Aeon carries a fascinating article on #epigenetics (“Plastic
People”) by Julie Guthman and Becky Mansfield. It highlights the way in which
our physical and social environment can shape human bodies and minds across
generations. The authors also stress the futility of “seeking biographical
solutions to systemic contradictions” (as Ulrich Beck once put it), and call
for a shift of focus toward related public policies. In the conclusion, they
also suggest researchers and popularizers may be drawing the wrong lesson from
epigenetic studies: “at the least, they argue, we ought to be more
alike and ever more vigilant about our lifestyles to maintain that normality.
More: we ought to strive to be even better – with biomedicine promising to
eradicate some of the differences that frighten us.” And the worst case
scenario? “A biomedical future in which the perfect human is
engineered: thin, smart, outgoing, heterosexual, gender-conforming, lacking
physical disabilities, able to sit still and work hard, and (given widespread
preference for light skin) white.”
Such concerns about
inclusiveness and toleration are, of course, legitimate and to be welcome.
Still, a mischievous thought won’t go away. Isn’t there such a thing as neurosomatic
fitness, even flexibly defined? A condition which would allow us not to score
high on intelligence tests, win beauty contests, or triumph in athletic
competitions – but rather to function well socially and avoid increasingly
common, often debilitating ailments? And if some biological changes under environmental
influences are obviously detrimental (like the well established drop in IQ as a
result of exposure to lead, and Guthman and Mansfeld themselves point to other
potentially troubling examples), can “we” be equally accepting of all neurosomatic
modifications? If so, what is the point of advocating any public policies to
tweak environmental influences (and thus limit biological diversity) in humans?
If some modifications are ostensibly unhealthy, though, we are back in the Foucauldian
thicket – related to the “contestable” normalization of some qualities, the stigmatization
of those deemed deficient or abnormal, etc.
So there are no easy
answers – unless, perhaps, some sort of neurophysiological aptitude allows “us”
to make the right judgments. This is what the Indian yogi once hoped to achieve
through sustained neurosomatuic self-cultivation. Or, as Juvenal once put it, “you
should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body” – both contributing to “virtue.”
Which raises another vexing question: how about for some – adequate – personal responsibility,
self-cultivation, and care for the young, even if the exclusive focus on personal
choices and self-management is misguided – perhaps reflecting an individualistic
bias and providing a smoke screen for the creeping privatization and
deregulation of the social commons?
