Dear Ron,
Your recent post makes some *excellent* sense, except for one historical gap
where I think you are 'Rolling' about a Stone's-throw away from a great insight
on a pivotal audience/performer truth in today's arena of public opinion.
You are right about the Creationists v. the Biologists--to a point:
> By and large, the creationists kicked the biologists' butts . . . .[for they]
>were skilled and experienced in public debates, *****they knew the audience's
> prejudices*****
All true... but ancient history. The final outcome was: Lions, 1; Christians,
nothing.
In the ancient Roman arena, as in today's cultural environment, the "audience's
prejudices" were/are not aligned with Religion, but with the "creationist"
capabilities of humankind. It is rare that ANY oratorical skills or rhetorical
appeals-- if set in such abstract frames as theology or philosophy or humanism--
would not fail miserably when set against arguments supported by empirical and
scientific 'truths.' Philosophy and theology have had their day.
The Romans built a great society, with a powerful economic system and codified
laws; and they achieved social consensus by co-opting the steadfast pagan
beliefs, which were based in multitheism and superstition. They USED popular
belief to introduce radically new ideas.
And from the Crusades to Medieval times, as well, consensual thought was won
through appeals to passionately revered religious values and common beliefs.
Beginning with the Baroque times, though, when huge leaps in scientific and
mechanical and medicinal knowledge were made, the available 'truths' and
beliefs were "reborn"--hence, the Renaissance era. Suddenly, measurement and
matter and visible 'proof' subsumed the iffy and abstract and nonevidential
beliefs of yore. Where myth or religion once dominated the realm of 'common'
sense, the scientific method of reasoning was now invoked to persuade the
masses.
The term "bio-ethics" is yet another example in a long tradition of co-opting
the popular, to gain acceptance of the radical. The Scientists, funded by
Economists who have their own agenda, have gained the upper hand by conflating
a privileged (but Pagan?) belief, with a radical new biology. "Bioethics" is
not so much concern (of a few) that experimentation be driven by an ethics of
"greater good"-- as it is a highly persuasive tool in the public relations
strategies of the scientific/capitalistic community itself.
Is the general public worried that scientists might not privilege "ethics"? I
think for most of us, the new sciences are so far beyond comprehension, that we
trust in the "checks and balances" that (we are told) are in place. Besides,
there is this new term "bioethics" bandied about, so we convince ourselves that
humanism remains the controlling moral factor in all the radical, scientific
experimentation performed. The term "ethics" acts as our security; a fact not
lost on the science community, who has co-opted the term for its own agenda.
People such as Peter Singer claim that it is "ethical" to control the type of
biological specimens that our world should support.
Are we not being reassured, persuaded, distracted by this rhetorical sleight-of-
hand? We need to ask, "WHOSE ethics does the new biology revere?
I agree with you, Ron, when you infer that
> an audience of college students and faculty<
are unlikely to be easily persuaded to a stance that is anti-Singerian. Given
the enormous funding that science and business receive in academe, interest in
"ethics" and "quality of life" issues runs about as tepid as the shower in
which you sing. Nor, as Lennard intimates, is philosophizing or soliloquizing
in the vacuum of a car, motoring down the economically driven freeway,an
effective counter to the "progress" mindset of academe (much less the populus
in general).
Solution? I dunno. I get my best thinking done in the shower and in the car,
too; but to sing with Singer, we need to expand our venues. And we need to
take back the term "ethics," which his community has convoluted.
Dona M. Avery
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302
http://www.public.asu.edu/~donam
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/ParentsOnFrontlines
"If you want to demolish a card house, you attack the bottom card, not the top. Remove the foundation, and the structure collap
ses."
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