Life as Mechanism, pt. 2 - Udders with a Cow Attached

Notice the change in emphasis as we pass from Unintentional to Intentional evolution. In the former, entire herds and flocks are affected; in the latter, only this or that creature. Our center-of-gravity shifts, from the "community" to the "individual".

Whatever our opinions on the subject of animal self-consciousness, we must admit that in so isolating one or two creatures for improvement, we deprive them of something — call it "context". If we want to remove his wildness, we must make the wild dog "less" of a wild dog by keeping him out of the society of his peers.

Whether the creature in question is thereby deprived seems obvious. Whether this deprivation is of something really essential is less so. You may take away the "wild" from a wild dog, by stealing him away from the pack; but you do not thereby necessarily take away the "dog". His "community" is compromised, but not his essential unity, his "dogness".

Manipulation vs. Domination

However, this is not quite so obvious when we move still deeper, into genetic engineering — or what I happen to call "Intra-creature fiddling." Here we attempt exercise still greater command over Nature, i.e. over living creatures; and consequently the possibility of destroying those creatures qua creatures grows greater.

To make the illustration more vivid, make it simpler. Suppose that you had a clock that, for the moment, was set to the wrong time. You want it to show the correct time. You would have two different ways of approaching the subject:

1. You could adjust the clock's mechanism so as to produce the time you wanted — say, by winding a knob
2. You could take hold of and force the clock's hands to the position you wanted

Obviously, the second has many virtues to recommend it. It is more direct, more practical, easier. It gives us a WYSIWYG interface. It gives us more direct and certain control. And it is precisely the wrong way to deal with a clock.

For, in forcibly rotating the most visible and obvious parts of the clock (the hands), you would almost certainly break something deep within the clock itself. A cog would be driven the wrong way and jam, or a spring would be permanently bent too far. By taking the most obvious path, you short-circuited the clock itself — i.e., you destroyed its unity as a clock by treating it as something other than a clock.

An Automat that goes "Moo"

Obviously it's somewhat harder to replicate this experience with animals. If you treat a cow like an automatic vending machine, the cow will react by turning up dead. You can treat a dog like a doormat, but not if you expect to go on receiving such feudal obedience for long. To destroy a living creature's essential unity requires more sophisticated techniques.

You can, for instance, treat a cow like a vending machine with "special needs" — as a set of udders with a cow attached. You may feed it just enough, water it just enough for your purposes; and you may get gallons of milk and meat before it hands in its dinner pail. You may treat your cow like a finicky, troublesome, necessary piece of machinery; and in so doing you will no longer own a cow.

To be continued ...