ENG 110

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.