Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Getting Serious

Time is running out.

Why do I write?

Because I know I will die?

Maybe.

I was thinking of writing you readers an e-mail today, in other words, not writing about anything in particular, but writing about my recent news and preoccupations, that kind of thing. The thing is, I feel as if I really need someone in particular to write to in order to do that. I could tell you that I've been rediscovering Kate Bush over the last couple of days, or that I've decided that my inner self is actually a dead ringer for the Phantom of the Opera:



But without focusing on one thing in particular, or having some linking theme, it might all be a bit boring.

So, maybe I should go straight on to the next actual theme that has been brewing in my mind, which comes to you courtesy of Professor John Harris.

I remember reading somewhere - but I've forgotten where - someone commenting that Nagai Kafu (one of my favourite writers) could have been a great writer IF ONLY he'd been able to take himself seriously. I actually think Nagai Kafu was a great writer. I like the fact that he seemed to consider himself a bumbling amateur in the realm of letters, that he deliberately sabotaged a lot of his own works, that he left them in irregular shapes and so on.

In the book The Little Prince, there's an episode in which an astronomer from Turkey gives a lecture on some new asteroid he has discovered, only to be scoffed at and mocked by the Western astronomers who are his audience; they are unable to take him seriously because he is not wearing a suit and tie. Later he comes back with a suit and tie and delivers the same lecture to great applause.

If you want people to believe in the asteroid you've discovered, you've got to get them to take you seriously.

This leads me naturally to the question, why do I hate my blog? Is it because I cannot take myself seriously? In other words, do I hate it because I think that I'm an idiot and therefore cringe at the thought that my opinions are seeing daylight? The answer is yes. So, why do I allow those opinions to be read? Why not delete them? I suppose I feel like I don't want to censor myself. I don't really want to be taken any more seriously than I deserve to be. I feel like people can fairly competently decide for themselves whether I should be taken seriously or not, without me donning the prose version of a suit and tie in order to hoodwink them. And maybe I don't deserve to be taken seriously at all. What is that, anyway? Being taken seriously, I mean? It somehow suggests someone with no sense of humour. Lack of humour is lack of self-awareness and reduces one immediately to cariacature, and cariacatures are, as we know, impossible to take seriously. Therefore anyone who is 'taken seriously' is immediately, as my rendering of that phrase suggests, a person in inverted commas only, and not to be taken seriously at all... We could go round and round with this one - my desire not to be taken seriously is really a desire to be taken seriously since I know or think that only those who are not taken serioulsly can be taken seriously. To stop us getting dizzy with this spinning, for now at least, perhaps I should say that refusing to act in such a way as to be taken seriously is actually a continual abdication of authority. Maybe even that explanation won't suffice to stop the spinning, but it will have to serve for now.

So, I don't want to be taken seriously. Why would I want that? Oh yeah, to persuade people about the asteroid that I've discovered...

To take oneself seriously, to persuade, for instance that infanticide might be okay (an opinion championed by Professor John Harris) must take an enormous amount of confidence, it seems to me. To do so publicly, at least - to crusade. Can I imagine myself in the position of Professor John Harris, talking to assemblies of people and to newspapers about how infanticide is quite acceptable (in some cases)? I find it difficult. Surely, I think, such a degree of confidence borders on the sociopathic? Does John Harris have no sense of responsibility? One would hope that he did have, being, as he is "a member of the British Medical Association's ethics committee".

Do I feel a sense of responsibility, then? Is that why I hate my blog? I suppose, yes, it is. But aren't I taking myself a bit seriously feeling all responsible about a mere blog? Hmmm, interesting. Maybe I am.

If I were to extend that sense of responsibility, I would say that I have a duty to comment upon those things that I think are wrong.

I've been reading up on Professor John Harris. I've just read a lecture he gave on immortality. He asked his audience to challenge him with difficult questions. It doesn't look like they did a very good job of it. Professor John Harris appears to be very articulate, persuasive and funny. He makes immortality - acheived through genetic tampering - sound very attractive and reasonable. However, although I found his speech very interesting, and well-made, I am not persuaded. I am tempted now to aspire to be taken seriously - as this man is - simply in order to challenge what I believe to be a pernicious influence in society. I've decided to use John Harris as a kind of mental punchbag to get my thoughts in order. There are a number of questions I must ask myself, and the first of them, which I may come back to, if I don't abandon this project altogether (that is, if I decide early on that the answer to the question is 'no') is, "Is it a good thing to be taken seriously?"

What's the most serious a person can be taken? Serious enough to be rendered immortal, perhaps?

Let me fire off a few warning shots to warm up.

Well, for starters, Harris' whole enterprise for immortality (even though at the moment he's only laying the 'ethical' groundwork) is based on a lie. I find immortality to mean (according to the Oxford Dictionary) "living forever", but this is not what Harris is proposing, not even what he is able to propose. What is actually envisaged is a kind of theoretical immortality in that the cells of the body do not degenerate, but continue to regenerate. This, as Harris says, does not render the individual invulnerable. In other words, you can still die of just about anything; all you've done is eliminated death through general wear and tear. And this is the 'most optimistic' scenario. In fact, immortality might only mean an extension to one's life. Do I have an objection to extended life? I'm not sure yet. However, the lie of the word 'immortality' sends a warning signal to me. The Professor is not facing up to something here. Death will come, Professor. It will come, however postponed. You would like to postpone it forever, I know, but you do not think that is a possibility. So, you will simply put off what you are afraid of for as long as you possibly can. This postponement is the basis for your entire argument, as if the slight gain of longevity and the waving about of the word 'immortality' can put paid to the spectre of death. Not sure I want to be on Captain Harris' ship when it sails. Didn't want to inspect that gaping black hole in the bottom of the good ship Immortality, did he?

Anything else?

I think there is something else. There is, to me, something about the genetic modification of human beings of the aspect of a final solution. It is a final solution by stealth, creating a master race perhaps without bloodshed, but with at least some of the underpinning assumptions and attitudes behind the attempted final solution of the Nazis. This is an impression and an instinct; it's possible that I may modify this view later, if I continue with this 'project'. However, in support of that view at this moment, a quote from Harris on when infanticide is acceptable:

It is well-known that where a serious abnormality is not picked up - when you get a very seriously handicapped or indeed a very premature newborn which suffers brain damage - that what effectively happens is that steps are taken not to sustain it on life-support.

What Harris is talking about is the elimination of genetic stock (read 'the killing of human beings') that is not 'pure'. I myself do not pretend that this is a black-and-white issue, but Harris' bias here is clear - towards a genetic super-race, if necessary at the price of killing. How is the killing of a human being justified? Usually mathematically, by utilitarian means - the greatest good for the greatest number of people (or maybe just for the 'greatest people'). To reduce humans to quantities it is necessary to strip them of qualities. How are they stripped of qualities? Through the philosophy of materialism. As Harris happily says of himself, "I know that there is not a spiritual cell in my body."

Well, I might continue this theme later.

Labels: bio-ethics, immortality, John Harris