Genetically-Modified Lit

A story in the Wall Street Journal today tells me that Tor Books (part of Macmillan now) has established a collaboration with NASA to produce science fiction. To quote: “The partnership pairs up novelists with NASA scientists and engineers, who help writers develop scientifically plausible story lines and spot-check manuscripts for technical errors.”

“Aha,” I thought. “Genetic modification in literature has now reached visibility.” Such things, of course, go back a long time. Writers who produce books based on publishers’ tightly written formulae are as old as certain popular romance fiction series. I recall once seeing very elaborate specifications—up to some 12 or more points described as “must” contents—for each of some five different sub-categories of romance fiction by one publisher. The process also began in science fiction much earlier. At least twenty years ago, one publisher approached me to write sci-fi novels for them based on specific content. I turned them down.

Consider the parallels. Literary talent is clearly in-born, present early. It is shaped by the person’s family and life experiences and indirectly by his or her times and circumstances. The works produced echo their producers and their times. Now to modify this natural talent from the outside artificially so that it will produce a uniform “fruit” matched to “market demand” in look, feel, sound, and smell is quite the same thing as genetically modifying all manner of agricultural products so that they will appeal to the Kroger and Safeway shopper instantly. The taste is sometimes off. Just recently Brigitte said something rather startling—quite spontaneously. She was eating an oddly shaped strawberry and said: “Amazing, actually. It almost tastes like a strawberry.”

Almost. Yes. Almost.

Full disclosure. Long ago Tor turned down my Ghulf Genes (the novel), despite efforts by my agent to get it read. I never imagined that, at some future time, I might be glad that they did.

The Presumption of Continuity

A farmer in Indiana is suing Monsanto over that company’s control of generically modified seeds. The lawsuit then constellates similar interventions into biology like modifications of human genes (to prevent or cure diseases) and their patentability. And where technology and patents are involved, ownership looms large. Brows darken when contemplating that some future humanity may have to pay royalties to some great Biotech Giant just to be permitted to live on with genetically-modified cellular DNA. Monsanto requires farmers to sign a contract that they will not collect and then replant genetically-modified seed sold by Monsanto. Will there come a time when a couple, one or both members of which have modified genes, will have to pay Biotech G a substantial fee before their baby may be removed (by C-section, of course)?

Such matters, however, are not my point this morning. I use then to illustrate something else. We worry about these incursions of Commerce into Biology because we operate under a presumption of continuity. By that I mean that we casually assume that what has been recently and is now will always be—and that all trends that we now see will continue on forever, intensifying as they go, and that the science fiction model invented in the 1950s is an accurate projection for centuries, indeed for millennia, to come.

If so—yes. There are lots of things to worry about. Apple is now working on its watch-sized smart-device. And after that the tooth-sized smart-device will follow, tooth talking to satellite, projecting the images it gets right into the eyes by genetically-modified ocular nerves. And just a little later, or simultaneously, will come that drug first mentioned in Dune, Semuta , which lets you hear music played permanently in the head if only you will take the pills. And on. And on. But that sort of projection is only plausible under the—presumption of continuity. Technology forever, capitalism forever, deformed democracy forever, fossil fuels forever (or some exciting new replacement for them, today still only a projection), urbanism forever, satellites, electric current vibrating in ever thicker strands forever so that, by night, the earth will glow like an almost-star.

None of these scenarios—or their manifestations in detail, like the smart-watch, the cancer-cure-ultimo in the form of a brief visit to the hospitals operated by Biotech G subsidiaries—none of that actually worries me in the least. And that is because the presumption of continuity is—wrong.

A much more sensible working model is that what goes up must come down, what has been will return. Now it so happens that at least one branch of science fiction—the not so scientific branch—has its own projection. In that what is to come is also, in greatly exaggerated form, rendered as one or another variety of Armageddon or Apocalypse. When we reach Z we must begin again at A. I think the farmer will lose his suit against Monsanto. Nevertheless Monsanto is doomed. The Deep Past is rushing toward us with a great wind and a roar from the future, but we’re so mesmerized by the presumption of continuity, we haven’t got a clue. Unless the ears are open.