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Indeed, most of our scholars in the humanities and social sciences deny that human nature really exists. They believe, in fact, that the idea is itself an oxymoron. What is natural is not human; what is distinctively human is not natural. All human reality is a free and human social construction. Birds do it, bees do it, and we do it. We just do it differently and in a much greater variety of ways. By nature's standard, we're kinky. No other animal, for example, uses condoms. So our scholars tend to speak not of the nature of sex, but of the social construction of gender. And they do so, typically, in a most optimistic way. Once we see that our understanding of gender has been the product of white male heterosexist oppression, we can free ourselves from it to be whatever we want to be. And surely we'd want to live as caring equals in a peaceful and harmonious society. We socially constructed, and now we can socially deconstruct, war and aggression. But this ideal of unlimited human freedom was struck a cruel blow by Communism's fall. It now seems that enlightened people are stuck with the limitations of liberal democracy, and with the injustice that inevitably accompanies economic freedom. Not only that, but the most authoritative scientific studies are showing the many ways in which men and women are hard-wired differently by nature. We are much more determined by our biology — by our evolutionary genetic inheritance — than many of us had previously thought. So it would seem that we are entering the era of biology or sociobiology. Sociobiologists do speak of human nature, but they also deny that there is any fundamental break between nonhuman and human nature. We are basically really smart, chatterbox chimps. All our behavior has an evolutionary explanation; it arose to fulfill the physiological requirements of the flourishing of the species. Modern liberals, existentialists, and so forth focused — wrongly — on the individual; sociobiologists would redirect our attention to what's best for the species. Nature could care less about the individual's fate. The sociobiologists agree with the social constructionists that there is no such thing as a distinctively human nature. But the sociobiologists also say that the idea of free construction of gender — and the idea of human freedom generally — is an illusion. People don't have gender; they have sex, just like all the other primates. But the social constructionists might respond that nobody really believes that evolution can explain all of our perverse and wonderful experiences and behavior. The other species — even chimps and dolphins — don't have priests, poets, philosophers, physicists, and princes (or presidents). Nor are the other species the source of an ecological crisis that some believe threatens to destroy the environment upon which depends the continuation of all life on this planet. Ecologists seem to imply that the way to avert that crisis is to get rid of human beings. Nature would cheer if we were to disappear. But surely we're not going to follow the advice of the biocentrists and self-destruct. Or are we? The era of sociobiology seems to have been a brief prelude to the now-emerging era of biotechnology. Biotechnologists are now aiming to use technology to change our very natures. Genetic screening of embryos and fetuses, in conjunction with therapeutic abortions, may eliminate most or all possible genetic defects. The various genetic disorders that prevent the living of a full, healthy human life — from cystic fibrosis to Down's syndrome to Alzheimer's — may soon disappear. We may even be able to produce designer babies in the more precise sense — through genetic intervention in embryos before implantation, or in the womb itself. We might one day be able to choose for our offspring the physical and intellectual features — brains, beauty, height, or just extra toes — we most desire. Biotechnology could even enable us to overcome the natural deterioration that comes with old age, allowing us eventually to live healthy lives (barring some accident) of almost indefinite duration. Some say these changes will amount to a perfecting of existing human nature. But our idea of perfection is contingent upon our judgments as to which parts of our nature are desirable (such as intelligence) and which are undesirable (such as decay and death). And practically everyone now believes that such judgments are merely either individual preferences or social constructions. So the promise of biotechnology seems only at first to show the limits of social construction. The social constructionists typically claim, for instance, that men end up in prison in far larger numbers than women only because they are socialized differently. In fact, men are naturally more aggressive. But male aggression might conceivably be eliminated through genetic manipulation or chemical alteration. We could then use biotechnology to achieve the social constructionists' goal of a perfectly androgynous, egalitarian society — and to show that human beings are, in fact, free from nature. We would be able to freely construct or design or tyrannize over human beings more effectively than the Communists or Nazis ever imagined. The character of this unprecedented tyranny eludes the libertarian imagination of most American elites today. Rich, intelligent, and industrious Americans today — astutely dubbed "bourgeois bohemians" (Bobos) by David Brooks — are typically either libertarian non-judgmentalists or laidback egalitarians on questions concerning virtue or the soul. They inherited the bohemian, Sixties ethic of "do your own thing." Yet when it comes to the body, or health and safety, they are toughly intolerant moralists. Exercise is the one activity they don't even pretend is just for fun, and they're not bohemian enough to abuse alcohol or drugs or even desserts. Smoking — even by others — scares them almost to death, and they constantly beg government to protect them from secondhand smoke. Our elite today is far more bourgeois than bohemian. They may, in fact, be the most bourgeois human beings of all time. Quietly but deeply, they are obsessed by the fear of death. So the dominant view, today, is that biotechnological progress is good because it mainly promises us more health and safety. It will remain safe as long as libertarian principles are respected: Biotechnological choices must remain in individual hands and respect reproductive freedom. But, as it's easy to see, that choice will not be allowed for long. Will women really be permitted to have babies with genetic defects — given the burdens they will impose upon society by so doing — if they can knowledgeably choose against them? And will parents really be allowed not to choose the latest designer features for their children? Can a parent really be allowed to deprive a child of the best life available? And if, in the end, human beings really are able to live indefinitely long lives, can they really be allowed to have as many children as they want? The longer human-life expectancy becomes, the more human fertility will have to decrease. It already has, of course: In the most advanced, Bobo countries, the birth rate has dropped below the rate of replacement. But at a certain point — say, when the average age of death reaches 120, the government will still have to step in. A world where women are no longer allowed — or no longer desire — to have children could hardly be called "pro-choice," unless we have or will become so libertarian as to believe that what people really want is to be freed altogether from the burden of babies. Surely our biggest miscalculation is to assume that we will be happier because our lives become longer, our IQs higher, and our health better. Bobos already live longer than human beings ever have before; they're really smart, and take care of their bodies. But they also seem pretty miserable. The longer and healthier life becomes, the harder a time we have living with the necessity of death. Death comes to seem accidental — and thus far more terrible — and such death-defying virtues as courage seem all the more reckless and ridiculous. Thus the final result of our best efforts to escape the fear of death is to make us more fearful than ever before. Not only that, but even today most Americans say that their families — especially their children — are what makes life most worth living. What will human life become when the terror of death is virtually uncompensated by the demanding responsibilities and joys given us with birth? Fortunately — in a way — biotechnology can change not only our bodies but our minds. Genetic manipulation and chemical treatments can suppress those human experiences connected with self-consciousness — anxiety, love, death, and God — that make us unhappy even (or especially) in the midst of prosperity. The natural conclusion of the biotechnological project to make us healthy and happy is thus to make human beings no different by nature than the other animals. It may turn out that a perfect human being is one without any uniquely human or screwed-up qualities. The biotechnological project therefore turns out to be to make sociobiology completely true — whether or not it was before. But the fact that human beings do still have to be made different from the other animals is surely evidence that for now, we still are. All the evidence shows that neither the social constructionists nor the sociobiologists are completely right; human nature is not yet an oxymoron. It's because of our distinctive natural capacity for self-consciousness that we have priests, poets, philosophers, physicists, and princes (or presidents). It's because of our natural capacity of language that, alone among the animals, we are not fully at home in nature, but can both rebel against and gratefully accept what nature has given us. It remains to be seen whether and in what way we will step forward to defend that distinctively human nature that is the condition for all the activities they believe makes life worth living. — Peter Augustine Lawler is author, most recently of Aliens in America: The Strange Truth About Our Souls. |
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hese are strange
times to speak of human nature. Today we don't agree on what it is, or
even if it really exists — much less on how long it might be around.
