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Our cloned future. Has the arrival of a new science era created ethical anxiety about cloning?
What is Fear? Is it an emotion; thought or perhaps an illusion? This week's ‘New Scientist’ will explore the value of human life, or rather, a cloned human life by examining two different texts. Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” and Michael Bay’s “The Island” explore various social thoughts about modern society.
Senior reporter Alen Abraham is here to investigate the author’s and director’s points of view on the social morality of a dystopian society.
Who doesn’t fear death? I certainly do. If you are one of those, there's good news for you. Through making a copy of yourself, otherwise known as cloning, it is possible to increase your lifespan. Research has shown that aging is not the main cause of death; it is the failure of vital organs.
What if we clone ourselves to take their organs for our survival? However, is it morally ethical to have one's clone continually donate their organs? Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “Never Let Me Go” and Michael Bay’s “The Island” delve into the impacts of cloning on their audience.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s 'Never Let Me Go' is a science-fiction novel written in 2005. This remarkable novel was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in the same year of its publication. Moreover, In the same year, the film 'The Island' which was directed by Michael Bay, was released and also comments on whether human cloning is ethical or not.
Ishiguro’s novel and Michael Bay’s film “The Island”
Both these texts show that clones are developed and harvested for their organs, simply for human survival. But do you think clones have souls like humans? if you think that clones have souls like humans is it morally correct to use them for our benefit?
In Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go”, Madame and the guardians took the clone's artwork to prove to the real world that these poor creatures being harvested for their organs also had souls. Madame expresses her thoughts on this when she says, 'We took away your art because your art would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely we did it to prove you had souls at all. This idea is further repeated by Miss Emily when she says, 'Your art will reveal your inner selves! That's it, isn't it? Because your art will display your souls!'.
The idea of clones having souls was also proven by Michael Bay’s film “The Island” when the female protagonist Jordan-2-Delta purchases ice cream for human children rather than buying it for herself. This selfless act of caring for others over herself shows that clones have a pure heart and souls like humans.
Both the narrator and the filmmaker present the idea of clones having souls in two different scenes. My thoughts and opinions are in sync with both of them. In my opinion, it would be heartless of us humans to treat clones as just another entity that can be used and thereafter discarded; it would be completely selfish on our part to not consider them as other human beings.
The two texts try to show that human clones don't only have a soul, but they also have brains; they have the thinking capacity to know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. For instance, in the novel, Kathy says, 'This might all sound daft, but you have to remember that to us, at that stage in our lives, any place beyond Hailsham was like a fantasy land; we had only the haziest notions of the world outside and about what was and wasn't possible there'. This shows that she can imagine a life outside Hailsham.
Similarly, in the film, holographic technology was used to brainwash the clones to make them believe that they had survived a ‘world contamination’. Even though all the clones on the island are brainwashed, the central character Lincoln Six Echo proves that clones can have a thinking capacity. This is seen when he questions the president (Dr. Merrick) about the things that seem unexplainable and yet something so simple which definitely can be explained. He states, “Why is everyone wearing white all the time? It's impossible to keep clean, I'm walking around, I get - I always get the grey stripe, I never get any color, and I hand it in to be cleaned, and someone cleans it and folds it neatly back in my drawer, but who? Who is that person? I don't know”. This shows that he clearly understands that it is not illogical to wear a color that quickly catches dirt or fact that there is someone who does the laundry.
The Island also reveals the social norm of the society on clones through the use of the character McCord. He says “Well, you're not like me. I mean, you're not... human. I mean, you're human, but you just, you're not real. You're not, like, a real person. Like me. You're clones. You're copies of people out here in the world”. McCord may have a viewpoint that clones aren't real, but I think after reading the above, you'll begin to question McCord. Both texts try to prove that clones can feel and think; they have souls as well as brains that allow them to make decisions and question things.
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