CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 353
the ultimate frontier of progress.^46 No longer are faraway galaxies but
the intimate spaces of human bodies the sites where their Promethean
potentialcanunfolditselfmostforcefully.^47
Iamspeakinghereof"biologicalfutures,"withfullacknowledgment
of the double meaning involved here: "futures" refers not only to a new
and improved status of embodied life but at the same time also to the
instrument in financial trading where something is bought or sold that
doesnotyetexist,basedontheassumptionthatitwillhaveaparticular
value at some future date (Heakal n. pag.). The reference to speculative
trading in finances is not as recherché as it might seem because genetic
research and most certainly its intended products are, as I will show
below, deeply enmeshed in the flows of venture capital and its
expectationsoffutureprofits(M.Cooper,LifeasSurplus25;Meyerand
Davis 3-22, 229-36). Both the financial practices and their objects are
thusessentiallyspeculationsaboutthefuture.
Whilegenomicresearchisoften"sold"tothepublicasopeningnew
ways of healing severe illnesses, it does not just mark the high road to
new and more effective therapeutics. The attractiveness of such a
biotech utopia will obviously grow even more in the decades to come,
not least, perhaps, because more and more people will be living longer
lives, certainly with the help of products or methods provided by the
biotech industries sector. Meanwhile, the line dividing therapeutic
measures, for example against arthritis, from "mere improvement" of a
body'sperformancehasinsomecasesbecomedifficulttodraw,andthis
(^46) This is why President Clinton, announcing in June 2000 that the human
genome had for the first time been completely surveyed, invoked an explicit
historical analogy with the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition and its
exploration of the Northwestern parts of today's United States (for more detail
cf.Holloway68).
(^47) This is not to suggest that earlier periods did not have utopian projections
aboutbodily perfection. One need only think "the fountain of youth" or miracle
healings here. What is different at this particular juncture is the suggestion of
realizability. It has become almost an article of faith among experts and the
general public alike to believe that behind the new frontier (Budd 196) of
biotechnology, an unlimited new world of promise and opportunity will open.
Cf. also Have, Ten. "Genetics and Culture: The Geneticization Thesis."
Medicine,HealthCareandPhilosophy4.3(2001):295-304.,esp.296-299.