The Curse of Other People's Perfection

In the movies, clones are always evil or twisted. Genetic engineering always leads to monsters or supervillains. Advanced computers, if they are advanced enough to move the action of the story, inevitably rebel, their logical computer brains always concluding that they have to kill people in order to accomplish whatever task they’ve appointed for themselves. Scientific discoveries and advancements, in the movies, are evil, and scientists are all descendents of Victor Frankenstein, bringing ruin to humanity by taking us places we were not meant to go.

Why is this? Mary Shelley called her book Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. But Prometheus was a good guy…he stole fire from the Gods to benefit humanity. Sure, he ended up getting turned into vulture chow because of his actions, but that just means he was a hero who paid a price for the good he did; even more heroic, in other words. So, when did stealing fire from the Gods become a bad thing? When did Prometheus become Frankenstein?

I’ve heard it said that the most important invention in the history of humankind was the eyeglasses, which seem like a run-of-the-mill sort of thing to declare a great invention until you consider what it is that they do. Today we know that eyeglasses correct the inevitable wear and tear on the human retinas, but in the old days people must have seen them as a magical vision-improving device. It wasn’t just a splint or a crutch that imperfectly replaced a broken part of your body; this was something artificial that took something that, on the surface at least, appeared to be functional, and made it better.

These days we know that eyeglasses actually fix a broken body, too, but the damage was done; through our eyeglasses we were able to glimpse the possibility of improving upon the bodies of our birth.

That’s the theory, at least. Here at the Blasphemy Blog, we’re not always sure about these theories of “the most important invention of all time,” because in our experience there are always fifteen or sixteen good explanations for everything, and I doubt that any single invention was responsible for the fear transfusion that turned the name Frankenstein into cultural shorthand for messing around with the human body in ways we should not.

But why do we feel this way? Why are we worried that we shouldn’t be altering our bodies? Why not use nanotechnology to push our brain cells into more favorable, more rational alignment? Or, better yet, why not use bioelectronics to hardwire an actual computer into our brains? We already use plastic surgery to make ourselves more beautiful. If we can make ourselves better, shouldn’t we?

The problems are twofold. First, you can never get everyone to agree on better. Second, and perhaps more importantly, we don’t actually like better. In fact, we sort of resent it. If all these better people come around with their artificially enhanced brains and bodies, we’re not going to be dazzled. We’re going to think they’re stuck up.

And you know, we might sort of have a point. After all, these special nanotechnology baths that make you smarter aren’t going to be free. When they start out, they’re going to be ridiculously expensive. Eventually, sure, the government might chip in with some kind of nanotech Pell Grant, but by then the damage will already have been done. You won’t be able to say about the rich family in the big house down the street, “Oh, they think they’re so much better than us.” You’ll have to admit that they are, because, empirically, they will be. You might be able to apply for your own upgrade, but the family down the street is already driving next year’s bioelectric model.

What I mean by all this science fictional claptrap is that we are inherently jealous of better. We spend a lot of time worrying about whether we are good enough, and if better becomes better than it used to be, that’s just so much the more worry for us.

I think this is why we’re afraid of genetic engineering and computer brains. Somewhere along the way, the opportunity to introduce technology into our very selves became a race to that end in and of itself. Because you can’t just be the guy who doesn’t wear glasses; you’d be a fool to try to see without them. You’ll fall behind the glasses-wearing elite and end up starving in the gutter. And so, even though the jury is still out on whether our genetically engineered super-smart overlords are going to treat us justly or whether they’re going to exterminate us, we are already afraid of these potential advances in our very selves. So we make movies about our fears and have Arnold Schwarzenegger blow them up for us, losing ourselves in the fantasy that genetically engineered people might be smart, but they’ll never be able to defeat the pure hearts of regular people. They’re smart, but we’re good.

Unless…what if genetics could make people morally better, too? Think of it: what if we eliminated the genes that make us lazy, or jealous, or lustful? What would happen to regular, immoral humans then? There’s really no end to the possibilities, and no end to the all-encompassing fear that we could be oh so much better than we are.