The issue of steralization brought about by Tomasula's style regards who to steralize, and how far it should be taken and who get to make that decision. "It would not be difficult for governments to add something to the food supply which would prevent procreation [...] and only people whose procreation [was] desired could reveive" an antidote "which would counteract the effects" (Tomasula 125). This "sterilization [is] like a vaccination" for people who "failed an IQ test" (Tamasula 122). But where do you draw the line? Do you vaccinate "epileptics...and the antisocial: unwed mothers, prostitutes, alcoholics, the sexually promiscuous, petty criminas" and so on (Tomasula 122)? "Mensa members advocated the extermination of the homeless, retarded and elderly" (Tomasula 130). Now there is a new line drawn dealing with extermination instead of vaccination. These Mensa members, ironically, are "a society of genuises" "says an IQ test" (Tomasula 124). It seems that Mensa is "see[ing] the entire world through the lens of their specializaions" which they might think is the best way (Tomasula 136). Tomasula's style of putting facts next to images and next to ideas constantly forces the reader to pound through questions about where society is heading. These add to the ultimate themes of eugenics and brings up questions addressed throughout the book.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I think it's such a hard question to answer, and one that will probably never have a practical answer, or at least one that pleases everyone. If there ever is a law that forces sterilizations for people with certain conditions you can bet there will be a large amount of protest going on and many people will be up in arms about it. People simply need to be smart about reproduction and think in terms of the future rather than just between the sheets.
All the views in this book come from one point of view. They all advocate the destruction of a person's ability to reproduce because of something that is wrong with them. A bit like how the lion takes out the sickly gazelle in essence keeping the genes of the rest of the herd clean. Being that we have no real predators the only solution would be to clean out our own gene pool. i just like to think of this game gene pool that i have. it is basically a pee tree dish that holds a bunch of little organism like things that like to breed with each other. no matter what the breeding criteria is ( such as looking for active or inactive mates) the pool always flourishes and survives. This should be the same for people, it wouldn't really matter how messed up your reason for procreating is as long as the child is taught correctly. the responsibility for teaching these kids is on the society so their misdoings is a failure for society.
yeah i definitely think we have some kind of obligation to make our species the best "quality" as possible (especially since the world as a whole has somewhat of a population crisis) but it's hard to determine exactly what is quality and where to draw the line with what is moral and immoral
On another note... evolution is thought to happen in waves... it will be very slow and then suddenly BOOM species change dramatically very quickly.. i forgot where i read this i think it was the mating mind.... but i can't help but think that with all this new technology that we have that maybe we are on the verge of one of these waves
I think it all goes back to question of how do we place a value on life? Is it a person's contribution to society? Or perhaps we all have some intrinsic value? Personally I believe that if Darwin's theories on natural selection are accurate then this isn't our problem to solve. Eventually, nature and evolution will provide the answers to these questions for us.
Post a Comment