The new Sancity of the Special.
So Is there a logic is the new Pharisees attitude to life. I mean there are very apparent non-sequitors in the attitudeof both the the Bush adminstration and to a lesser degree the new papacies view on exactly what is special in living. Why is it that Bush will go so far as to attemot to re-write the constitution and pass special laws in an attempt to save the ‘life’; of one poor brain dead women without hope of recovery – and yet the same Bush will happily allow torture and excution – and do so from the perspective of the same ‘Christain’ Conscience. I eamn is there more to this conscience that bland and blinding inconsiustency? Is there a unifying primciple in a mind that can allow the perpetual torture of a rain dea women – and the ephemeral low grade toruture of possilbiyinnocent souls in illegal prisons? And if there is such a principle what could it be?
Well perhaps. One thing clearly unite being anit aborition, but pro the death penality – anti any form of euthanasia and yet po torture – and that is a certain reading of what it is to be alive. We have four a few hundred yars or so been drifting towards a view of living and being alive that tiues live to the body. To be alive – to be a human is to have a certain body – and to be cqpabple of doing certain things with it. This belief then limits what we call human – and what we are prepared to do to thosethings that are not human – or not quite human. We have one set of morals is then thought to be appripriate for fully fledged human beings – while another set of morals are appriopriate to things that are not yet human – or things that are in the process of ceasing to be human – are on the way out . The upshot then was that life is abosultely scred through the prism of the body. It is being human being a certain body capabple of certain things that conveys rights. Certain ways one then treats that body are deemed to be unforgivable., torture for example – which peremently or even temporarily mains the body – and blights the life is unforgivable – while the death penality that rescinds a living things right to be at all – that is that rescinds there right to have right sis utterly unforgivabl. The Self – consciusness whatever is tied then to being the body we are.
Jow this view is by no means perfect – or even particualiry ‘good’. Many absolutely cruelties to hings understood as not being huamns were possible through its prism., I mean if rights come from having a human body then who cares about animals? Or even othe rpeioples how muight noit be made as we are? Rasicim is almost the corralry position of a theory of living that ties being alive to being a certain kind of body – as who can distinguish bodeius from one another? Who can say that bodies are the same and therefore should have the same rights? However that is as may be – the point now is that this neat tie in of morality and bodidom has been undermined by our science. That is it is becom,ing increasingly difficult not only to draw a line between the pre-human and the post –hman – as yet understand and moinipoulate our bodies beter – but it is also becoming harder to draw hard linbes between being a human and being anything else. Aftyer all we share 67% of that which he currently call ourselves (our Genes) with the hu=ouse flyy – and 99% with other primates – so what is it to be a human at all. That is the science of being a human – of having revealed what it was to have a human body has undermined are scope for basing our morality of being human - so what could be ase any idea of what we are upon now?
Here there are of course many possible contenders. It might be perfectly possible to regripou and re-examine how conception of what it is in a body that makes having one so very special - and what it is that we are taking from it in being what we are- in having the thoughts that we do. Such a viewpoint is likely to be possible (I certainly hope that it is) but oit is also .ikely to be extremely complex and difficult – and may never be populisable. Another rpossiblity is something far more worrying and darker – this is the ethos of life. If the argument run s, bodies do not make us special what does? Surely it is life – human life itself that is important. It is life that defies rational anayalsis that is the quiddity to end all quiddities (an argument with its roots in Aristotle) – and which must be sacred.
What when is so woorying about the modern version of this argument is that – like medieval spiritualism it ets itself up against the ft we know about the body. Bdoeis have betrayed u – he argument runs. Bodies have not provided us with a suffiecient soceialness through which we can buttress our idea of what we are. Bodes are no good – ids is human life that alone matters. At this point moralkity becomes divorced from being a body. One is nt moral through treting the body right- but rather through hounouring the life in the body irrespective of that bodies. Bodies have to conform to life- and not the other way around,as bodies are only special in living. The upshot is of course that every moement of life is potentially acred, The body no longer matters- nor does hat that life is capble of matter so long as it is alive. It starts then to make sense to think about the rights of not just the unborn baby but also the single fertilised cell, and likise of the brain dead woemen – both exist as living things- that their ‘rights’ to life must be repsepcted regadless of their body. Indeed their rights to be alive inspoite of their body become almost totems of the new belief. Look! Bodies are not important the argument runs thing can have no bodies yet – or can have a body that has totally come unstuch and no longe rhouses a mind and that maters not as it is not bodies that live that gives sanctity.
Now this postion is dark enough and many evils are perpetualated in t name – but it has an even darker corollary: For is bodies do not really matter- then in the service of life itself we can do what we like to them. That is if there are bodies that we find on our way that have somehow renaged on the rights of life to be – somehow questions lives holy spirit – and set themselves up as agents of death – howver that is understood – then they can have no rights to material existence or contenment. Excution and totrture then beocvme real possiblies. In excution one enacts the rights of live over its enemeies. One takes away life from its enemies from those who have given themselves over –somehow to death 0- and therefore must be slain to preserve the living. While torture becomes reasonable as bodies do not matter when compared to life itself. To torure in the mname of living then is not to ommoit a sin at all – as long as through this totrtyure one somhow preserves or exends the possibilities of life itself.
A Strange blasemphy tyen emerges, A belief in life that is so strong- so overpowering that it sets itself up against reality – and demands that reality conform to its viewq point – rathert than the other way around. A view that then will allow any and every possibliy thing to happen to bodies so long as those boies are made o conform to life itself. A life that has become the single great buttress of identity – and which must be defended at ll costs – and whatever the consepquebce. This then is the single pardigm with holds all Bush’s actions together. Whether it is freedom or the war gainst terirorism or excution or totrture of being pro-life- al and infused with a belief in an abstract5 and very special lving property- a property that provides him and other lke him, with a feeling of specialness and security – a feeling then he and his cohoirts are prepared to defend at all costs and whatever the consequences.
In the end of course in the history of Humanity this is not such an odd belief. It is after all startilingly similar to the religious iews of past ages- the few of religious bigots and fools across the centuries - it is us who perhapos have been so odd in our belief for the ;last two hundered years that somehow lif should conform to reality and not the toehr way around. So perhaps I the end we should not be supriosed by what Bish says or does, Our problem is bot to understand the frago of prejudices and little cruelties of his postion – it is this postion that is aferall humans norm., Our problem now is what are we going to do about that fact? What apradigm could we come up with now tos escaoe this one we will othrwsie fall into. What is more we are going to have to think fast – as the Bush pardigm is spreading…