Venal Vernacular

Obama signs another "HateCrime" bill, and George Orwell turns again on his sepulchral spit. It does not seem to be satisfactory to simply punish crime-- we must now have "new and improved" crime. In name, at least, we have festooned our more odious behaviours with prefixed embellishments...a more descriptive taxonomy with which to describe the angels of our darker nature.

It is not the fulfillment of Orwell's prophesies, nor the growing use of Newspeak as a nuevoEsperanto that worries me. Rather, it is the backlash from those for whom retreat into a world where primitive (?) discriminations (which are probably hard-wired into our Homo-tribal brains--the other meme) are still valid and relied upon to color a world view. It remains to be seen whether the mobile-intellectual-elite have actually "evolved" an intra-species homogenity gene--some organic means for "ignoring" or "accepting" differences in appearance or behaviour, or if education and/or "worldliness" suffice to engender the learned equivalent. No matter, really, but for the fact that a much more tenuous grip is maintained (in terms of humanity in toto) by an acquired perspective than is by genuine evolution.

Perhaps this is a specious species specification-- to allude to a "forced" evolution-- but that does seem to be the case. That today's definition of being "truly human" includes optional equipment not appearing on the original blueprint-- equipment for coping with a shrinking planet. Fear and distrust, even aggression, toward the "other" was a meaningful survival mechanism for our ancestors. Nature selected for a certain level of intolerance, and, truth be known, still does.

This precept drags in it's wake the awful realisation of further division. Just as the "splitters" of the "splitters-vs-lumpers" tug-of-war are on the ascension in the labelling of our misdeeds*, so too are they forever gaining ground in the field of biological taxonomy. When I was still in school we learned the Linnaeus lineage of life: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species--with occasional forays into "sub-species", or, perhaps, "variant"or "race". It was simple. It was ordered. And if you described something well enough, and if it was "different" enough, you got to name that something after yourself. Now there are "sub" categories throughout. Sub-orders, sub-classes, etc. --then there is the proliferation of species. From blooms to birds to bats to baboons the smallest of differences now seem to qualify, to entitle a brand new freshly minted nom de scientific.

That is, unless you are speaking about the naked ape(s). We are family. Whereas the appearance of a few red feathers on the cheek of a sparrow may be cause enough for a separate distinction, description, and latin name, the "lumpers" have long held ground in regards to a single genus: Homo. A single species, though we will allow for "race" somewhere in the back of our minds. Never at the forefront when speaking biologically or in terms of "differences".**

In the forest live squirrels. There are Fox squirrels and there are Gray squirrels. Both of them eat acorns, build houses of leaves and twigs at least thirty feet up a tree, mate at the same time. Interbreeding is possible, but infrequent. And they don't really get along in the same territory. Too much overlap. Too many differences in the DNA.*** One must even say they are in competition for resources and mating opportunities. They, being controlled by genetic code, attach great significance to the concept of the "other". This is not wrong****, this is nature. And it is across-the-board true for any similar "species", indeed, right down the level of the "individual" are the protective/combatative impulses which are mysteriously manipulated by that double helix.

It will be interesting to note, in the years to come, how closely the refinement of the labelling of our crimes might parallel the human genome project. Will "hatecrime" function be discovered at the molecular level? Will "sexcrime" appear as an allele analogous with a quantifiable level of testosterone production? Will there be a pill?


*By which I refer to increasingly specific descriptive prefixes.
**Of course we may discuss "cultural diversity" when affirming the value of "race"--but woe unto he who would illuminate obvious differences in appearance, predilections, competence.
***Always have been fascinated by the postulation that we are merely vessels for the reproduction of a complex molecule, rather that vice-versa.
****Fuck you, Walt Disney.