>>>>
<smaller> I would agree with Ethel and Phil, there is
something scary about all this. Below is an article of how
technology is using the DNA strand to hide information. The
technology was first realized by the Nazi's, but now it is being
sold as a way to carry massive amount of DNA in something as small
as a dot on a letter</smaller>
My take on neo-eugenics, which is easily recognisable in emergent
discourses of "survival", whether organised around economics, militarism,
technology, or biology (or all of the above), is more focused on messages
like those that I passed on from Clinton, who says (roughly) that
"research has proved that mental illness is a biological flaw in the
brain which can be cured (or at least managed) with chemicals". Not even
mainstream neurology dares make such outrageous and totalising claims (cf
for instance Restak, 1995). Now, Clinton's probably speaking with the
best intentions in suggesting that the mentally ill and homeless
(interesting conflation, even though there's some overlap) are as capable
of a "normal" contibution to society as "the rest of us" (hence Them). As
I said sometime before, I have seen, experienced (as have others on this
list), and been deeply affected by, not biologically derived "mental
illness", but the absolute horror that afflicts people who have been
mentally, sexually, and physically abused to the most horrible extremes
from an early age.=20
The logical extension of biological and genetic determinism inherent such
a standpoint as Clinton's (and hence the US government which has
inscribed this standpoint into law) is that society is no longer
responsible for the afflicted amongst us. In short, it comes back to the
(what I understand as) Liberal tenets of responsibility for one's own
actions. If the "mentally ill" cannot or will not respond to, or even
seek out, help from neurology's chemicalia, then _they'll_ be
responsible. It'll be their own fault, their own problem, and they'll
have to take the blame. Eventually, this must manifest itself in the most
inhumane decisions for those who cannot cope with life. I seem to recall
that Clinton took time off from his first presidential hustings to
expedite the execution of a mentally disabled person in Arkansas.=20
I don't worry so much that info can be hidden in DNA, although it's both
interesting and scary enough in itself. My main concern is that a whole
neo-phrenology based on flawed criteria can now be applied to a new list
of "objective" genetic criteria which will correspond to "superior"
qualities in humans: neo-eugenics writ large and no longer implicit.=20
Furthermore, it appears that the info gleaned from Nazi medical
"experiments" in concentration camps has just about exhausted itself,
and therefore a forum for genetic experiments on humans must be found
fairly soon if applied knowledge is to catch up with technological
potential. My bet it that it isn't far away, and I don't think I'm being
alarmist or reactionary.
Phil
Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html