V 3

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 david,

 since we kicked the issue not only in cyberspace, yet also face-to-face, you 
 should be fully aware that i am  n o t  your young republican "christian  
 fundamentalist" who don't wanna know any damn difference between devilish  
 things like teenage sex, pornography, abortion or bio-technology. my worries 
 are of a more sociological nature --- 

 however, the argument that "the embryo is sacred" is certainly worth 
 considering; &  isn't it a sign of intellectual and also political dignity not 
 to ridicule a respectable opinion just because it offsprings from the idiots   
 of 'the other camp'? practical scepticism towards the "inevitability" of   
 bio-technology is, by the way, not limited to religious fanatics. that leon   
 kass, he absolved, so i read in today's paper, not a theological but a medical 
 and bio-chemistral education. doesn't hinder him from being against the cloning 
 of humans and other completely irresponsible things. the question whether the 
 embryo is an actual soulful human being has been controversially debated since 
 ancient greek times. without any clear result. here nobody - perhaps except for 
 avatars or 'secret chiefs' (don't call us: we call you!) - knows more than you 
 or me. but whatever your metaphysical beliefs are and whenever it might be that 
 the deeper karmic personality enters the baby, you can not deny that the embryo 
 is a potential human being. human being which hasn't got a voice yet. in one of 
 my hokus pokus qbl books, by the way, i once found an old proverb saying that 
 the child gets created as a soulful being the moment its parents - looking 
 at each other - fall in love ... 

 ok, abortion. i'm sorry but i can't sing with those who celebrate abortions as 
 joyful manifestations of feminist freedom. simply not the way i feel about it. 
 whatever the embryo might or might not be: these bubbles live! ever seen one of 
 those videos where on can observe how the poor creature desperately tries to 
 avoid being sucked up by the great white vacuum cleaner? however, i'm aware 
 that there are social and/or psychic situations where there simply is no other 
 possibility. so i'm for free choice. peace to all my p-list sisters out there!

 right, myself i was never good at morals. i'm the guy who works in a kinda  
 'affirmative' research program on distributed artificial intelligence (got kids 
 to feed!). about 80% of the food i'm consuming is meat. & then - horrors! - i  
 now and then like to wear nike textiles. probably just a few years too old for 
 this "seattle generation" ...      
     
 but i digress. we were talking about bio-technology. in an article (rich of 
 material, a little undecided in configuration), otto was so friendly to send me 
 per snail mail, inger h. dalsgaard ("terrifying technology: pynchon's warning 
 myth of today", in pynchon notes 42-3, pp. 91-110, here 102) writes: "the 
 dna-shape pynchon detects in the mittelwerke provides the genetic justification 
 as well as the symbolic basis for a totalitarian regime's desire to exterminate 
 'subhumans'". the double helix is  t h e i r  holy grail ... & today's 
 "subhumans" are the handicapped people. they get wiped out from the face of 
 this earth ... exceptionally heartful and open human beings like lots of the 
 people with downs syndrom (once taught a group of them to read and write   
 german), they do not get born anymore. you know, clever pre-natal diagnostics  
 ... "you do want to live a  n o r m a l life, don't you? good, so i suggest we 
 get that convertible slime out of your body and keep trying ..." thank you, dr. 
 what-was-the-name?! and nobody can assure or even guarantee you, with good  
 reasons that is, that they will, when all handicapped people are gone or even  
 before, n o t consider further "improvements" of the population. skin, hair,  
 colour of eye. also certain psycho-social qualities. think vineland. the  
 english sociologist zygmunt bauman, born jewish in poland, he speaks of  
 modernity's "hostility towards ambivalence", and the german historian hans  
 mommsen names the "idea of the changeability of population structures" as the  
 very essence of fascist politics. 
                                             let's stop bio-technology now!    

 yours in discourse, kai frederik


ps: a new yoyodyne pill? "against 'epilepsy'"?! hoot! put them into the fire! i 
don't need that shit ... the "closed white version of reality" sucks, sucks 
more than anything else in this whole wide world ~~~