A Journal for Western Man-- Issue V
G. Stolyarov II
A superb prospect looms in the distance for humankind should it choose to permit cloning and recognize its desirability. A sect known as the Raelians, led by French journalist Claude Vorilhon, is one of the pioneer groups in the field of cloning and presently claims to have implanted a human embryo into a South Korean woman. It is riddled with arbitrary superstitions, such as the belief that life on earth had first originated through a cloning operation by intelligent aliens, but the consequences of its reality-oriented activities can only yield magnificent effects. "Once we can clone exact replicas of ourselves, the next step will be to transfer our memory and personality into our newly cloned brains, which will allow us to truly live forever," the Raelian website says. What would you say to a man who proposed to deprive you of a chance for immortality, or even delay the procurement thereof by forty-five years? We cannot hop right away into a state of such technological wonder, as the science is not yet present for an undertaking of this magnitude. Yet, we can proceed toward it by embracing stem cell research, cloning, and genetic engineering in a free market. Perhaps in a few centuries’ time, this Raelian dream will become a reality for man, forged by the diligent apparatus that is his reasoning mind.
This enhancement and perpetuation of human life is the ultimate and only rational aim of any technological development. Opponents may accuse research scientists in the field of “playing God”, but, as Robert Tracinski, commentator for the Ayn Rand Institute, writes in his essay, “Timid Old World”, playing God is essential to the life proper to man. “But the real danger is in giving up our knowledge. As Dr. Binswanger argues, ‘A surgeon 'plays God' whenever he removes a cancer or an infected appendix rather than letting the patient die. We 'play God' anytime we use our intelligence to improve the 'natural' course of events. Not to 'play God' in this way means to abandon the struggle for human life and submit uncomplainingly to whatever happens.’ If cloning can improve human life — by helping couples have children or avoid passing on genetic diseases — it would be immoral not to do it.”
The genuine and more radical enemies of cloning are the foes of religious and secular conservatives alike, the destroyers of man’s advancement and ambition, the Green antiprogressives. Mr. Tracinski explains, “The anti-cloning crusade has also been taken up by another religious group: environmentalists. Radical greens fully accept this idea of surrendering passively to Mother Nature — their god — but they take this notion to its logical conclusion. Yes, they say, we should have no cloning — and we should also have no genetic engineering, no animal testing, no modern farming, no roads, no automobiles, no power plants, no computers, no suburban homes. The shared perspective is a fear of the human mind and a desire to rein in its capabilities. Just as Huxley's Brave New World idealized the life of the few ‘Savages’ remaining on the ‘Reservation’ — so today's environmentalists glamorize the way of life of early American Indians. And just as Mary Shelley's mad scientist warned, ‘learn from my example how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge’ — so Dr. Kass [a professor opposed to cloning] warns against ‘the Frankensteinian hubris to create human life and increasingly to control its destiny; man playing at being God.’”
But it is only the control of our destiny that enables us to survive famine, pestilence, and disease. It is only technology, both mechanical and medical, that has enabled men to elevate their life expectancy from twenty to seventy-six. In a free market, their designs have been refined and perfected until they yielded only desirable outcomes. The Greens, however, care not for human prosperity. They care for Wilderness for the sake of Wilderness, ignorance for the sake of ignorance, suffering for the sake of suffering, evil for the sake of evil. They are arch-nihilists, and it is the rational objective of any men willing to survive and selfishly strive for internal or external amelioration, to oppose the environmentalists in whatever field they express their totalitarian dogma. They are the heads of the anti-cloning cabal. And we must become the champions of cloning if we wish to avoid granting their “Timid Old World” the moral sanction. And someday, we shall have nothing to fear from their whining and petty assaults against men who live in a manner fit for true deities. We are capable of molding the world to our needs, altering the face of nature, and cloning opens for us a distant prospect for immortality, preserving our minds, our memories, our experiences to benefit ourselves and thereby enhance the world around us. How grand and glorious our future could become!
Philipkoski, Kristen. “An Activist’s Vision of Cloning.” Wired News, August 14, 2002. Available at http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,54222-2,00.html.
Stolyarov II, G. “An Objectivist condemnation of abortion.” Enter Stage Right, September 2, 2002. Available at http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0902/0902abortion.htm.
Tracinski, Robert. “Timid Old World.” The Ayn Rand Institute, 2001. Available at http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/columns/rt062501.shtml .