In the essay “Can Technology
Make the Handicapped Whole?” Talbott makes an argument by drawing on the story
of a blind person (Lusseyran) who led an extraordinary and satisfying life. Talbot
wants to show that that some people are able to use their inner abilities and
other physical abilities and find ways to grow when faced by the loss of
certain physical abilities such as the sense of sight.
Talbot argues that people
suffering from loss of a major sense may learn to know things going on around
them they would have missed out on had they not had to learn to function
without that major sense. Since disabled people may learn things about the
world, as they grow around their disability, that non-disabled could benefit
greatly from knowing, non-disabled people should pay attention to and try to
learn from the experiences of disabled people, not just try to help them.
Talbot thinks this implies
that non-disabled people are doing wrong when they pressure disabled people to
adopt technologies which may remove (some of) their disability. Such
technologies should be there if disabled people want them, he argues. [Note how
much more independent Mr. Ng is in SnowCrash than he would have been today.]
But if the point of developing such technologies is to improve the lives of the
people with disabilities, that goal can often be accomplished at less expense
by emotionally supporting disabled people as they struggle to find ways to grow
around their disability. That is what Lusseyran’s parents did, and the results
were impressive.
Talbot also points out using
the example of Lusseyran’s parents that the deciding not to view of the
loss of certain abilities as a tragedy and something that can only be fixed or
suffered with, would be a huge step towards improving the lives of people with
disabilities (and maybe others who could learn from them).
Focusing on the disability
itself and how technologies can (or could one day) help disabled people lead
“normal” lives, all serves to distract people’s attention from the disabled
person and their experience. And it is precisely that which is should be the
real object of or attention.
In “The New Eugenics”
Talbott writes about a related issue of people born with disabilities and the
decisions parents face of continuing with a pregnancy they know will lead to a
new person entering a world with a disability (such as down syndrome). His
point is here is somewhat similar. He argues that the value of a person’s life
should not be measured by externally measurable capabilities (or genetic
differences)
Real
sanctity and dignity accrue, not to a set of molecules, but to his innermost
and truest self, which cannot easily be judged in terms of the material
"accidents" of his existence.(Talbott)
That’s the source of the
powerful idea of equality of all persons before the law. He claims also that
the mentally disabled may also provide the non-disabled people some valuable
insight about how to achieve happiness.
Thus, Talbott is deeply
suspicious of the desire to use genetic engineering to make sure that children
are born without disabilities. If all lives truly have equal value, why should
we take the risks of unknown side effects of genetic engineering (both medical
and social) so that more lives will be lived by non-disabled people and fewer
lives lived by disabled people?
The physical risks should be
obvious: genetic engineering may introduce new genetic problems (such as
disabilities, vulnerabilities to disease, or [as evidenced in cloned animals]
accelerated aging) in the same people that engineering fixes old problems for.
And these new problems may only become evident after a long period of time.
But “Gattaca” illustrates
the social risks. If lives based on having more (of these technologically
measurable) abilities have greater value, how is that different from saying
that persons with more of those capabilities have greater value. And if some
people have greater value it implies those people are deserving of better
treatment and more opportunities in life.
“Gattaca” argues that
something like this will happen: That there will be discrimination against even
people with disabilities or medical conditions (even the likelihood of
developing them). There are profit motives for employers and insurers to avoid
people with expensive to treat or expensive to accommodate conditions. Even
today there is concern about employers and insurers trying to avoid covering
people with expensive conditions and secretly using their medical histories to
screen them out.
And as genetic engineering
starts to make the kids of the upper classes physically and genetically
different from the kids of lower classes, it seems plausible that class
discrimination will begin to begin to change into genetic discrimination.
Something Huxley first addressed in the book Brave New World a long time ago.
Such discrimination is only
unfair and oppressive. It cheats society out of the accomplishments of people whose
gifts are not obvious in their genes. Gifts like Lusseyran’s insight and
leadership, or (in Gattaca) Vincent’s willpower. It also cheats society out of
the talents of people who never manifest the mental or physical conditions they
are statistically likely to have based on their genetics.
© Shayne Weyker, 2003