Art & Lies by Winterson Jeanette

Author:Winterson, Jeanette [Winterson, Jeanette]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

Progress: An advance to something better or higher in development. Are human beings better or higher in development than they were? There have been many outstanding men and women in history, and, since there are now vastly more people than at any previous time, we should expect at least a proportionate rise in the number of the great and the good. Where are they? Not in politics. Not in public life. Not in the Church, whatever your brand, there are no great spiritual leaders. I will admit that we have better scientists, if by better, we agree that they are more sophisticated, more specialised, that they have discovered more than their dead colleagues. But if we ask, are they more ethical, more socially aware, more disciplined, more relevant to the happiness of the whole, then our scientists have failed the age they claim to have created. The masses are fobbed off with gadgets, while the real science takes place behind closed doors, the preserve of the pharmaceuticals and the military. Genetic control will be the weapon of the future. Doctors will fill the ranks of the New Model Army. And of course you will trust me won’t you, when I tell you that with my help, your unborn child will be better off? The white coat will replace the khaki fatigues as the gun gives way to the syringe.

I like to read George Bernard Shaw, not, as he hoped, as an improvement on Shakespeare, but as a visionary who truly believed that Socialism could progress man’s basest instinct; greed. Is there a gene we could tag and rub out for that? If there is, the money won’t be there for the research, much more profitable to ease out red-heads or homosexuals. What’s the difference? In the fifteenth century it was well known that red hair was a sign of a consort of the Devil. If our ancestors had possessed our technology, this woman opposite me would certainly be brunette. There would be no red-heads, and we would justify that loss by saying ‘Ah yes, but thanks to us there are no witches either.’ Genetic engineering would have taken the credit for ordinary social change. Witches and devils no longer threaten you and me. We don’t mind living next door to the harmless lady with her herb garden and decoction still, her black cat and red hair. Once we would have tied her to the stake and burned her, but these days, it’s just the faggots that offend.

We strict Catholics won’t flinch from a little medical intervention. We have made that mistake before. In 1936, when the Catholic hierarchy was colluding with the Nazis, Hitler was not in favour of Concentration Camps. He advocated compulsory sterilisation for the ‘hereditarily diseased’. His advisor, Cardinal Faulhaber, disagreed: ‘From the Church’s point of view, Herr Chancellor, the State is not forbidden to isolate these vermin from the community, out of self-defence, and within the framework of the moral law. But instead of physical mutilation,

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