Manipulation of the human genome threatens diversity, which is the key to thriving life forms. The main concern here is that potential future oppressed societies may manipulate CRISPR for their own prejudiced movements. In the words of Dalai Lama, “we need to consider whether this is being done out of positive intention or on the basis of a particular society’s prejudices at a particular time” (66). In the future, highly authoritative governments may take over their society through dictatorship. This could lead to movements that make it so every individual in society has to look the same. This is ethically wrong and outside of humanities moral standards. An event this dangerous can be traced back to the manipulation of CRISPR and this goes to show how dangerous CRISPR is.
Some may say that by avoiding the utilization of CRISPR, humanity is essentially letting death happen. Humanity is being a bystander by letting diseases from mosquitos and ticks kill so many people. It’s like humanity has the chance to play hero and save so many lives, but is instead not taking the opportunity and watching these diseases kill people. Some may say that this is the chance to prevent diseases from taking more lives and that by not doing so is ethically wrong as humanity is just watching lives wither away due to these diseases.
How should we feel about genetic technology that can alter the biosphere in whatever way we please (The Week 13)? At first glance, this sounds amazing, it brings out the power lust in humanity. Humanity can play God now. But is that really a good thing in the long run? Humanity should be wary and more concerned with this technology rather than being too excited because of its unknowns. Right now, we’re living in nature, which is God’s will (The Week 13). Playing God and making the world into our own custom Disneyland would strip our humanity away from us, causing massive power lust (The Week 13). This is not a love for nature, rather a manipulation of natural processes to benefit our own desires. This is against God’s will and that’s ethically wrong. Playing God is ethically wrong. Having this much power and manipulating it to benefit us is ethically wrong. Normally, I would think genetic modification should have limits, but who decides this? Do the scientists themselves control the limitation of this technology or do the people above them do? Most importantly, do we trust whoever the hands are behind this technology? The concept itself is so dangerous and can go wrong in so many ways. That’s why, rather than having limits on the technology, we shouldn’t have it at all. This applies to our country, but not to others. Not every country is going to play by these philosophies and if that ever happens, then we should utilize CRISPR with serving its single purpose to defend ourselves. Until then, studies toward that should be the only focus on mind, not manipulating it to benefit our own desires. If the Maine EPA came to Biddeford and wanted to eliminate the female deer tick, I would protest this action for the same reasons I would for genetically modifying mosquitos (The Week 13). It’s unethical to wipe a population out. Yes, of course we kill bugs such as mosquitos and ticks when they’re on us, but that is nowhere near the magnitude of wiping a whole population out. This is playing God. We also don’t know the long term effects of genetic modification. We don’t know the possible dangers lurking in the long run by doing this. To add on to more unknowns, we don’t know how it will effect certain ecosystems and food chains as ticks and mosquitos are major food sources of many species. There’s literally so many ways this can all go wrong and I don’t think playing God and superhero is worth the risks of huge negative impacts on the world all because of our selfish desires toward individual benefit.
So, I’m sure all of us know now what exactly CRISPR is and what can be done with it after last class. If not, or if there’s any confusion still based on the topic, click here to find out more about what exactly CRISPR is. So, where should I even start with all of this? I’ve known about CRISPR since my sophomore year in high school as I learned about it in my “intro to biology honors” class. Ever since then, I’ve still maintained the same opinion I’ve always kept with this topic. It’s too dangerous. We’re playing with things that are above what we would deem the level of mankind. I can go on a forever rant about this topic, but I’ll try to keep it more condensed here. It’s simply too powerful to be put in the hands of humanity. Yes, humanity has achieved more than any other species in the world, but we’re playing God here, and coming from a religious person, it just isn’t right. Humans shouldn’t be interfering with God’s plan and natural course of selection. I know it sounds messed up when it comes to ignoring the potential cure for cancer, but this just isn’t the way to go about things. With other special needs disorders such as down syndrome, not every person who has down syndrome is suffering. Plus, every parent out there should be giving their special needs kid the same amount of love they would if their kid didn’t have those special needs in the first place. We don’t even know the long term effects of CRISPR. We don’t know it’s long term effects in the medical world, we don’t know it’s long term effects with ever lasting food. There’s so much unknown to it that makes it so dangerous. People also tend to forget this topic relating to government terms. What if government oppression happens because of CRISPR? There is the solution of having it a consumer product, but this isn’t the app store. This is playing with rules above us. Choosing what you want your kid to look like is playing God, and to me, it just isn’t right. It’s stripping us of our humanity and making us forget what’s really special within us, and that’s differences. If I end up getting a counterargument on how I wouldn’t know what “loss” is, therefore I shouldn’t be speaking upon the potential cure for cancer, I do. And I don’t want it to seem like I’m happy my loss happened, because I’m not, but I will say that things happened in my life after that loss that shaped me who I am today. I met new people who’ve impacted my life and I toughened up mentally because of such certain events. My point is, everything happens for a reason. Everybody struggles and at the moment, it’s tough, but these struggles are what push us to strive in life. Where’s this raw humanity at when you can literally just get what you want? Instead of working hard to gain muscle, you can just genetically modify your genes to become jacked. Where’s the humanity in that? And if CRISPR gets in the wrong hands, specifically someone without a moral compass and high authority, then the rest of the population will for sure struggle in ways unimaginable until we’re witnessing it. We can’t play God if we’re not God. Only God should be the one choosing our fate and if humanity dictates all these actions such as modifying future children to look the way they please, are we really human anymore at that point? Sorry if this was disorganized, I tend to ramble chaotically with subjects I have a strong opinion on. I promise that it will be more clean and easy to follow come essay time, but if you read through this entire post, it should be obvious to you that I’m highly against something as powerful as this. This is also coming from a medical biology major. I just have a line I can’t cross and playing God is way past that line. Yes, there are obviously benefits to this technology, but if we commit to using this, the line will be broken due to humanity’s lust for curiosity. People will end up playing God, and it will backfire.
8 sentence summary: With the world changing everyday due to scientific progress, a line starts to become more emergent between that of human ethics and morals, to scientific progress that would further help develop humanity. Scientists today can basically play God with the power and progressive development of genetic manipulation. Genetic manipulation does have its benefits, as it can help with issues on an array of fields, like curing diseases in the medical field and even modifying produce so that it has a longer shelf life. But with these benefits come drawbacks based on ethical and moral standards of humanity. Playing God is too powerful, even for humanity. What if a higher power such as an extremely authoritative government uses this as a weapon to create oppression based on their own benefits? What are the long term consequences that would come later in the future after all the scientific glory? Many issues arrive at this topic and it’s up to humanity as a whole to decide what’s best for the world.
DL CLAIM 1: “I believe we must trust our instinctive feelings of revulsion” (Gyatso 65).
My response: I land in the middle of this claim. I do agree that we need to trust instinctive feelings of revulsion, but how do you know what other’s instinctive feelings are? Everybody’s standards are different, therefore people would have different feelings of revulsion based on this topic. With that being said, does society just follow the majority vote with something like this, even if the majority’s opinion would be ethically wrong. What’s ethically wrong is a matter of perception, but I just feel like that’s something that can’t be decided based off majority vote.
DL CLAIM 2: “I find it difficult to see any justifiable motives- from the Buddhists perspective, it may be an identical body, but there will be two different consciousnesses” (Gyatso 66).
My response: I agree with this claim. At my first time reading this, it confused me for a second, but I think I may understand what the opposition claim is. Some may think that their consciousness would transfer over to the new cloned being so that they would live past their biological capability, but I agree with Gyatso that there would instead just be two different consciousnesses.
DL CLAIM 3: “In political matters, it will breed a ruling elite, whose claims to power will be invocations of an intrinsic natural superiority” (Gyatso 67).
My response: I agree with this claim. Since genetic manipulation would only be available for the rich, I think people like politicians, who are rich, would manipulate this for their own benefits rather than thinking about others.
DL CLAIM 4: “I firmly believe it is possible” (Gyatso 69).
My response: I disagree with this claim. I think the reason behind humanities survival upon the nuclear age is the fact that it would literally be the end of the world if nuclear war happened. With genetic manipulation, I don’t think the main fear is the end of the world, rather that of a new world order, and I think different powers are willing to fight for that based on individual benefits.
You’re fake. That’s right, I said it. You’re fake. Now, you may be wondering what I mean by this. You may be asking yourself, “Well, how am I fake?”. The truth is, it’s really shown in society. The main issue at hand here are individuals letting their fake identity overrule their true identity. The amount of fake identity present is directly proportional to the deterioration of one’s mental health. How will this be fixed? Well, there are two different approaches. Legal scholar Kenji Yoshino proposes a “new civil rights paradigm on what draws us together rather than what drives us apart” (540). Psychiatrist Anne Hallward encourages coming clean with shame stories. By building a new civil rights paradigm, the assumption of covering would increase. This may lead to inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes, causing them to never disappear. If individuals confess on their own terms, inspiration may activate more positive social change.
Modern society in the United States still, in a way, is dealing with a form of oppression as certain social groups must deal with the act of covering due to insecurities based on their social identity or cultural background. The biggest concern is that these social groups may forever deal with this unless action is pursued. According to Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor Kenji Yoshino, the current civil rights paradigm “does not protect individuals against demands that they mute those differences” (539, paragraph 4). By having certain individuals in specific social groups feeling the need to cover, this directly goes against what the country stands for. The United States stands for liberty and people should have the freedom to express themselves however they please. The current civil rights paradigm, however, forbids this from happening as it allows for specific social groups to demand the covering or silence of other social groups. The rights of diverse groups and the demands of individuals are unbalanced, causing the country to fall short for what it stands for. As a moralistic obligation, people should have the right to express themselves freely and that’s not going to change unless a new civil rights paradigm is created. Not only is this topic focused on the political standpoint of oppression, but it is also concerning for the mental health of those who have to cover. (Yoshino)
Every individual has a true and false self, but the more appearance the true self has over the false self would determine how healthy an individual is. The key problem to look out for is when the false self takes over the true self. In object-relations theorist D.W. Winnicott’s view, the negative extreme is when “the False Self completely obscures the True Self, perhaps even from the individual herself” (541, paragraph 5). The True Self is defined as one’s true identity and the False Self is defined as one’s cover identity or the role they play when they’re too insecure to reveal their true self. When an individual spends so much time being someone they’re not, it causes a lot of mental strain on the person. This can lead to an array of problems such as depression, anxiety, and even worse escalating to suicidal tendencies. In order for this to change, individuals of specific social groups shouldn’t feel the need to cover in modern society. The current civil rights paradigm doesn’t protect individuals against the demands of the nation, so a new one should be created that focuses on bringing the people of a society together rather than driving them apart. (Yoshino)
Shame is actually one of the most lethal public health threats there are currently, but not a lot of people are informed about this. The most concerning realization comes when you find out suicide is a top ten cause of death currently in the United States. In the words of psychiatrist Dr. Anne Hallward (MD), “shame is at the heart of essentially everything.” It’s at “the heart of depression” and “at the heart of addiction”. “It’s also at the heart of suicide” (Paragraph 4). Shame is the root of all these problems. It leads us to “this feeling of unworthiness” (Paragraph 4). It leads us to these bad feelings about ourselves and this feeling of hopelessness that leaves us empty. Individuals don’t like feeling bad about themselves and when they do, bad things happen. Problems like depression and addiction are the results of feeling bad about oneself. Because these problems lead to suicide, shame should be addressed before it’s too late. Shame can be dealt with in a multitude of ways, but one way that has been proven to work efficiently is the telling of closeted stories that hold an individual’s shame. Letting go of these insecurities and facing them head on is not only beneficial to the shamed individual’s mental health, but it’s also beneficial towards other people who hear the story and can cause movements that extend larger than the individual him or herself.
The telling of closeted stories can provide more benefits than people originally think. The telling of these stories can extend as far as causing political movements which can then contribute to positive social change. According to Hallward’s point of view, the sharing of these closeted stories is “not just a cultural force, but a political force” (Page 3, paragraph 3). The sharing of these stories can lead to this domino type effect. As an individual tells their story, they’re encouraging others to do the same thing. It makes others feel like they’re not alone in the world and reassures them by informing them that someone else out there knows what their shame feels like. This can lead to positive social change as specific social groups can have the courage to stand up for one another because they know what each other’s been through. This has been proven “as gay lesbian couples have been coming out of the closet for decades now” (Page 3, paragraph 3). The sharing of a few stories led to a political movement which resulted in the support of marriage equality. Sharing personal closeted stories can not only benefit an individual’s mental state, it can cause positive changes that extend far beyond what anyone would think of it.
In Dr. Anne Hallward’s (MD) Ted Talk, she focuses on the main topic of isolation. Rather than closeting stories that make individuals insecure, Hallward believes that opening up these closeted stories would not only be beneficial to the individual by releasing mental stress, but to others around them as well by offering support for similar insecurities. According to Hallward, the sharing of these stories is an “act of courage. It is an act of generosity. And finally it is an act of cultural leadership” (5). On the largest scale, the sharing of these closeted stories can extend as far as becoming a politcal force. This political force can help others, such as minority groups, by encouraging social change to support oppressed groups. In Hallward’s point of view, “telling our vulnerable silence stories is like a form of nonviolent social change and it can be unstoppable” (3). I agree with what Hallward has to say in her Ted Talk. I believe that her idea of telling vulnerable stories leading to positive social change does work. However, I also believe that if someone doesn’t want to share due to things being too personal, others should respect their decision not to share. Telling closeted stories in order to help others overcome a challenge is someting I agree with from Hallward, but I just don’t think it should be someone’s obligation to tell their stories if they don’t want to. One other issue I would beware of is the manipulation of certain closeted stories that would attack a specifc social group rather than contributing to positive social change.
Personal anecdote: a personal narrative or story that an author would bring up in their passage to make it more relatable to their audience. Relatable details leads to more credibility, which leads to attracting a larger audience. (An insight).
CRED: Credibility. An audience will only be attracted to an author they trust who knows what they’re talking about.
Name drop: Adding different names from different or similar cultural backgrounds can be more relatable to an audience.
