Heather Z.

[Editor’s Note: The issue of human exceptionalism — what it means to be human — comes up at ENV on occasion. With this in mind, Heather Zeiger reviews Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest book and movie (spoilers ahead!).]

Earlier this week I discussed the book, Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. In this post, I will look at the film and focus on some particular aspects that were explicitly brought up in it.

The best part about the film was the three main actors, Carrie Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley, who performed their parts well. Also, director Mark Romanek had excellent scenery and cinematography. Admittedly, the film does not live up to the complexity and controlled narrative of the book. There is a line in the book and the film where Miss Lucy says, “You’ve been told and not told,” and when you read the book, the reader is told and not told the nature of the students at Hailsham and their fate. The film, on the other hand, gives it away from the very first lines and then spills everything in one of Miss Lucy’s lectures fairly early in the film. This brings a different dynamic to the film’s story, which seems to do a little more to address the characters’ acceptance of their fate.

The book is complex, and deals with many issues, so, understandably, the screenwriters had to pick and choose which issues to cover. I noticed that the film seemed to be focusing on the medical/scientific franchise more so than a discussion of what it means to be human, while the book seemed to do the opposite. Throughout the book, Ishiguro explores personhood, the human being, dignity, with a smaller emphasis on utilitarian medicine. However, the film seemed to emphasize the results of throwing medical ethics out the window.

[NOTE: Today we welcome a new contributing writer to Evolution News & Views, Heather Zeiger. Ms. Zeiger graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Dallas with a B.S. in chemistry and a minor in government and politics. She received her M.S. in chemistry, also from UTD; her research was in organic synthesis and materials.]

The most general definition of bioethics is the relationship between man and technology. This relationship takes on many forms, some in the context of fear, as exemplified by Bill Joy’s now well-known Wired article, “The Future Doesn’t Need Us.” Others are in the context of hope or even a type of salvation, as exemplified in Ray Kurtzweil’s work, including The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology and The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. Although they are seemingly disparate positions, both are based on evolutionary premises. The hope is that humans will take control of their evolutionary advancement through technology. The fear is that survival of the fittest means that the machines will become more “fit” than us, thereby displacing us. Both views believe a new species will arise. The difference is that one assumes it is a better human, while the other assumes that it is a sentient machine that is better than human.