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In the past 10 to 20 years, significant time and energy has been dedicated to
discussing the future of biotechnology; it is widely believed that the impact of the rapid
expansion of technoscience in the coming decades will have an unprecedented impact on
titled “The Ethics of Genetic Engineering,” David Koepsell invokes Margaret Atwood’s novel
Oryx and Crake to highlight the potentially favorable aspects of scientific endeavors like
Oryx and Crake (2003), animal variants used as food sources might even be engineered
without anything more than an autonomous nervous system, arguably eradicating many of
the ethical concerns involved with the wholesale slaughter of large mammals for food”
(12).
For those familiar with Atwood’s novel, Koepsell’s reference to Oryx and Crake in
optimistic terms will likely come across as odd. In the contemporary controversies
surrounding the future of biotechnology, it is far more common for novels like Oryx and
outcomes, a fact that members of the scientific community are keenly aware of. In 2010, an
article was published by io9, a blog whose primary focuses are the subjects of science
fiction, futurism, and advancements in the fields of science and technology. The article is
driven by the idea that there is a tendency in the genre of science fiction to “fudge the facts”
for
the
sake
of
plot.
While
the
stated
goal
of
the
article
is
to
see
“whether
any
science
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2
fiction gets [the science] right,” several of the scientists interviewed, including Dr. David
discussions surrounding the future of biotechnology. Citing another novel of Atwood’s, The
Handmaid’s Tale, Dr. Barash notes, “although evo-‐psych presumes genetic influence on
behavior, it definitely doesn’t imply anything like the genetic determinism found in [novels
like Atwood’s].” Barash argues that, in this sense, these books are not only a
worst fears of readers who don’t understand the science itself.”
Underlying these conversations is what I characterize in this essay as the recursive
paradox of humanity’s relationship with nature, which can be summarized briefly by the
idea that humanity, despite its efforts to distance itself from nature, is nevertheless
inextricably bound to it. While this paradox has always existed, the state of contemporary
science has made a confrontation of this paradox more urgent than ever before. The
frequency with which novels like Atwood’s are referenced during conversations such as
those just mentioned raises important questions about the role that fiction—and fiction
conceptions of science, nature, and truth in our particular historical moment: What is it
about novels like Atwood’s that allow for them to be included in serious discussions about
the future of biotechnology? What is the underlying message to these novels that is most
commonly invoked? Is there anything we can extract from these novels that has yet to be
explored in the context of contemporary debate over the future of technoscience? This
essay
will
explore
these
questions
by
taking
a
closer
look
at
Atwood’s
novel
Oryx
and
Crake.
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3
The story of Oryx and Crake unfolds through two parallel narratives. Each narrative
unfolds on either side of a biogenetic singularity that has devastated humanity, leaving, as
far as we know, just one survivor. That survivor is Snowman, our protagonist. Through
Snowman’s memories we are provided access to the novel’s parallel storyline, which plays
out in the time prior to the singularity, ultimately leading up to the extinction of humanity.
The primary character in the novel’s pre-‐singularity narrative is Jimmy. Tellingly, the
names “Snowman” and “Jimmy” are actually different names for the same person;
Snowman/Jimmy is an identity split by time. The novel opens on the far side of the
ravaged by a bioengineered plague that brought humanity to its knees. Though the novel is
related in the third person, the direction that the narration takes at any given moment is
determined, not by the disembodied observer, but by the thoughts and actions of
Snowman. This style of narration lends the novel a stream-‐of-‐conscious quality that allows
for jolting shifts in temporal setting. In this way the narrative describes both the
shifting between the novel’s post-‐singularity present and irrecoverable past, respectively.
The reader quickly recognizes that the pre-‐singularity world of Oryx and Crake is
modeled closely after his own. Set in the not-‐too-‐distant future, biotechnological research
and implementation has exploded into an even more successful financial enterprise. Huge
corporations with strangely familiar-‐sounding names like HealthWyzer govern the novel’s
scientific innovations, like “high-‐tensile spider silk,” many of which sound to Atwood’s
audience
like
something
they
might
just
as
soon
read
about
in
that
week’s
issue
of
Popular
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4
communities and centers for biogenetic research with high walls, invasive and militant
security forces, and strict security protocols. The compounds serve to separate the elite
underprivileged, and economically-‐crippled cities, home to “the addicts, the muggers, the
paupers,” and “the crazies” (Atwood 27). Jimmy is a member of the socioeconomic elite,
scientific investigators, though his mother’s recent objections to the direction in which the
science of the day is heading have caused her to cease conducting research. The decision
parents, a point of contention that underscores much of the ethos of the pre-‐singularity
narrative. As Jimmy matures, he finds that he must navigate a minefield of contentions that
seem to be centered largely on the issue of potentially transgressive science.
apocalyptic event that has severed him almost entirely from the pre-‐singularity world. The
means by which Jimmy can access the familiar truths of the humanity he once belonged to
are limited: rather than interacting with humans, Jimmy spends his days observing and
reacting to a world densely populated with the ideas and inventions of phantoms—
individuals and corporations that existed prior to the singularity. When Snowman’s
memories do not shift the narrative into the parallel storyline, they haunt him, as his
conception of everything that once was (culture, art, language, science, truth), in the
absence of any other humans, begins to dissolve. Posthumans that populate the post-‐
singularity
world
exacerbate
Snowman’s
loss
of
contact
with
his
prior
conceptions
of
truth.
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5
These “Crakers,” or “Children of Crake,” are a genetically ideal race bioengineered by Crake,
Jimmy’s genius best friend and, incidentally, the scientist responsible for the extinction of
mankind. Snowman is an anachronism to the posthumans, who were left in his charge by
Crake. Left with the task of looking after the Crakers, Snowman must confront the new
system of truth that he shares with the Crakers while his grasp on his old system weakens.
Given the description of the novel that I have provided, the answer to our second
invoked?—prima facie, seems clear: Oryx and Crake appears to be a warning about the
potentially destructive capacity of an aggressively technoscientific culture; by investigating
discussions about the future of biotechnology?—I will reveal how one can easily arrive at the
conclusion that has caused many people to view Oryx and Crake in these terms. Beginning
with what I have defined as the recursive paradox defining humanity’s strained
relationship with nature, I will explore through the theories of postmodernist Jean
Baudrillard how Atwood’s novel can be cast so convincingly in a dystopic light. I will then
address our third question—Is there anything we can extract from Atwood’s novel that has
yet to be explored in the context of contemporary debate over the future of technoscience?—
by reexamining Oryx and Crake using theory borrowed from theorists in the emerging field
of science studies. In doing so, I will arrive at the primary argument of this essay: that at its
core, Oryx and Crake is not, despite appearances, a dystopian warning about the potentially
catastrophic effects of unbridled biological engineering. Rather, the novel works by calling
attention to the need for a new way of talking, not necessarily about "science" but about
"truth,"
in
order
to
reclaim
the
possibility
of
a
unique
future.
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6
The Future is Now – Temporal Collapse and the Loss of a Unique Future
[I
like]
to
make
a
distinction
between
science
fiction
proper—for
me,
this
label
denotes
books
with
things
in
them
we
can’t
yet
do
or
begin
to
do,
talking
beings
we
can
never
meet,
and
places
we
can’t
go—and
speculative
fiction,
which
employs
the
means
already
more
or
less
to
hand,
and
takes
place
on
Planet
Earth
-‐Margaret
Atwood
While
the
sentiment
is
certainly
one
that
has
been
uttered
with
varying
degrees
of
irony and exaggeration in the last several decades, there exist compelling arguments that
the future really is—now more than ever—now. In a list of “recent scientific and
Best, the validity and immediate significance behind this otherwise hackneyed phrase is
There
has
been
intense
speculation
and
research
concerning
black
holes,
wormholes,
parallel
universes,
ten-‐dimensional
reality,
time
travel,
teleportation,
antigravity
devices,
the
possibility
of
life
on
other
planets,
cryogenics,
and
immortality.
Moon
and
Mars
landings,
genetic
and
tissue
engineering,
cloning,
xenotransplantation,
artificial
birth
technologies,
animal
head
transplants,
bionics
robotics,
and
eugenics
now
exist.
At
the
same
time,
weighty
questions
are
being
raised
about
how
many
“realities”
and
“universes”
might
simultaneously
exist,
whether
or
not
nature
is
“law-‐
like”
in
its
fundamental
dynamics,
and
just
how
exact
scientific
knowledge
can
be.
(103)
What Kellner and Best call indirect attention to is precisely what Veronica Hollinger notes
in her article “Stories about the Future:” that many of us who currently live in a world
infused with technoculture have “come to experience the present as a kind of future at
which we’ve inadvertently arrived, one of the many futures imagined by science fiction”
(452). This situation, in and of itself, hardly seems awkward or problematic, especially in
the
context
of
what
humanity
is
up
against;
disease,
poverty,
global
food
shortages—in
a
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7
rendering of the present where “we apprehend a version of the future in the features of the
contemporary science-‐fictional moment,” a version where the divide between “the facticity
of realism and the subjunctivity of science fiction”(452) is beginning to vanish, there are
many who are optimistic about the potential that such an historical moment holds. Among
the ranks of individuals excited about the prospect of a future-‐present, however, are many
who nevertheless question what it means to name the present after a narrative genre
devoted to the imaginative creation of future worlds. In light of novels like Oryx and Crake,
which turn to science fiction (or, as the epigraph to this section suggests, speculative
technology-‐infused present, it is easy to see that our society is one that is more and more
attuned to the increasingly complex nature of the future in technoscience. In this section, I
explore how postmodern theory from critic Jean Baudrillard interacts with science fiction
through the recursive paradox that we find in Oryx and Crake. In the following section I will
extend the discussion into the realm of science studies to see how Oryx and Crake interacts
There are many who believe that the publication of novels like Atwood’s Oryx and
Crake is symptomatic of an increasingly intrusive technoscientific futurity on the present,
an intrusion so dramatic that the future has collapsed upon the present in a way that
undermines the possibility of a conditional future. Jay Clayton, for example, contends that
our current attitude toward time is so pervasive in the spheres of genetics and
biotechnology that it should be called “genome time” (33). In genome time, explains
Clayton, one finds “a perpetual present, which paradoxically takes an eschatological stance
toward
the
future…all
times
are
inscribed
in
the
present,
encoded
in
the
moment”
(33).
In
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8
his essay “Futuristic Flu,” Istvan Csicsery-‐Ronay, Jr. goes so far as to refer to the intrusion of
the future onto the present in pathogenic terms, characterizing the condition as one “in
which a time further in the future than the one in which we exist and choose infects the
host present, reproducing itself in simulacra, until it destroys all the original chronocytes of
the host imagination” (45). What Csicsery-‐Ronay, Jr. describes as the destructive potential
of the futuristic flu, and what Clayton characterizes as the paradoxical nature of genome
time’s eschatological stance toward the future, get at the heart of what is at stake in a
perpetual future present: that when change defines the present, it robs the future of any
theoretical models of postmodernity propounded by theorist Jean Baudrillard in his essay
“Simulacra and Science Fiction,” who, as early as the 1980s, foresaw the emergence of a
brand of science fiction distinct from hard science fiction. Oryx and Crake is precisely this
new brand of fiction. Our exploration of the collapse of the future onto the present will
begin with the recursive paradox from which countless others can be derived: that
humanity is, simultaneously, isolated from yet inextricably linked to nature. I will begin by
introducing this paradox in the context of Oryx and Crake, then go on to explore theoretical
models posited by Baudrillard which will help me place Oryx and Crake in a more central
position in the dialogue surrounding temporality, science, truth, and change.
Let us begin our examination with one of the questions that Oryx and Crake aims to
deconstruct in its exploration of truth in the context of humanity’s relationship with nature:
what do we define as artificial? For most people, artificiality can only be thought of and
contextualized
as
a
counterposition
to
the
natural.
However,
most
people
would
agree
that
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9
“artificiality” is an extension of the natural, like the machine is an extension of the body. It
is the naturally evolved creative capacity of humanity that allows it to simultaneously rival
nature and triumphantly remold it in its own image. Rocks, sticks, language, plows, yokes,
cotton gins, machines, computers, genetic manipulation: they are all extensions of a
“nature” destined to encompass one dynamic and organic body. In this rational view,
humanity itself is just a medium by which nature manifests and expresses itself on a larger
canvass, even when that medium would appear to distance itself from nature.
In Oryx and Crake, the (non)divide between nature and man, between natural and
artificial, is illustrated most clearly in the imagery used to describe the post-‐singularity
world. Here the medium of mankind is revealed as being mixed in confusing and
indiscriminate ways with nature’s other mediums. In the opening pages of Oryx and Crake,
we find that on the latter side of the genetic singularity, the human extensions of the
natural world, including those extensions that would serve to isolate us from that world,
have become indistinguishable from the very aspects of nature that first made them
distinctly “human.” The novel opens with Snowman awaking from sleep before sunrise:
Snowman
wakes
before
dawn.
He
lies
unmoving,
listening
to
the
tide
coming
in,
wave
after
wave
sloshing
over
the
various
barricades,
wish-‐wash,
wish-‐
wash,
the
rhythm
of
heartbeat.
He
would
so
like
to
believe
he
is
still
asleep.
(3)
By
invoking
organismal
metaphor
in
the
comparison
of
the
wish-‐wash
of
the
ocean
to
the
rhythm of a heartbeat, Atwood is relating the human body to its natural origins; does the
ocean wish-‐wash like a heart, or does the heart beat rhythmically the way the ocean ebbs
and flows? This image of Snowman awaking before sunrise is one that occurs on several
occasions over the course of the novel, and Atwood rarely misses the opportunity to use
the
description
to
conflate
the
natural
with
the
human,
or
with
human’s
extension
of
the
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10
natural: the sun rises above the horizon, “lifting steadily as if on a pulley1” (146); the sun’s
rays, personified as “evil,” bounce off the water and “get at [Snowman]” (37); Snowman
scans the horizon through his one sunglassed eye and calls the sea “hot metal,” the sky a
“bleached blue” (11); straining to hear past the heartbeat of the ocean, Snowman listens
intently as the shrieks of birds that live in distant, offshore towers, and the sound of the
distant ocean “grinding against the ersatz reefs of rusted car parts, jumbled bricks and
assorted rubble” combine, sounding “almost like holiday traffic” (4). Prior to the
singularity that wiped out humanity, it was the uniquely human capacity for man to pry
himself away from the natural world, to confirm it and master it, that provided the distinct
illusion of a separation or isolation from nature. The fact that this separation was begotten
by means of things like genetic manipulation highlights man’s tie back to nature, thereby
upholding the recursive paradox and compounding the complicated and uncomfortable
relationship with nature that the characters of Oryx and Crake experience.
It is important to note here that the relationship between the “artificiality” of the
human experience and the “natural” world is intricately bound up with humanity’s
conception of reality—read nature—and man’s reconception of that reality in the form of
simulation and simulacra. In Simulacra and Science Fiction, Jean Baudrillard expands upon
his seminal discourse on images, signs, and their relationships with contemporaneity,
which he began in Simulacra and Simulation. In doing so, he foretells the emergence of
fiction like Oryx and Crake, and lays the framework for examining the puzzling relationship
1
For
an
insightful
examination
of
how
changes
in
knowledge
about
the
natural
world
relate
to
the
increasing
use
of
mechanical
metaphors
to
describe
natural
processes,
and
the
increasingly
complex
relationship
between
human
subjects
and
the
natural
objects
of
their
observation,
see
Steven
Shapin’s
The
Scientific
Revolution.
Shapin’s
book
relates
directly
to
the
topics
covered
in
the
second
section
of
this
essay,
which
deal
more
explicitly
with
the
emerging
field
of
science
studies.
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11
between the imaginary and the real by noting that “there is no real and no imaginary
except at a certain distance” (309). The distance that Baudrillard is referring to can best be
thought of as a definitive gap separating the real from the imaginary. What makes the
relationship between the real and the imaginary, and by extension the relationship
between man and nature, so complicated in Oryx and Crake is the narrowing of that gap.
What we witness, both within the pages of Oryx and Crake, as well as in our relationship to
it as a piece of fiction, is the dramatic shrinking of this distance in the novel’s pre-‐
singularity society, wherein the repeated compounding of the recursive paradox upon itself
parallels humanity’s alienation from reality, in spite of his intrinsic link to it.
In Simulacra and Science Fiction, Baudrillard posits the existence of three orders of
in the gap between the imaginary and the real. The first is naturalistic simulacra, which is
based on “image, imitation, and counterfeiting.” The second is productionist simulacra, the
aim of which is Promethean: “world-‐wide application, continuous expansion, liberation of
indeterminate energy.” The third is simulation simulacra, and its aim is “maximum
operationality, hyperreality, total control” (309). Baudrillard contends that the common
conception of the utopian possibility corresponds to the first order, in the sense that
through this order, the utopia of the future will involve the ideal institution (or
hard science fiction – the branch of science fiction with which Atwood herself claims no
allegiance (I refer you, again, to the epigraph for this section). Referencing the third form
of simulacra, Baudrillard asks, hypothetically: “is there yet an imaginary domain which
corresponds
to
this
order”
(309)?
In
response
to
his
own
question,
Baudrillard
continues
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12
by surmising that the “’good old’ SF imagination is dead, and that something else is
that is, itself, an apprehension of the real, thus leaving “no room for fictional extrapolation”
(310). The end product of this third order of simulacra is the same loss of a unique future
that theorists like Csicsery-‐Ronay, Jr., Clay, and others have emphasized in recent years.
fiction—which Baudrillard saw emerging some thirty years ago—in its full form. The
world of Oryx and Crake, and, by Baudrillard’s estimation, our own, is one where the
fascinations of the third order hyperreal that are increasingly overlaying the “lost utopia”
of the real, work implosively to block the possibility of any meaningful future change or
transformation. Symptoms of third order simulacra abound in the pre-‐singularity world of
Oryx and Crake, where the recursive paradox of nature is most compounded. In a scene
from Jimmy’s childhood, he finds that he is not only fearful of but also drawn to the sight of
a pile of animals that are being burned to prevent the spread of a biogenetic pathogen
intentionally planted by eco-‐rights activists. The scene reveals the importance of spectacle
to the community of the compound, and the self-‐referential nature of Jimmy’s relationship
to reality:
He
thought
he
could
see
the
animals
looking
at
him
reproachfully
out
of
their
burning
eyes.
In
some
way
all
of
this—the
bonfire,
the
charred
smell,
but
most
of
all
the
lit
up,
suffering
animals—was
his
fault,
because
he’d
done
nothing
to
rescue
them.
At
the
same
time
he
found
the
bonfire
a
beautiful
sight—luminous,
like
a
Christmans
tree,
but
a
Christmas
tree
on
fire.
He
hoped
there
might
be
an
explosion,
as
on
television.
(Atwood
18)
Jimmy,
like
the
rest
of
the
crowd
that
has
gathered
to
watch
the
animals
burn,
is
part
of
a
larger
system
which,
in
combination
with
the
heap
of
burning
animals,
has
become
a
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13
spectacle like one might see “on television.” The fact that Jimmy relates to his immediate
simulacra in the bonfire scene mirrors the recursive paradox of nature that gives rise to the
bonfire in the first place; spurred by a fear of the diseases that are a natural part of his
controlling its effects. In so harnessing nature, he is at once abdicating himself from his
involvement with it and re-‐implementing himself into its process, playing by nature’s rules,
as it were. In seeing the nature that man has supposedly harnessed turned on him by
individuals who object to its manipulation, the absurdity of the situation comes full circle,
and we find humanity, once again, simultaneously fearful of, yet drawn to, the natural;
when Jimmy’s father lifts him up into his arms as they watch the bonfire, he believes it is
because Jimmy “wants to be comforted,” which he does, “but also [he] wants to see better”
(18).
The more we come to understand about life before the singularity, the more we
come to recognize its participation in third order simulacra. The “outside world,” which
Jimmy relates to exclusively through the internet, electronic games, and web-‐casts, is
simultaneously amplified and estranged due to the nature of the websites themselves.
Speaking to the style of the performances by the adolescent girls on the HottTotts website
that he and Crake frequent—girls they regard, not as “real,” but as “digital clones” (90)—
Jimmy observes that they are always characterized by “at least three layers of
contradictory
make
believe,
one
on
top
of
the
other”
(90).
This
persistent
questioning
of
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14
reality is one that extends to many other sites, inciting Crake to state outright that “you
This confusion that Jimmy experiences in his relationship with reality is directly
related to humanity’s confusing and intrinsic tie to nature; as the society that Jimmy is a
part of participates in greater and greater efforts to distance itself from nature, it becomes
doubled and tripled back onto nature, but the relationship is obscured on every subsequent
connection, further complicating the relationship. This recursive quality can be observed
throughout the novel in the way that the pre-‐singularity world, given its seemingly limitless
biogenetic capabilities, cannot envision a utopia that counterposes “an ideal alternative
world,” but instead adds to the present one, “multiplying the world’s own possibilities”
(Baudrillard 310). Consider that the world of Oryx and Crake is not populated with totally
foreign species, but rather hybrids of animals we are all familiar with; rats and skunks are
spliced to form rakunks, and massive pig-‐like animals are grown to harvest human organs.
Reality has managed to “surpass fiction” (310); the imagination necessary for the pre-‐
singularity society to envision a future different than its present has vanished. We now see
how the collapse of the future onto the present has facilitated the admittance of Atwood’s
novel into serious discussions on the future of technoscience; when combined with
Atwood’s shift to a speculative brand of science fiction, Oryx and Crake is removed from the
farcical and unthreatening history of science fiction proper, and is placed firmly into a
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15
An Unexpected Call to Action – Reframing Oryx and Crake in Constructivist Terms
The aim of this section is to undergo a shift in our discussion, from investigating
exploring what the emerging field of science studies can tell us about how Oryx and Crake
addresses the issue of truth. I will facilitate this shift by providing an example that
illustrates the crossover from the loss of a unique future in Oryx and Crake to the perceived
loss of a unique future outside the fiction. I will then proceed to explore the implications of
introduction to science studies, followed by a constructivist reading of Oryx and Crake that
draws on the work of Bruno Latour, a science studies theorist. Through this reading I will
argue that Atwood’s novel, when framed by the reconception of “nature” and “truth,”
opposes the tendency to place the danger of rampant technoscience at the cynosure of all
The point I concluded with in the previous section—the idea that an “increasingly
acute sense of the shape of things to come has already been determined, undermining in
the process the [components necessary] to create an open, ‘conditional future’” (Csicsery-‐
Ronay, Jr. 33)—serves as an ideal turning point for guiding our discussion from criticism
dealing with Atwood’s brand of speculative fiction to criticism that explores how Atwood’s
novel actively engages science and truth directly. To make this transition, I will return
briefly to a discussion that mirrors those referenced at the beginning of this essay to
2
The
Brookings
Institution
is
based
in
Washington,
D.C.
and
is
one
of
the
capital’s
oldest
think
tanks.
Brookings
describes
itself
as
independent
and
non-‐partisan,
is
a
nonprofit
public
policy
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16
Michael J. Sandel, Harvard philosophy professor and member of former president George
W. Bush’s Council on Bioethics, and Lee M. Silver, Princeton professor of molecular biology
and public affairs and controversial author of Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and
Cloning Will Transform the American Family, weighed in on the topic of the ethics behind
genetic engineering. The contrast in their opinions is one familiar to those acquainted with
the debate; Sandel argues that genetic enhancements are unnecessary, and are part of “a
troubling overall trend towards human mastery,” the implications of which include an
goes without saying that Silver’s response to Sandel’s concerns is what one expects in this
prudent advancement in the field of genetic enhancement. What makes Silver’s response
relevant in the context of our discussion, however, is his outward expression of what I
believe to be the oft-‐unspoken subtext to arguments such as his: that while the concerns
and conditional future move from the pages of Oryx and Crake into the real world in the
form of what Polish microbiologist and philosopher of science Ludwik Fleck referred to
over 70 years ago as a “proto-‐idea.” Proto-‐ideas are “developmental rudiments of modern
foundation that Fleck is referring to is what he described as a Denkkollective, or “thought
maintaining intellectual interaction.” According to Fleck, the most surprising thing about
proto-‐ideas is how often they eventually give rise to contemporary conceptions of truth,
even as those contemporary conceptions of truth look back on the proto-‐idea and identify
its premises as patently “false” or misguided. Given that a fact can develop from a “hazy
proto-‐idea, which is neither right nor wrong” (25), we can envision the proto-‐idea as,
simultaneously, two things. The first is a vehicle through which intentions greater than the
thought collective that conceives of the proto-‐idea manifest themselves; the second is a
space so replete in its will that it seems to deny alternative forces any power whatsoever.
Sandel’s treatment of genetic engineering can therefore be equated to the concept of the
proto-‐idea3.
philosophy, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. The text was written in 1935, and
its title is unique because of what it suggests. The logic of scientific philosophy at the time
that Fleck wrote his book characterized the idea of science as discovery—the uncovering of
a truth that is always and already in existence. This concept embodies, to this day, the
mainstream philosophy of science. The idea that a scientific “fact” could therefore be
generated, or developed over time, as Fleck’s title suggests, was in every way contrary to
3
It
is
worth
mentioning
here
that
the
reading
of
genetic
engineering
as
a
proto-‐idea
could
be
used
to
reinforce
readings
of
Oryx
and
Crake
as
a
dystopic
warning
of
the
destructive
capacity
of
unchecked
science.
This,
however,
is
missing
the
point.
The
example
provided
is
used
for
the
express
purpose
of
redirecting
our
discussion
towards
how
Oryx
and
Crake
approaches
conceptions
of
truth
the
way
that
science
studies
investigates
the
constructivist
nature
of
science.
What
one
should
take
away
from
the
example
of
the
proto
idea,
more
than
science’s
belief
in
that
idea,
is
the
fact
that
a
proto-‐idea
must
be
conceived
in
the
framework
of
a
thought
collective.
The
implications
of
this
concept
are
explored
in
greater
detail
later
in
this
section.
For
now,
the
salient
point
in
the
context
of
our
present
discussion
lies
in
understanding
that
there
exist,
at
any
given
historical
moment,
several
competing
and
inharmonious
thought
collectives.
Gonzalez
18
scientific epistemological thinking. What Fleck considers is the historicity of truth, and,
more radically, that there can be instances in time when scientific facts do not yet exist or
no longer exist, and that this status is intricately bound up with and driven by the
emerging field known as science studies. Since Fleck published his book, science studies
has drawn on thinkers from a variety of fields, including historians, sociologists, and
constructivist terms. This approach allows them to observe the processes that underlie
the creation of scientific facts while delineating the limits and purposes of these processes.
Utilizing concepts from science studies theorist Bruno Latour, I will here argue the
relevance of Oryx and Crake as a work of fiction that contributes to the discussion
surrounding the future of technoscience by illustrating its call for a renewed discourse on
truth. Moreover, I will explain why describing Oryx and Crake as a dystopic warning robs
In Latour’s Science in Action, he explores the process by which facts are “made” by
entering science and technology “through the back door of science in the making,” rather
than “through the more grandiose entrance of ready-‐made science” (4). Latour describes
“ready-‐made” science through the metaphor of a closed black box. The contents of a closed
black box can be thought of as something that is readily accepted as an inherent truth, be it
by members of the scientific community or members of the larger population.
The formation of a black box begins with a single statement. That statement can be
inserted,
in
its
original
form,
into
various
other
statements
that
can
either
lead
it
“away
Gonzalez
19
from its conditions of production, making it solid enough to render some other
“why it is solid or weak instead of using it to render some other consequences more
necessary” (23). These sentences, which either qualify or question the veracity of the
original statement, are known as positive and negative modalities, respectively. The
ongoing incorporation of an original statement into positive and negative modalities can be
thought of as the process by which a black box is closed or opened (how a statement
becomes accepted as fact or rejected as untrue), respectively. This concept, which Latour
introduces in the first chapter of Science in Action, has numerous implications, many of
which Latour spends the remainder of the book unpacking. However, the two most
important things to take away from this model (according not only to Latour, but based on
concepts of his that I will introduce below) are as follows. The first is that the status of a
make the original statement more or less of a certainty. The second is something so
critical, not only to his discussion but to ours, that Latour goes so far as to deem it the “first
principle” of investigating the nature of truth: that the “construction of facts…is a collective
suffer an abrupt severance from the collective that once defined his reality while also
realizing his place in a new system of truth; he is perpetually confronted with black boxes
that are opening and closing, often in disorienting and confusing ways. On one hand,
Snowman must struggle with the fact that the network of supporting modalities that once
defined
his
reality
prior
to
the
singularity
has
been
reduced
to
a
collective
of
one—himself.
Gonzalez
20
Nursing a hangover, Snowman wishes aloud that he had more alcohol: “’Hair of the dog,’ he
says” to the empty beer bottle in his hand. The turn of phrase that he mutters is beyond
arcane; he is, as far as he knows, the only organism in the world who would understand the
reference. His turn of phrase is fitting given the context of our discussion, especially when
one considers the self-‐reflection that Snowman engages in a few lines later:
He
wishes
he
had
something
to
read.
To
read,
to
view,
to
hear,
to
study,
to
compile.
Rag
ends
of
language
are
floating
in
his
head:
mephitic,
metronome,
mastitis,
metatarsal,
maudlin.
“I
used
to
be
erudite,”
he
says
out
loud.
Erudite.
A
hopeless
word.
What
are
all
those
things
he
once
thought
he
knew,
and
where
have
they
gone?
What’s
happening
to
his
mind?
He
has
a
vision
of
the
top
of
his
neck,
opening
up
into
his
head
like
a
bathroom
drain.
Fragments
of
words
are
swirling
down
it,
in
a
grey
liquid
he
realizes
is
his
dissolving
brain.
Time
to
face
reality.
(148-‐149)
This bout of self-‐reflection is just one of many that Snowman engages in throughout
the novel, wherein he indulges in the memory of words that no longer have meaning
and will be lost forever when he dies. Some he recalls, but “can’t reach…he can’t
attach anything” to them (39). This results in a “dissolution of meaning” (39) that
leads him to the conclusion that truths, like the various words and phrases, are
While Snowman is reeling from the loss of a firm conception of truth that held its
form in the pre-‐singularity time frame of the novel, he is simultaneously faced with the task
of looking over the Crakers, and, in doing so, establishing a new system of truth. Scenes
depicting Snowman’s participation in the generation of truth are often presented in the
form of him addressing Craker children. He explains to them many things, ranging from
the overall mythology surrounding their creation to the purpose of his baseball hat, which
they
like,
but
do
not
understand
the
need
for
because
he
“hasn’t
yet
invented
a
fiction
for
it”
Gonzalez
21
(8). What fictions he has created in the time he has spent looking over them have been
accumulated by the Crakers as “a stock of lore, of conjecture” (8), a stock which, when
combined with their own experiences, has become a system of truths capable of taking
Snowman
was
once
a
bird
but
he’s
forgotten
how
to
fly
and
the
rest
of
his
feathers
fell
out,
and
so
he
is
cold
and
he
needs
a
second
skin,
and
he
has
to
wrap
himself
up.
No:
he’s
cold
because
he
eats
fish,
and
fish
are
cold.
No:
he
wraps
himself
up
because
he’s
missing
his
man
thing,
and
he
doesn’t
want
us
to
see.
That’s
why
he
won’t
go
swimming.
Snowman
has
wrinkles
because
he
once
lived
underwater
and
it
wrinkled
up
his
skin.
Snowman
is
sad
because
the
others
like
him
flew
away
over
the
sea,
and
now
he
is
all
alone.
(8-‐9)
The
structure
of
the
dialogue
between
the
Crakers
blurs
the
lines
between
the
fictions
that
Snowman has imparted upon them and the “conjectures” that they have come up with on
their own, and also shows how quickly his “fictions” are transformed and instated as facts.
Here we see a paradox that arises out of Latour’s black box model: by involving the Crakers
in his process of fact production, Snowman enlists individuals who may pass that truth
along. This, however, is dangerous for Snowman, not only because he must remember the
fictions he is turning into fact, but because each individual who becomes a part of the
collective can behave as what Latour describes as a multiconductor, someone who may
“have no interest whatsoever in the claim, shunt it towards some unrelated topic, turn it
into an artifact, transform it into something else, drop it altogether, pass it along as is,
confirm it, and so on” (Latour 207). The situation signals Snowman’s integration into a
new collective of dynamically formed facts, even as his old conceptions of truth are in the
truth
collide
with
his
new
ones.
The
meeting
of
the
two
is
explored
particularly
well
in
the
Gonzalez
22
chapter titled “Toast.” Snowman, ravaged by hunger, spies a rabbit, which fills him with
carnivorous desires; “he longs to whack it with a rock, tear it apart with his bare hands,
then cram it into his mouth, fur and all” (Atwood 96). However, owing to the myth that he
has created for the Crakers (which, you will recall, has been integrated into a collective of
facts), he is unable to do so, because “rabbits…are sacred;” to kill one would be to risk
offending the Crakers (96). While berating himself out loud for not “making” rabbits edible,
one of the children of Crake hears him talking to himself, which leads to several children
asking him a series of questions. When the children begin to get on Snowman’s nerves, he
threatens that if the children do not stop bothering him they’ll be “toast.” His utterance of
the word “toast” opens a door that Snowman would rather have avoided: “Please, oh
Snowman, what is toast?” Snowman’s “error,” as he describes it, was his use of another
(beyond) arcane metaphor. Snowman’s rumination over his slip-‐up warrants a lengthy
citation:
“What
is
toast?
Says
snowman
to
himself,
once
[the
children
have]
run
off.
Toast
is
when
you
take
a
piece
of
bread—What
is
bread?
Bread
is
when
you
take
some
flour—What
is
flour?
We’ll
skip
that
part,
it’s
too
complicated.
Bread
is
something
you
can
eat,
made
from
a
ground-up
plant
and
shaped
like
a
stone.
You
cook
it.
Please,
why
do
you
cook
it?
Why
don’t
you
just
eat
the
plant?
Never
mind
that
part—Pay
attention.
You
cook
it,
and
then
you
cut
it
into
slices,
and
you
put
a
slice
into
a
toaster,
which
is
a
metal
box
that
heats
up
with
electricity—What
is
electricity?
Don’t
worry
about
that.
While
the
slice
is
in
the
toaster,
you
get
out
the
butter—butter
is
a
yellow
grease,
made
from
the
mammary
glands
of—skip
the
butter.
So,
the
toaster
turns
the
slice
of
bread
black
on
both
sides
with
smoke
coming
out,
and
then
this
“toaster”
shoots
the
slice
up
into
the
air
and
it
falls
onto
the
floor…“Forget
it,”
says
Snowman.
“Let’s
try
again.”
Toast
is
a
pointless
invention
from
the
Dark
Ages.
Toast
was
an
implement
of
torture
that
caused
all
those
subjected
to
it
to
regurgitate
in
verbal
form
the
sins
and
crimes
of
their
past
lives.
Toast
was
a
ritual
item
devoured
by
fetishists
in
the
belief
that
it
would
enhance
their
kinetic
and
sexual
powers.
Toast
cannot
be
explained
by
any
rational
means.
(97-‐98)
This
dense
scene
reveals
much
about
how
Atwood’s
novel
confronts
truth
in
the
same
way
Gonzalez
23
that science studies does. Snowman’s system of classification, his tie to a former reality, has
been violently severed. His memories, his influx of soon-‐to-‐be extinct words and
conceptions of truth that once tied him to a larger thought collective, now threaten to
isolate him from the Crakers if he himself does not abide by the facts that have been borne
from his “fictions.” While Snowman may have started as the single authority on facts to the
Crakers, his capacity in that role since contributing to the formation of their conception of
truth has been diminished considerably. Why doesn’t Snowman just kill the rabbit and
change the “truth” that he has laid down for the Crakers? Because, Snowman concedes,
“internal consistency is best” (96). If caught in a minor contradiction, he might be able to
“paradigm,” that is: “the most solid point” (35), the black box which no one would dare to
open. In doing so, Snowman would become “very isolated” (Latour 44), even more isolated
than he already is; for him to risk isolation from the only other viable system of truth on
Snowman’s situation in Oryx and Crake is arguably one that would be impossible
outside of a fictitious setting because it places him at the nexus of what Latour calls “The
Great Divide,” which operates via the supposition that “there is, on the right hand,
knowledge embedded in society, and on the left hand, knowledge independent of society”
(213). If Snowman still had access to the societal forces that once confirmed his
conceptions of truth, he would likely confront the system of truth adopted by the Crakers
as one that they uphold based on belief, rather than objective judgment. While Snowman
may
instinctively
relate
to
the
inchoate
system
of
facts
adopted
by
the
Crakers
from
the
Gonzalez
24
perspective of an “objective” observer, the reality of his situation is that his prior belief
system does not hold; the line tracing the divide between them (the Crakers) and us
(Snowman’s prior collective) has been effaced. In the process, the socially-‐contingent
nature of the reader’s own system of facts are called into question.
truth collide in the post-‐singularity world of Oryx and Crake. In doing so, one can more
clearly see how alternative notions of truth engage one another prior to the singularity,
and, by extension, in his own world outside the novel. In the pre-‐singularity world, the
debate over the potentially transgressive nature of science taking place within the novel
mirrors the collective anxieties surrounding the same issue outside the novel. This debate
is reproduced at its most manageable scale in the rift between Jimmy’s Parents. By
eavesdropping on his parents’ arguments, Jimmy becomes well-‐versed in the rhetoric that
each one uses to articulate his or her points on the debate in question, to the point that he
begins re-‐enacting them in the form of hand-‐puppet mini-‐dramas, which he stages in the
His
right
hand
was
Evil
Dad,
his
left
hand
was
Righteous
Mom.
Evil
Dad
blustered
and
theorized
and
dished
out
pompous
bullshit,
Righteous
Mom
complained
and
accused.
In
Righteous
Mom’s
cosmology,
Evil
Dad
was
the
sole
source
of
hemorrhoids,
kleptomania,
global
conflict,
bad
breath,
tectonic-‐plate
fault
lines,
and
clogged
drains,
as
well
as
every
migraine
headache
and
menstrual
cramp
Righteous
Mom
had
ever
suffered.
(60)
Having
traveled
from
the
time
frame
prior
to
the
singularity—where
the
complicated
doubling and tripling back of the recursive paradox upon itself contributed more and more
contingent
nature
of
the
reader’s
system
of
facts
could
more
effectively
be
called
into
Gonzalez
25
question—and back, we are finally poised to approach the argument between Evil Dad and
Righteous Mom the way Jimmy might have done were he able to straddle the thought
collectives of his mother and father the way Snowman is forced to straddle The Great
Divide of the novel’s post-‐apocalyptic present. Evil Dad is “evil,” and Righteous Mom is
“righteous” because each party, when faced with the accusation of irrationality, simply
contends that the other is irrational; each fails to “consider the angle, direction, movement
and scale” (Latour, 213) of the other’s removal from his or her own system of truth.
Jimmy confesses to often feeling guilty after his lunchroom puppet shows on
examine (Atwood 60). I propose that the “uncomfortable truth” behind the arguments of
Jimmy’s parents, behind the discourse on the future of biotechnology both inside the novel
and out, is what Barbara Herrnstein Smith describes, in her analysis of contemporary
controversies such as this one, as “normative and/or epistemic symmetry,” which, contrary
to the idea that all judgments or beliefs are “equally good” or “equally valid,” is the idea that
all judgments and beliefs, including one’s own, “are produced and operate equally
contingently, that is, are formed in response to more or less particular and variable
conditions (experiential, historical, cultural, discursive, circumstantial, and so on)” (8).
In light of this concept, it becomes clear that Margaret Atwood’s Oryx in Crake is not,
at its core, a dystopic warning about the potentially catastrophic outcomes of unbridled
biogenetic engineering, because to call upon this reading of the novel fails to contribute
constructively to the discourse in which it is most commonly used. The emptiness behind
this brand of criticism is revealed in one of Jimmy’s ruminations, wherein he wonders why
he
“hadn’t
seen
it
all
coming
and
headed
it
off,
instead
of
playing
at
mean
ventriloquism”
Gonzalez
26
(64) (in reference to his Evil Dad/Righteous Mom mini-‐dramas). Instead, our examination
of Atwood’s novel has revealed within its pages a hopeful call to attentive and pragmatic
action, and shown how by confronting conceptions of truth, Oryx and Crake contributes, in
a substantial way, not just to the contemporary debate of the future of technoscience, but to
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