352 RüdigerKunow
older concept of "birth defects," blamed for a motley variety of health
problems, such as cancer, obesity, or autism, even though these and
many other health problems are not inheritable. Small wonder then that
"badgenes"havebeenthetargetofcountlessself-helpbooks,blogsand
websites, and are also a regular topic in fiction-writing, as in Jerry E.
Bishop and Michael Waldholz'sGENOME(1990) or Richard Powers's
Generosity(2009). Whether or not one tends to concur with the "bad
genes"concept,prognosticsispartandparcelofgenomics,oftentimesa
coercive vision, one in which the individual body remainslocked in
prognosis,anticipatinginthepresentitspotentialfuture.Moreover,such
a diagnosis is creating "an obligation to act in the present in relation to
the potential futures thatnow come into view" (Novas and Rose 486).^45
And this enjoins us to read the body-text analogy not only for its
representational but also for its inherently temporal, socio-cultural and,
inthelastresort,ethicaldimensions.
Texts can of course always be modified (and always were), as can
thetextoflife,andreaderscanalsobecomeauthors.Asaresearcherput
it: "We're moving from reading the genetic code to writing it" (Venter
qtd.inRegaladon.pag.).Suchwritingorratherre-writingisnotamere
technological feasibility; it will (aside from many other things)
effectively change the time of life, of the human body. Reverting to the
text-life analogy, one might say that such a text knows no closure; the
bodygeneticisabodyunderconstantrevision—comparedtowhichthe
pre-genomic body can be said to have had almost canonical status, a
classic one might want to reinterpret from time to time but not
fundamentallyrevise.
Genomics contains a promissory note, the utopian promise of a
betterfutureforlife,onceallthe"badgenes"havebeeneliminated.This
is essentially a eugenic vision, in more modern garb for sure, in which
the human body has become the site of a new utopia or rather,
humankind's oldest and at the same time most current utopia, that of a
perfect life. One might even go so far as saying that genetic
modifications of a given biological endowment are in important ways
(^45) For a more elaborate exploration of this futuristic dimension cf. Taussig,
Karen-Sue, Klaus Hoeyer, and Stefan Helmreich. "The Anthropology of
Potentiality in Biomedicine. An Introduction to Supplement 7." Current
Anthropoloy54.2(2013):S3-S14.Print.