In today’s modified world exploding with scientific discovery, the increased knowledge assimilated by man has lead the human race to tamper with the idea of creating a more perfect society. New scientific advancements in technology have even allowed the human race capable to eradicate genetic imperfections at foetal development. This technique is known as genetic engineering, where the human genome and DNA is manipulated to conform to certain standards, the standard of perfection. These advancements are relished through man’s pedantic desire of performing the gained knowledge borne from human intellect. However, man should take caution because the human race is greatly harming itself through tampering the fragile balance of the human body. Where is man overstepping his boundary? Despite the arguable benefits of genetic engineering, the costs outweigh the benefits in several ways.
Genetic engineering may sound highly appealing because think about it: our very world extinct from diseases that act as impediments. No autism, no asbergers, and no cancer waiting to ravage the human body. The very catalyst sparking life to these malignant genes start in the gene pool at the moment of conception. Now these genes can expire through the use of genetic engineering and through the use of manipulating the karyotypes of the soon to be child. In Brave New World, at the very moment of conception, the perfect human being is shaped by the hand of man, the new Creator. Man becomes the divine being, the divine God. Oh what a power, what a gift! Imagine the people of the world not suffering from cruelty that natural selection puts on the people of the world! Troubles of the world would slip through the hands like water, like lost blown sand of the past. Forgotten the pain and agony of the human race! One would argue that through genetic engineering, humans would be created to perform certain jobs more efficiently because they were programmed to have a natural knack for completing them.
One would argue to say that people would be gifted with certain abilities to benefit the world. For example, a man engineered to be a doctor would be programmed to have a high intellectual capacity to perform high levels of calculus, memorization of medical terms, and have excellent patience for ample precision when performing an operation. People’s abilities would be so much higher and they could achieve much greater things than they could achieve in today’s world. In a world that is being dominated through the study of humanism, and declining with the studies of altruism, God fades away, and human accomplishment lays in the center ring. This idea can create consequences with the weight to destroy the importance of the human soul, and create a world of programmed machines that go parallel with Thomas Hobbs’s philosophy. “All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called "Facts". They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.” Facts of science once learned blacken a person’s mind like black ink swallowing a white sheet of paper. The paper’s white chastity lies helpless, blackened by the ink, which is parallel to the ink splotch gnawing at the mid of humanity: scientific knowledge.
Unfortunately, this idea carries many strong consequences. At first, genetic engineering would probably be used to filter out genetic disorders that could be cause harm to the child’s life. However, here is a point to consider: people in general are always curious with innovating scientific improvements and in technology. After all, child creation becomes no longer a natural act, but a mechanical act of technology. People become marketed as if on an assembly line, being shaped with certain parts to create a functioning product with the ability of performing a task. Life is something special, a gift from God. As a human being, a person should have the rights to be created differently than a Tyco remote control car on assembly line. We are humans, not people on the verge of being created by interchangeable parts. We are human. We are human. We are a living divine soul, not an engineering project! Genetic engineering is harmful because it involves playing the role of God! Genetic engineering makes obsolete the individual’s free will, something that belongs to the human being! A child should not be created to be a fireman, it is HIS life; the boy chooses what he wants to become as an adult.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a fictional society is created that uses human technology to shape this world, one of them genetic engineering. In this society ruled by the philosopher king Mustafa, the people in the community are genetically engineered so they can accomplish a particular job, and nothing else besides that because they are oppressed form knowing the knowledge of the world like history and the truth. These people know nothing but carnal instinct and feeling high from Soma. The people in Huxley’s world become nothing but Headenists seeking fleshly pleasure and fulfillment. In this new society, there is no longer art, famous literature, or Bible. Instead, this society has Soma, an opiate, feelies, an adventure of the emotions, and lots of orgies. This is such a feel- good society, and it seems near impossible to find a flaw. However, in the novel Bernard talks to Lenina, a beautiful young woman if she wanted something different from everybody else in the world. “Yes, ‘Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way” (Huxley 91). Bernard’s question shows the idea that maybe the people in Brave New World are not happy at all. He tells her if she wanted to be FREE, something that nobody in that world is. All the occupants in this society are oppressed, and to some degree the people in the society are aware of this. Although Mustafa may try to save his people from the truths, is he really bringing them happiness? Mustafa is an unsuccessful attempt to play God. He tries, but his followers may not truly be happy. It is very apparent in that quote that Bernard knows deep in his gut that something is lacking in life. There really is no such thing as a perfect world. In this perverse world full of orgies, genetic corruption, and oppression even God cannot save us from this apocalypse. The savage paralleling the coming of the Messiah failed. If God cannot help us then who can?
The human being tries to out step his boundary by attempting to play the role as God. Why must man utilize all discovered knowledge and put it into action? Although genetic engineering lies in the capability of man, does it make it acceptable to perform it when it can be misused and consequently destroy the entire world? Through the use of genetic engineering, man becomes a mathematical equation , a calculated formula consisting of calculus and annalytical geometry. Consequently, the human race under genetic manipulation becomes a homogeneous population of black and white devoid of individuality, free will, and liberty.
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