"My father was an engineer. He always liked the English expression: There's no free lunch. That's crazy! There is only free lunch. We should all be nothing but clouds of frozen dust. This is what science says. All lunch is free. My father was a scientist, but he never understood this one simple scientific fact, poor man."In the existential economics of personal well-being, Thassa is saying, Richard Dawkins is right: we're lucky to be here. Existence, even the hardest of lives, is a gift. A bonus. And it's over in a flash. We should be happy.
We're reading Powers because it strikes yours truly as raising some of the most profoundly meaningful questions we face: questions about the very possibility of meaningful human experience as we move forward into our increasingly engineered, digitized, hive-minded, televised, entertained future, questions about our own authorship of the meanings of our lives, questions about fact and fiction and (sci-) fiction becoming fact. Will our successors even know what we meant by "happiness," let alone how to pursue it effectively?
May I suggest that anyone who's having trouble with the relative density of this novel might consider giving a tandem listen to the excellent audio version available at audible.com...
I've been urging everyone to get started reading Generosity all semester, in anticipation of the time of reckoning to come near semester's end when presumably you'd not want to have postponed the whole thing. Well, here we are. Looking forward to seeing everyone's posted thoughts.
For those who've not heeded the call, here (for what it's worth) is a small CHEAT SHEET and (ironically) Oprah's guide... my goodreads review... more reviews... "What will happen to life when science identifies the genetic basis of happiness?" Or will it?
Beyond its thematic relevance to our class, this is just a delightful, entertaining, at moments gripping yarn. The social critique of Oprah's America is right on target, the existential allusions and wordplay (a protagonist whose name means "liver," another with the Sisyphean name "Stone" etc.) are aptly amusing, the "creative nonfiction" angle on the meaning of our times and the personal and social risks implicit in large-scale genomic engineering... there's simply a lot here to appreciate.
But beware: if you don't like a self-conscious narrator who reminds you periodically that you ARE reading a story (because the larger story of our lives remains to be written, and we're all writing it) then you might not like Powers' insinuating voice. But it's not gratuitous, it's there to draw our attention to the audacity of creation and re-creation that modern genetic science may be about to spring on us.
“Real generosity towards the future consists in giving all to the present.” Kay Jamison isn’t quite so punchy as Camus, but says exuberance creates contagious joy. Don’t we all need more of that? But maybe we need less “first person” feeling fixation?
More questions for Richard Powers: Is Thomas Kurton trying to play Craig Venter ("playing God") in Generosity? With a dash of Ray Kurzweil, Aubrey de Grey, and Charles Darwin’s “grandeur“?
Powers throws a curve-ball when he tells us Thomas Kurton is not so “grandiose” (=egocentric?) as Craig Venter, but I think that’s mostly a legal disclaimer.
Kurton, the expert “gene signature reader,” is drunk on genetic possibility and the next big development issuing from our collective direction. Individual responsibility is becoming passe’, at least in this story.
Powers throws a curve-ball when he tells us Thomas Kurton is not so “grandiose” (=egocentric?) as Craig Venter, but I think that’s mostly a legal disclaimer.
Kurton, the expert “gene signature reader,” is drunk on genetic possibility and the next big development issuing from our collective direction. Individual responsibility is becoming passe’, at least in this story.
[Dyson on Venter... Kurzweil at TED...Generosity reviews... gen2@d...Venter's epic voyage-Wired]
The humanist in the story, Stone, is– like most who cross Thassa Amzwar”s path– content to bask in the glow of her genetically-cooked joie de vivre. But “he himself may never be happy for more than a few island moments.” It’s ok, her “spillover” is enough for him. Should it be enough for you and me? I say no. But I’m not stepping up for genetic enhancement, either.
Are there other ways to increase your own “set-point” for happiness? Or maybe we just need to rethink our situation. Stoics, Buddhists, and others make themselves “happy” merely by reframing their self-image in the light of reason and reality. Thassa resists the clinical interpretation of her “optimal allele assortment,” insisting:
They make me sound like some kind of bio-factory forivresse [euphoria]. That’s just silly. Everyone can be as content as they like. It’s certainly not pre-destiny.
But try telling that to the people who buy and sell the happy pills.
Still, there’s a practical as well as philosophical difference between positive happiness and the suppression of negative feeling, isn’t there?
Is hypomania always a bad (though possibly seductive) thing? How about hyperthymia? Do we need to engineer them in or out of our genome?
What would you pay for “meaningful connection with another living thing”?
The quest for perfection and specifically perfect happiness, Powers seems to be saying, is more risk than we yet know how to manage.
Carry the book (or audio recording) with you over Thanksgiving, it just might be your salvation. It might give you something more interesting and constructive to talk about than the Dallas Cowboys or your cousin's reactionary/paranoid politics.
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P.S. Thanks to our classmate Jon, aka the "Incoherent Rambler" & "Part-time Cynic," for inviting me to share his air yesterday. Happy to do it!
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