Here is a possible scenario written against the background of the recent announcement about cloning of human beings.
Is the end of family history in sight?
Once the ethical inhibitions are over, nations will compete to develop the cloning technology because of applications in defence and space travel. And it will only be a matter of time before the technology is perfected.
Eve was cloned
Religion will not stand in the way of all this for long. If the original sin of mankind was to choose sexual reproduction, he may regain paradise by choosing asexual reproduction. After all, cloning is very similar or the very method that God used, to create Eve out of bone (or DNA?) of Adam.
Asexual humans
Advances in genetics would make it possible to turn humans into asexual beings. Society will come to recognize the advantages of the technology in due time. As a Malayalam poet said, conflicts are in plenty in the world because of women and wealth. Once sexuality disappears, conflicts will come down. There will not be any discrimination over sex. Gender specific crimes from rape to domestic violence will cease. Human productivity would increase.
Family and family histories
What will human kind lose? Family, family histories and sexual pleasure. Family and familial bonding is essential only if there are children to be brought up. But when people are cloned, new institutions for their upbringing and emotional security would have to be devised. Family as an institution don’t any way seem to have much future judging by the decline of family values in the Western societies, and that culture being spread to the rest of the World.
Sexual pleasure or its equivalents could be created by devising technologies to stimulate the brain. You will miss sexual love, the rush from the crush into mad love. But the next generation is never going to know what they miss. After all, nature's goal in all that was sexual reproduction. So, does it matter when we have a better system for reproduction? Human kind has always sacrificed something for progress. With a little genetic manipulation, love could be reprogrammed to achieve better relations between asexual human beings.
New generation will not know
Family history is history
Soon, family histories will become history. Our novels and love stories will become curious readings about the ritualistic practices of the ancients. Our Hollywood and Bollywood movies will become the equivalent of documentary on how Chimpanzees lived and mated.
Expert-Eyes/January 6, 2003.
