FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Fighting the Freaks

Rant Number 449 22 July 2011

Here we are again. Biogenetics allows man to play God. Or rather, beast. Because now scientists are injecting human cells into animals. Just heard it on the morning Beeb. It is already happening. Human-animal boundaries have already been crossed. A boffin called upon to pontificate was honest. How human will the animals in question be? No one knows, he stated.

Mice have been given human livers. Soon brains. A human-like face soon? Too tiny to worry you. A harmless freak. But a monkey looking like, say, President Sarkozy? Man, that would not make you feel too good. Nor would the monkey be all that happy, either, I dare to surmise.

Still, they say it is all to benefit humanity. Necessary to find remedies for human diseases. Supposedly, interspecies embryos or cytoplasmic hybrids are destroyed after two weeks, their usefulness over. But what if a scientist decided to continue the experiment just a little longer, eh? Man is a curious animal. How far can you go in creating a chimera? Irresistible.

But moralising is beside the point. The truth is that we live in a capitalist society. The free market. Money rules. That’s key. Enough with tired, hypocritical bioethical pretences. Well-meaning masks must be stripped off. It boils down to this: some may want to own a freak. Play with him. Sleep with her. Above all, States have a stake. Freaks can be bred for useful purposes...

Jack Vance sci-fi novel, The Dragon Masters, affords a plausible glimpse into the looming freak world. A planet has human beings at constant war with dragon-like marauders from outer space. During previous raids the dragons have captured human beings, genetic altered them and bred cross-species creatures, suitable for combat. So their armies are composed of elephant-like warriors, lizard-like commandoes and the like. But men have hit back. They too have made good use of dragon prisoners. Mixed their DNA with lions and panthers to create formidable soldiers to rip up the dragons – you get the picture.

Shift this scenario to Afghanistan. I doubt the Taleban have the biotechnology to take a leaf out of the dragons’ book but the Yanks certainly do. Huh! Freak armies could teach the Taleban a lesson. Need I say anymore?

I hear your objection. The Yanks already have all the right technology. A drone needs no pilot. Robots can do whatever dirty work is necessary. The freaks from The Dragon Masters are only a literary conceit. They would be cumbrous, redundant. It just shows you sci-fi limitations, perhaps.

The priest doesn’t give up so easily. If war won’t do, sex will. I shall therefore invoke The Space Legion, by Jack Williamson. Here the legionaries – barely disguised US marines of the mind - strive to save the human race from the monstrous Medusae and their dastardly ally, renegade Stephen Orrco. A minor character intrudes into the plot. An android called Luroa. Made by the rogue scientist Eldo Arrynu out of protoplasm, Luroa is stunningly beautiful. Irresistibly attractive. A combination of Wendi Murdoch and Michelle Obama, let us say. (That gives my tastes away...) A walking Aphrodite. A look at her and a man is besotted. So Arrynu sells Luroa to wealthy men. But there is a catch. Luroa is criminal. After sex, she is programmed to lure the lecherous capitalists to their death and then goes back to her creator. Then the game starts again.

I submit here is a game a machine cannot play. Call me naive, never mind how sophisticated the building materials, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to sleep with a piece of plastic or metal. To lure, the freak must be of flesh. Like Luroa. Hmmm...maybe mixing human genes with a cat? Hair fetishism turns some people on. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, was like that. Fine, cat-like hair might do the trick for some. (Count me out, please!). Or, for those really inclined to rough trade, a lynx? Or a baboon? The mind boggles.

If war and sex sound a bit too crude, what about pets? Or toys? All children crave the latter. A teddy bear with bear DNA?Ahem...not a good idea. This too is probably outdated, anyway. Kids today play with infernal computer gadgets. Are dolls still popular? An interactive doll – there again, there might be problems. No, this is a dead-end. To dangerous or too silly. Or both.

Beings made from human-animal embryos would be monsters. Disgusting and depressing and dangerous. But, to be fair, not as much as the humanoid freaks already in existence. Creatures like Andrew Marr, Nick Robinson, Lord Bragg, this BBC-spawned brood infesting the News and the airwaves daily are the real, loathsome freaks in our midst today. Nothing to do with physical appearance. They look just average. But they nauseate because of their truly sub-human one-dimensionality. The emptiness of their verbal droppings. Their monotonous, one-sided and impoverished language proves their have forsaken, to put it with Dante, il ben dell’intelletto, their rationality, what makes human beings human. The freaks are among us.

What is to be done? Sit back, wail, lament and do nothing? Not good enough. There is a third way, between the freaks already here and the freaks to come. Amazingly, The Dragon Mastershints at it. You see, between men and dragons there is a third group of people, striving to resist evil and to build up a better world. They are the Sacerdotes.

Sacerdotes is a word whose root meaning is sacer, sacred. In traditional societies they were the priests. Sacerdotes stood for the spiritual, transcendental dimension of existence. They put human beings in touch with the Divine. They orientate men towards their true, supernatural centre.

In The Dragon Masters the Sacerdotes are quiet, pacifistic contemplatives. They have ostensibly withdrawn from the world of sin and strife. In reality, they are contemplatives in action, like the Jesuits of old. In secret, they are building a wonder weapon that will win the cosmic battle...

Only the Sacerdotes can fight and beat the freaks and freak-masters of today. Whether there are any such people left in the ruins of our post-Christian world is another matter. Only God knows.