Extended Q and A With Yours Truly on Bioethics, Human Exceptionalism, and the Coup de Culture
I was pleased to have been interviewed by Daniel Herbster for AdvanceUSA about my views on bioethics and human exceptionalism. I thought I would post a few exerpts here, along with the link, for anyone interested in reading the whole thing. First, I was asked why bioethical issues are so important. From the interview: Bioethics is a contraction for "biomedical ethics." It is a field that has profound influence over core areas of human endeavor that help establish and define the morality of society, and indeed, the meaning of human life itself. Should elderly people have their health care rationed? Is assisted suicide a proper medical service? Is it right to create cloned human embryos for use in research or to bring to birth? Is it wrong to abort fetuses because they test positive for Down syndrome? Should parents be able to genetically enhance their children? Are there morally relevant differences between humans and animals? What should happen if a nurse refuses to participate in an abortion or a physician wants to cut off wanted life-sustaining medical treatment because the patient has a poor "quality of life?" These and other equally important bioethical issues are much larger than the sum of their parts because they establish philosophical norms that exert tremendous influence upon society beyond the policies themselves. Indeed, I can think of few fields more important than bioethics in determining the kind of society we shall become in the 21st century.
Later, I was asked what I thought are the most important bioethical issues we face. I decided to swim a little deeper, since utilitarian bioethics is a symptom rather than a cause:
At the end I was asked about the novels Brave New World and 1984:Actually, it is bigger even than bioethics. I think humanism is mutating into an explicit and misanthropic anti-humanism. Indeed, I now believe that we are in the midst of what I call a "coup de culture" in which the social order founded in Judeo-Christian/humanistic view that upholds the unique importance of human life is being supplanted by a philosophical system steeped in utilitarianism--which is where bioethics comes in and the potential of creating disposable castes of people--hedonism--by which I mean the presumed right to indulge almost every urge and desire and not be judged--and radical environmentalism. Thus, Ecuador's new constitution just granted "rights" to "nature" that are co-equal to those of people and Spain is about to pass into law the Great Ape Project that creates a "community of equals" among humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and other apes. The new movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of a great old science fiction film from the 1950s, has the aliens coming to earth not to save mankind from self destruction, but to obliterate humanity--a complete genocide--in order to save the earth. Think about it! An A-List Hollywood extravaganza explicitly sends the message that we are the vermin species on the living planet, which is the heart of the Deep Ecology ideology. I think the goal is to knock us off the pedestal of human exceptionalism so that we will be so humbled and self-degraded that we will willingly sacrifice our own welfare and prosperity to "save the planet." In this light, the problem of bioethics is a part of a larger overarching threat...
BNW is probably the most prophetic novel ever written and is more relevant today than it was in 1932 when it was first published. I think we are already on the path to the inhuman society Huxley depicts, which not coincidentally, is utterly utilitarian and hedonistic. The only aspect he missed was the radical environmentalism that has come to the fore in recent years. Huxley's characters believe in nothing. But I don’t think humans can believe in nothing. We seem to be hard wired to seek the transcendent. With theism under attack, a new form of earth religion based on deep ecological principles could well fill the developing belief gap. I also think 1984 is well worth reading because of how vividly Orwell depicted the power of word engineering--a hallmark of the coup de culture today.That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Labels: Wesley J. Smith. Interview. Bioethics. Human Exceptionalism. Coup de Culture.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:03 AM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
Wasn't there a eugenics movement in the U.S. in the 1930s, when Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World?
Ianthe: Indeed. It began in the UK in the last third of the Nineteenth Century, started by Sir Frances Galton, a cousin of Darwin. But it got very pernicious in the USA when Charles Davenport convinced the Carnegie Institute to fund Cold Spring Harbor. The first sterilization law was in, I think 1908. Buck v. Bell approved involuntary sterilization in US Supreme Court 1927. Rampant into the late thirties when the tide had begun to run its course. All in all, we involuntarily sterilized about 60-70000 people.
The Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws in the mid 1930s, partially inspired by our eugneics programs, with its sterilization law patterned after California's. Hundreds of thousands of Germans were sterilized. In 1939, the regime authorized eugenic infanticide and eventually the T-4 program that murdered adults with disabilities. T-4 was officially rescinded after public pressure (in Nazi Germany!) but the secret infanticide authorization remained in place. "Wild euthansia," in which doctors killed who they wanted based on eugenics theories continued past the end of the war.
Eugenics thinking was also anti-Semitic and racist. Davenport's successor at Cold Spring Harbor--Charles Laughton, helped convince Congress to turn away escaping Jews from Germany in the 1930s. And of course, it helped lead to genocide.
No wonder I've always had a bad feeling about Cold Spring Harbor. What energy must be there. If there are laboratory animals there, that would have accounted for it on its own, and where there is one, it would be no surprise that there is the other.
Then we've beaten it back here before, but obviously not entirely and the job is not finished, because the tenor of the scientific establishment from which it came has not been eradicated and has continued in an unbroken line; until experimentation on non-human animals has been declared unethical and completely abolished, the war on behalf on human life cannot be won. It really is a matter of self-interest, which corresponds with ethics and morality.
Ianthe -
Unfortunately, people like you who resepct all life have to go head to head with people who only respect their *own* lives. And unfortunately, those on the side of life get beaten down by being "old fashioned," or "out of touch."
That's why cosmetic companies will still use animal testing (thankfully they're using less and less of it!) for example - to be in vogue is to be beautiful, at the expense of our humanity. And mistreating animals for the sake of our vanity is spitting on our humanity.
Also, while you and I disagree about animal research and its benefits, I do think that it can and should be minimized as much as possible, and I abhor so-called "psychological" testing done on aniamls in the name of understanding human psychology.
Pop psychology is a plague. I'm not saying psychology or psychiactrics are evil; they have a legitimate place in society. But as Wesley said, the human spirit isn't happy without some kind of transcendence. And unfortunately, pop psychology tries to make the human a transcendent being, at the expense of other people and animals.
Wesley says that deep ecology is a new emerging religion. I'd like to ammend that and say the religion of the Self is the true emergent religion, and deep ecology is just an off-shoot. The more we focus on the self, the more we feel "I'm right and you're wrong!" and the more violently opposed to the "other" we become.
T.E.: You're right about the psychological experiments, many of which are done by some really sick people who went into the field for obvious reasons. I'm not a fan of those who are fans of that science, and I'm not sure it really has a legitimate place in society, either. I'm very happy to be old-fashioned and out of touch. As for the benefits of animal research, I'm not saying it doesn't have benefits, in the short run; I'm saying that it is short-sighted and lazy and unethical and that the net effect is detrimental, and that in the long run and in net terms, it's a detriment to us. I have no idea what transcendence or deep ecology mean in the context at hand; too abstruse for me. I think we should care about the self -- enough not to experiment on non-human animals.
T.E. You mentioned cosmetics testing. Did you ever wonder, as I have, how much cancer is attributable to mascara, other makeup, nail polish/remover, the stuff in hair salons, etc.? But it doesn't get talked about very much. Sure, they test it, but they test it in order to be able to sell it, and as with pharmaceuticals, in order to be able to bring cartons of files into court to show that "we tested it" when they're sued. They don't know what they're doing, and they don't care, their primary objective is to sell their product, not to beautify or protect. Animal rights people did sit down with Revlon about 25 years ago, and Revlon did get a little better about the testing, but you're right, our willingness to cause other animals suffering for our own vain desires is unhealthy in more than one way. It ends up with being less careful with ourselves even when we think we are being more careful with ourselves, and with our willingness to euthanize our own kind.
I really like when you said, "I think humanism is mutating into an explicit and misanthropic anti-humanism."
So true...
"I think the goal is to knock us off the pedestal of human exceptionalism so that we will be so humbled and self-degraded that we will willingly sacrifice our own welfare and prosperity to "save the planet." In this light, the problem of bioethics is a part of a larger overarching threat..."
This is one of the things I've seen you write that come closest actual views held on the 'other side', with very little exaggeration. Particular with regards to our prosperity - yes, the environmental movement is asking precisely that you give up some of your prosperity to "save the planet", or, more accurately, the other living things on the planet which are not human and are therefore, in the view of some, not 'exceptional'...by which is meant, disposable for the sake of our prosperity.
I would say "humbled" and not "self-degraded" and that it is our prosperity which is the problem and not our welfare, but as I said, this is the closest I've read you coming to giving an accurate depiction of the majority of those who disagree with you.
Uf we're so much better and more entitled than the other animals it shouldn't be too much for us to respect the other animals and the earth. Religion is a man-made construct that reflects how we think about ourselves, and I have no idea what "transcendence" means and I'm about as interested in what it means as I am in religion. But I do object to blaming animal rights and environmentalism and regarding the other species and the environment as if they were a threat to us and we were in a war with them when in fact the death culture is our own fault and our own creation. And no, they aren't all three part of the same whole, and it doesn't make us better to subjugate and abuse them. Or are we supposed to be rightful tyrants? No wonder then that tyranny now stares us in the face. That's what happens to tyrants eventually. The way out is to be ethical to the rest of creation; claiming ethics just for ourselves and our own benefit has led to our falling flat on our face where frankly we belong after having had such arrogance. But those of us who were smarter than that don't deserve it, nor did the animals, nor did the beautiful environment in which we were lucky enough to be created. Who says we're specially entitled? Just us, and we claim "God" as a backup wing-man that we invented ourselves. Just LOOK at the ugliness we have created, what we've done to animals, to the environment. That's all it takes; the proof is right in front us us. And the death culture isn't part of that? We didn't have to do the harm and create the ugliness; we felt entitled to (or at least those of us who did it did). The COD isn't external to, and threatening us; it's coming from us. I haven't seen anything here aout how to stop it, just that we have to keep fighting and not give up. I'm telling you how to fight it and defeat it and no one seems to be willing to do it. I understand what SHS means about theism/earth relligion etc. but you're externalizing the enemy, and the enemy isn't the rest of creation or respect for it, it's within, and those aren't the qualities within that are causing the problem.
Wesley, your blog is on fire these days
It sure is. I wonder how many of the people who visit and read the wonderful entries that SHS posts on new topics every day click on to the comments. It would be great if more found time to post remarks. This is a fantastic forum, learning experience, and exchange of information.
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