Resemblance in Genetic Engineering

Foucault, in The Order of Things, depicts the Classical period by its labeling of things based on sight, on appearance, on similarity—resemblance. He chastises the foolishness of linking, say, a walnut to curing a head wound based on the shape and appearance of both the head and walnut (27). However beautiful Foucault’s description of the similitudes (analogy, emulation, sympathy, and convenience), these descriptions fail to suffice in scientific explanation, order, and structure. Foucault notes this as the weak point of Classical thought.

So why is it, that now, in some sort of age beyond resemblance—perhaps representation, perhaps not— an article in a magazine has to discuss something like Genetic Engineering, a process which creates children in the image or likeness of something else? Have humans not moved beyond the age of resemblance? It seems humans have not, and while this is not shocking to Foucault, who characterized the shift from episteme to episteme with a sort of awareness of all preexisting historical memoir, it is somewhat shocking to see just how resemblance has appeared in contemporary culture.

Bill McKibben explained the process of Genetic Engineering in his article, “Designer Genes” for Orion Magazine, and within it, he illuminated the harsh reality of what genetic engineering instigates. Through genetic engineering, parents decide what traits a child should have-- what person they should resemble, what ways of being they should emulate. Whereas humans before used resemblance to understand what is going on in the world, humans now are using resemblance to control what is going on in the world. It is in this use of control that resemblance is so controversial concerning genetic enginnering. McKibben writes:

“The vision of genetic engineers is to do to humans what we have already done to salmon and wheat, pine trees and tomatoes. That is, to make them better in some way; to delete, modify, or add genes in developing embryos so that the cells of the resulting person will produce proteins that make them taller and more muscular, or smarter and less aggressive, maybe handsome and possibly straight. Even happy. As early as 1993, a March of Dimes poll found that forty- three percent of Americans would engage in genetic engineering “simply to enhance their children’s looks or intelligence.””

Those that can genetically alter their child are able to create a human as an amalgam of favorite physical and mental traits so as to emulate a conceived vision of the ultimate child. Because of this unnatural a la carte style conception, it is hard to accept genetic engineering as a natural part of science.

Being frustrated with genetic engineering for its eerie God-like simulation is not the point, though. What is important is the fact that humans continue to live their lives with the similitudes now in an active manner. Specifically, emulation and convenience can be noted. For instance, a child may emulate a specific physical characteristic of a parent based upon the selection of a gene. For convenience sake, a child may be given a gene credited to ivy league students. While a gene may not cause a person to succeed or be beautiful, it may lay the groundwork for these things to occur.

By genetically altering a child, a parent is able to choose what that child emulates and creates a connection “without…proxmity,” (19). In this way, the child could be the mirror (21) of whoever the mother or father selects. For convenience to the child and the parents, intellectual alterations can be implemented.

What is most disturbing about this is that Foucault noted the foolishness in finding answers through resemblance. Now, parents are able to create answers and children through resemblance. Genetic engineering begs two questions, “Are we regressing structurally through scientific advancement?” and, “Is it human nature to search for likeness?”



WRITTEN IN REFERENCE TO:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/119/
"Designer Genes"
Bill McKibben
Orion Magazine
May/June 2003

The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences
Michel Foucault
Vintage Books, Random House
New York, New York
1970