Art, Soul, Nazis and Unicorn Poop

The ex and his brother used to spend hours debating philosophical matters. I remember one debate in particular went on for months in the late 90's--do clones have souls? As it turns out, there's a novel for that, ironically, a novel set in the late 90's. Cloning was a hot topic in the late 90's, thanks to Dolly the Sheep, who was cloned in 1996 (and named after Dolly Parton, per Wikipedia, because...she was cloned from a mammary gland cell, which I did not remember hearing on the news at the time, hopefully because the scientists in question were embarrassed).

Last week, I (finally) read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, and it is one of those that you find yourself coming back to, over and over, in the shower, while driving, or in the middle of a particularly boring meeting. The tight first person narration locks you inside the mind a narrator, Kathy, whose voice is incredibly restrained, whether because she has been carefully conditioned to accept the terms of her life...or whether she is truly somehow different than we.

Kathy and her peers are part of an experimental program (the nature of the experiment would constitute a major spoiler), a key component of which involves art, because as even the most genetically engineered human in this novel can tell you, creating and appreciating cultural artifacts (art, literature, music, etc.) is what defines and distinguishes us, if not biologically, then spiritually. If clones can make and appreciate art, the logic goes, then they must have souls. And in pursuit of Proof of Soul, the guardians in the program create a culture where not being creative is a sign of deepest failure and shame.

If you think about it, "real" humans are almost the opposite. Creativity and artistic ability are seen as exceptional, something that only a few are gifted with. We get critical with our artistic efforts, compare them to masterpieces, and, when they fall short, put them away and tell people, "I'm just not that creative." I've read that pre-teens go through a phase where they find their own drawings not realistic enough and most will stop even trying. I remember reading a post-technology novel about a world where people, without iPods full of Adele and Beyonce, became less self-conscious and more willing to sing and make music. So, art being a sign of having a soul for a clone is a really interesting idea, given that so many "real" people are afraid to express that which acknowledges their souls.

For the world Ishiguro sets up, the premise that producing art signals a the presence of a soul, while necessary for the creators of said experimental program to secure funding, ultimately leads to the end of the program because if clones have souls, the casual inhumanity of raising them to be organ donors is out in the open and if there's one thing we humans can't tolerate, it's for our casual inhumanity to be on display. (The bit about them being organ donors is not much of a spoiler, as the narrator is pretty clear about it from the first page...it is a fact of her life, in fact it is the purpose of her life. Unlike the rest of us, who have to muddle on with love and doing our best and trying to make a difference, somehow the clones actually do have a very clear purpose, which, after reading this book, makes me much happier with trying to make a difference, somehow as an answer to the meaning of life. I'm also somewhat partial to 42.)

No, unicorn poop is not,
unfortunately, metaphorical.

Unfortunately, the casual inhumanity of humanity is all too real, and always has been. At lunch the other day, Betty was celebrating her recent acquisition of unicorn poop by singing "unicorn poop, unicorn poop, UNICORN POOP" in the restaurant, often loudly, and Eleanor eventually got tired of it and brought us down out of the magical rainbow tinted skies by informing us that the Nazis made pillows from the hair of the Jews they slaughtered.*** While we were all disturbed, Eleanor, who had been clearly pondering this for a while, was also confused: if Nazis were so revolted by Jews, why would they sleep with their remains?

The answer being, for the same reason the society of Ishiguro's "science fiction" novel can raise children in the most humane and cultured way and then slaughter them for their organs: the casual inhumanity that happens when we mark another person as "other" and equate "other" as "less than." It is the same casual inhumanity that leads to burning mosques, murder in bars, physical violence to queer youth and a thousand other similar acts throughout history.

One recurring motif in the book is the revulsion the "true" humans feel for the clones. They are "other" and they are "less than" and even, the book hints, they are so "other" that they could be a physical threat to the lives of "real" humans. In the March 2 edition of "On Being," Pádraig Ó Tuama describes the work he and others are doing in Northern Ireland to bring people together after centuries of conflict. The conflict is so ingrained that even the words a person uses to refer to the area (Northern Ireland or the North of Ireland) signal which side of the conflict that person is on. He describes the full range of conflict from "You're different. I'm different" to "In order for me to be right, it is important that I believe that you are wrong" all the way to "You're demonic." When a person's feelings move towards the other being demonic or evil, then all sorts of acts that would be absolutely unacceptable to do to one's own group now become possible, or even morally necessary, to do to the "other." Even if one never commits such an act, the cognitive dissonance in which we knowingly agree to not know the act has happened is only possible when at some level we see the victims of the act as other, as expressed beautifully by Anne McCrady in her poem "Dust on the Tongue." Like the society of Ishiguro's novel or McCrady's poem, it is easier and safer to count our differences (or to ignore troublesome facts altogether) than to think about them.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a book that lingers, nagging and tugging on the easy complacency we shield ourselves with. It is a beautifully written book, with restraint and compassion in every sentence. I highly recommend it.

Betty highly recommends Unicorn Poop.

***It should be noted that this was my mother's 81st birthday lunch, and she in no way deserves a birthday lunch full of Nazis and unicorn poop. We are very sorry; we do not know how to behave in public.