This book is more fluff than serious engagement, but it is high concept. What can be more difficult than being a daughter that you know was brought into existence to be a potential donor/life-saver for your sister? I wish Jodi Picoult was able to frame the ethical questions in more interesting ways, but still, the story is a powerful one, and will get readers to stop and think about seeing life from a utilitarian perspective.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Amazon Black Friday!
I know where I'll be shopping on Friday after Thanksgiving! Forget the mall; amazon is having specials all day. Click the link above to join in!
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Love for the future is self-love
It would be difficult to find a writer who more cleanly hits the nail on the head of the truth than Wendell Berry. His essay "Standing by Words" may be one of the best attacks against the excesses of the contemporary love for technological progress that I have ever seen. Berry explains that the disintegration of language and the disintegration of persons and communities go hand in hand. Precision in language forces a kind of responsibility to that which is external to us. Precision in language forces us to go beyond the fantasies inside our mind and into the realm of things.
I'm skipping through a lot here, but what interests me is that Berry illustrates clearly how people who dream about the future and how everything will be fixed by technology are not really loving other people. Love cannot be abstract, but must be for particular people and creatures. So love for the future is self love. Listen to the wisdom here:
“Desire for the future produces words that cannot be stood by. But love makes language exact, because one loves only what one knows. One cannot love the future or anything in it, for nothing is known there. And one cannot unselfishly make a future for someone else. Love for the future is self-love—love for the present self, projected and magnified into the future, and it is an irremediable loneliness.”
Wendell Berry is one of this country's best essayists. Buy this book and read it all. You will not be sorry.
I'm skipping through a lot here, but what interests me is that Berry illustrates clearly how people who dream about the future and how everything will be fixed by technology are not really loving other people. Love cannot be abstract, but must be for particular people and creatures. So love for the future is self love. Listen to the wisdom here:
“Desire for the future produces words that cannot be stood by. But love makes language exact, because one loves only what one knows. One cannot love the future or anything in it, for nothing is known there. And one cannot unselfishly make a future for someone else. Love for the future is self-love—love for the present self, projected and magnified into the future, and it is an irremediable loneliness.”
Wendell Berry is one of this country's best essayists. Buy this book and read it all. You will not be sorry.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Brilliant satire
I've been reading George Saunders' collection of short stories called In Persuasion Nation. Wow. Let me just say how grateful I am that a former student of mine introduced me to Saunders by recommending the lead story in this collection, "I Can Speak!" I don't think I've ever read anything quite as original (as far as short stories go) as these stories. Please read them for yourself.
Why? Because it is nearly impossible to simply describe these stories. They combine the critique of Don DeLillo with the moral heart of Andre Dubus. There is one story called "brad carrigan, american" that moves seamlessly from tv simulacra to American life, and ends up critiquing both for their utter soulessness. When a tv show begins to develop a real conscience, it has to be eliminated. Another moving story, "Jon" is set sometime in some possible future, in which certain unwanted children are made into conduits for advertisements; the brilliance of the story is that the children have no language for anything other than that language and those images that have been supplied to them by commericials. The result is a hilarious but utterly moving look at how dehumanizing that can be. I cannot describe these stories. Buy them, read them, enjoy.
Why? Because it is nearly impossible to simply describe these stories. They combine the critique of Don DeLillo with the moral heart of Andre Dubus. There is one story called "brad carrigan, american" that moves seamlessly from tv simulacra to American life, and ends up critiquing both for their utter soulessness. When a tv show begins to develop a real conscience, it has to be eliminated. Another moving story, "Jon" is set sometime in some possible future, in which certain unwanted children are made into conduits for advertisements; the brilliance of the story is that the children have no language for anything other than that language and those images that have been supplied to them by commericials. The result is a hilarious but utterly moving look at how dehumanizing that can be. I cannot describe these stories. Buy them, read them, enjoy.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Children of Men
I had the interesting experience of reading P.D. James's novel The Children of Men at the same time as I was reading Peter Singer's book Writings on an Ethical Life. Singer justifes infanticide with breathtaking ease, arguing that infants are "replaceable." I don't want to be unfair to his position; it is not as if he thinks it is simply ok to go around killing babies. But he is clear: if you do not want to care for a Down's syndrome child (because it will take away some of your happiness) it is ok in his ethical view to abort that child or to euthanize him. Then, just go on ahead and have the "normal" child you prefer to have. It is a replacement for the other.
Infants are not replaceable. In James's novel, she puts some pressure on Singer's position by imagining a world in which suddenly, inexplicably, humans are unable to have babies. The year of the last child is named "Omega." 25 years go by; soon humanity gives up hope on life. The novel makes you think again, and not at all sentimentally, about how precious human life really is. We simply take fertility for granted. The protagonist in the novel, Theo, learns to come outside of himself to fight for others. It is this kind of change in our way of thinking about others that will save us. Children are not primarily for our happiness (though certainly they give joy). They are the gift of God because life itself, in all its variety, is the gift of God.
Infants are not replaceable. In James's novel, she puts some pressure on Singer's position by imagining a world in which suddenly, inexplicably, humans are unable to have babies. The year of the last child is named "Omega." 25 years go by; soon humanity gives up hope on life. The novel makes you think again, and not at all sentimentally, about how precious human life really is. We simply take fertility for granted. The protagonist in the novel, Theo, learns to come outside of himself to fight for others. It is this kind of change in our way of thinking about others that will save us. Children are not primarily for our happiness (though certainly they give joy). They are the gift of God because life itself, in all its variety, is the gift of God.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Science fiction at its best
I am Orson Scott Card's newest fan. I don't know why it took me so long to find these amazing novels; but I am glad I did. I just finished the second novel in the Ender Wiggins saga called Speaker for the Dead.
But if you are going to read Card, start with the first: Ender's Game. I could not believe what an interesting and compelling novel this was. Sci-fi is panned by most readers of "serious fiction" because it tends to be scenario driven, rather than character driven. But truly great sci fi does both. It puts compelling characters into scenarios that force them to act in especially revelatory ways. Good sci fi reveals something about how what it means to be human is always going to be pressed against, depending upon the circumstance. And in Ender's Game, the circumstance is the conviction that the world is about to come to an end at the hand of the "buggers" an alien life form that looks like insects but are a lot more advanced than humans. I will say this: if this one line is all that I had heard about the novel, I would have thought that there was no way I could like it. It sounds about as trite as it comes. But then you open to the first page and you realize what a good writer can do with that scenario. He can put a child prodigy into it, a child who is the hope of his race, a child who is as deep emotionally as he is intellectually. Suddenly there's a story--and this one even has a great twist at the end. Read it. It's great.
But if you are going to read Card, start with the first: Ender's Game. I could not believe what an interesting and compelling novel this was. Sci-fi is panned by most readers of "serious fiction" because it tends to be scenario driven, rather than character driven. But truly great sci fi does both. It puts compelling characters into scenarios that force them to act in especially revelatory ways. Good sci fi reveals something about how what it means to be human is always going to be pressed against, depending upon the circumstance. And in Ender's Game, the circumstance is the conviction that the world is about to come to an end at the hand of the "buggers" an alien life form that looks like insects but are a lot more advanced than humans. I will say this: if this one line is all that I had heard about the novel, I would have thought that there was no way I could like it. It sounds about as trite as it comes. But then you open to the first page and you realize what a good writer can do with that scenario. He can put a child prodigy into it, a child who is the hope of his race, a child who is as deep emotionally as he is intellectually. Suddenly there's a story--and this one even has a great twist at the end. Read it. It's great.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Personhood
I am very interested in theological accounts of personhood that force us to rethink our individualistic orientation. That is why I picked up McFadyen's book. With the doctrine of the trinity as a foundation, he makes the case for the person as socially constituted, but not determined. “Human being is a relational structure (ontological aspect), and we are defined by the form our relationships, and thereby our individualities, take (ethical aspect)” (40). There is no stable essence to the human person; the person is known in relationship.
In general, I subscribe to this point of view, but McFadyen’s argument showed me some new problems. First, his identifying the person with communication in social relationships (which he defines as information processing of some sort), sounds too much like what N. Katherine Hayles reminds us is the definition of the posthuman—as that which is defined by information patterns. This way of thinking about the person is inherently disembodied, because the body does not really matter, except as it communicates more information. McFadyen would disagree with this, and spends several pages talking about the body, but his argumentation is not overly convincing. He makes a lot of assertions, not solid arguments. Second, if you define a person by communication within relationships, as a gift of society, then what of people who cannot communicate because of disability? This argument may not hold up, because it doesn’t mean that others are not related to the disabled person in a way that forms each of them. “Persons are a manifestation of their relations, formed through though not simply reducible to them” (40). Third, I have significant problems with the following statement: “The lone Adam is not truly human: life becomes human only when he greets and accepts Eve. Humanity is therefore equated with neither lone individuality nor masculinity. Adam and Eve become human only in relation to each other. Humanity is fully in the image of God only where it is a lived dialogical encounter” (32). Obviously, this argumentation borrows from Barth, but he still needs to prove this statement. Adam is not truly human? Just because God said it was not good for Adam to be alone? (as he goes on to suggest). This argument is not strong enough for me, but I don’t quite know how to keep the strong thesis of the relatedness of persons and not go down that path. I think we need to.
In general, I subscribe to this point of view, but McFadyen’s argument showed me some new problems. First, his identifying the person with communication in social relationships (which he defines as information processing of some sort), sounds too much like what N. Katherine Hayles reminds us is the definition of the posthuman—as that which is defined by information patterns. This way of thinking about the person is inherently disembodied, because the body does not really matter, except as it communicates more information. McFadyen would disagree with this, and spends several pages talking about the body, but his argumentation is not overly convincing. He makes a lot of assertions, not solid arguments. Second, if you define a person by communication within relationships, as a gift of society, then what of people who cannot communicate because of disability? This argument may not hold up, because it doesn’t mean that others are not related to the disabled person in a way that forms each of them. “Persons are a manifestation of their relations, formed through though not simply reducible to them” (40). Third, I have significant problems with the following statement: “The lone Adam is not truly human: life becomes human only when he greets and accepts Eve. Humanity is therefore equated with neither lone individuality nor masculinity. Adam and Eve become human only in relation to each other. Humanity is fully in the image of God only where it is a lived dialogical encounter” (32). Obviously, this argumentation borrows from Barth, but he still needs to prove this statement. Adam is not truly human? Just because God said it was not good for Adam to be alone? (as he goes on to suggest). This argument is not strong enough for me, but I don’t quite know how to keep the strong thesis of the relatedness of persons and not go down that path. I think we need to.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Cormac McCarthy's postapocalyptic world
I picked up Cormac McCarthy's new novel The Road and could not put it down. I can't remember the last time I read a novel in one sitting. It is dark, haunting, and brutal, just like all his fiction, and beautiful, just like all his fiction. When the world is destroyed by nuclear weapons and all is ash, humanity becomes simply a quest for survival. McCarthy has always been good at raw human nature, and so this scenario is ideal for him, and I think it yielded a masterpiece. The message is simple: life, in and of itself, is valuable. Even in an insane scenario, it is worth fighting for. It is the breath of God. The last two paragraphs are pure poetry, and worth the price of the book. But you should earn the right to read them by reading the rest of the novel first.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Nanotechnology must read
If you read only one book on nanotechnology, it should definitely be Drexler's Engines of Creation. It is well written, rational, persuasive, and overwhelmingly interesting. Most people who write about new technologies seem to do so either out of fear or naive utopianism; Drexler walks the line between these positions. He's not afraid of nanotech but he knows that Bill Joy is right: it could render life as we know it extinct if we are not careful. I think all policy makers should read this book.
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