From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Thu Mar 14 2002 - 11:36:31 MST
> [Fukuyama's] claim is that a substantive human nature exists,
> that basic ethical principles and political rights such as
> equality are based on judgments about that nature, and therefore
> that human dignity itself could be lost if human nature is altered.
Of course he's absolutely right--and this has happened before
many times. Human nature used to involve small bands of hunter-
gatherers, and social institutions and values based on that.
With agriculture, we had to create new institutions and new
values. With the industrial revolution, we had to do it again.
It was difficult, and painful, but we are better for it. Does
Mr. Fukuyama think that technologies like birth control and
personal defense destroyed the "feminine dignity" of women whose
lives used to be based upon their nature as weak and vulnerable?
Yes, human nature will change, and our present social values
and institutions won't be able to cope: so fix them! Upgrade
the society as well as its members. Societies are built to
serve us, not we for them. Let us charge into the future as
masters of our fate, not cower in fear of changes that will
empower and enrich us all.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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