Eutopia: The Promise of Biotechnology and the Realignment of Western Axiality

Abstract

This essay discusses the deep perceptual and social changes that the advanced applications of biotechnology could bring in the West. It examines the probable collapse of a fundamental perceptual bipolarity on which the Western mind and social mobilization have been based since its inception in the West: Athens-Jerusalem. This collapse will quite possibly radically reshape Western perceptions of self and nature and will remodel established constellations and modes of social mobilization and social organization. The radical collapse of the preceding established feature of Western modernity is due to take place in the field of biotechnology, since the latter promises to produce a deliverable perfection of flesh and an equally corporeal personal bliss. I call this promise "eutopia," an actual and tangible utopia-"a laboratory on the hill."

Clarifying the Eutopia Argument: A Response to John Caiazza

“…I read John Caiazza's response to my article (Marangudakis 2012) with great interest for his arguments, and my concerns about my English‐speaking proficiency (Caiazza 2012). Starting with the latter, I would like to clarify that it is not Caiazza's version of technosecularism that I find “shortsighted” and “psychologically immature,” but the state of technosecularism itself today that John Caiazza analyzes so convincingly.…”

“…Starting with the latter, I would like to clarify that it is not Caiazza's version of technosecularism that I find “shortsighted” and “psychologically immature,” but the state of technosecularism itself today that John Caiazza analyzes so convincingly. In fact, I accept his analysis of the present state of technology in social organization and social interaction to the point of incorporating it into my own understanding of the GRIN (genetic, robotic, information, and nano processes) potentiality: thus the metaphor of technosecularism as the “primordial soup” out of which the new axiality will emerge, if at all (Marangudakis 2012, 114).…”

“…Judging from past major axial shifts, even if the eutopian vision is actualized, I neither welcome it nor condemn it. Instead, I argue that the new era will be “ … a new era of personal freedom and social inequalities, an era of new anxieties and new hopes” (Marangudakis 2012, 115). The latter phrase encapsulates the consequences of every revolutionary social change in history: Liberty from past constraints is not “liberty” in general; social revolutions overcome, to an extent, past dysfunctionalities, internal contradictions, and conflicts, only to generate their own ones (Eisenstadt 2006).…”

Science, Realism, Galileo, Morality and More

“…A more anthropological article on “moral elevation” treats aspirations regarding sainthood. With a brief response by the initial author, we conclude a thread of papers on techno‐secularity, Athens, and Jerusalem, which started in 2012 (Marangudakis 2012; Caiazza 2012). A selection of older articles on this same theme have been collected in a “virtual issue” of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science titled “Techno‐secularity and Techno‐sapiens: Religion in an Age of Technology,” presented in more detail in a separate editorial in this issue.…”

Humans in the Center?

“…Ronald Cole‐Turner considers the interplay of transhumanist ideas and Christian themes, and in particular the presence of such imagery in charismatic, evangelical Christianity. Zygon previously published other reflections on biotechnology, dreams of the future, and interpretations of the past (e.g., Geraci 2010; Marangudakis 2012; and Caiazza 2012).…”