The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon

8. Genetic Essentialism Applied

Genetic [ssentialism Applied n his 1992 suspense novel A Philosophical Investigation, Philip Kerr describes a twenty-first century society ravaged by an epidemic of violent crime. Social planners, who in 2013 had given up on environmental controls after the "failure of schemes which claimed to ameliorate the environment ," now focus their efforts on identifying those individuals biologically predisposed to violent acts. All males carry identification cards with their DNA profiles and are expected to participate in the "Lombroso Program" that will screen them for innate predispositions. Lombroso ("Localization of Medullar Brain Resonations Obliging Social Orthopraxy") Clinics employ a scanning machine resembling that used in Positron Emission Tomography to identify men 149 TH[ DNA MYSTIQU[ whose brain lacks a Ventro Medial Nucleus (VMN) and who are, therefore (according to the conceit of the novel), likely to become criminals. The idea is to track the individual offender "before he offended at all." In Kerr's society, socially responsible citizens willingly submit to the "public health" screening, which although not "mandatory" is a condition for employment and insurance. Some criminals manage to circumvent this system, however. To avoid detection through DNA fingerprinting, for example, rapists wear condoms. And despite scrupulous government efforts to maintain the secrecy of the Lombroso records, one man identified as VMN negative (his code name is Wittgenstein) breaks into the computer network and expunges his own name. He simultaneously obtains the names of other VMN negative "suspects" and, acting out of logical necessity, proceeds to assassinate them. Murder is "the logical extension of the Lombroso program." And so too is his fate: When captured, he receives the ultimate punishment of the time, PC ("punitive coma"), in the name of public health.! Kerr's fictional scenario draws on the ideology of genetic essentialism and, in Orwellian fashion, caricatures its implications . Although set in the future, his imagined world of testing and control is grounded firmly in some practices of the 1990s, when assumptions about genetic determinism and the predictability of inherent traits are already playing a consequential role in court rulings, school policies, insurance decisions, and employment practices. Institutions establish the categories and classifications through which the individual functions in society, and their policies are increasingly grounded in assumptions about the deterministic power of genes. Courts are drawing on genetic concepts in custody disputes; judges are citing biological expertise in sentencing decisions; insurers and employers use genetic information in efforts to control medical costs; and schools look to individual disorders presumed to be genetically based to explain learning problems. As a broadly accepted science-based concept, genetic essentialism has become a resource for many institutions, helping them resolve ambiguous and difficult problems. Institutions routinely gain legitimacy by grounding their 150 GENETIC ESSENTIAliSM APPliED policies and practices in what are taken to be natural categories .2 Scientifically sanctioned, such are assumed to be rational, and At the same time, popular of the use of genetic socially acceptable. Media images channel public and help unormal" social relationships. ideas about behavior, thereby these institutional uses information .4 popular powers of the gene seem to promise that DNA, if comprehensively known and accurately understood , could explain both past and future potential. Individuals, moreover, are to challenge practices conform to mass and accepted cultural _,.......I·.,.......,-C' Popular of assumptions played out with practical consecontemporary institutional settings. a basis for important decisions about influence legal interpretations of culpability, and help institutions to anticipate future by identifying individuals who are predisposed to health or behavior problems.5 olving ramiIy Disputes popular scenarios of the umolecular family," bound family to be more "solid" family held together by shared experiences or common values (see Chapter 4). And, in legal disputes over custody of children, increasingly take precedence over emotional or social Judges are to explain their interpreting connections as central to This represents a from long-standing law of children continued contact with significant in their For example, adoption laws originally were shaped by social concerns integrity of relation151 TH[ DNA MYSTIQU[ ships. To create a shield of privacy between the family and society, the law fostered a legal fiction of natural birth, and in most jurisdictions original birth certificates and adoption records were permanently sealed.6 Similarly, most courts have adjudicated custody disputes on the basis of judgments about the psychological best interests of the child. The goal has been to preserve "existing affection relationships."7 Guided by psychoanalytic theory, custody procedures have considered emotional...