[BretLudwig]

((Did you know the Bill Buckley-hating Gore Vidal was in any movies
besides
Myra Breckenridge? Me neither. Wait, he wan't in Myra. He just wrote it.
Bret.))



Monday, May 26, 2008
"Gattaca"

"From my new VDARE.com column on Jim Manzi's National Review cover
story
"Escaping the Tyranny of Genes:"

From Manzis vague article, it's difficult to figure out what he
fears. But I would guess it is something like the silly 1997 eugenic
dystopia sci-fi flick Gattaca. (Tagline: "There Is No Gene for the Human
Spirit.")

Weirdly, Manzi argues that it would be okay to establish a scientific
totalitarian state:

"Science may someday allow us to predict human behavior
comprehensively and reliably, so that we can live in Woodrow Wilson's
'perfected, co-ordinated beehive.'"

Nevertheless, we shouldn't, yet, because science hasn't become
accurate enough:

"Until then, however, we need to keep stumbling forward in
freedom
as best we can."

Well, that's a relief!

Although Manzi can't seem to find any living human beings who
advocate
converting American into a dictatorial scientocracy, he still spends much
of his article laboriously (but pointlessly) documenting that the human
sciences aren't advanced enough at present to implement Gattaca. It's a
"straw man argument" raised exponentially to the point of self-parody.

My main memory of "Gattaca" is that astronaut training in the future will
apparently consist of long rows of well-groomed young men dressed like
extras from Brideshead Revisted typing away under the direction of Gore
Vidal. That's what I remember -- lots and lots of typing.

Here's some of the film's screamingly repressed typing-centric dialogue:

Gore Vidal: "You keep your work station so clean, Jerome."

Ethan Hawke: "It's next to godliness. Isn't that what they say?"

Gore Vidal: "Godliness. I reviewed your flight plan. Not one error in
a million keystrokes. Phenomenal. It's right that someone like you is
taking us to Titan."


The filmmakers must have pitched "Gattaca" like this:

"It's like a gay version of 'The Right Stuff' crossed with "Mavis
Beacon Teaches Typing."

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/05/gattaca.html

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