Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

I love Blade Runner.  Frankly, I think it's one of the five best films ever made (along with Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Man for All Seasons).   But I don't ever expect to live there.  It's not just that the timeline for Blade Runner is closing in, and I haven't spotted any off world colonies or replicants, it's that the construct - as lived in as it feels - is still a couple of notches removed from anything you might project out of our reality.  

Gattaca is much more difficult to dismiss.  For those who haven't seen it, here's the thirty second run down.  In the future, a single drop of your blood is enough to determine who you will be.  Your "real resume" is in your genes.  Looking at your DNA, not only your medical problems, but the limits of your potential, are exposed.  Ethan Hawke plays a young man who is the product a "faith birth" (one that happened outside the lab).  His life is constantly limited by a genetic predisposition to heart failure.  Turned down by schools and passed over for jobs, he becomes a janitor at "Gattaca," a space launch facility.  There he dreams of climbing on board one of the rockets and escaping from his problems, and gradually develops a scheme to fool the system.

Gattaca isn't based on a book, but is the product of New Zealand screenwriter, Andrew Niccol, who also scripted The Truman Show.  In both films, he captures a sense of things we are already experiencing taken to their logical extremes.  With the Truman Show, perhaps the more accessible of the two films, Niccol anticipates the growth of "reality shows" and our voyeuristic fascination with the lives of celebrities moved to a place where scripting and reality are inseparably intertwined.  

Gattaca, though the story has its uplifting elements about the triumph of will over limitations, examines a much darker society.  Unfortunately, it's extremely easy to spot the steps that lead from today to Gattaca, and very difficult to see the route that sidesteps the issues raised.  

We've already moved several steps down the path.  Embryo screening allows spotting of genetic disorders well before birth.  In fact, it allows sorting among multiple embryos for the "best" choice.  

By subjecting Chloe to a genetic test when she was an eight-cell embryo in a petri dish, Kingsbury and his wife, Colby, were able to determine that she did not harbor the defective gene [for an inherited form of colon cancer]. That was the reason they selected her, from among the other embryos they had conceived through elective in vitro fertilization, to implant in her mother's uterus.

There are already dozens of disorders that can be tested through genetic screening.  Many of them are very serious, such as sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis.  But the number of disorders that can be tracked in this way is growing rapidly, and among them are some "diseases" that you might consider less devastating.

Already, it is possible to test embryos for an inherited form of deafness or a mild skin condition, or for a predisposition to arthritis or obesity. Some clinics test for gender. As scientists learn more about the genetic basis for inherited traits, and as people learn more about their genetic makeup, the embryo screening menu and its array of ethical dilemmas are only expected to grow.

Right now - not in some celluloid Hollywood future, parents can sort among the embryos on a plate and pick the kid who is the sex they want, the kid who isn't prone to cancer, who won't be deaf.  The kid who won't even tend toward being overweight.  In fact, the genes for hair color and eye color can also be screened.  Want to sort through till you find that slender, blond-haired daughter?  You got it.  That boy with striking blue eyes and dark hair?  Maybe that combination didn't show up in this batch, but you can try again and see if the genetic lottery turns up some better options.  Height?  That can be tested.  How about the relationship of the different forms of muscle, indicating stamina or strength?  

"From a technology perspective, we can test anything," said Mark Hughes, director of the Genesis Genetics Institute in.

It's perfectly understandable that parents would want to save their children the agony of diseases like cystic fibrosis, or give them a long life free from cancer.  Who would not wish these things on their child?  But while I usually hate "slippery slope" analogies, this may be the slickest hillside mankind has ever encountered, buttered up as it is with all our love for our children and hopes for the future.  My own son inherited very poor eyesight from his mother, a tendency toward being overweight from his old man, and a gene that capped his height at 5' 8".  If I could have ensured him vision without a lifetime of thick glasses, without the health-threatening effects of those extra pounds, and with the few extra inches that wouldn't have gotten him tossed from the basketball team in 8th grade, wouldn't I have done so?  Shouldn't I have done so?  What kind of parent doesn't want to give their child the absolutely best chance possible?  

That's the terrifying part.  Don't make any mistake about it - though it's not shouldering terrorism out of the news, this may be the biggest crises facing the human race.

We're standing at the brink of a whole new kind of "haves and have nots."  Those who have winced while watching your child struggle through school against kids more gifted in one area or another, imagine if that mismatch really is your fault in a way that goes beyond just a roll of the dice.  What happens when you find yourself bringing your child to a school where a rising percentage are "selected children" - tall, attractive, athletic, and smart.  Yes, we may not have yet locked onto the genetic combinations for intelligence and creativity, but don't delude yourself that these live in some other plane.  They're in the DNA, and DNA screeners are actively looking for what makes one brain work better than the next.

This is a revolution that will happen top-down, as the people most able to afford the best for their children will also be those first able to afford their "best children," but over time the pure competitive nature of our society will press these changes downward.  We may never see the point where "unsorted" children are a minority, but here's a prediction - you are going to be utterly shocked at how quickly this spreads.  Every instinct and every market force will combine to press this change into society with a rapidity that will make television and VCRs look like a "tough sell."  

Parental concern and capitalism combined will give us what the Nazi's only dreamed about - a master race of people who are, in quite easily defined ways, superior to the generation that brought them into the world.

At first glance, Gattaca doesn't look like a dystopia.  Who wouldn't wish for a world full of healthy, fit, smart, beautiful people.  Maybe this is what we're here to do, the real "next step in evolution" is only mankind after all.  Mankind perfected.  Maybe it's only because I'm old, fat, and ugly that I'm bothered by the prospect.  Maybe what I see as a loss of colors from the palette of humanity, is really just patching potholes in the road to something better.  Maybe.

But I don't like that damn film, and I don't like knowing that my son is going to have to face these choices when it comes to his children.