368 RüdigerKunow
investment ). On national as well as global levels, genomics and
neoliberal governance work in tandem, the former providing solutions
fortheproblemsposedbythelattersothatthebiological,theeconomic,
and the political domains are being brought together and mutually
imbricated in new and intense ways that the mechanistic Foucauldian
notionofbiopoliticsdoesnotcapture.
ThreatstothenationalsecurityoftheUnitedStatesandthehealthor
well-being of its citizens are invoked almost daily by the media and by
the political Right (M. Cooper,Life as Surplus75-92), most often in
order to justify government interventions into private life. In a related
way, Nikolas Rose has argued that already now more and more people
are inserted into "a political and ethical field in which individuals are
increasingly obligated to form life strategies, to seek to maximize their
life chances, to take actions or refrain from actions in order to increase
the quality of their lives.. ." (Clarke et al., "Technoscientific
Transformations"48;Kaufmanetal.738;Rose107).
In the context of neoliberal governance and its rage against the
"Nanny State" and its social security systems, it might be just plain
common sense for Americans of all (st)ages of life to utilize whatever
biotech enhancement procedures will be available to them. By doing
that, they can at least hope to be spared from needing the services of a
severely curtailed health care system, services which even the middle
class may soon no longer be able to afford. Suggestive as such defying
theoddsbybiotechmightbe,fromthepointofculturalcritique,itmust
be said that such a blessing, if it is a blessing, will be one which only a
few will enjoy. If in the future access to these new bio-technologies is
entirely left to market forces and mechanisms, genomics and
enhancements will function socially and culturally astechnologies of
difference; and it is highly likely that they will introduce not only new
"narratives of responsibility” (Nelkin and Lindee 190) but also new
forms of "savage sorting" (Sassen 1). The new forms of what Novas
calls "a'molecular-geneticidentity'" (Novas qtd. in N. Rose,Politicsof
Life126; emphasis original) will thus produce in their wake new forms
of subjection and discrimination, perhaps even new forms of apartheid,
based not on ethnic or gendered differences but on differences in the
shape, the status, and the temporality of human life. In the context of
financially strapped public care services and available optimizing