Monday, August 25, 2014

Surprise!
There's been some thought provoking stuff percolating in my head, from the world, lately.
A famous Atheist - probably the most famous one since Madeline Murray O'Hair, or whatever - has essentially said that people with Down Syndrome should not exist. This is certainly not a new idea, and let us not forget that the majority of them are already being euthanized in utero, as we speak. Call it what you will, this is what I call it. Calling for the complete eradication of a classification of Human Beings is a tenuous position/slippery slope/precipice, if you will, that we have been treading for a while. Shame on him for saying it out loud. At least Bill Maher only likened my daughter to a dog.

Let me bring you to this:People with Down Syndrome are Pioneers in Alzheimer's Research, from KPBS.
Diversity is the key to biological success - it is a tenet of Evolution. The presence of people with Trisomy 21 may just hold the key to the prediction and treatment of this disease. Unless, of course, a prenatal test for Alzheimer's Disease is found and we abort them, too - denying them lifetimes due to an unpredictable threat. Sorry, just took a leap there. Don't mean to sound like a radical "Pro-Lifer", because that would cause you to make waaay too many assumptions about what I believe and don't believe. They would be wrong. But I hope you see my point. We are heading into a new age of medical discovery, combined with an information explosion that will probably cause some real mistakes in how we relate causality to Human values, and we may all suffer some unfathomable consequences if we are not very, very careful. I'll leave that there for now.

I would put forth  that diversity is essential to our survival as that which we currently define as Humanity. Diversity in all forms. Just as the Interstate Highway system hastened the homogenization of our culture (read the loss of regional identity), efficiency can often bring about unexpected qualitative losses. Media, on the other hand, has moved from 3 network shows on a night that everybody watched, to the current explosion of everything from Duck Dynasty to Downton Abbey. A spectrum that now requires greater discernment about how one spends one's mental attention and energy. Enlightenment, or guilty pleasure? Or both.

We live in times more tumultuous than we could have imagined, in this post-nuclear holocaust/dirty bomb/terrorist world where there's poor leadership in the government fighting against no government at all. Borders are melting. Conventional diplomacy is a memory.

The simplicity that Mr. Dawkins desires is a dream that cannot and should not be realized. I do not believe anymore in purity of thought, I think. I do still believe in the purity of Love.