Posted by dj on July 16, 2000, at 11:04:06
In reply to Making our DNA and Selfish Genes Blissful, posted by shar on July 15, 2000, at 21:50:49
> The article I read talked about meds also. Good drugs and bad drugs.
>
> Interesting.It is an interesting and utopian perspective: better living via technological tweaks - part of a long-standing historical, theological, ethical, philosophical, conscious and unconscious dialogue and source of tension in our society.
Take, for instance, this quote from BLT's intro. page:
"Life on earth can be animated by gradients of ecstatic well-being beyond the bounds of normal human experience.
In the end, the greatest obstacles to superhealth may prove ideological, not technical. BLTC RESEARCH campaign to promote paradise-engineering as a rigorous academic discipline and a mature applied science."
and contrast it with the following quote from the book: "An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness" by Kay Redfield Jamieson who, (according to Book News Inc. as quoted at amazon.com)is:
A psychiatry professor, author, and recipient of numerous national and international scientific awards describes her own struggle since adolescence with manic-depressive illness and recounts how it has shaped her life."I have often asked myself, whether given the choice I would have anything to do with manic-depressive illness? If lithium were not available to me, the answer would be a simple no - and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I suppose I can afford to ask the question. Strangely enough I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated. Depression is awful beyond sounds or word or images; I would not go through an extended one again....There is nothing good to say for it except that it gives you the experience of how it might be to be old, to be old and sick, to be dying; to be slow of mind; to be lacking in grace, polish, and coordination...
So why would I want anything to do with this illness? Because I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters; worn death "as close as dunagrees," appreciated it - and life - more...
Even when I have been most psychotic...I have been aware of finding new corners in my mind and heart. Some of these corners were incredible and beautiful...Some of them were grotesque and ugly...But always, there were those new corners and - when feeling my normal self, beholden for that self to medicine and love - I cannot imagine becoming jaded to life, becauase I know of those limitless corners with their limitless views."
Myself, I choose the latter. Given the myriad of ways our species has messed up the world we share with technological excesses (based on short-sighted utopian thinking and often driven and distorted by greed as much as and probably more than idealism), which I believe is the source of our increased and increasing rates of depression in our 'modern' societies.
David Suzuki is a brilliant Canadian ecologist, broadcaster, change agent, etc. who started his career as a genetics researcher/professor studying the lowly fruit fly. And as I've seen him eloquently note on occasion, when discussing man-made threats to our planet, species and other species (http://www.davidsuzuki.org) after years of study we know so very little about the lowly fruit fly, never mind the more complicated species such as ourselves and how we influence each other on a global basis.
Recently he noted that our species has for the first time exceeded the popluations of other species and he eloquently discusses the impacts of these trends in books such as his recent:
"From Naked Ape to Super Species : A Personal Perspective on Humanity and the Global Ecocrisis".Connecting that back to this thread, Utopianism and P.B. I believe that the rising rates of dis-eases (cancer, depression, etc.)are reflections of the many sources of stress we are and have been placing on ourselves by the societal models and mindsets we've chosen. And we can choose again...
Technology, indluding ADs, can, does and will play a role in re-creating the balance if we are conscious, compassionate, careful, thoughtful and purposeful in its applications both at individual and societal levels. However it has the ability to be as much of a curse as a blessing and could as easily destroy our species and planet (as it has other species and other culutures at other times eg. Romans, Mayans, etc.) if we do not deal with core issues promptly (if it is not already too late), passionately, compassionately and systematicaly.
That's what I believe and some of what I consider the best minds of our times and previous times do as well.
For instance here is a quote form American author (and marine biologist) John Steinbeck's Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1940:
"Having taken God-like power we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have. Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope."Times haven't changed, the peril has just become more imminent and our conscious roles as potential agents of conscience and change that much more important.
Wrapping up here's an applicable quote from amazon.com referring to "The Grapes of Wrath" for which Steinbach won the Nobel Prize:
When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, America, still recovering from the Great Depression, came face to face with itself in a startling, lyrical way. John Steinbeck gathered the country's recent shames and devastations--the Hoovervilles, the desperate, dirty children, the dissolution of kin, the oppressive labor conditions--in the Joad family... For this marvel of observation and perception, he won the Pulitzer in 1940.
The prize must have come, at least in part, because alongside the poverty and dispossession, Steinbeck chronicled the Joads' refusal, even inability, to let go of their faltering but unmistakable hold on human dignity. Witnessing their degeneration from Oklahoma farmers to a diminished band of migrant workers is nothing short of crushing. The Joads lose family members to death and cowardice as they go, and are challenged by everything from weather to the authorities to the California locals themselves. As Tom Joad puts it: "They're a-workin' away at our spirits... They're workin' on our decency."
The point, though, is that decency remains intact, if somewhat battle-scarred, and this, as much as the depression and the plight of the "Okies," is a part of American history. When the California of their dreams proves to be less than edenic, Ma tells Tom: "You got to have patience. Why, Tom--us people will go on livin' when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we're the people that live. They ain't gonna wipe us out. Why, we're the people--we go on." ...
They continue, now as much as ever, to illuminate and humanize an era for generations of readers who, thankfully, have no experiential point of reference for understanding the depression. The book's final, haunting image of Rose of Sharon--... forcing the milk intended for her stillborn baby onto a starving stranger, is a lesson on the grandest scale. "'You got to,'" she says, simply. And so do we all. --Melanie Rehak
Namaste!
dj
poster:dj
thread:40133
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000708/msgs/40645.html