Knee-Jerk Notions
Sometimes it seems as though people are not paying attention. Especially when they are quick to voice an opinion that doesn't quite flow from the facts but birthed of knee-jerk emotionalism. For instance, take another police shooting in Cincinnati. Last spring, the shooting of a black suspect caused rioting that lasted for days. The latest killing was also black; a man pursued by four police officers started shooting, and they shot back. The lead cop was a black woman sergeant, and was praised by witnesses for her bravery.
This comes amidst a regurgitation of charge of racially-biased police profiling, as in cops pulling over black drivers. The fact is that they do, and some for purely racist reasons, and good people get unreasonably hassled. The larger truth is that when you parse out the statistics about which races are pulled over as compared to their piece of the population or criminal convictions, the cops are behaving remarkably well in most jurisdictions.
Mostly, it seems, the extra-zealous complainants are beating their own chests, gaining easy publicity from chicken-scratch editors who don't have the huevos to send the carpers on a hike. People like Al Sharpton, whose self-resurrection raises unfortunate questions about the depth of the black bench. And Jesse Jackson, who also should hang his hat over his shingle.
It's not just about race, of course, that people aver without thinking. The current cloning discussion is bringing the loonies out of the woodwork. They're ready to shut down scientific research immediatement! because they think legions of Stepford wives may be climbing out of their pods to take over the species. And the fervent certainty of their insistence, which crosses the infamous "red flag" line, suggests that their concerns are not only baseless, but objectionable to the intellect.
Now I think if it were Katharine Ross who were being cloned, the furor might wane a bit, but that's not the point. Does anyone think that we should really stop looking simply because we don't like one of the possible directions the research might take? C'mon. First of all, the Massachusetts company that announced some embryonic success was apparently eclipsed by a frou-frou cult up in Canada. Which suggests that we don't really know who's looking into what and how far they've gone along which paths.
Also, when I think about cloning, I think about growing replacement parts, rather than whole people. Perhaps that's naive of me. Perhaps, too, growing parts is not a good idea. I mean, do we want to head off for an Oz where we just keep replacing parts of existing beings? Probably not. But surely we should go on exploring in this area, instead of arbitrarily slamming the door on potential new discoveries that clearly could have some value.
Social attitudes are the foundations of laws, and laws don't matter a whit unless the populace who would so legislate adheres to their underlying principles. So maybe we need to re-examine what we think we know, what we fear and shied away from, and not respond so readily — one way or another — to new ideas. Let us have more confidence in our own ability to maintain a healthy, growthful, progressive society — despite considerable evidence to the contrary — and trust ourselves to explore more deeply that which holds promise as well as concern.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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