Colin Conner's Final Project

Colin Conner
Dr. Adam Johns
Seminar in Composition
5 December 2008

You Can Have a World's Fair, but You Can't Have a Fair World

Human intelligence, combined with technology, when being applied to problems, has not always had a positive impact on the world. Octavia Butler tackles that theme with her first book of the Lilith's Brood trilogy, Dawn. In her version of Earth in the future, we have used our intelligence to continue to develop more deadly weapons and use them on one another to the point where mankind is nearly wiped out. Our salvation comes in the form of an alien race that offers to help us recover from extinction but with the price of crossbreeding with them. We have to give up being completely human to remain alive. This ultimate sacrifice is, according to the alien Oankali, necessary because of our contradictory nature. In an exchange between the characters Lilith and Jdayah, Jdayah defines the human contradiction of intelligence paired with a hierarchical nature He adds that the contradiction grew within humankind like a cancer. Lilith protests, arguing that human destructiveness cannot be attributed to our genetic structure:
“Yes,” he [Jdayah] said, “intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn’t matter. A cancer growing in someone’s body will go on growing in spite of denial. And a complex combination of genes that work together to make you intelligent as well as hierarchical will still handicap you whether you acknowledge it or not” (Butler 39).
As the Oankali see us, we are not able to control our hierarchical nature, which causes us to be in conflict with one another. When part of our society is held down because they are identified as different, there is bound to be pain, suffering and strife. In Dawn, even though our situation is hopeless without the Oankali, humans still choose to rebel and use weapons and murder to make their point. Whether it is ethnic group versus ethnic group, natives versus colonists, or rich versus poor, there is hardly ever a situation that is solved peacefully. Even when given a second chance with the enhanced genes of the Oankali, humans revert to their embedded "cancer." Man's use of technology will ultimately be his demise because of "the human contradiction" (intelligence combined with hierarchical behavior) identified by Butler.

Big improvements in technology have always been popular with anticipating audiences, but in many cases these technologies are not as beneficial to society as we think. This was first seen at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. The peak of man's achievement also signaled the beginning of what we know as the modern world. Society would never be the same again because of the technological developments achieved for the World's Fair. However, rich and poor as well as ethnic groups were segregated because of the new age of technology, and the generation of materialism. With biotechnology, we see that a great amount of intelligence is required, but hierarchy plays a role in who is able to take advantage of the improvement that it provides. Only those with the funds to pay are able to have genetically engineered babies, and there will eventually be two separate species; "GenRich" and "GenPoor."

In the real world, here and now, our intelligence is leading us to another kind of possible confrontation and may be changing what it means to be human. With the advances in genetic engineering, we are coming close to a time where diseases and other birth defects might be eliminated before a child is born. It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to see a time coming when we want the baby to also have musical or mathematical talent, and we can ask the genetic specialist to include that; for an additional fee, of course. With people spending this extra money Silver imagines, “GenRich parents put intense pressure on their children not to dilute their expensive genetic endowment in this way.” And indeed, eventually, they become ‘entirely separate species, with no ability to cross-breed, and with as much romantic interest in each other as a current human would have for a chimpanzee.’” (McKibben 39). Again, we see our hierarchical nature come out when these amazing genetic advances can be accomplished, but only those with the money to buy them will get them. McKibben raises this issue in Enough, where he quotes Lee M. Silver's book, Remaking Eden, which introduces the terms GenRich and GenPoor (38). It is not hard to imagine 10-15 years from now, when a couple with a lot of money could ask a genetic doctor to make sure their baby boy won't be bald like his father, and also to give him enough intelligence to get into Stanford since his Mom and Dad couldn't. Across town, another set of parents find out their child will be born with leukemia, but for a large sum of money, which they don't have, they could have it eliminated. McKibben notes,
“...A sixth of the American population lacks health insurance of any kind – they can’t afford to go to the doctor for a checkup. And much of the rest of the world is far worse off. If we can’t afford the fifty cents a person it would take to buy bed nets to protect most of Africa from malaria, it is unlikely we will extend to anyone but the top tax bracket these latest forms of genetic technology” (37).
Because the GenRich would be no more than 10% of the population, this would spell trouble for the world's unity. We would return to segregated schools and other buildings. People would be looked down upon for not being GenRich, and the GenPoor would hate the GenRich. We would take a step back as a society. This could lead to battles between the GenPoor and GenRich, a new kind of Civil War, fought out in the streets and in the government, where legislators call for a Genetic Bill of Rights.

I agree with McKibben that our intelligence will ultimately lead to a new hierarchy, and eventually a new species. Genetic engineering is too much for us to handle right now, we do not have correct limits set, and it also will not benefit everyone as it stands now. We need to know our limits and what is good for society, and what will lead to our doom. We have seen the kinds of weapons of mass destruction that we are able to create to strike fear into other countries. In 1893, the Krupp cannon (the equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction at the time) was introduced at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. This event showcased many of the great technological advances of the time people from all over the world. It also proved our love for power and our continued social hierarchy.

This World's Fair marked the beginning of the modern era, and there are some developments that point to a new height in our human intelligence: the huge wheel created by George W. Ferris to be more impressive than Eiffel's tower in Paris; the first long distance phone call; and illumination of the buildings and grounds using light bulbs and electricity. Sadly, this event also showed our hierarchical nature: the exclusion of blacks except as restroom attendants and the Africans on display as primitives; a separate building for women, with artwork by women and displays of women's activities (Muccigrosso 138, 143). Women played a secondary role in society and the right to vote was still many years away. Even though America was able to experience the “electric” intelligence of Edison and Tesla that ultimately lit the fair, only the rich homeowners would be able to benefit directly from this great technological leap at the end of the exposition. There were also more ominous products like the artillery cannon from Krupp. Twenty-five years later, weapons like the Krupp cannon and others would make World War I (A battle to be on top of the world's hierarchy) one of the most vicious of large wars. Our intelligence allowed us to create chemical weapons, aerial warfare with airplanes, and armored attacks with tanks, all able to cause massive damage.

During this course, I have had the opportunity to reflect on the viewpoints of McKibben and Butler. Although one author writes nonfiction and the other fiction, both agree that, given the proper tools, man cannot avoid destroying himself. McKibben looks at the dark side of genetic engineering and sees the ultimate outcome the same as Butler: that one day, humans will no longer be human. Humanity has shown that we are able, at times, to hold back our hierarchical nature, and use our intelligence for more positive results. Looking back at the World's Fair of 1893, we can see that electrical power is now a utility in every household of the rich and the poor. Telephones became a fixture, and now long distance is free. Women eventually got the right to vote, and a bi-racial man is now President of the United States. In Erik Larson’s text, The Devil in the White City he observes,
“The fair’s greatest impact lays in how it changed the way Americans perceived their cities and their architects. It primed the whole of America – not just a few rich architectural patrons – to think of cities in a way they never had before. Elihu Root said the fair led ‘our people out of the wilderness of the commonplace to the new ideas of architectural beauty and nobility.’…The fair taught men and women steeped only in the necessary to see that cities did not have to be dark, soiled, and unsafe bastions of the strictly pragmatic. They could also be beautiful” (373).
The Fair’s use of architecture as a way to house exhibits captured the height of creative expression. The buildings served as exhibits themselves, allowing the public to experience the structures as much as what was contained within them. Lots of other positive developments came from the fair, in the areas of art, and music. Many positive results have come from genetic engineering as well, including food crops that are resistant to disease and drought, and cures for some of the worst diseases, like cancer and Alzheimer's are currently being researched.

I have seen both cancer and memory loss affect my family. It is very a tough struggle dealing with the consequences of these diseases and the stress they place on a family. I wish there was a way to eradicate these diseases from the world so that no one has to suffer. This would be a great advancement that would benefit people all around the world, but I would like to see the cure not involve genetic engineering. Right now genetic engineering is too dangerous and could cause more harm by producing genetic mutations that are as bad as the diseases. We have not proven yet that we will be able to control genetic engineering, and until we can, we should not continue with researching that powerful technology.

The human contradiction of today’s world has its roots in the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and continues with McKibben’s ideas. With the first large use of electricity taking place during the fair, that opened up a world of possibilities for new technologies. People were able to see the benefits of electricity in their everyday lives and how it could change the way we lived. This eventually led to new electronic appliances that were useful in our everyday lives such as the radio, television, and shortly afterwards, the computer. The computer allowed us to use our intelligence to build software and processors to solve problems. Once we made the computers more powerful and more reliable, our first uses were for warfare, looking for ways that one group of people could dominate or survive attacks from another group of people. McKibben shows us that genetic engineering is the here and now. It too is an application of our intelligence, combined with technology, to solve a problem. He knows that it could be our inevitable downfall when he says, “It’s not just the critics of germline engineering who see this slick slope looming; those who see it as inevitable also frankly admit that today cystic fibrosis, tomorrow IQ” (McKibben 126). This powerful technology could be used in our military to build the “perfect” soldier, with enhanced senses, strength and intelligence. We are not ready for this future, with our intelligence leading us to a continued struggle for the top position in the world hierarchy. There is just too much possibility for genetic engineering technology to fall into the wrong hands, although I cannot think of a situation where it would be proper for the United States to have access to these future warriors. As we have seen for the past 20-25 years, we have not been very good about overcoming the human contradiction either. We have been using our military power to wage a "war on terror" that asserts our hierarchy over people we view as terrorists. Just as McKibben said, a new type of human will be created. When that happens, will we be like the humans in Dawn, where the normal humans will rebel and attempt to remove the superior individuals? We will continue to use our intelligence, combine it with technology and attempt to solve problems. Our hierarchical nature will still exist, and may be enhanced by our genetic changes. Despite what we might consider progress, the "human contradiction" will remain intact, bringing about our own extinction.


Works Cited:
Butler, Octavia E. Lilith’s Brood. 2000. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2007.

Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.

McKibben, Bill. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. 2003. 2004 ed. New York: Owl Books, 2004.

Muccigrosso, Robert. Celebrating the New World: Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The American Way Series. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 1993.