper reports. "Scientists have produced four baby monkeys who each have three biological parents. They used an IVF procedure designed to stop the spread of incurable inherited diseases. Scientists believe the breakthrough could lead to the first genetically engineered children within a few years."
Note how easily we move from a procedure "designed" to fix a particular problem (which we all agree is bad), to an open-ended promise to use the procedure for any goal whatsoever (independent of any moral constraint) through genetic engineering. We move from a very restricted eugenic goal, to an open-ended eugenic invitation to engineer the future of humanity.
Lewis saw precisely this pattern already nascent in contraception, and used it to illustrate how mastery of some aspect of human nature leads to a kind of tyranny of the present generation over all future generations. "By contraception," asserted Lewis, "all possible future generations are the patients or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive. By contraception simply, they are denied existence; by contraception used as a means of selective breeding, they are, without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own reasons, may choose to prefer. From this point of view, what we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument."
Lewis' reasoning applies all too clearly to this new touted IVF procedure. A perceived good (avoiding a genetic disease) is brought about through a particular manipulation of our nature (an artificial reproductive procedure) in violation of a moral standard (the sexual exclusiveness of the natural union of one man and one woman in marriage), and opens up the possibility of unlimited genetic engineering. And so, by this new procedure "used as a means of selective breeding," future generations are "without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own reasons, may choose to prefer."
To say that this is merely being an alarmist implies that genetic engineering will occur with moral limits and be used solely for moral purposes. But that is to forget three related things. First of all, the procedure, when it applied to human beings, occurs precisely through the violation of a moral limit. What meaning can adultery have, once we accept the procedure as ethical? If this moral limit may be set aside, what moral limit is safe?
Second, the historical pattern of such things always moves from the serious to the trivial. Abortion gained acceptance as applied to cases of rape, incest, severe deformity, and direct threats to the life of the mother if the baby were carried to term. It is now legal for the most trivial reasons, including merely changing one's mind or not liking the sex of the conceived child. What assurance could we possibly have that genetic engineering wouldn't be used in the service of the most trivial fashions and fads, the most reprehensibly selfish whims, or the most extraordinary utopian political dreams? Who can foresee what may become of man through his abolition and reconstruction?
Third, technological power is expensive. The more expensive medical technology is, the more its use will be defined by those industries that fund its advance and the more likely it is that government will become directly involved in the attempt to pay for its application to citizens (who cannot possibly pay for it themselves). The genetically engineered future then falls to a very few to define. We can well imagine the day that government supplied health insurance, as steered by the visions of a few scientists and social planners, will determine what that future may be. |
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