knowing or not knowing?

I would think that knowing everything they are likely or unlikely to get/have would make them more unhappy. I had the choice of being tested for the mutation for ovarian cancer and I chose not to have the test done because there is nothing I can do about it now and knowing would only make me unhappy and worrisome. This would impact my life negatively and would not help at all. The idea that they know the percentage of if they’ll have depression or a heart issue or anything else is scary and I think it would only make living harder to be honest. But on the other hand, knowing some things can help people to make choices in there lives to avoid them or to be safer in the long run. Like for me, I am able to get regular check ups for ovarian cancer and do some other little things to decrease my chances of getting it. 

Im wondering what everyone else thinks about this. 

”We’re closer than you think”

A very short video explaining the progress in gene editing we have made so far.

We may be closer to the world of Gattaca than you’d think.

A simple question

I thought about an analysis post about how Gattaca is an anology for racism and class disparity, but it felt obvious and a bit redundant.

I appreciate how beneath the guise of a fantastic sci-fi film, lay a very simple story about people who set out to accomplish more then was expected of them.

I wanted to post a very simple significant question: is the world of Gattaca a good place to live or a bad place to live? And is it better then the world we live in today? Is a world without disease and birth defects worth the cost of a genetically predetermined class system?

Degeneerates

One thing that is implied but never directly stated is the legal consequences of being a borrowed ladder. We are told that discrimination or genoism is illegal but that is the only concrete look at legislation we get. There are clearly a lot of preventative measures so that leads me to wonder how often this is an issue since they are constantly completing identity/validity checks. Overall I am really curious to know the exact laws of this society that would prevent or punish this act. Presumably, the Invalid would run into the most consequences but would the Valid be held responsible as well? Are employers held responsible for ineffective preventative measurements? Without the potential of being a murder suspect, if Vincent/Jerome was found out would he simply lose his job or would there be more threatening consequences?

Degenerates, Validity, and the Stars

After viewing Gattaca, I found myself thinking on these two lines/passages in particular:

"They have got you looking so hard for any flaw that after a while that's all that you see. For whatever it's worth, I'm here to tell you it's possible. It is possible."

"You wanna know how I did it...I never saved anything for the swim back."

These two quotes interplay on the film's themes of genetic engineering vs. human potential and its undaunted spirit, but I also wonder how they reflect this created world/society and its Utopic vision for perfection, or more. Vincent defies his "real resume," but he will never be able to viably or safely live in his world - in Gattaca. What quotes stuck out to you all for the message of this Utopia? Any thoughts on these quotes?

https://mocah.org/thumbs/4592458-silhouette-space-stars.jpg

April II: Return of the Alex

God is neither good

nor evil,

neither loving

nor hating.

God is Power.

God is Change.

We must find the rest of what we need within ourselves,

in one another,

in our Destiny

p.245

You guys know I'm a week behind in class discussions, so pardon me if this calls for redundant conversation.

I was trying to find a quote that really summarized the book or at least a major theme, and this is the closest I came. Not only is this quotation something pretty close to how I view the world (putting a lot of importance on human autonomy), but it also seems to set out some of the rules that a utopia needs to exist.

With that in mind, what is the utopia in this book/the reason for us reading it in this class? Is it Acorn? Is it all in Lauren's head and on the pages of her journal? Is it the decaying United States and the de facto rules governing society?

A Bit of a Theological Mess

I’m not quite sure how to feel about Earthseed. On the one hand, I feel as though it’s perfectly valid to have a religion based on observable sociological phenomenon. On the other hand, I feel as though such a religion should also have some sort of illogical element to it. That is, in order for it to be based in faith, there has to be something that cannot be easily explained by conventional logic; otherwise you literally just end up worshipping sociological theories. I also feel slightly concerned with the fact that Lauren seems to dance around the issue of her religion inevitably getting out of control. Like she addresses it, but never comes up with a solution to the problem. There are multiple examples in both fiction and real life of religions that have become warped or exploited, and if Lauren is planning to build her new community on Earthseed, she should probably have some sort of plan to keep it from turning into a damaging force. One especially concerning aspect of this is the fact that there don’t appear to be any Earthseed verses on kindness, compassion, or love. While these aren’t necessarily required aspects of a religion, it does occur to me that it could be easier to warp a religion into a dogmatic crusade or faith-fueled holocaust if there is nothing in the religion explicitly telling you to treat others well. Obviously people shouldn’t need to be told such things, but if there’s anything Lauren should have learned in this dismal world it’s that people can’t be trusted to not hurt one another.

Discussion question

I’ve got to agree with what Chris said last class about this book. It’s incredibly well written, but I didn’t enjoy reading it. How do you all feel about the ending? Are you satisfied with it? I suppose I was hoping for some solution to the world’s problem or happily ever after but maybe that just doesn’t make for good reading.

Among the Stars

https://youtu.be/3Kf-FlECN7M

Suns and Stars, a beautiful piece by orchestral composition group Really Slow Motion, is a tune that played in my head throughout this section of the reading. Watching Lauren's group grow, slowly at first, then rising to a crescendo of hope as the group approaches Bankole's land, then the abrupt de-escalation at the devastation they find, before a new hope blooms again.

Dad theories

I spent an obscene amount of time thinking about this and I figured I might as well share it before I finish the book. My theory of what happened to Dad: The day that Pops disappears he thinks a lot about Keith, he feels guilty about beating him and feels responsible for Keith’s death by pushing him out of the family and into the streets. Dad replays Cory’s words back in his head over and over again. After spending the entire work day feeling sick about what he had done, he decides the only way he can face Cory again is if he can somehow find Keith’s killers and bring them to the police so that they may be properly punished. Later that day, he says goodbye to his coworkers and begins to ride his bike past the gate of his home. He vows that he will not return home until he has brought his son’s killers to justice. After two days of living on the streets, Dad feels defeated. He sees the extreme poverty and suffering of all the children and feels even worse about pushing Keith away. Dad realizes he can’t ever protect those he loves most from the harsh realities outside of the gated community. He begins to believe that his family would be better off without him and so, he decides to travel north alone.

The Purpose of Hyperempathy

There is a lot of killing, a lot of death, in Parable of the Sower. Lauren isn't a evil person; she only kills in self-defense. But I can't help to think that even self-defense must hurt, even for people without empathy. She kills because it's her or them. But they're people, too, with families, goals, aspirations. It's hard for me to not have empathy for those who are murdered, and I think the hyperempathy has us thinking about how the strangers who die and who Lauren feels die are more than just numbers for the body count.

So yeah, the quote:
"Take my word for it. Bad, bad idea. Self-defense shouldn't have to be an agony or killing or both. I can be crippled by the pain of a wounded person. I'm a very good shot because I've never felt that I could afford to just wound someone... The worst of it is, if you got hurt, I might not be able to help you. I might as crippled by your injury---by your pain, I mean---as you are" (278).

Identity and Displacement

Parable of the Sower mentions race casually but matter of factly. Lauren's well aware of what others think of her appearance, even pulling a Rosalind from As You Like It and dressing up as a man for safety while traveling, seemingly confident that her race both immediately allies her with other minorities and jeopardizes her safety with whites.  For example, this line highlights the apparent continued disparity of respect and community between the races: "Of course, it didn't help that he was black. Being white might help you win people over faster than he did" (Butler 320). I don't know how much of this concept and issue of racism and/or prejudice stems from the reality of it during the time this book was written, but I feel that it serves to highlight the importance of each characters' background. The final symbolism of each character "find[ing] the words" to represent those they've lost, and therefore their roots, solidifies the new age dawning, rising from the ashes of a burning world, to create a community of Earthseed (Butler 327).

Her race is neither given entirely as a hindrance or a benefit; instead, it enables readers to see the amount of distrust and displacement all of the survivors in this world face. Shared skin enables a more immediate reliable relationship, and seeing how Lauren's neighborhood was predominantly black, it's fascinating to see how her hodgepodge group of budding 'Earthseeders' has all types of people - blacks, whites, Hispanics, etc. The world is changing, and so is their identity and 'religion'. Despite this, up through the final chapter of the novel, Butler includes this quiet-and-consistent detail of race, and it's one of the only times any of the utopias we've read do so. Earthseed is change, but it's also inspired by the people who follow it and dream for the stars - distant but free, where there is light and dark and hope rising from the chaos of a burning, distrustful, and broken world.

https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/angel-oak-tree-2009-louis-dallara.jpg

Something's waiting in the bushes for us

      This is a very light hearted observation on what Lauren and her friends/allies were experiencing as they traveled through California, surviving through fires, thieves, and pyro-induced attacks, but I still feel as though it does relate to what they were going through since they were constantly worrying about what they will find just around the corner, and whether they will survive it or not.

The Long Defeat

"'Well, the group of us here doesn't have to sink any lower,' I said... 'I wish I believed that,' he said. Perhaps it was his grief talking. 'I don't think we have a hope in hell of succeeding here.'" (328)

I feel like this final interaction in the story is expressed perfectly by Thrice's song, "The Long Defeat." The title of the song comes from a Tolkien novel and  is "essentially about believing that there’s meaning to the good that you try to do and that you see in the world even when a lot of things would conspire to make you not believe that" (Dustin Kensrue). The whole song is basically about that belief. In the passage above it is clear that Lauren believes in fighting and surviving against the long defeat but Bankole doesn't. 

Apathetic towards Empathy

On finishing the novel, I did not see the point in. Lauren having ‘sharing’ or why it was really necessary to the plot of the novel. I know we found other settlers of Acorn that also had it. I know that it made Lauren’s journey through the wasteland much harder, but I found it made me feel less immersed in the middle of a battle when she would wound an attacker and then she too would be wounded. It took me out of the action scenes and made me want to know what was happening with Harry, Zhara, or the other travelers.

I’m interested to know how others felt about Lauren’s hyper-empathy? And did it enhance the reading experience for you? I wonder if Butler had a larger plan for the Empaths in the trilogy and this novel was just the introduction.

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid

Lauren says, “This world would be a better place if people lived according to Earthseed. But then, this world would be better if people lived according to the teachings of almost any religion.” Bankole asks, “Why do you think they’ll live according to the teaching of yours?” Lauren doesn’t answer this question (247).

Belief systems seem to have the ability to either divide or unite during times of unrest. Lauren is completely convinced that her Earthseed is some sort of “answer” to the problems she’s run away from and wants everyone she meets to agree with her. Yet she has no reason for why people should agree with her, and doesn’t seem to care when there are people who question her.