What is it to be human?
Debate presented by the Institute of Ideas
at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature,
Cheltenham, UK, 11th October 2002.
and
What is it to be Human? What Science can and cannot
tell us
By Kenan Malik
London, Academy of Ideas, 2001
ISBN 1-904025-00-5, paper, 53 pp.
Reviewed by Robert Pepperell
School of Art, Media and Design
University of Wales College, Newport
Caerleon, Newport NP18 3YH, UK
pepperell@ntlworld.com
This panel discussion, chaired by Tony Gilland of the London-based Institute
of Ideas, brought together four writers to discuss aspects of "What
is it to be human?" the same question that titles a collection
of essays published by the Institute in 2001. The publicity blurb for
the event couched the question of our indeterminate humanity in terms
of genetic science and posthumanism, and the various panel members responded,
at least initially, by addressing our biological nature.
Steve Jones, the eminent geneticist and author of The Language of Genes,
pointed out with his usual good humour that it was not useful to define
humans in terms of their genetic makeup. Besides the fact that humans
and mice both have approximately 30,000 genes, we share 40% of our genes
with bananas. Launching an immediate attack on the discipline of sociobiology,
which understands current human behaviour as a consequence of our evolutionary
past, he dismisses the enterprise as "the ponderous affirmation
of the bleedin obvious". At best its able to tell us
that older men are often attracted to younger women, or at worst it
introduces the concept of "duck rape" to account for certain
sexual behaviour among ducks. In fact, he went on, biology, and genetics
in particular, can tell us very little about what it is to be human,
concluding "what makes us humans is that were not animals".
Sue Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, addressed the question of
what makes humans unique by reaffirming her thesis of imitation. For
her, what defines us is our "copying machinery"; that is,
our capacity to imitate the behaviour of others, which allows behavioural
practices to spread amongst communities or species. As is well known,
she regards such imitative behaviour in memetic terms, as
quasi-evolutionary replicating units, following the introduction of
the concept by Richard Dawkins. Humans, she said, are unique in being
able to harbour and spread memes, and our complex social organisations
are a consequence. She then went on to expound the other thesis for
which she is well known, the "illusion of self", which follows
from the ideas of Daniel Dennett. For Blackmore, the idea that we have
a specific, centralised sense of our own existence, or even a consciousness,
is a delusion, partly caused by our acquisition of memes. These delusions
do not mean, she went on when challenged later, that we do not have
a Self or a conscious life, but simply that these things are "not
what they seem". She concluded with the admission that she is "utterly
baffled" by what it means to be human.
Kenan Malik, who wrote "Man, Beast and Zombie" as well as
making the major contribution the "What is it to be human?"
book, offered a more humanitarian and philosophical view. He rejected
what he saw as the recent conceptual shift which stresses the continuities
between humans and the natural world. He argued that the rejection of
the idea of humans as something special made for bad science and bad
politics. Humans are in the special position of being able to make moral
decisions; in effect we are "self-conscious moral agents".
Further, we are uniquely subjects and objects who can shape our own
destiny. If we follow the pessimism inherent in "anti-humanism"
(by which he may have meant posthumanism) we will lose many of the valuable
social impulses that drive progressive science and politics.
Novelist Maggie Gee disagreed with Steve Jones assertion that
we are not animals. She was keen to insist on the primacy of our animal
nature, and was then led to ask, "What is the nature of the human
animal?" For her, humans are "intelligent, dexterous and dangerous".
We are inherently dissatisfied with the limitations of our physical
bodies, and this causes us, with our capacity for intelligence, to act
on the world so as to make lasting changes. She characterised the human
condition as an on-going and ever-repeating banana skin joke
we are always tripping up. She pointed to the vulnerability of humankind;
we are apt to get things wrong and make mistakes on a global scale.
We specialise in "mad, blinkered obsessions", the example
of US policy of pre-emptive self-defence being a case of "mad reason".
During questions from the audience, Sue Blackmores memetic ideas
came under scrutiny, not least because they imply a lack of personal
responsibility if, as she claims, we are just "replicating machines"
in which memes largely determine our behaviour. Steve Jones offered
the most authoritative and damning indictment of the memetic thesis,
at the same time pursuing one of his "few remaining pleasures",
that of "annoying Richard Dawkins". He cited an occasion when
he looked up the term "meme" on Google. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
there were a large number of hits. But when he did an equivalent search
on the Web of Science, the global index of scientific papers, it revealed
just 37 hits, of which only two referred directly to the "biological
meme" theory.
"What is it to be human?" was one in a series of debates staged
by the Institute of Ideas in response to the eponymous publication,
which includes contributions from Matt Ridley, Kevin Warwick, Maggie
Gee, and Anthony OHear. A previous event at Institute of Education
in London, called "A Posthuman Future" featured Francis Fukuyama
and Gregory Stock discussing the implications of Fukuyamas recent
publication of a similar title, "Our Posthuman Future". But
despite the events title, and the publicity blurb for the event
in Cheltenham, there was virtually no mention of the word posthuman
from the panel members, the chair or the audience at either debate.
One suspects that, regrettably, posthumanism may be being employed by
some as a sexy promotional tag without much serious consideration of
its ramifications. I, for one, regret this appropriation, and hope that
posthumanism will not be reduced to a general anxiety about one aspect
of biological research.