Queer immortalism: Denying the narrative of nature September 1, 2010

Posted by Summerspeaker in Queer politics

In the comments on an IEET post about Gary Shteyngart’s new novel, a useful insight has emerged. Aleksei Riikonen wrote the following in response to my rejection of the book:

Hmm, “the biological inevitability of heterosexuality” is actually a very good comparison for “the biological inevitability of mortality” Both age-old assumptions that conservative institutions strive to perpetuate for the sake of their own interests, and both very common forms of lazy thinking — though these days, significantly fewer in western cultures are lazy enough to see heterosexuality this way anymore, but such was ubiquitous just a short while ago.

This analogy shows what is sake in arguments about life extension. There’s an inherent danger in any exaltation of the status quo, be it political or biological. Even if you have no personal desire to lengthen your lifespan and/or dismiss the current immortalist movement for its manifest faults, you should still oppose appeals to the certainty and correctness of death. To use Firestone‘s term, accepting one biological tyranny invites the others to come along. Belief in freedom and an understanding of the tenuousness of knowledge imply that we draw hard limitations with the greatest reluctance.