Jonathan Swift in the News?
Glenn Reynolds and others are speculating about where stem cell research might take us. In the short term, might we add twenty years or more to the average life?
One of the oddest episodes in Gulliver's Travels concerns the Struldbruggs. Gulliver is asked how he would like to life forever. He says that would be a dream come true--but of course he is imagining eternal youth. What the Struldbruggs have is eternal old age.
[blockquote]When they came to Fourscore Years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this Country, they had not only all the Follies and Infirmities of other old Men, but many more which arose from the dreadful Prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative [oh oh; were they bloggers?], peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative; but uncapable of Friendship, and dead to all natural Affection, which never descended below their Grand-children. Envy and impotent Desires, are their prevailing Passions....They have no Remembrance of any thing but what they learned and observed in their Youth and middle Age, and even that is very imperfect... The least miserable among them, appear to be those who turn to Dotage, and entirely lose their Memories; these meet with more Pity and Assistance, because they want many bad Qualities which abound in others.[/blockquote]
If there is a married couple of these folks, they are granted a divorce once one of them turns 80--since eternal marriage would make them even more miserable. They understand no language except what was spoken when they were young, etc. Allan Bloom has suggested that the Struldbruggs represent the various Christian churches.
Meanwhile, via hit and run, an experiment that shows monkeys can learn the use of money, and act like humans more or less at their worst. Of course this is reminiscent of the Yahoos.
Finally, in searching around a bit, a found some passages on lawyers:
[blockquote]I said there was a Society of Men among us, bred up from their Youth in the Art of proving by Words multiplied for the Purpose, that White is Black, and Black is White, according as they are paid... For example. If my neighbour hath a mind to my Cow, he hires a Lawyer to prove that he ought to have my Cow from me..... Now in this Case, I who am the true Owner lie under two great Disadvantages. First, my Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falshood; is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness, if not with Ill-will. The second Disadvantage is, that my Lawyer must proceed with great Caution: Or else he will be reprimanded by the Judges, and abhorred by his Brethren, as one who would lessen the practice of the Law..... I have known some of them [judges] to have refused a large Bribe from the Side where Justice lay, rather than injure the Faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their Nature or their Office.[/blockquote]
It is a Maxim among these Lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: And therefore they take special Care to record all the Decisions formerly made against common Justice and all the general Reason of Mankind. These, under the Name of Precedents, they produce as Authorities to justify the most iniquitous Opinions; and the Judges never fail of directing accordingly.
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