{"id":704,"date":"2012-02-04T18:47:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-04T22:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/?p=704"},"modified":"2012-02-04T22:44:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-05T02:44:51","slug":"just-say-no-to-professor-pinker-and-shudder-president-gingrich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/?p=704","title":{"rendered":"Just Say No to Professor Pinker and (shudder) President Gingrich"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas didn\u2019t make it into the top ten listing of \u201cconservative\u201d states, according to the latest Gallup poll<\/a>. \u00a0I am not sure what to make of this read on the land of my childhood. \u00a0I am, frankly, completely baffled by what \u201cconservative\u201d means these days. \u00a0Corey Robin has a new book<\/a> I need to read that will likely help. \u00a0But, in the meantime, I am paying particular attention to the rhetoric around \u201cprogress\u201d and \u201ctechnology\u201d in this Republican primary season. \u00a0This makes for some whacky reading, as Newt Gingrich seems to match dear old Gene Roddenberry in his unbridled faith in technology to make our world a shiny, happy place<\/a>. \u00a0(Or should I say to make the solar system a shiny, happy set of places?) \u00a0When Gingrich starts in about colonizing the moon, for instance, he seems less \u201cconservative\u201d and more, well . . . \u201cprogressive,\u201d only we don\u2019t usually use that word for someone who also wants to teach impoverished children a lesson by making them clean toilets. \u00a0Yet there are some time-worn, icky connections between faith in scientific progress and disdain for people who seem not to<\/em> progress<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Thinking on this, two stories came to my mind, back from my days on the bioethics circuit.
\nThe first was a panel on genetically testing embryos at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins, in 2005, during which I sat to the right<\/a> (literally and figuratively) of Newt Gingrich. \u00a0You can view the video here<\/a>\u00a0– scroll down to the \u201cpanel discussion\u201d option. \u00a0What strikes me most about this exchange, as I view it again now (besides the fact that I seem anguished and in need of a good backrub) is that Newt followed up on my awkward profession of faith by lecturing the audience (and me) about Adam and Eve, Prometheus, and how reproductive bioetechnology runs along a continuum from contraception to genetic engineering. \u00a0(My remarks are around 57:00 and his remarks are around 59:00.) \u00a0In 2005, I didn\u2019t know much about Gingrich, except that he had formerly headed up a deeply divisive and wrong-headed battle against social spending for single mothers, so I was scrambling a bit to piece together what makes him tick. \u00a0Sitting there, I wondered if maybe he wasn\u2019t so much a \u201cconservative\u201d when it comes to bioetech, as a pro-business technophile. \u00a0Americans had already crossed the boundary of procreative chance, he suggested, \u201c100 years ago\u201d (presumably again referencing contraception) – and what we need now is a framework to discuss, accept, and regulate the panoply of options facing families when crafting children. \u00a0Gingrich reiterated the usual argument for testing embryos genetically: <\/a>to do so would help families to avoid untold suffering.<\/p>\n

When I heard on the news that Gingrich has a for-profit think-tank<\/a> on health related matters and read that he has a boyhood fascination with a scientifically enhanced future for humankind<\/a>,\u00a0some gears clicked together. \u00a0Like Gene Roddenberry, Gingrich is inspired not so much by the nitty-gritty, daily work of human solidarity, but by a big picture arc upward<\/a>, toward the enhanced future, fueled by technology. \u00a0As his now notorious (at least in liberal circles) remarks at Harvard about school toilets indicate, Gingrich\u2019s passion for scientific ingenuity may be read as congruous with his lack of patience with poor people. \u00a0During a time when the economic arc is wobbly, poor people, with their interminable suffering, seem a dangerous drag on the population.<\/p>\n

What should we call such \u201cconservatism\u201d?<\/p>\n

The second story has to do with Steven Pinker, whose paean to human progress is out in the form of a book entitled Better Angels of Our Nature: \u00a0Why Violence Has Declined<\/em>. \u00a0(It has a catchy cover you shouldn\u2019t miss<\/a>.) I have not read the book yet, and probably won\u2019t, in large part due to the story below, but also due to the review<\/a> by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker. \u00a0Pinker\u2019s evidently dense book draws on various statistics to show that humanity is becoming less violent, overall, but, as Kolbert reports, he has to bracket what some of us would term human evil. \u00a0His case for an upward arc of progress has precisely to do with the advance of \u201ccivilization\u201d through reason, over arcane notions of localism, superstition, and tradition:<\/p>\n

\n

. . . episodes that one would think are more relevant to a history of violence are simply glossed over. Pinker is virtually silent about Europe’s bloody colonial adventures. (There’s not even an entry for “colonialism” in the book’s enormous index.) This is a pretty serious omission, both because of the scale of the slaughter and because of the way it troubles the distinction between savage and civilized. What does it reveal about the impulse control of the Spanish that, even as they were learning how to dispose of their body fluids more discreetly, they were systematically butchering the natives on two continents? Or about the humanitarianism of the British that, as they were turning away from such practices as drawing and quartering, they were shipping slaves across the Atlantic? And what does it say about the French that they liked to refer to their colonial project as ‘la mission civilisatrice’?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And, as Kolbert notes, when dealing with a regime that just about everyone names as evil, Pinker just plain doesn\u2019t make sense:<\/p>\n

\n

Though he hesitates to label the Second World War an out-and-out fluke, he is reduced to claiming that, as far as his thesis is concerned, it doesn’t really count. Accidents happen, and the Nazis’ rise to power was one of them. A series of unfortunate events ensued, but it’s important not to rush to judgment. “There is no indication that anyone but Hitler and a few fanatical henchmen thought it was a good idea for the Jews to be exterminated,” Pinker notes. In any event, “when a genocide is carried out, only a fraction of the population, usually a police force, military unit, or militia, actually commits the murders.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This chilled me, given a creepy encounter I had with Professor Pinker at Harvard as a part of an event on \u201cRe-engineering Human Biology<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0This story requires some background. \u00a0At the risk of losing my own dear reader by dropping too many names, here we go. \u00a0Michael Sandel<\/a> is a professor at Harvard. \u00a0He served on President Bush\u2019s Council on Bioethics. \u00a0While on the Council, Sandel wrote an Atlantic cover article that made a bit of a splash, recommending against a trend toward designer babies. \u00a0(The article draws heavily on the work of William F. May, with minimal acknowledgement of such. \u00a0May is a gracious man.) \u00a0Sandel held a conference at Harvard around the time that his little book edition of the Atlantic article came out. \u00a0I was one of the \u201cjust say no to eugenics\u201d scholars invited to come and, well . . . say no<\/a>. \u00a0After my remarks on the societal pressure toward hyper-controlled procreation, Pinker and Richard Posner<\/a> pressed me with a question. \u00a0As best I can recall the exchange, it went like this:<\/p>\n

Pinker: \u00a0If you had an encounter with a man at an establishment that you don\u2019t usually frequent, and you found yourself pregnant, wouldn\u2019t you have a moral obligation to terminate the pregnancy?
\nMe: [both a bit grossed out and also determined to make him say more] What exactly do you mean by a bar I don\u2019t usually frequent?
\nPinker: You know what I mean.
\nMe: No, Professor Pinker. \u00a0I don\u2019t exactly understand what you mean.
\nPinker: [a bit exasperated] You know, a bar across the tracks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I responded that, by his utilitarian logic, I would have more of a moral responsibility to terminate a pregnancy if the tryst were with an investment banker from New Canaan. \u00a0(This satisfied neither Pinker nor Posner.)<\/p>\n

The exchange revealed blatantly the elitist assumptions that usually flow just under the surface of discussions about technological progress and national identity. \u00a0There are some whose lives are marked for the future and others whose lives are marked as barriers to progress. \u00a0And it is the job of the best and the brightest, at places like Harvard, to determine what should happen to those who live \u201cacross the tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her review, Kolbert notes that Pinker is the least morally coherent in his discussion of technology and modernity. \u00a0In order to pat our modern, collective selves on the backs for our newly peaceful ways, we have to pretend not to notice how we have used our hands to beat plowshares into really, really effective swords:<\/p>\n

\n

In addition to trade and democracy and control over body fluids, a key feature of modernity is rapid technological innovation. Nowhere is this more evident than in the development of tools of destruction. In terms of the weapons we carry–or have our drones carry–Westerners are more violent than any other group that has ever come along. And we have passed these weapons on, often to devastating effect . . . And along with the deadly weapons have come the deadly ideas. Though Pinker would like to pretend otherwise, Fascism and Communism are inventions that are every bit as modern as women’s rights and the eurozone. When you add Mao and Stalin to Hitler, the death toll from mid-twentieth-century atrocities rises to well over a hundred million. Before Pol Pot invented the killing fields, he studied in Paris, where he developed a taste not just for Marx but also for the classics of French literature.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Julian Savulescu<\/a>, a world-renowned and very well-funded eugenicist from Oxford (U.K.) was a keynote speaker at the conference. \u00a0He is one of many prominent figures who are fascinated by the prospects of a better future through technology. \u00a0This form of argument seems potentially to act like the Borg, taking over \u201cliberal\u201d and \u201cconservative\u201d conversations about how to form a more perfect union. \u00a0Kara Slade just sent me this gem<\/a> of an announcement, which seems to sum up well a trend that has me truly in a what-the-flying-burritos<\/em> mood. \u00a0The conference asks \u201cCan we enhance the moral brain?\u201d \u00a0Yes, I would respond. \u00a0We can. \u00a0Over time and with grace. \u00a0Not in labs. \u00a0And not even through primaries or primarily through presidential elections. \u00a0Not through grand, scientific or political schemes for fixing my neighbors and their children. But through patience and daily interactions of common cause, at an awkwardly bilingual PTA meeting and at a strained Bible study, wherein the \u201cteachers\u201d find themselves taught. \u00a0In local community organizing and in congregation-with-congregation pot-luck suppers – the ones that have us not quite sure even where to start, because our differences seem so vast. \u00a0These are the networks of human connection that give me hope for whatever it is that Christians call \u201cthe future.\u201d \u00a0I am not sure whether that makes me conservative or liberal. \u00a0I am pretty sure I don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

In closing, I will reach out a bit to those who long for a President Gingrich due to his sheer, geeky passion for a science-fiction future. \u00a0Try on this argument. \u00a0While the Star Trek franchise is really cool \u2013 a utopia with nuance and texture \u2013 perhaps the most intriguing struggles come as deeply ingrained cultures meet on Deep Space 9<\/a>, a narrative world marked more by unlikely friendships and surprising vocations than by light-speed travel to new worlds. \u00a0Or, to put the same matter a bit differently, the abiding question \u201cIs Data human?\u201d may be best answered by his capacity not for ingenuity, but for empathy. \u00a0\u00a0May there be more of that all around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas didn\u2019t make it into the top ten listing of \u201cconservative\u201d states, according to the latest Gallup poll. \u00a0I am not sure what to make of this read on the land of my childhood. \u00a0I am, frankly, completely baffled by what \u201cconservative\u201d means these days. \u00a0Corey Robin has a new book I need to read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[38,37,44,45,43,46,41,39,42,47,50,40,48,49],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","tag-astonishing-true-stories","tag-bioethics","tag-conservatism","tag-corey-robin","tag-hegel","tag-michael-sandel","tag-modernity","tag-newt-gingrich","tag-progress","tag-richard-posner","tag-star-trek","tag-steven-pinker","tag-technology","tag-utopianism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EotM-bm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":715,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}