Re: [-empyre-] a book, dna and code

[Judith Roof <roof12@comcast.net>]

Steve,

Thanks for the careful reading.  Of course, you are right in that any  
focus in a book whatsoever draws a line somewhere, always somewhat  
indefensibly, by which any such project can proceed.  Thus, the  
project itself is always limited by sets of presuppositions whose  
value and caginess can be put into question.  One problematic  
assumption usually gives way to another, which gives rise to another  
locus of representational irresponsibility, etc.

But, too, such projects are often a question of audience,  
presuppositions about which often define the site of intervention.   
As what is broadly termed a "humanist," my imaginary audience is not  
those scientists who know better (though they may not know exactly  
what they do not know better about), nor is my subject actually DNA,  
nucleic acids, or the workings thereof in any sense other than quite  
broadly.  My subject is really the problems that occur when we  
carelessly believe that language is transparent.  DNA is not a  
metaphor, but a symptom, a pretext, an opportunity for certain kinds  
of cultural work to be done, certain assuagements to be had, an  
invitation to a kind of familiarity that crosses traditional  
"disciplinary" boundaries and brings us back to the delusion of a  
controlling comfort.  Maybe not scientists or those with experience.   
But certainly the vast majority of Americans who do not even  
comprehend the rudiments of a Punnett square or think it is a game show.

The question, in light of your final paragraph is: How does one avoid  
blatantly ideological work when one never takes representation,  
language, metaphor or other such sneaky tools into account?

Cheers,

Judith
On Oct 16, 2007, at 3:39 PM, sdv@krokodile.co.uk wrote:

> In the news today a story of GM poplar trees which has had 'rabbit  
> genes' added to them have been created and which for some strange  
> reason scientists and publicists wilfully misinform the idiot  
> journalist with the phrase 'rabbit gene'. It was curious how  
> appropriate this was as a copy of The Poetics of DNA arrived today,  
> one primary theme is precisely this. For myself this is a line of  
> thought I've been interested in ever since geneticists /scientists  
> began to publish scientific papers aimed to prove that their  
> cultural and personal prejudices are founded on scientific truths.  
> I was thinking in terms of referring to the scientist who invented  
> the gay gene, but by chance over the weekend I was listening to a  
> tape of James Watson who has made a living out of translating DNA  
> into exchange value (without any use-value at all) and who is  
> constantly upset when his completely irrational suppositions are  
> rejected by rational fools like Price Charles who seem to  
> understand how irrational and criminally dangerous people like  
> Watson are.(p67 for a lovely quote).
>
> It's always a curious process reading a text which is focused by  
> design on a central metaphor, DNA in this case, that has to  
> function for the reader as the text defines it. But if it doesn't  
> as it cannot for me ? The argument begins with a question: "What  
> has DNA become that we see it as a cosmic truth, representative of  
> all answers, potential for all cures, repositary for all  
> identities, end of all stories ?" (p2) (I discover after typing  
> this sentence that it's quoted as a blurb on the rear cover). A  
> question that shouldn't be rhetorical but which is because the  
> phrasing displays a barely concealed forced-choice, which can be  
> nothing but negative. Because after all the word 'all' is simply  
> nonsensical in this context, another simple appeal to faith.
>
> Perhaps there is a counter-question after all: whether a reader who  
> regards the idea of DNA containing any truth at all as particularly  
> infantile, will find the discussion of DNA as metaphor useful,  
> since DNA is unrecognizable. Is there a moment in the text when the  
> ideologies are  stripped away and DNA is not treated as  
> metaphoric ? Of course it is said explicitly (as Judith Root  
> repeated here) 'no figuration of DNA or genes is free from somekind  
> of additional, if subtle, cultural idea....'    Always already  
> ideological as we might say --- but what is then offered  
> immediately afterwards is an alternative more scientific  
> proposition than the previously mentioned 'cultural idea' (15).  
> What is being proposed is not just a better ideology but something  
> closer to a naturalism or a realism ? Given the rejection of  
> empiricism a constructivism seems  out of the question.
>
> Shortly after this "At issue in all of this is not the 'truth'- 
> value of DNA or the fine complexities of molecular biology but how  
> scientific artifacts such as DNA function simultanously as cultural  
> icons and ideological work..." (16) Actually I think this may well  
> be wrong for we should precisely be saying that it is the truth- 
> value that is denied when science is blatently ideological work.
>
> best...
>
>
> steve
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