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AMONG the most ambitious strategies of the Socialist Party that had reigned over France for five years led by former president François Hollande and defeated in last year’s presidential and general elections, were the projects to break away from the nation’s cultural and historical traditions in order to create a new ‘transhumanist’ society.
One of the ideas promoted by the party, today on the verge of complete effacement from the political scene, was to get rid of all norms such as marriages, families, biological parenthoods and heritages and turn the country into a ‘reformed civilization’, as they put it.
You may ask: but what on earth is transhumanism?
Introduced in 1965 by the British thinker I. J. Good, the original idea was to start working on machines that would eventually be able to store much more data than is possible by human brains. Today, with the galloping progress of computer science and internet, this has become a reality.
The only problem is that this artificial intelligence explosion, instead of exclusively being used by scientists and other virtuosos under the control of law authorities, is being exploited by American companies whose sole interest is moneymaking in a free market.
Another positive interpretation of transhumanism could have been a scientific advance that would have allowed perfectly healthy individuals to donate, with no loss to their own bodies, some essential elements of their organisms to individuals otherwise declared incurable by medical experts.
As the French Socialists were attracted by transhumanism in its political interpretation only, one of their priorities had included total legalisation of homosexual marriages. Things would then have moved logically further as gay couples, whether male or female, would also want to have children.
A solution to this problem was to produce, in the second case, pregnancies using medical means with the identity of the genetic donors kept secret. In the first case, some unnamed mother would carry a baby who would be delivered to the male couple after its birth. Making monetary profits would naturally be the principal motive for the volunteers in both the cases.
You don’t believe it?
The solution is simple. All you have to do is to type ‘anonymous genetic donation’ on your computer. A few successive clicks will lead you to the details of the prices and other choices. You can also buy human embryos ready for sale but frozen many, many years ago. The entire operation is no different than ordering a hamburger through internet.
A French TV channel recently showed an American private company promoting the sale of children for adoption. The kids stood in line like a herd of sheep and buyers were given the choice of returning their picks within a specified period if they were not satisfied with the bargain.
You may be asking yourself: what the hell is human civilization heading toward in the 21st century? Can we imagine societies where children would be bought and sold like any other commercial commodity without ever being allowed to learn who their fathers and mothers really are?
Are there any limits to transhumanism?
The writer is a journalist based in Paris
Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2018
