Pills to make you less racist?
I read Frazen’s ‘The Corrections’ a while ago. In that novel, chemicals are used to ‘correct’ aspects of characters’ personalities. Just like A Clockwork Orange, there’s a unsettling edge to the idea.
I know that the idea of future filled with mind-altering drugs should be frightening, but in some way I find it quite appealing as a concept. Yes, there’s a potential problem when things go wrong and people start mixing up the drugs or spiking others or engaging in questions of personal responsibility, but if I was offered a drug that would make me better in some way (anyone see Limitless?) I’m pretty sure I’d take it.
The point is that when this sort of technology becomes possible, if you aren’t taking it it doesn’t mean nobody else is. To not take it would become some sort of ethical protest, but you’d be setting yourself at a huge disadvantage in comparison with the rest of ‘high’ society. It would be the same as refusing medical treatment as a protest to the actions of pharmaceutical companies. And as for fears that the system would be open to abuse, well, there’s lready a lot of potential for abuse in the world anyway. We seem to be able to keep nuclear weapons relatively safe, so I’m sure we could find ways to keep a few million pills in correct order.
The only thing that worries me about this sort of technology is the issue of choice. Should we have the right to choose our own state of mind if it is potentially detrimental to others? Should the benefits of chemical brainwashing for the sake of the many come at the cost of choosing to be an idiot for the few?
I think it’s time to read some Burgess again…
tick. tock. tick. tock. tick. tock…