CANCER, RESPONSIBILITY, AND THE NON-ALIBI
On Thursday, April 24, 2003, the Orlando Sentinel ran an article by Janet McConnaughey, “Study Links Fat to Cancer Deaths.” It opens dramatically: “Losing weight could prevent one of every six cancer deaths in the United States—more than 90,000 each year” (McConnaughey 2003, A10). According to the article, lead researchers declared that “communities, workplaces, schools and transportation all need to change to make it easier to eat right and exercise,” because Americans are “‘kind of stacking the deck against ourselves.’” Three aspects of this short article stand out. One, it begins by placing the emphasis on individual action toward one’s own lifestyle—choosing to be fat or to avoid being fat. Two, the article ends by emphasizing larger social responsibility in relation to hindering or facilitating an anticancer lifestyle in terms of public attitudes and actions. Three, it never addresses the causes of cancer. Hence the primary cause of cancer, environmental pollutants created by industries, is never addressed. This kind of foregrounding of lifestyle choices and backgrounding of corporate responsibility and industrial sources of disease represents a major tendency in popular news about cancer, one of the major causes of death in the United States.
Sandra Steingraber in Living Downstream points out the frequency with which average individuals like to believe that cancer runs in certain families, even though longitudinal and geographical studies tend to correlate rates of cancer primarily with the locations of a person’s workplace and habitat. Such behavior allows people to imagine that they are less at risk than their next-door neighbor or their coworker, who has developed some type of cancer. Other people like to treat cancer as some mystery, even though rates of skin cancer in relation to UV radiation exposure in such places as Florida are fairly predictable, or high rates of cancer among cigarette smokers. Such positions as ascribing the causes of cancer to fate, mystery, and genetics allow people to avoid taking any personal action. If no one is responsible, then nothing need be done. Similarly, if only individual lifestyle choices can be blamed for the high incidence of cancer in the United States then only those individuals at obvious high risk need to take action to change their own circumstances or alter their own environments, and everyone else can continue on his or her excessive consumption way.
Exclusively blaming corporations as entities distinct from the human beings who incorporate them, manage them, and invest in them actually works in somewhat the same way. If it is only Monsanto’s fault, then nothing can be done until the corporation changes its practices or the government forces the corporation to change it practices. For instance, Lester Brown, while visiting the University of Central Florida, suggested that energy efficiency could be vastly improved if the government banned incandescent lightbulbs, thus preventing corporations from making them and consumers from buying them, thus precluding the practice of individual shortsightedness.
Just as the Associated Press article on the relationship of fat to cancer identifies a need for social responsibility to facilitate individual improvements in lifestyle behaviors, Brown is looking for a “wake-up call” that will act as a catalyst to produce a profound shift in public awareness, government action, and corporate behavior that will result in a consensual sense of environmental social responsibility. It is important to note that both corporations and governments are actually comprised of human beings. So that, regardless of the sphere of action, any action in response to cancer and other perceived environmental problems will be performed by individuals, whether acting as social outcasts, members of society, government functionaries, or corporate officers and employees. Thus, one could argue that ascribing the problem of cancer to corporations, governments, or societies may very well reflect an act of bad faith by letting individuals off the hook who make decisions based only on the profitability and survival of their company or some concept of national security.
This kind of narrow self-interest is routinely presented in articles that run regularly in the Business section of newspapers and magazines discouraging people from buying hybrid vehicles because from some imaginary purely economical perspective they will cost the individual more than they will save over a five-year period. Blaming a structure generates an “alibi” for a given individual to avoid taking action in his or her own best environmental interests, which in turn will often, although not always, be in the environmental interests of others, as in acting in a supposedly uneconomical manner when buying a hybrid. In contrast, the “non-alibi” of being that I introduced in the previous chapter will place emphasis on an individual’s responsibility within the larger spheres of human relationships with other human beings, other environmental entities, and aggregate human constructs, such as societies, governments, and corporations. For Mikhail Bakhtin, such a “non-alibi” fundamentally refers to the notion of individual ethical responsibility for one’s own position and actions in the events of the world.
Serious science fiction invariably addresses the issue of the non-alibi through a variety of what-if scenarios. What interests me in this chapter are the scenarios that pertain particularly to near horizon technological developments, such as nanotechnology, but I also want to address some other settings for a philosophical position in literature that I will label pragmatic utopianism based on wild variability. Such a position seems widespread in recent science fiction and is distinctly optimistic, even as many environmentalist forecasts for the future become increasingly gloomy and pessimistic. Crises are, after all, the stuff of which novels are made. These crises may have galactic, planetary, national, or just local magnitude. Yet, when it comes to wild variability and pragmatic utopianism, the outcomes of the particular plots tend toward similar resolutions: common individuals can act heroically and the human species muddles through. Let’s take a look at how this optimistic plot of planetary resiliency and human innovativeness has been represented in relation to nanotechnology.
NANOTECHNOLOGY
Michael Crichton addressed the dangers of nanotechnology in Prey. He prefaces the novel with a nonfiction introduction, “Artificial Evolution in the Twenty-first Century,” clearly indicating his belief that the convergence of computers, biomedical technology, and nanotechnological research will eventually occur and he places this convergence in the context of the inherent wildness of the natural world (Crichton 2002, ix–x). His main concern is that arrogance and ignorance of past human folly will prevent the implementation of adequate controls prior to the production of self-reproducing biotechnological entities. Interestingly enough, these nanotech entities become so dangerous because they are developed using computer programs modeled on the wild variability of living organisms, particularly swarming insects (Crichton 2002, 10; for an ecstatic review of this convergence, see Kaku 1997). Computer programs are, of course, a kind of language and, as Gary Snyder has observed, “the structures of [language] have the quality of wild systems. Wild systems are highly complex, cannot be intellectually mastered—and they are self-managing and self-organizing” (1999, 329). The goal of nanotechnology is precisely to create self-organizing, self-replicating systems that unavoidably will contain wildness and unpredictability as a result of their necessary complexity.
While Crichton casts doubt on human sensibility to prevail over human stupidity, his Introduction indicates that he believes in the benefit of cautionary tales. And, indeed, in the course of Prey readers find that two grounded individuals, one an agent-based program design supervisor and the other a field biologist, are able to overcome two very different nanotechnology threats. Not only does having two threats lengthen the suspense of the plot, but it also lets Crichton demonstrate two very different ways that organically grown nanotechs can evolve. In one they develop into a predator that chases down and feeds on living animals, including people, in order to grow and mutate. In the other, they become parasites living within people. In both cases they threaten long-term human survival if left unchecked. Now, key in Crichton’s argument is that the initial nanotech entity appeared benign and designed to benefit human beings through advancing medical technology. So, in their original form these nanotechs were not necessarily a bad invention. But then, military contracts and corporate desperation to demonstrate a profitable working product get the best of the designers and technicians. Reckless experimentation produces the mutations, which are by the end of the novel most probably defeated, through an all-too-typical Hollywood-style cataclysmic explosion.
Is nanotechnology bad? Not necessarily. Is it highly dangerous and potentially apocalyptic? You better believe it. What should people do today? Crichton leaves that question unanswered in his fiction. But clearly, through his own pragmatic utopianism he believes that his readers will become more aware and concerned about nanotechnology research and some will participate in decision-making processes for generating or at least supporting stringent research guidelines. (I find it quite surprising that Crichton registers such alarm about a possible, but not yet functioning technology in this novel and then turns around an dismisses the threat of anthropogenically induced global warming being produced by existing technology.)
Like many of the cyberpunk authors who preceded him, for Neal Stephenson nanotechnology represents a given in the world’s near future economy and environment, neither malignant nor benign per se. In The Diamond Age; or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, Stephenson emphasizes the economic, technological, and social changes that grow out of the increasing ubiquity of nanotechnology engineering and production. Many aspects of this lengthy, neo-Victorian novel are worthy of comment. For one, Stephenson agrees with such novelists as William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson, and such economic futurists as J. F. Rischard, that the newly emerging technologies that Crichton identifies—nanotechnology, biotechnology, and computer technology—will initiate the veritable collapse of the nation-state as a socioeconomic regulating political structure. Social decentralization will take place, which in turn will facilitate the flourishing of cultural variation, which in turn will enable a tremendous expansion of social affiliation by means of intentional communities. Individuals will become more responsible for deciding their greater affiliations. For Stephenson, the technology will be developed and will enter the world marketplace unevenly and asymmetrically. Some will benefit greatly, others will suffer greatly. Thus the technology itself will not fundamentally alter the human tendency toward hierarchical social organization and self/other exploitative distinctions. It will, however, significantly reduce the length of time during which any particular group, organization, or economic unit can dominate.
In Stephenson’s vision of the relatively near future, Finkle-McGraw, a leader of one of the wealthiest and most elite controllers and purveyors of centralized nanotechnology production, the Victorian Revival, realizes that any social organization is doomed to decline and failure if it becomes stale, repetitive, and noninnovative. Knowing full well that he does not want the New Victorians to go the way of the old ones, he wants his granddaughter to have a book that will promote “subversive” thinking and behavior. Naturally, to be as complex as he needs it, this smart book must be produced by means of nanotechnology. Thus Finkle-McGraw seeks the quality of subversive intellectual curiosity for his own granddaughter by designing a unique book for her. But of course, in the world of nanotechnology, no more than in the current world of global fashion, nothing can be designed that will remain unique. The design for the book is stolen and reproduced and stolen again and reproduced. Through chance, the wild variability of lumpen social elements, and the cunning of intellectuals from an oppressed people, the book falls into the hands of thousands of girls, who begin not only to educate themselves in being “subversive” but also begin to remake their world.
As with Crichton’s Prey, Stephenson’s The Diamond Age does not base its plot on wicked, malevolent, or evil people. While Crichton keeps his circle of actors limited to designers and engineers, Stephenson expands his cast to include all types of people who are mainly trying to do one of two things: just get by in an incomprehensibly complex social world or make that world less incomprehensibly difficult. Human error, arrogance, and confusion represent the main threats to survival. Stephenson reveals his own penchant for pragmatic utopianism in his belief that educating young ladies to be “subversive” will produce a series of positive variables in social conflict that will promote less inequitable economic relations among people and facilitate greater self-determination at individual and group levels. Further, while he demonstrates that nanotechnology will damage the environment and generate environmental injustice in the relative short run, it will in the long run lead to more decentralized material production and thus less nonegalitarian political relationships among intentional societies. Unpredictable and unregulatable human inventiveness will level the playing field.
GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE NON-ALIBI
Unpredictable and unregulatable, that is to say, nonteleological, noneugeneic, nonsocial Darwinist approaches to creating better worlds sharply distinguish contemporary pragmatic utopianist writing from nineteenth-century European and American socialist utopian writing, as well as from fascist, dictatorial, and draconian conceptions of utopian social engineering. This distinction between teleological planning and organizing and wild variability is explicitly addressed in Hayao Miyazaki’s graphic Japanese novel, Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, which has been translated and published in a four-volume English language edition (it is also available as a Japanese-language anime movie, with a significantly abridged plot). As this novel develops the reader is led more and more to believe that Nausicaä is the embodiment of an ancient prophecy that has foretold the long awaited arrival of a savior who will lead the people of a postapocalyptic earth back to ecological balance, harmony, and peace. Yet her journey through the work’s 1,100 pages is filled with bloodshed, changing allegiances, and a growing recognition that all of the major sides in the military conflicts are wrongheaded and led by misguided people. Misguidedness becomes crucial for the plot, as even the most evil individuals are usually revealed either as having started out with the best intentions or as seizing the opportunity to atone for their evil ways through final generous actions.
As Nausicaä moves toward the Crypt of Shuwa, she experiences a series of revelations. One, human beings limit their vision by trying to perceive reality in terms of dichotomies such as purity and impurity (Miyazaki 1995–1997, 4:178). Two, all life forms constitute a universal microcosm, thus having intrinsic value and a form of identity with every other life form (Miyazaki 1995–1997, 4:181). Three, all life forms are autodynamic and constitute a miracle of existence (Miyazaki 1995–1997, 4:220). These recognitions enable her to confront the last holdouts of a teleological, dictatorial social and environmental engineering caste guarding the Crypt. To them she announces that living equals changing; since they refuse to change they have set themselves against the living world by denying death (Miyazaki 1995–1997, 4:246). The denial of death is the denial of wild variability and the quest to end death and to end what they perceive as corruption in the name of illusory purity invariably fails, just as such a quest backfires and creates monsters in the 2005 movie Serenity.
Thus, Nausicaä triumphs by rejecting any master plan, any master narrative that tries to map the purification of her blighted world without leaving room for the positive effects of spontaneously arising problems (Miyazaki 1995–1997, 4:249). The ecologically hopeful pragmatic utopianism of Miyazaki’s graphic novel is exemplified in the concluding words that call for placing human trust in the life of the world (1995–1997, 4:271). In the face of tremendous death and the prospect that things will get environmentally worse for the planet’s inhabitants before they get better, Nausicaä calls for love for, and trust in, the unexpected outcomes of all types of nature, including the engineered, which will ceaselessly generate unexpected and unpredictable outcomes.
THE NON-ALIBI OF LEARNING TO LOVE THE WORLD
Gary Snyder makes a point worth repeating and one that supports the popularity of pragmatic utopianism in literature:
the condition of our social and ecological life is so serious that we’d better have a sense of humor. . . . The environmental movement has never done well when it threw out excessive doom scenarios. Doom scenarios, even though they might be true, are not politically or psychologically effective. The first step . . . is to make us love the world rather than to make us fear for the end of the world. (1999, 335–36)
Such is the major task that Nausicaä will have to undertake in the world beyond the novel’s closure, turning people away from the fear of the deadly aspects of wild nature and toward a love of the world that engenders trust.
Likewise, that message appears in the young adult fiction series Animorphs. While the four youthful heroes of this fifty-four-volume series initially accept the alien-provided ability to morph into other animal forms out of fear of an alien invasion of slugs that will destroy the planet and enslave human beings, over the course of the novels the need to love this world and appreciate its beauty as a cause for action is repeatedly raised. These kids are too young to have any serious plans for how to defeat the aliens, but they rely on their own unpredictability and spontaneity, wild variables of the human personality, to outwit their adversaries. Despite the crises of every volume, these novels mainly teach readers about the animal and plant life of the planet, portraying them from inside the minds of various creatures from whales to ants. In the process the series counters anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism, and romantic and sublime notions of nature as either for us or against us, continually reminding readers that such a dichotomy relies on a fixed and biased viewpoint. Time and again, the unexpected aspects of a wild nature barely understood and too little studied come to the rescue of these rescuers of the world.
For example, in the eleventh volume of the series, The Forgotten, the Animorph heroes find themselves fighting for their lives in a rain forest under attack from aliens. Ongoing encounters with aliens, both evil and good, have, of course, altered their anthropocentrism in relation to equally sentient beings. But their repeated need to morph into the bodies, and with them the senses and cognition of various animals on earth, has also altered their sense of species superiority. In this volume, Jake not only finds himself rethinking his perception of an alien species, but also the right to life of the entire rain forest in which he is traveling (Applegate 1996–2001, 11:122). When Jake and the others morph into jaguars, he realizes that he had never had any conception of just how much life existed within a rain forest, and is threatened by its clear cutting (Applegate 1996–2001, 11:144–45). No wonder his alien ally Ax comments on what an amazing planet is Earth (Applegate 1996–2001, 11:145). Here as elsewhere in the series, author K. A. Applegate works to get her readers to envision the world as it actually exists in its unfathomable diversity, and to learn to love that world enough to protect it, even at the risk of one’s own life. Clearly, many readers must come to realize that the animorph heroes are fortunate in that they only have to combat aliens, while in real life humans have to combat themselves to sustain biodiversity.
CONCLUSION
We are continuing to live in a world filled with many strange and unforeseeable things, and an increasing number of them are of our own creation. While some writers present them as benign, some others as malignant, and others as intrinsically neutral, they contain the nature from which we and they arose. While we cannot exactly trust the wild variability upon which pragmatic utopianism is based to provide predetermined answers for every unanticipated occasion, we can assume responsibility for our actions moment to moment in relation to the results of those variables occurring in the world.
Purveyors of pragmatic utopianism tend to believe that malignancy and benignity inhere not in objects but in humans, and often not as the result of calculated evil but of ignorance, desperation, and miscalculation. These traits will remain with us as long as we are human and alive. Thus, we cannot look to technology to save us, or even to destroy us, but we can trust that wild variability, spontaneity, and unpredictability in life will open numerous avenues down which to walk into the future.