We Can But Should We?
Lately I’ve been thinking about the unchecked acceleration of two trends in modern life that speak to the title of this essay: the thoughtless advancement of technology for its own sake, and the equally unthinking embrace of social and cultural directives for their own sake. As a devotee of the ancient metaphysical arts, I often feel at odds with the “way of the world” as it has come to be in the present century. It’s not that the pace is too fast but rather that the focus has become much too scattered and fragmented for anyone with a shred of hope for the prospects of human perfection. We frequently do things simply because we “can,” not necessarily because we “should.” As a precondition for this ill-advised opportunism, I also suspect that we’re not nearly as evolved morally and spiritually as we think we are.
The whole subject of bio-engineering through DNA manipulation and gene-splicing gives me chills where the old ways of agricultural hybridization never bothered me. The excuse that it’s being done to “feed the world” masks the fact that its scientific practitioners are primarily motivated by the laboratory challenge of making it happen. A recent instance involved an attempt to speed up the growth rate of farm-raised Atlantic salmon (farm-raised fish is another “hot-button” topic) by inserting the genes from brown trout into their DNA, creating what has been dubbed a “Franken-fish.” The defense for this tinkering is that our bodies can’t tell the difference when ingesting either one, so it’s OK to keep at it. But it’s only a short leap of the imagination to see it being extended to human beings; the stated objective is to eliminate birth defects, although I can’t help envisioning the logical “next step” as the ethically-questionable pursuit of an engineered “super-race.” (Those who have read Bernard Wolfe’s novel Limbo will understand my concern.)
In the cultural arena, it has become toxic to speak ill of anything because we might offend the “fragile eggshell mind” (Jim Morrison’s vivid turn of phrase) of someone who feels otherwise about it. Freedom of speech goes out the window when political correctness enters by the door, and constructive debate is a thing of the past. Legitimate differences of opinion are downplayed in the service of a forced mode of superficial “group-think” (George Orwell saw it coming). Although those who most exemplify it won’t admit to such hypersensitivity, the epithet “snowflake” is perfectly apropos for anyone who melts at the least sign of dissent. It also seems that this weak-willed emotional delicacy is being fostered in our “halls of higher learning” (so-called) as well as in the sycophantic news media, who march to a social-engineering drumbeat, and in the inbred world of popular social media. (How unlike the tough-minded intellectual empiricism and critical thinking of yore, when we weren’t expected to swallow everything we were told as self-evident truth!)
An excellent example of this soft-headed mindset, although an insignificant one in terms of the”big picture” I’m painting here, is the brouhaha (bizarre anachronistic word, that) over the fact that the producers of the new Lord of the Rings “prequel,” The Rings of Power, brazenly chose to introduce people of color as actors in Tolkien’s heretofore “white-bread” universe of elves and hobbits. I’m not personally thrilled by the notion of “gratuitous inclusiveness” of any kind (“for its own sake,” as it were), tarot decks included, but I can’t see getting worked up over anything so trivial as a TV show. The actors selected turn in credible performances, and in the realm of high fantasy (apart from any complaints about “lore-inappropriate” casting decisions) such diversity is not unexpected (anyone recall the “Drizzt Do’Urden” dark-elf character of R.A. Salvatore?) As a hippie wannabe from the early days of the New Age era who spent time in New York City and also in the thoroughly-integrated military, I’ve always been fundamentally “color-blind” in racial terms, although the hardening of the battle lines in our present “culture wars” makes it a difficult stance to maintain. If someone who believes they have reason to question it decides that this native impartiality is a naive and meaningless gesture of appeasement (the whole touchy subject of “reparations” for past iniquities aside), I certainly can’t make them appreciate and accept its legitimacy. In that case, I will just keep to my side of the cultural divide.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on September 9, 2022.
