What does the word perfect mean? Well, according to the Webster Dictionary, it means “being entirely without fault or defect” and/or “corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept. ” Many people strive to be perfect. Whether it is the perfect hair, the perfect group of friends, or the perfect body; people strive for a perfect life. But is a perfect life an achievable thing? Everyone has a different idea of perfection, therefore; it is impossible to find one that we can all agree on. But the media sure does give everyone an idea of what perfection really looks like.
Women must be skinny with smooth skin and men have to be muscular with great hair. “These cultural messages feed the deepest insecurity in ourselves and encourage us to believe we must be something different from who we really are” (Howard, “Are we addicted to the idea of Perfection? “). Thus making us change everything about ourselves in order to seek approval from society. People try to meet the high standards of society but these standards seem to be unattainable. Society’s desire to be perfect, based on their perceptions, caused more of a want for experiments with synthetic evolution or genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering is the manipulation of the genetic material in an organism. No, human gene editing has not yet been successfully accomplished but it has been done in many types of produce. “In plants, genetic engineering has been applied to improve the resilience, nutritional value and growth rate of crops such as potatoes, tomatoes and rice” (“What is genetic engineering? “). Gene editing was created, not only because society feels the need to be perfect, but also because the society’s need to be in control.
If human gene editing became successful, it would allow us to control every ingle physical trait in a human. “Gene editing is thought to offer a way for parents to maximize their control over the properties of their offspring, transforming a relationship that should be characterized by unconditional love and acceptance into one in which children are seen as products of their parents’ desires and wishes, to be provisionally accepted and molded in accord with parental preferences” (Fhot,“The Case Against Human Gene Editing”). Synthetic evolution does not create perfect humans, it creates science experiments.
In an attempt to produce the perfect person, Crake created the “Crakers”. His plan for making a “perfect human” was to take away as many human traits in them as possible. Of course, there would be no need for this new genetically engineered species if society was not so obsessed with being perfect. Society’s needs to be faster, stronger, more beautiful, and better in every way led to the downfall of humanity. In the novel Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood, a new species is artificially created to make the “perfect person.
The use of synthetic evolution and social conformity to create perfect persons will not create perfect societies because the idea of “perfect” is a flawed notion. Many companies in the novel Oryx and Crake focus on making products that improve the human image. “Pills to make you fatter, thinner, hairier, balder, whiter, browner, blacker, yellower, sexier, and happier”(Atwood 248). Society’s need to be perfect, of course, drove people to buy products like these. Advertisement of such products influenced people to buy them based on their need to conform to the standards of society.
In the novel, Crake creates a “super pill”, called the BlyssPluss Pill, that would protect against all STDs, boost sexual energy, and prolong youth, which he sold all over the world. He created a pill that included traits most people desired, craved, and aimed for. Knowing something like this existed, everyone lined up to buy them. But what was not advertised to the public, is that the pill “would also act as a sure-fire one-time-does-it-all birth-control pill, for male and female alike, thus automatically lowering the population level” (Atwood 294).
Therefore, instead of having their own children, Crake had a plan that enabled people to genetically engineer their own perfect child. “They’d be able to create totally chosen babies that would incorporate any feature, physical or mental or spiritual, that the buyer might wish to select” (Atwood 304). Another aspect about the pill that Crake did not want the public to know is that the pill contained a virus that would eliminate anyone who consumed it. “It was in the pills. It was in those pills [he] was giving away, the ones [hel was selling… hose pills were supposed to help people… ” (Atwood 325). Nearly all of humanity was destroyed by this pill that was supposed to prolong their life and make them perfect.. All of the scientific advancements have only caused the downfall of humanity. Crake has taken genetic engineering to the ultimate extreme by attempting to control reproduction with the BlyssPluss Pill which inevitably wiped out almost every human. Ironically, Crake’s marketed “perfection” wiped out the very beings who craved it the most.
Along with the novel Oryx and Crake, genetic engineering was also used in the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In this society, they “conditioned” their children to be a certain way. They genetically modified the embryo so the child would behave a certain way or do a certain job (Huxley 16). The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning can literally control the citizens. They conditioned the children to hate art, nature, and literature and made them focus only on working to further benefit society. “It isn’t only art that’s incompatible with happiness; it’s also science.
Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled” (Huxley 231). These people took many interests and values away from the children that make them human. The only things to give them physical pleasure are a drug called soma and recreational sex. The D. H. C can also create ninety-six identical twins, therefore; losing any sense of individuality. Their goal, of course, was to create a perfect society, but did they? Yes, society was progressing well because everyone worked all the time, but by taking away interests in art and nature, these people were being dehumanized.
Similar to the Crakers, where many human traits were taken away in order to be perfect humans, ironically. By conditioning their young, the D. H. C were conforming their people to be a part of society’s strict caste system. Where the Alphas and Betas are high class, Gammas are middle class, and Deltas and Epsilons are the lowest. Society does not have a choice as to which class they will be put in and they often do not get along with other classes. Also, people are conditioned to believe that the people who are not conditioned are considered “uncivilized” and “savages”.
This creates unnecessary discrimination towards the people who live on the reservation. Those people introduced the nature or birth, aging, and death to the conditioned people who visited. The conditioned would often belittle the reservation people just because they are more human. “For the perfect individual would be a constant reminder to all others of their own shortcomings” (Schwartz,“The Problem with Perfection”). When people seem to be “perfect”, the others feel as though they are not worth anything, creating an unbalance in society, therefore; making it imperfect.
Social conformity is known as “An individual’s change in their behaviors and attitudes to match the majority’s behavior” (Yu, Sun, “To Conform or not to Conform”). Social conformity is a huge factor in Oryx and Crake. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon to the perfect body image. Most companies were all about helping improve the body, whether it was natural or synthetic. The people changed the way they looked in order to meet the standards of society because they felt that if they did not look “perfect” then they would not be accepted. The media played a big part in society’s need to be perfect.
Advertisement was everywhere for better bodies. There were billboards and signs that provoked others to change themselves for society’s approval. “In each case, the sign carries with it a customary meaning, but that doesn’t guarantee it will deliver that received meaning” (Foster 123). The actual signs in Oryx and Crake are not just billboards for improving the human image, they represent society’s fixation on perfection. Most people were afraid of not being accepted in society if they did not comply with the norms of society, which is also happening in today’s society.
Young women feel pressured to put makeup on or be skinny in order to look like the “perfect” models in the media (Khatri,“The Perception of Perfection”). Men and women feel as though they need to look good or else they will not be seen as important or valuable in the eyes of society. The difference between the novel Oryx and Crake and Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron is that in the novel, society conformed to the idea that the better you looked, the better you fit in with society, whereas in Harrison Bergeron, people have conformed to the idea that being better is a disability and a threat to society.
People with a taller stature were given heavy weights to carry that made them sink down, beautiful people were given hideous masks to hide their beauty, and the intellectually inclined were given an earpiece that did not allow them to take an “unfair advantage of their brains” (Vonnegut 1). The government tortured and dehumanized those with special talents or natural gifts and the citizens went along with it. They conformed to the government’s beliefs because they were afraid to be themselves. “They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else.
Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else” (Vonnegut) Equality is more or less achieved, but at the cost of freedom and individual achievement. This type of social conformity created a society that may have seemed equal, but ultimately led to the government humiliate and abuse its citizens. The government uses the citizens’ fear of more handicaps as a tool to keep everyone “equal. ” In the novel Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, Dorian Gray is a very handsome and youthful man. He is seen as the perfect image of beauty and was worshiped because of it. Wilde writes, “… portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty… ho looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves… ” (4-5).
In this society, beautiful people were praised and held at a higher level just because of their looks. That is the case for the Crakers as well. They are treated with more respect than regular humans just because of how they look. This behavior, of course, makes those who are not as attractive feel insecure, neglected, and broken. In today’s society, some people are famous and successful based solely on that fact that they have a pretty face. They use society’s fixation on perfection as an advantage to get what they want while others have to work for what they want.
In the novel, Dorian gets invited to fancy parties and is treated like royalty, and Basil, the artist, is often pushed to the side. This society also created the stereotypes of how beautiful people are not intelligent and intelligent people are not beautiful. They believe that “… beauty, real beauty, ends where any intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face” (Wilde 5). How can any society be “perfect” if people are putting others down and destroying their confidence?