Techno Traditionalism
Source: Jan Cossiers/Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Western civilization has lost its way. Together we have never been richer and know more about how the world works. Science and technology are advancing, but our society is riddled with pathologies that manifest themselves in a variety of ways, including the dramatic increase in antidepressant use 1 , the decline of religion, and a sense that life is losing meaning.
One result is unpopular marriages and declining birth rates.
Thinking people want to know what is wrong and what we should do about it. One of the most original views on this topic comes from Mary Harrington, who coined the term "reactionary feminism". 3:
Harrington's friend Louise Perry has just published a book 4 that vividly describes her journey from a progressive feminist to a mother with more traditional views on sex and marriage. Like Harrington, Perry no longer believes that birth control pills and the sexual revolution they've brought about are as good for women as we've been told. At the very least, they argue, we need to rethink the power unleashed by technologies that have separated sexuality from procreation.
Not surprisingly, Perry and Harrington are skeptical about radical innovations in reproductive technology. But Harrington went further than Perry, blaming an ideology called "transhumanism" for our modern ills.
What's the problem with "transhumanism"?
What is transhumanism? And what examples of technology support transhumanists?
According to Harrington, "The Pill was the first transhumanist technology." It is not intended to correct flaws in "normal" human physiology...on the contrary, it introduces an entirely new paradigm." 5 Transhumanism, in this view, is the desire to Using technology to better ourselves or our children . what is normal for our species .
I agree with Harrington that there are huge and often unrecognized costs associated with the pill, including its psychological impact on women 6 and the changing norms of dating and sex. 7 But transhumanism as he describes it has nothing to do with it.
"Transhumanism" is a new term that most people have never heard of, so it would be unwise to blame it for our current social problems. More importantly, if we view transhumanism as our need to use science and technology to go beyond the norm for our species, then the transhumanist project is as old as civilization itself.
Technology is an inexpensive and practical tool. It can be used to improve or worsen a person's condition. And that can have unexpected consequences. But technology aimed at augmenting our abilities doesn't necessarily have to be part of the evil transhuman agenda.
For example, the invention of agriculture led to a stable food supply and allowed cities to grow. However, it is monocultures that are more susceptible to disease and cause the transmission of zoonotic diseases such as influenza from newly domesticated animals. Despite the initial challenges, farming is a key factor in our long and healthy lives.
Without innovations in agriculture, including chemical fertilizers, selective breeding, crop production and animal husbandry, the world would not be able to feed billions of people. And without antibiotics and vaccines, we wouldn't be able to live in cities without constant bouts of plague.
Harrington might argue that innovations like modern agriculture and medicines like antibiotics and vaccines are separate from reproductive technology.
I think this is wrong.
Vaccines create abilities not found in nature, and antibiotics, most of which are synthetic, facilitate surgeries that allow us to improve and extend our lives beyond what is “normal” for our species.
The desire to increase our powers beyond the norm didn't begin with birth control or some abstract ideology called "transhumanism." It is so old that it is included in one of the basic myths of our civilization, the story of Prometheus who stole fire from the gods to improve the human condition after the brutality of nature.
technology and traditions
This desire to improve one's abilities becomes particularly evident when we realize that evolution does not always choose health, happiness, or longevity. In fact, it rewards heinous behavior like rape and infanticide of non-relatives, increasing the chances that our genes will find their way into future bodies. We should be free to try to improve on what nature has given us. This is all the more important considering the increased mutational burden of the modern population, which civilization has facilitated through subsidized health and welfare programs. by 8 o'clock
However, Harrington was right that reproductive freedom should not trump all other values, and Perry was right that sex and marriage are about more than consent and autonomy. We have reason to be wary of the broader social implications of reproductive technologies.
But Harrington has other issues with the technology that I think we should ignore. The concern is the same. “My expectation is that if we find a 'cure' to aging, it won't be available to the general public. It will be very expensive and will primarily serve as a tool to further consolidate resources and power.”
This objection is flawed for two reasons. First, any innovation starts out expensive and difficult. But when the rich spend money on it, there is an effect of scale. Whether it's glasses or books, the market makes innovation cheaper and better, and ultimately more accessible. And of course the state can subsidize this process.
The techno-traditionalists who coined the term in Harrington's sense have come to different values over time.
The technical trade upholds the platonic ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness. They subscribe to the Aristotelian idea that happiness comes from living a perfect life, not from hedonism. And they understand, following Darwin and Nietzsche, that the natural abilities necessary for a good life are unequally distributed within and between population groups. Therefore they are willing to allow discrimination in the service of other transcendent values.
Technology traders want to use scientific innovations to improve and extend their lives and those of their children. They also want to make it accessible to the entire community. They accept this technology even if it goes against the intuition they use—no doubt a useful heuristic in ancestral situations—that normal is sane and abnormal is suspicious.
Like reactionary feminism, “techno-traditionalism” is a meme-age game. But the idea is serious. A reproductive revolution is imminent. Embryonic selection for mental and physical traits is inevitable, and the technology to activate it (gametogenesis in vitro) is only a few years away.
Harrington and Perry are valuable voices in an era of intellectual conformity. Those who call themselves progressives have a right to question whether the "progress" they proclaim is real. However, I think they are wrong on some aspects of reproductive technology.
I write this in a spirit of friendly dissent, realizing that it is better to have an open discussion about the values our civilization is meant to uphold than to wake up drunk in a pub, stumbling around blindfolded and wondering how we are can advance. There.
