From: Stan Perrin, Crystal Lake, IL
Remote User:
Date: 21 April 2001
Response to Mark Satin's "Response to Some Critics of Our Biotech Article"
[Mark's "Response" was posted in this Multilogue on 31 January 2001. His article is called "Coming To Grips With Biotechnology: Beyond Complacency and Fear" and was published as Issue #10-11 of Radical Middle; it's also available on the "ARCHIVES" page of this website.]
BY STAN PERRIN
We cannot live without technology, and should not attempt to do so. Pandora's box was opened centuries ago, and technological development is an inevitable part of human existence.
I love most of Christopher Manes' book, Green Rage, in which Christopher logically and forcefully demonstrates how technology relates to attitudes of exploitation of nature. But he loses me in the closing chapters in which he declares that the solution is to completely do away with technology and for all of humanity to live indigenous lifestyles.
With that said, allow me to point out these precepts:
The inevitability of technology does not automatically lead to the inevitability of all products of technology. It's not an "all or nothing" proposition. We humans need to maintain our control and evaluate emerging technologies, to accept those which appear to be positive and to reject those with potentially negative repercussions.
The judgement of technology cannot be entrusted to the developers of technology and their peers. When a majority of scientists accept a given technology in their field, that is meaningless. (But when they reject a technology, that is meaningful.)
It is not just the technology itself but the attitudes that we humans hold that help determine the acceptability of a given technology. The question needs to be, can we be trusted with it given the way our imperfect world works, not could we be trusted with it in some theoretical world with strict controls altruistically enforced by benign institutions.
Until we advance morally, culturally and intellectually, we must be highly suspect of any emerging technology with potentially devastating effects if misused.
Biotechnology is relatively new. Even before this emerging technology has gained a foothold, we have already had the accident of an unapproved form of genetically engineered corn entering our food supply. This should be seen as a severe warning of worse problems yet to come - not a blip on the road to some genetically modified heaven. Technocrats are always going to skillfully explain away accidents, such as Three Mile Island, or now Starlink, as examples of how "well" the technology works.
The truth is, we don't live in a perfect world where appropriate safeguards on high technology can be infallibly counted on. Even if we impose strict monitoring systems now, that is no guarantee that in the near or distant future, an economic or political decision will be made to loosen the safeguards. With some technologies, the most prudent course is to simply not go down that road.
Biotechnology is the prefect example of imperfection.
But if Mark Satin now sees nuclear power as an acceptable option, then I'm not sure if he will ever fully get it again. To strain my past analogy, perhaps the Stepford Mark has fully killed off the real Mark Satin [see my Multilogue entry "The Stepford Mark Satin" d. 21 August 2000].
And Mark's comments made me sad - his earlier work was a deep influence on me, and you like to imagine that your mentors will always be faithful to their fundamental principles and paradigms. But life rarely works according to the ideal, as we have seen.
In one issue of New Options, Mark made a good case for respecting the labels that movements use to describe their goals. Thus, the Pro-Life movement should be known as such, rather than "Anti-Choice," "Anti-Abortion" or similar negative monikers. And the Pro-Choice movement should be known as such, rather than the "Anti-Life," "Pro-Abortion" or "Abortionist" side.
But sadly, Mark has abandoned his own principles by using the term "Saviors of the Universe" to condescendingly and snidely refer to the anti-biotechnology forces. Ah, Mark, a little humor can hurt when it is used in a derisive manner.
I would not attempt to psychoanalyze Mark Satin, because even if I had any psychiatric credentials whatsoever - which I don't - a therapist needs to see a client personally rather than diagnosing based on the printed word. But it does appear to this long-term observer (and dare I say, "fan") of Mark, that in rejecting the excesses of his past, Mark is throwing away the baby with the bath water. He is also rejecting his past passionate principled Mark Satin and has gone to the opposite extreme to demonstrate how he has changed.
If our culture were to have wholeheartedly embraced organic and sustainable means of agriculture, we could have fed the world many times over by now. We could have used appropriate whole foods nutrition to prevent the Third World deficiencies of vitamin A and iron for which Mark sees no solution other then to "overcome" via biotech.
If our culture were to have wholeheartedly embraced safe and renewable forms of energy, we could have shut down every nuclear power plant by now, while sagely using the world's finite supply of fossil fuels. There would be no rolling blackouts in California or ant talk of drilling into the Arctic Nationla Wildlife Refuge.
Mark appears to believe that the future lies in a synthesis of nuclear and renewable energies, genetically modified and organic foods, hell and heaven. Would he also advocate a "synthesis diet" of eating beef, candy and white bread on even-numbered days; and tofu, whole-grain rice and vegetables on even-numbered days?
He fails to comprehend that one cannot serve two diametrically opposed masters. Treating hot, sexy, emerging technologies as if they were appropriate is not the same as the technologies actually being appropriate.