Friday, August 27, 2004
MONSTERS IN THE MAINSTREAM
For years, transhumanism was ignored, then derided as fringe lunacy. As Ron Bailey at Reason notes, now transhumanism is being taken seriously by none other than Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama has identified transhumanism as his answer to the question posed by Foreign Policy : "What ideas, if embraced, would pose the greatest threat to the welfare of humanity?"
Although it's a shame that Fukuyama (who has done some really great work in the past) has signed up with the likes of Leon Kass on the side of fear and reaction, being labeled by a leading public intellectual as "public enemy number one" is a step in the direction of entering the mainstream of ideas. Remember that the key insights of the Enlightenment were also seen as dangerous and fundamentally threatening to the basic order of human life.
Don't know what transhumanism is? Take a look at an introductory essay I wrote back in 1997.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 10:34 AM
