Body & Society

http://bod.sagepub.com Genetic Fundamentalism or the Cult of the Gene

David Le Breton Body Society 2004; 10; 1 DOI: 10.1177/1357034X04047853 The online version of this article can be found at: http://bod.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/4/1

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Genetic Fundamentalism or the Cult of the Gene

DAVID LE BRETON

The Fetishizing of DNA Every living form now tends to be seen in the techno-scientic universe as an organized sum of information. The animate world has been transformed into a message that has either already been deciphered or which is waiting to be deciphered. The fetishizing of DNA which, starting with the individual, effectively eliminates concrete life, is one of the most perturbing sociological phenomena in the contemporary world. Information effectively puts all levels of existence on the same plane and empties things of their substance, their value and their meaning in order to make them comparable. It imposes a single model of comparison upon the innite complexity of the world, which means that different realities are levelled out by effacing their ontological status. As Henri Atlan writes:
What biology has taught us about the body overrides that which society, history and culture have also taught us about the human individual. From a biological point of view, the individual does not exist. That is not to say that, in society, the individual does not exist. The individual is a social reality, and society is one of the most important elements of our lives. Biology, however, simply says: the body is an impersonal mechanism, which is ultimately the result of interactions between molecules. (Atlan, 1994: 56)

Body & Society 2004 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 10(4): 120 DOI: 10.1177/1357034X04047853

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Similarly for Jacob:

. . . all living beings appear to be constructed from the same components, which are distributed in different ways. The living world is a sort of combination of elements, which are nite in number and that resemble the product of a gigantic Meccano set, and this is the result of the continual bricolage of evolution. (Jacob, 1997: 12)

These are two examples, amongst others, of this way of thinking, but which signicantly come from scientists who are reputedly humanists. It seems that logic precludes biology from taking into account the humanity of man, since it restricts itself to studying the mechanisms of life. Biology is now inextricably linked with information technology and has become in its own right a science of information. It is not interested in man, but rather in his elementary components, apparently without concern for the negative consequences of this conception of the human, given that it dissolves the subject, and perhaps even the human condition itself. What is more, it talks quite openly in terms of a genetic programme in order to describe the information contained in the genome. The individual is now nothing more than the incidental embodiment of a series of instructions, which have as their aim the development of the individual. Previous perspectives on the human are disappearing and are being replaced with a conception based solely on genes, which is to say pieces of information that constitute an amorphous and inscrutable signifying form. This epistemological reduction is undoubtedly legitimate in some ways, given that it is part and parcel of progress in any eld of knowledge, but for a number of scientists this particular discourse goes beyond its eld of application to encompass and absorb the individual in the form of a genetic programme. This dissolution of the subject has serious consequences from a practical and moral point of view, because it does away with the concrete human individual. The notion of information (in the elds of biology or information technology) breaks down the distinctions between man and machine and paves the way for the humanization of articial intelligence or genetic interventions. It also breaks with classical ontology, destroys distinctions of value between man and machine, and constitutes a major moral shift in contemporary societies. The coming together of the living and the inert (the organic and the inorganic) under the aegis of information opens the way for a general indifferentiation, and points to the end of distinct biological kingdoms: man, animals, physical objects and the cyborg are no longer fundamentally distinct as they are in traditional humanism. For some scientists there is now only a very small difference, which will soon be overcome, between articial life and real life. The same movement that enthusiastically humanizes the cyborg at the same time devalues and undermines the human by reifying it. Rifkin writes:

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Genetic Fundamentalism
Living beings are no longer thought of as individual entities, as birds or bees, foxes or chickens, but rather as bundles of genetic information. All living beings are emptied of their substance and transformed into abstract messages. Life becomes a code that is waiting to be deciphered. It is no longer thought of as sacred or specic. (Rifkin, 1998: 282)

Information operates outside of the boundaries of species or natural kingdoms; it is not concerned with the singular; it eliminates any trace of being. Its anthropology is in the process of becoming that of a meticulous physics of elements, whereby the genetic barriers between species are breaking down, as well as the barriers between individuals themselves, since value and weight are only accorded to genetic crystallizations, which are themselves potentially provisional or modiable. Such a vision of the world necessarily precludes a system of morality because the gure of the Other simply does not have enough depth or substance to be held responsible for his acts. Man himself is effaced in the course of this denigration of the self. Even if we are only on the threshold of this journey, the gure of the human is gradually becoming an anachronism. (Le Breton, 1999). Already, in everyday life, a commonplace vocabulary exists that constantly humanizes machines, especially the computer and its attendant machinery, at the same time that an informational conception of human beings is being developed. Today, technoscience is beginning to colonize the continent of the body, which is to say man himself, whose condition is being radically changed in this way. In order to claim full licence to colonize that which constitutes the very identity of the human, science has to modify ethical practice. The human being is gradually becoming just another form of matter that is the object of research or new applications, without regard for human dignity. We are on the threshold of this shift but already, here and there, certain voices can be heard stating quite clearly their desire to embark upon the selection of embryos, cloning, genetic engineering, etc. We are slowly moving into the post-humanist era, in which man ceases to be the measure of all things and is removed from his former centrality with regard to the consideration of moral dilemmas. The belief that man is nothing more than the coming together of a spermatozoon and an egg, and the notion that the individuals dignity is solely the product of his genetic message rather than the way in which a child is brought up by its parents is the most extreme expression of a strictly informational conception of the human; a conception which actually robs the human being of all dignity. Post-humanism is a morality that is contemptuous of humanity, a morality that is no longer founded on the nality of the human being, along with the intrinsic dignity of each particular individual. It is instead purely technical and entirely utilitarian, characterized by a drive to improve man from a technical perspective, not in

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order to enhance the quality of life but in order always to progress in terms of rationality, performance or simply economic prot. According to Dorothy Nelkin and Susan Lindee, DNA is today taking on the social and cultural functions of the soul (1998: 67). And certain biologists are vying to be the privileged administrators of this DNA, setting themselves up as the priests of this new discourse. A certain vision of genetics with unconscious religious connotations is becoming an end in itself, offering a total explanation of the human condition and expressing a passionate belief in the approaching salvation of humanity. This vision of the world has currency today in the USA, and sometimes elsewhere as well. It involves a radical identication of evil in biological terms, along with a ruthless drive to eliminate it, not by social or political means but by employing an array of genetic tests and suitable means of biological engineering. This uncompromising vision of genetics is one expression of a powerful imaginary current that runs through our contemporary societies. It is a way of thinking that conceives of the body as a locus of imperfection or incompleteness, an unfortunate part of the human condition. The body is a rough draft, at best to be improved upon, at worst to be eliminated.1 As such, this way of thinking constitutes a dualist vision, which dissociates not only the spirit or the soul from the body, but more subtly the individual from her own body. In this way the body becomes something other and potentially unfortunate, with which it is necessary to live for better or for worse. Genetics today has become, to a large extent on the imaginary level, but also on the level of social practices such as in vitro fertilization that are currently in use, the modern and secularized form of fate: a totalizing explanation of all the ills of the world. This explanation is seen as incontestable and effectively calls for genetics as the sole solution that will put us on the road to salvation. Defective genes are today seen as the cause of many diseases, but they are also suspected of conditioning certain forms of human behaviour. Or rather, a certain conception of genetics is content to foster this notion in order to propose radical solutions. The reduction of man to his genes stems from the conviction that it is only the information the genes contain that is important. This brings us to the fascination with the serial reproduction of the human in the form of the clone: the narcissistic fantasy of having a double, an echo of oneself that is the result of reproduction without sex reproduction that is hygienic, purely technical and which takes place without a partner. That the history of the individual is that of the differentiating characteristics and that no individual, even a cloned individual, quite mirrors another is often forgotten, or even put forward as an argument for cloning. The instrumentation of the clone, the feeling of not being a generic being in ones own right, but rather a double, is certainly not inconsequential.

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Cloning is the nal stage of the manipulation of the body whereby, reduced to its abstract and genetic formula, the individual is condemned to its own serial deceleration. We are taken back to what Walter Benjamin said about the work of art in the era of technological reproduction. What is lost in the work that is serially reproduced is its aura, the singular quality of the here and now. (Baudrillard, 1981: 1512)

If one is simply the copy of another person, it is now less a question of passing through the mirror stage, but rather of smashing it in order to gain access to the self. Testing for Life The embryo and the foetus are at the heart of many testing procedures. The different forms of prenatal genetic testing (PGT) mean that the healthy state of the foetus and the embryo can be checked, and that the legitimacy of their continued existence can come under scrutiny. Prenatal genetic testing was rst used in the 1970s in order to identify Downs syndrome, before being extended to chromosomal diseases and other metabolic problems. Scanning subsequently opened up the possibility of identifying morphological abnormalities. Later, advances in the eld of molecular biology made possible the prenatal diagnosis of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, as well as cystic brosis and other genetic conditions. There are more and more screening tests, without treatments for even a small percentage of the conditions that are detected. PGT is becoming a sort of standard examination to which the unborn child is subjected by both its parents and the medical establishment in order to verify its compliance to genetic and morphological norms. If a condition is detected, the therapeutic intention is only of incidental importance, because any problems that come to light are rarely susceptible to treatment. The identication of a genetic illness which is currently untreatable leads potentially to the decision to carry out a therapeutic abortion, and in this way a drift occurs, whereby medicine moves away from a therapeutic role to the project of eliminating that which it cannot treat. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is another test that can be performed on embryos that have been fertilized in vitro, and it is designed to anticipate the birth of a child who runs the risk of a serious illness. It is performed upon cells taken from the embryo and from the outset allows for the selection of the embryo judged to be the most favourable for implantation, whereas PGT comes into play once the pregnancy is under way. It offers, therefore, an acceptable method of selecting from the range of embryos and of making the choice according to certain genetic criteria. These extremely precise methods for choosing that which eventually becomes the genetic material sometimes

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radically transform the child into what is explicitly acknowledged as a form of prosthesis. This is the case, for example, when the child whom the parents of course claim to love in its own right is conceived for the purpose of transplanting bone marrow to another of the couples children who is suffering from a form of cancer. In the event that the parents use in vitro fertilization in order to benet from PGD, they can choose the embryo that is the most compatible with the individual who will receive the transplant (Testart, 1992: 1823). Children are in this way born as a result of the selection of embryos, in order to be genetically compatible with a brother or a sister. PGD is effectively a form of insurance taken out on the unborn child, an investment of time and money in order to be sure of a good nal product, an la carte child who conforms to parental desires, and whose appearance conforms to societal norms. Sex selection also becomes possible, which inevitably allows for parents to indulge their preferences, or to eliminate, for example, male embryos in the case of an illness that only affects this sex. Parallel research on the human genome means that this method of selection has enormous effectiveness with respect to the normative and eugenic control of the human condition. The embryo has become a virtual object, subject to processes of simulation. Before the embryo even exists as a human subject, an imaginary projection is already performed upon it, and she is made aware that if she shows any sign of abnormality, the suffering that awaits her after birth will be more signicant than the pleasure that she would have had in life. If this is the case, one decides on behalf of the individual that it would preferable for her not to exist rather than experience a so-called wrongful life. Genetic discrimination2 at birth that leads to therapeutic abortion is all the more troubling in that it confuses genotype and phenotype, which is to say the virtual and the real, the genetic message and its functioning at the heart of the organism, statistics and the reality of the singular individual. A new form of medicine is appearing, which no longer seeks to treat a disease but rather a hypothetical category. A genetic predisposition to a disease is not a destiny, nor is it evidence of the disease itself, but rather an indication of a probability. Not only is it the case that environmental factors might prevent the disease from developing, but other genes may have an effect, all of which contributes to the uncertainty. By the same token, the variations that are inherent in every disease are considerable. For example:
. . . out of every two children suffering from falciform anaemia, one may only ever have minor symptoms, whereas the other will suffer from relatively frequent terribly painful attacks, or die at a young age. A child with Downs syndrome may only be moderately learning delayed, or

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Genetic Fundamentalism
even if it is seriously affected it may live a life that is fullling, both for itself and for other members of the family. (Duster, 1992: 93)

Incidences of spina bida or Downs syndrome are more or less serious, and entail different levels of handicap. A number of genetic conditions that are detected either manifest themselves with different degrees of seriousness or sometimes do not even develop at all, by virtue of interaction with the environment or with other genetic factors. Another example would be the fact that polycystic kidney disease or Huntingtons chorea, along with certain hereditary forms of Alzheimers disease, only manifest themselves in later life. Most often parents nd it preferable to spare the unborn child such a potential fate, and the 40 preceding years count for nothing in the light of this perceived deadline. If we are to take a step back for a moment from the eld of ideologies and fantasies, it should be remembered that genes are not good or bad in absolute terms, but only in certain circumstances. Our ignorance of the diseases of the future prevents us today from identifying a gene as harmful because it could one day be essential to protect against a disease that is as yet unknown. Monogenic illnesses are extremely rare. Most of the time when they have a genetic basis, this is actually created by the interaction of several genes. The decision to get rid of the embryo or the foetus often stems from the concern to guard against any potential risk, along with the pressure from insurers who refuse under these conditions to take on somebody who is ill or a disabled person whose condition has been identied by means of prenatal testing. Confronted with a positive result for Downs syndrome or dwarsm, how is one supposed to choose if both choices seem equally bad? Should one bring the child into the world and expose it to social intolerance or terminate the pregnancy, knowing that this means that the possibility of a fullled life for this child will never even have been explored? It seems that the virtual man decides the fate of the real embryo (or foetus). Value judgements concerning genetic, anatomical and functional characteristics take precedence. In this way, the embryo has become a major gure of the virtual culture that dominates the leading edge of modern technology. As far as the general tolerance of abnormalities or disabilities is concerned, there is a cumulative and collective downside to these thousands of individual decisions. Foetuses that have hare lips, abnormalities of the feet or hands, or simply an unusual particularity, more often than not lead to a therapeutic abortion, even if it is possible for modern medicine to correct the malformation. In short, the child in the form of an embryo is subjected to a rigorous test which it must pass before it is even allowed to exist.

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Certain children whose illnesses or disabilities have not been picked up by tests carried out before they were born are now considered to be medical errors. In the name of these wrongful births, litigant children or parents in the USA, and recently in France, have obtained nancial compensation from doctors. Children allege that they would have preferred not to have been born rather than suffer from physical deformities, sensory disabilities or general difculties related to their state of health. They bring legal action against their parents or doctors in the name of their right to the awless joy of an existence that ought to have been their birthright (Le Breton, 1990). There are those who talk now of the childs right to a healthy genetic endowment. The implicit notion of a life not worth living, whether it is put into practice in the case of abortions after prenatal testing or at a later stage in the courtroom, actually calls radically into question the principle of the equal dignity of individuals. The fact of consciously bringing an ill or disabled child into the world has come to be seen as an act of physical abuse towards the child, opening up the possibility of legal claims against the parents. As a logical consequence of all this, biological control continues its pursuit of bodily imperfection even after birth. For the Australian philosopher Michael Tooley, the individual must possess a desire to exist in the long-term (1983: 103) in order to be fully considered an ethical being. The newborn does not, as far as he is concerned, full this condition, having neither consciousness of its existence nor a feeling for the long-term. Society is not obliged to assume the costs and the long-term care that are necessary for the child. For Tooley, infanticide, at least in the rst weeks of existence, raises no moral objections. Kuhse and Singer (1985) take up this argument and consider that the newborn can be eliminated if it is suffering and if it is not able to lead an autonomous and reasonable existence. Such a position simply takes to its logical conclusion a desire for control that is apparently not at all troubled by moral scruples. The reduction of the human subject to its genes opens up the way to action, without the objections of conscience. The perfection of the body, as is it dened by a certain type of medicine, is seen as the only salvation (Le Breton, 1999). If embryos or foetuses that carry abnormalities are eliminated, what will be the status of children who are born with a disability or an illness? The detection of any abnormality in utero only serves to accentuate the suspicion that weighs so heavily upon children or adults who have a mental or physical disability. Deborah Kaplan, of the World Institute on Disability, is worried that the use of prenatal screening only serves to give greater currency to the notion that disabled people should not exist (Nelkin and Lindee, 1998: 246). Discrimination against difference at the point of origin of life can only accentuate social

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discrimination on a wider level, since it intensies norms relating to physical appearance and genetic quality. The consequences of all this have a major impact on the value systems of our societies, and lead to the pigeon-holing of any individual who might conceivably exhibit difference from the normal human, following, say, an accident, an illness or simply the effects of age (Le Breton, 1990: 145). What is more, how will the parents be thought of who decide, despite social pressure, to give birth to a child with Downs syndrome, a physical disability or the possibility of developing a genetic illness? Will insurance companies cover the potential education and health costs? What will be the consequences for the child who grows up in the secure knowledge that the majority of couples would prefer to get rid of an embryo carrying the same disability that he or she has? It is not the capacity for happiness on the part of the individual that is at issue, but rather a normative denition of the human that allows for no deviation. Twenty years of life for a child suffering from muscular dystrophy or cystic brosis are not necessarily a hell on earth; they can be years lled with enough love for a whole lifetime. The only important thing is the moral and affective quality of the environment, and not the disease itself, which only has a meaning in terms of the way that the individual lives with it. We should remember that is not the illness that has an existence, but rather the person who is ill. Rather than questioning the very existence of the unborn child, a diagnosis of Downs syndrome raises questions relating to the attitudes of the parents concerning the child. It seems that the capacity for happiness on the part of the child who has Downs syndrome is no longer part of the equation. And yet, if the child is loved and supported, it will be no less happy than other children. Downs syndrome does not in itself mean a life of suffering: it is the way in which the parents deal with the condition that is important. However, the fact of not corresponding to a genetic norm has come to be seen as a formidable social abnormality for its carrier. Such a deviation from the norm constitutes a potential source of exclusion or anxiety, and can even lead to termination in utero. In the climate of intolerance and disregard that characterizes the contemporary world, genetics makes its own contribution by identifying new deviants. Prenatal tests lead to choices relating to the existence of virtual children who will one day perhaps reproach their parents for having allowed them to be born. On the other hand, we will never know whether or not those that have been eliminated would have had happy lives. As for the hypothetical possibility of genetic manipulation (which is currently unimaginable), it raises the question of a choice that is made by others on behalf of the individual, who is therefore deprived of the possibility of taking a position that would contradict that of his parents (Habermas, 2002: 79). Children have certainly always been more or less

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subject to the whims of their parents, but in this case the intervention is of a completely different, programmatic nature: A man who has been genetically programmed must live in the knowledge that his hereditary characteristics have been manipulated with the intention of inuencing his phenotype (Habermas, 2002: 84). Certain scientists, even if they are in a minority, regularly express their support for eugenics, whilst of course not doubting for a moment their own value as human beings. These proposals give rise to indignation in our democratic societies. However, prenatal tests are developing a subtle form of eugenics. When the control of the genetic and morphological quality of the child is carried out at the point of entry into life, in the form of a particular choice of gametes, or by means of prenatal tests and the possible recourse to therapeutic abortion perhaps even one day by means of direct intervention upon the genes it is of course the result of a process that is instigated by individuals, and which is democratic and familial in orientation. Nonetheless, such a process inevitably perpetuates a previously unknown form of eugenics that is in its very early stages. There is a growing demand for genetic normativity in the richest societies and, in practice, the brutal eugenics of those who feel that one section of the population is polluting the genetic inheritance of the nation, and the gentler eugenics of those who wish to spare the suffering of the future child, are actually working together. Today, eugenics is not entering through the front door, as with Hitlers Lebensborn project. Instead, it will enter through the back door, by means of tests, treatments and therapies. Some are welcome because they offer improvements in health, and that is an important rst step. But sooner or later we will have to confront this question: when do we act to prevent eugenics by the back door? (Duster, 1992: 15). Genetic Control Craig Venter, a controversial gure and one of the main actors in the human genome project as the director of a rm (Celera Economics) that is privatizing genes by patenting them, constantly states: The genome is the basis of the medicine of the future. The sequencing of the genome makes it more likely in the future that it will be possible to ascertain the predisposition of an individual to hundreds of genetic illnesses without, however, being sure that they will ever manifest themselves. The mapping of the genome entails the establishment of a genetic norm that is intensifying the power of surveillance and labelling that is exerted over any form of difference. Previously, there was a norm that operated in relation to appearances and forms of behaviour, leaving a certain room for

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manoeuvre, but today the norm penetrates the invisible interior of the body: the gene. As far as genetic therapy is concerned, it is still a long way off, if indeed it will ever exist. In this context, it should be remembered that we have been aware of the AIDS virus for some time without there being an effective treatment for it. Medicine does not necessarily benet from a better knowledge of the genome.3 Only a very small proportion of genetic abnormalities that are detected can be controlled by medical intervention or the adoption of a particular lifestyle. In general terms, genetic testing can identify an individual who carries a mutation that is inevitably associated with a serious disease (cystic brosis, muscular dystrophy, haemophilia, etc.), locate someone who carries a gene without that individual being ill, or diagnose the future onset of a disease even though the individual is currently in good health (Huntingtons chorea, renal polycystic disease). There is a stark contrast between the possibilities for diagnosis and the inability to prevent the serious diseases that have been discovered. The only alternatives, in the case of a prenatal test, are a preventative abortion; bringing into the world a child who is threatened at the present time (with Downs syndrome, spina bida, muscular dystrophy, Tay-Sachs disease, etc.) or in the future; or that life will progress without major health problems despite initial predispositions (as with certain forms of cancer). The precedence of the virtual over the real, the reduction of man to an epiphenomenon of his body reduced to a handful of genes, leads inevitably to Jacques Rufs suggestion that everyone should submit to a genetic test in childhood and that ones entire existence should be determined by the results of this test: The inventory of this genetic inheritance, he concludes, will lead us to identify a sort of health-capital that we will have to manage ourselves, just as we manage our capital that is tied up in property (Le Monde, 1 February 1989). Predictive medicine is a hypothetical projection into the future of the individual, taking certain pieces of genetic information as a starting point. As far as this kind of medicine is concerned, everybody, even if they are in good health, is potentially sick without knowing it, by virtue of having a greater risk than others of developing a particular condition, in the same ways that a driver who is more often on the road than other drivers runs a greater risk of having an accident. In certain cases testing allows for a choice of treatment, of a diet or a lifestyle that might limit or delay the emergence of an illness if it is inevitable. Predictive medicine also means that the medical signicance of the legal complaints of a child or an adult is understood all too readily in terms of recognizable causes. Yet, of course, most of these genetic indicators leave one powerless because they do not at the present time correspond to any therapeutic intervention. Genetic

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testing raises the question of the deleterious effect of labels of this kind that mean that the individual is caught up in a self-fullling prophecy either that will lead to the elimination of that individual in utero, or cripple the individuals life with an anxiety that might prove to be unfounded if he escapes the disease in question. Although the individual may still be in perfect health, this information constitutes an important impediment to his freedom. The risk is that others (employers or insurers for example) will see a potentially sick individual or a condemned person, and that he may limit his activities in anticipation of a fatal deadline. In the USA women who have a higher than average risk of contracting breast cancer are being offered (and are accepting) chemotherapy or a double mastectomy. Women between 20 and 65 have submitted to this surgery, and they might not have suffered from cancer, or might have had another form of cancer, but they consider that it is better to be safe than sorry. It seems that if the body is the site of death, it will one day be necessary to eliminate it (Le Breton, 1999). The screening of carriers of genes that are likely to lead to a genetic disease is beginning to be used in the USA in the state of California for example and this type of screening seems to have a prosperous future, by virtue of the overwhelmingly economic viewpoint that increasingly dominates the organization of social life. It aims, for example, to indicate to individuals their own genetic constitution in order to inform them of the potential risks for their descendants. If the genetic equation is unfavourable the couple can give up on the idea of having a child or have recourse to prenatal tests in order to check its genetic suitability. It is not impossible that certain American states will intervene to grant or not grant licences to procreate (Duster, 1992: 202). Already in China, a law dating from 1 June 1995 stipulates that
if tests that are carried out reveal that the future parents are carriers of a hereditary disease that is of a serious nature, the man and woman must be made aware of this and their marriage will only be authorised if they both accept the use of contraception as a long-term measure or submit to a sterilisation procedure. (Gntique et Libert, nos. 910: 1999)

Genetic screening, associated as it is with the cult of health and the drive for bodily perfection, might gradually lead to new forms of biological discrimination. The ideology of reductive genetics (le tout gntique), since it also claims to encompass mental illness, engenders the fear amongst parents of people suffering from a psychotic condition that they might themselves be carriers of defective genes, and that they might be forced, because of a variety of pressures (insurance policies, etc.) to stop procreating or be threatened with the loss of their welfare cover or private insurance. This threat might be extended to the whole family (Nelkin and Lindee, 1998: 246). Information stored in this way, even if it is in principle protected in a number
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of countries, is not totally off limits for insurance companies, governments, schools, companies, etc. The individual who has been reduced to his genotype runs the risk of exclusion. Genetic discrimination can be a crucial factor in determining education policy, employment policies for a rm, the level of citizenship, the issuing of an insurance policy, etc. By requesting genetic information from employees, rms could make sure that their employment costs are kept down by only choosing those for whom the prognosis is one of good health. They might justify this by claiming that certain work conditions are harmful to some employees. New forms of genetic segregation are appearing for illnesses that exist only as potentialities. Genetics as a Social Given Man is not simply the unfolding of his genetic material but rather what he makes of this material, which is to say the singular relation that he maintains with his culture according to his personal history. Man exists in a universe of meaning, and the world is a collective invention. The DNA sequence is not the key to mans existence nally revealed, and it is only as important as what the human subject makes of this by the way that they live their life (Le Breton, 2004). DNA tells us nothing about the individuals history, values and ways of living. It only explains a handful of physical characteristics or a particular susceptibility as far as health is concerned. It should not be forgotten in this context that without wanting to offend chimpanzees man and the chimpanzee share 99 percent of their genes. However, the jump is often made from seeing genes as determining factors in diseases to seeing them also as determining factors in forms of behaviour. Franois Gros, for example, demonstrating his enthusiasm for the Human Genome Project, summarizes its aims thus: to reduce human behaviour and vital mechanisms to a gigantic algorithm for which the chromosome would be the programme, which we could more easily control if we could interpret it as computer data (1990: 220). Gros does not acknowledge any difference between vital mechanisms and behaviours, although the latter have nothing to do with genetics:
The scientists who have devoted themselves to the Human Genome Project explicitly reject the notion of an absolute genetic determinism, but it is hard not to feel that it is a question of a purely formal denial that does not spring from real convictions. If one takes seriously the proposition that the organism is codetermined by internal and external forces that are constantly interacting, the idea that the sequence of the human genome would be the Holy Grail that will reveal just what it means to be human, that will change the way that we conceive of ourselves philosophically or will reveal the secret of the way in which life works loses all credibility. (Lewontin, 1993: 136)

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Behaviour is culturally determined; it only has a distant and trivial link with biology, although, of course, particular forms of genetic fundamentalism do not see it in this way. Biological discourse is not necessarily socially dangerous, but it does become so when the notions that are associated with it grow in importance and become ways of legitimizing forms of exclusion or contempt for others. It may even be a factor in the formulation of local or general policies. The fantastical value of the gene has a considerable impact upon the way that difference, or even social relations in general, are understood. Nelkin and Lindee claim:
At the same time that the science of genetics has moved from the laboratory to the sphere of mass culture, from professional journals to television screens, the notion of the gene has undergone a transformation. Rather than being considered as one element of hereditary information, it has become the key to human relations and the basis of social cohesion. (Nelkin and Lindee, 1998: 277)

The ideology of reductive genetics (le tout gntique), which fascinates the media, creates the widespread notion of a fate that is imposed upon the individual whatever steps s/he may take to reform her/himself. Some, of course, hope naively that the discovery of a gene that causes depression, alcoholism, obesity or homosexuality, for example, would counteract the social exclusion of which these individuals are victims. Behavioural abnormalities are explained, and even legitimized, in terms of bodily aws. If the murderer is a carrier of the crime chromosome he is himself simply the victim of genetic machinery that exerts its inuence over him. The cult of the good gene is particularly evident on internet sites that offer sperm and eggs for general sale. The information is subtly distilled: the intellectual qualities, the pastimes, the religious beliefs and the race of the donors. A photograph allows you to rene your choice. All these qualities are assumed to derive from the spermatozoon and the ovule of the respective donors. Between the sperm bank of Nobel Prize winners and the recent auction of models eggs on the internet, eugenic fantasies are being played out in way that is either trivial or offensive. Similarly, according to this view of genetics, good parents whose children are not succeeding at school, are suffering from depression and attempting suicide, have become involved in a religious cult or are delinquent cannot be held responsible for any of these problems. It must have been defective genes that pushed their children towards these unacceptable forms of behaviour. They should not feel guilty and reect on their way of life or whether or not they give their children enough love and support, since these choices are apparently immaterial. This is a marvellous antidote to individual and social responsibility. If

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intelligence were hereditary, stimulating it by giving children attention would not have any impact. American journals aimed at parents are already talking about the way in which the development of the child follows a genetic programme regardless of the quality of the environment. The notion that the individual is rst and foremost a bundle of information that is crystallized in the treasure trove of that persons DNA has led directly to the legitimizing of the use of surrogate mothers in the USA. Once the liation of the child depends entirely upon the genetic link, the fact that a child is born of another mother following articial insemination raises no objections. If, as the genetic fundamentalists are convinced, unemployment, delinquency, violence, intelligence and failure to succeed at school are all a result of genetic predispositions, the state and society are consequently absolved of any responsibility in these matters, all the more so given the fact that any programme of social assistance is useless because it has no biological foundation. The conviction that psychological or social difculties are genetically determined encourages attitudes of passivity and resignation, and it frees the individual or society from any responsibility, constituting in this way a strong argument in favour of the status quo. The struggle against injustice and social inequality, as well as the redistribution of wealth, are no longer important because genetic constraints are seen as creating social forms. Feminism, which is identied as running counter to genetic determinism, is seen as illusory and harmful, as are the advances gained by the Civil Rights movement, because black people are not seen as having the same genetic resources as white people. A number of activities are seen as useless and costly because it is not possible to go against nature: the struggle for greater social justice; the attempt to promote the education of children from underprivileged environments; the struggle against social discrimination, or against the domination of women by men; the attempt to prevent delinquency and to tackle forms of urban violence by means of education programmes or a more reasonable distribution of wealth. In short, genetics is the modern form of fate. If inequalities of all kinds are distributed biologically, they are immutable, nothing more than the modern consequences of the relentless pursuit of natural selection. Genetic fundamentalism argues in favour of biological intervention upon the body rather than social interventions that seek to improve the living conditions of individuals. The fetishizing of DNA is a naturalist mythology that justies social discrimination and social exclusion. In the eyes of those who support this ideology, if social difculties have a genetic origin, the only solution is to adjust the body accordingly, in a radical way by means of a negative eugenics that consists of not allowing certain social groups to procreate, or by the selection of embryos, or by modifying the genetic

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stock of an individual in order to make her/him genetically correct. Collective morality and the appeal to notions of citizenship or personal responsibility are without basis; the only thing that is important is the morality of the gene (Wilson, 1979). Politics should be nothing more than a form of applied genetics. The biologist is the self-proclaimed moralist of modern times, or perhaps more accurately the clerk who classies these pre-programmed behaviours in this, the best of all possible worlds. For Wilson,
human behaviour from the most profound capacities to the emotional responses that stimulate and guide this behaviour is nothing more than the indirect way of assuring the permanence of human genetic material. Morality has no demonstrable function. (Wilson, 1979: 243)

He also writes: The time has come to take ethics temporarily out of the hands of philosophers and to hand it over to biologists (1987: 556). The geneticist Walter Gilbert, one of the promoters of the Human Genome Project, has said that the complete sequencing of the human genome is the Holy Grail of human genetics. He starts his lectures by taking a compact disc out of his pocket and saying to his audience: This is you. For Dawkins, the human subject is dissolved in its own DNA, being simply the home that, as chance would have it, has been constructed by the subjects genes so that they can ensure the best conditions for their own reproduction: We are survival machines, robots that are blindly programmed to preserve the egotistical molecules that are known as genes (Dawkins, 1996: 7). The same Dawkins, in line with his own logic and sufciently assured of the value of his own genes, has expressed his desire to be cloned one day, as have 7 percent of Americans according to a recent poll (Nature, 6 March 1997). The body is merely the decorative container that holds the soul, which is to say the DNA. Ones body is mortal and imperfect, and only the DNA is immortal, in that it will take on millions of forms in the course of its biological eternity. When man is effectively reduced to, and solely identied with, his unfortunate body he can only nd salvation in his genes, for which he is simply the training ground: The new neurobiology promises untold happiness, writes Wilson (1987: 580). Those geneticists who claim to change the behaviour of humans by means of genetic intervention talk in religious terms, and are setting themselves up in the image of an alternative God. With as much conviction as the rst Christians waiting for the Messiah or communists waiting for collective happiness, they are convinced all that is bad in the world stems from bad genes and that it sufces to eradicate them in order to create a humanity without evil. Genetic fundamentalism offers a discourse of salvation that fascinates a number of intellectuals

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who come from other disciplines. A philosopher like Francis Fukuyama takes up this type of analysis and writes in all sincerity:
The open-ended nature of the contemporary sciences of nature allows us to calculate that, two generations from now, biotechnology will give us the tools that enable us to accomplish that which specialists in social engineering have not been able to achieve. At this point, we will have come to the end of human history because we will have abolished human beings as we know them. (Le Monde, 17 June 1999)

Nanotechnology aims to develop machines that are the size of molecules, and which are likely to restructure any kind of matter, including the human body. Eric Drexler, a pioneer of work in this eld, thinks that these machines will soon make it possible for people to modify their bodies in a thousand ways, from the most trivial to the most extravagant. . . . Some will abandon the human form as a caterpillar turns into a buttery; others will carry the human form itself to perfection (cited in Dery, 1997: 306). Genetic surgery gives rise to a number of fantasies, amongst which is that of programming the individuals genome in order to adapt it to particular situations. For the biologist Robert L. Sinsheimer:
The old eugenics had to content itself with increasing the number of superior specimens in the existing genetic resources of a population . . . [it] should not in principle be constrained by any limits, because we should be in a position to create new genes and biological functions that have never been encountered before. (Kevles, 1995: 3856)

Hans Moravec evokes genetic engineering when talking of the improvement of the human body, which will subsequently be abandoned as a result of the transfer of the human mind into a bionic body: a body that will have in this way achieved its quintessence. He writes:
Genetic engineering does seem to be a solution. Successive generations of human beings could be perfected by means of calculations, computer simulations and experiments, just as aeroplanes, computers and robots are today. They could have superior brains and improved metabolisms that would enable them to live comfortably in space. (Moravec, 1992: 133)

The transmigration of man into a perfected articial body means that bionics has become a vehicle for genetic engineering, which in turn implies the interface of man and machine. These interventions are affecting the human race in the same way that agriculture has had an effect upon crops and livestock, which is to say the creation of articial species narrowly designed for commercial reasons. This reawakens the eugenic dream of creating a perfected (in the eyes of some) humanity, whose unity can be fragmented according to different ends, thus raising numerous questions relating to dignity and social disparities.4 If genes dene narrow limits, then the same cannot be said of the imagination of genetic fundamentalists. If the abolition of social ills has proved impossible

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and if there is no possibility of improving the social domain as such, all that remains is to manipulate the egg under the authority of geneticists in order to design an individual who is likely to possess all the qualities of health, appearance and existence (but who decides these qualities?). The imperfection of the body means that humanity in its classical sense is obsolescent. The declared intention is to master the genetic constitution of humanity in order to re-design its form and its capacities. It is as if the crude rst draft that is the body had simply been waiting for the miracle of science in order nally to be corrected and to make itself a technical ideal. The nal identity of man now boils down to the problem of a more or less appropriate genetic code. Given that any particular impairment is merely a bug in the construction, nothing prevents the message from being changed. The old Socratic incitement to know yourself no longer implies a moral understanding of the self, but rather having knowledge of the list of genes that are supposed to govern behaviour. It is certainly justiable to be concerned that those who are genetically privileged that is to say those whose genetic make-up does not indicate susceptibility to disease might seek one day to separate themselves from the rest of humanity in order to protect their own interests (in terms of insurance, a good investment for their company, etc.) (Kahn, 2000). The individuals genetic quotient, which combines various aspects of existence that can be predicted, allied with a certain quality (which is socially determined) of physical constitution, could one day establish itself as the condition of legitimacy of the subject. The notion of IQ (Intelligence Quotient) would become obsolescent, to be replaced by GQ (Genetic Quotient). In Andrew Niccols Gattaca, two worlds co-exist. An elite is made up of men and women who are the result of in vitro fertilization and whose genes have been carefully selected with the aim of creating a perfect product in terms of intelligence, health, beauty, etc. The rest of the population, born without medical control, are thought of as inferior products and are destined for relatively menial tasks. When the main character goes for a job interview, the company does not ask about his qualications or his reasons for wanting the job, and instead simply analyses the structure of his DNA. Lee Silver (1998: 244), a molecular biologist, envisages a near future in which a minority of individuals with carefully selected and manipulated genes will dominate a population that is natural, and therefore inferior, from a biological point of view. For Silver, the risk of there being two human species in the future is entirely plausible given the inevitability of genetic engineering being applied to the embryo. The dignity of man will henceforth be the dignity of his genes. According to a March of Dimes/Lou Harris poll, more than 40 percent of

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Americans interviewed expressed their desire, if the circumstances were right, to use genetic engineering to improve the physical or intellectual characteristics of their children (Le Courier International, n. 419, 1998). Of course, these parents want to do all they possibly can for their children, but the inevitable result is that matter itself is commercialized. The child will be nothing more than a product that is the result of corrective interventions. The already immense gap between the haves and have-nots will become greater still, leaving developing societies even further behind. Whilst some will construct the genetic make-up of their children, others, far away or perhaps in the next street, will try to prevent a newborn child from dying of diarrhoea. Notes
1. On this vision of the world, which sees the body as the location of evil, I refer to my book Ladieu au corps (1999). 2. Genetic discrimination is already a very real phenomenon in the USA, involving insurance companies, medical services, adoption agencies, public administration, educational establishments, the army, private companies, etc. (Blanc, 1986: 347; Kevles, 1995: 367; Rifkin, 1998: 216) In certain American states genetic testing is now obligatory (Kevles, 1995: 400). 3. The biologist Jacques Testart, one of the most well-informed people in France on this subject, supports this perspective. 4. Of course, we are still in the realms of utopia, but this does not change the analysis. Genetic therapy raises a number of problems despite media rumours and the information technology fantasy of suppressing or inserting useful bits of information into the software of the person who is ill. The human body is not solely constituted from bits.

References
Atlan, H. and C. Bousquet (1994) Question de vie. Paris: Seuil. Baudrillard, Jean (1981) Simulacres et simulation. Paris: Galile. Blanc, M. (1986) Lre du gntique. Paris: La Dcouverte. Dawkins, R. (1996) Le gne goste. Paris: Odile Jacob. Dery, M. (1997) Vitesse virtuelle. La cyberculture aujourdhui. Paris: Abbeville (translated from Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century, Grove Press, 1996). Duster, Troy (1992) Retour leugnisme. Paris: Kim. Gros, F. (1990) Lingnirie du vivant. Paris: Odile Jacob. Habermas, Jrgen (2002) Lavenir de la nature humaine. Vers un eugnisme libral. Paris: Gallimard. Jacob, Franois (1997) La souris, la mouche et lhomme. Paris: Jacob. Kahn, Axel (2000) Et lhomme dans tout a. Paris: Nil. Kevles, D. J. (1995) Au nom de leugnisme. Paris: PUF. Kuhse, H. and P. Singer (1985) Should the Baby Live? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Le Breton, David (1990) Anthropologie du corps et modernit. Paris: PUF (5th edn, Col. Quadrige, 2003). Le Breton, David (1999) Ladieu au corps. Paris: Mtaili. Le Breton, David (2004) Les passions ordinaires. Anthropologie des motions. Paris: Petite Collection Payot.

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Lewontin, Richard (1993) Le rve du gnome humain, Ecologie politique 5. Moravec, Hans (1992) Une vie aprs la vie. Paris: Jacob. Nelkin, Dorothy and Susan Lindee (1998) La mystique de lADN. Paris: Belin. Rifkin, Jeremy (1998) Le sicle bio-tech. Le commerce des gnes dans le meilleur des mondes. Paris: La Dcouverte. Silver, L.M. (1998) Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books. Testart, Jacques (1992) Le dsir du gne. Paris: Franois Bourin. Testart, Jacques (1999) Des hommes probables. De la procration alatoire la reproduction normative. Paris: Seuil. Tooley, M. (1983) Abortion and Infanticide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, Edouard O. (1987) La sociobiologie. Monaco: Le Rocher. Wilson, Edouard O. (1979) Lhumaine nature. Essai de sociobiologie. Paris: Stock. David Le Breton teaches sociology at the Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg. He is a member of the URA-CNRS Cultures and Societies in Europe research programme. His publications include Anthropologie du corps et modernit (PUF, 1990), Ladieu au corps (Mtaili, 1999), Eloge de la marche (Mtaili), Signes didentit. Piercings, tatouages et autres marques corporelles (Mtaili), Conduites risque. Des jeux de mort au jeu de vivre (PUF), La peau et la trace. Les blessures de soi (Mtaili).

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