Denver Catholic

22 SEPTEMBER 9-22, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Superheroes? Stardust? Or vessels of the Incarnation? W hen I was fi rst introduced to the fascinations of the DNA double-helix in a biology class at Baltimore's St. Paul Latin High School, fi fty years ago, the "unrav- eling " of this key to unlocking the mys- teries of human genetics had taken place just a dozen years before. Yet in the fi ve decades since my classmates and I built plastic models of the double-he- lix, humanity's knowledge of its genetic code has grown exponentially. And it seems likely that, as a species, we're only at the threshold of our capacity to use this knowledge for good or ill. Take, for example, "CRISPR": the acronym for a DNA-editing technique more formally known as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palin- dromic Repeats. Thanks to CRISPR and the rapid pace of experimenta- tion with its possibilities, scientists may be able to cure HIV or hemo- philia or muscular dystrophy or some cancers by editing the genes of those suŠ ering from those maladies: and those "edits" would be merely therapeutic, as they wouldn't be passed along to future generations. But in time, CRISPR's capabilities to "edit" DNA sequences might be used to alter sperm, egg, or embryonic DNA for purposes of what is known in the trade as "human enhancement." Which really means human reinvention. The temptation to use knowl- edge to break through the seemingly built-in limitations of the human condition, creating superheroes and making the world anew, has been part of the human story for a long time. The ancient Greeks pondered it through the myth of Prometheus. In the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Simon Magus tried to buy the gifts of the Spirit that fell upon converts through the laying on of hands by Peter and John. In poli- tics-besotted modernity, utopian and totalitarian ideologies tried to rein- vent the human by radically altering social conditions, raising up what one such lethal experiment unblush- ingly called "New Soviet Man." The catastrophic results of such projects, from the French Revolution through the Nazis' eugenic elimination of "life unworthy of life" to Mao Zedong 's "Great Leap Forward," have put an end, we may hope, to politically driven "human enhancement." But the possibilities of genetically driven "human enhancement" now have sci- entists talking about the "immortality project" – by which they don't mean the Resurrection of the Dead. Curiously, though, this 21st-cen- tury Prometheanism, which cele- brates the infi nite possibilities of genetically modifi ed humanity, runs parallel to the claims by the New Atheists and others that we're just congealed stardust, the accidental result of cosmic biochemical pro- cesses that just happened. So here's the strange position in which we fi nd ourselves. One gang of materi- alists says that we can be supermen; another says that we're just meat, if interesting meat. Christians are fre- quently dismissed by the fi rst gang of materialists as nay-sayers with a soured, cramped view of the humanity and its possibilities; the proponents of the congealed-star-dust model of the human condition dismiss us as hope- less, even infantile, romantics. The truth of the matter is that Christianity has a far higher view of the human than either of the domi- nant materialist gangs in today's high culture. That view was brilliantly outlined by St. Augustine more than a millennium and a half ago: "We must keep before our eyes the very source of grace, taking its ori- gins in Christ, our head, and fl owing through all his members according to the capacity of each. The grace which makes any man a Christian from the fi rst moment of his coming to believe is the same grace which made this man the Christ from his coming to be as man. The Spirit through whom men are reborn is the same Spirit through which Christ was born. The Spirit by whom we receive forgive- ness of sins is the same Spirit who brought it about that Christ knew no sin." When the "immortality project" was cranking up in earnest, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said to me, "You know, we're going to spend the rest of our lives explaining to people that suŠ ering and death are good for you." It's not an easy sell, however true it may be. But it's a truth easier to hear, and bear, if we imagine our- selves, not as genetically enhanced superheroes or congealed stardust, but as the stuŠ from which God became incarnate among us. The Catholic Di« erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Where have all the adults gone? O ur standards have been lowered when it comes to intelligent discourse from our politicians. Therefore, Nebraska's Senator Ben Sasse's new book comes as a sur- prise: The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of- Age Crisis— and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Re- liance (St. Martin's, 2017). Sen. Sasse captures the heart of what ails our country and what needs to be done about it. He pinpoints a struggle for the very future of our country in our failure to raise our children to become respon- sible and thoughtful adults. He orga- nizes the book around broad themes, such as education, cross-generational relationships, work, consumption, travel and literacy. Sasse quickly lays out the problem: "I believe our entire nation is in the midst of a collective coming-of-age crisis without parallel in our history. We are living in an America of per- petual adolescence. Our kids simply don't know what an adult is anymore — or how to become one. Many don't see a reason even to try. Perhaps more problematic, the older generations have forgotten that we need to plan to teach them" (2). In particular, he recognizes in young people a "defi cit of life skills required for self-reliance" (40), which presents a pressing prob- lem as "a nation of adult-children cannot be a nation of self-governing people" (246). His diagnosis of young Ameri- cans includes characteristics such as "zombie-like passivity," from the continual presence of screens, being "bizarrely fuzzy-headed when actual real-world problems needed to be solved," a "decline of agency, of initia- tive, of liveliness," and an "outsized sense of entitlement without any corresponding notion of accountabil- ity" (3, 4, 123). The problem lies not with our young people, but with the fact that we "overmanage the lives of young adults" and have "failed to help them learn how to seize the reins and do it themselves much earlier" (76). Sasse laments that many core values of America are now called into question. In regards to work, "kids no longer know how to produce" (18). When it comes to education, institu- tionalized schooling has displaced the social environment where a coming of age with increased responsibility occurred (19). Further, more time in school with more money spent has produced less results and little preparation for work and life (70). In a state of prolonged adolescence, "many younger people are now simply concluding that marriage isn't terribly important, either individu- ally or communally" (42). They also express little interest in religion. The Catholic Reader R. Jared Staudt, PhD, is a husband and father of six, the catechetical formation specialist for the Archdiocese of Denver, a Benedictine oblate, prolifi c writer, and insatiable reader. DR. R. JARED STAUDT You know, we're going to spend the rest of our lives explaining to people that suƒ ering and death are good for you." CARDINAL FRANCIS GEORGE "

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