Both liberalism and communitarianism seek to avoid "little-p" politics altogether, albeit in vastly different ways. Whereas the liberalist seeks to reduce public participation by limiting the participants to members of "interested" groups of experts and vested capitalists, the communitarian strives to level the playing field so far as to make power play unnecessary, "irrelevant" (Brown 48). Forging the strengths of these two flawed extremes, republicanism's ideals bring to mind the overarching moral of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), gloriously revealed in the final minutes of the film:
"The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!"
And here I am accusing Callahan of romanticism.
The mediator, or 'heart,' in my hypothetical (hypopoetical?) case would be the bioethics council functioning under the republicanist model. The designation of 'head' goes to the policymaking bodiesxindividuals, with the 'hands' nicely representing the Public. Extending application of the metaphor to liberalism and communitarianism, I'd argue that the former attempts to nullify the role of the hands, while the latter attempts to obliterate the difference between hands and head. Reading film critic Constantinos Kolios' opinion of Metropolis, it's clear that many of the deeply human questions posed by the film are similar to those that a committed, rigorous and thorough bioethics body would consider. Quoting directly from Kolios' review:
"What makes Metropolis so profound? Metropolis succeeds in posing far more questions than it answers.
~ How has technology affected our lives?
~ Does technology dehumanize us?
~ Is technology evil? Or just how we use it?
~ Are we now forever dependent on our technology?
~ What does that make of us?"
~ Does technology dehumanize us?
~ Is technology evil? Or just how we use it?
~ Are we now forever dependent on our technology?
~ What does that make of us?"
Reading the third chapter in Promising Genomics (FastxFast), I was struck by the apparent absence of any clear ethical protocol applied to the knee-jerk decisions made by the newly emergent genomics companies. Fortun speeds us through the not-so-solid histories of a few of these cash-hungry baby firms, describing the hurried sales of genetic databases, where million$ are exchanged for a shot at profiting off the possible realization of a handful of haphazard promises. I wonder how the ethics questions will play out- that is, whether the Metropolitan questions will fall under the consideration of the biotech companies, the government, the scientific community, the public- as this industry settles into being, into a state resembling stability.
First, let me say I appreciate your loop back to the earlier post in light of this recent reading. Such back-stitching is important to forming up patterns, delineating lines of inquiry.
ReplyDeleteMetropolis...an intriguing swerve not only for the "heart" but also the "profound" questions (ah, those questions: they ring out year after year, article after article, technology after technology; they continue to be unsettling). In response to the question in your concluding paragraph (about where the "questions" will play out), I'd venture they play out day to day in small ways in all the domains you identify—at times promoting some "dust-settling" and at other times being responsible for kicking up the dust. I'm guessing we would see that most clearly if we adopted a "method" of "investigation" inspired by the actor-network model...following our ethical noses down every branch of the webwork. Hence, I continue to claim, the approach we're taking in class and in the final project.