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Singer and songwriter Nellie Mackay
Poet and novelist Michel Houellebecq
"My oh my, walkin' by
Who's the apple of my eye?
Why, it's my very own
Clonie!"
I.
Whatever else he might be, Michel Houellebecq is no narcissist:
"I don't love myself. I have little liking for myself, and even less self-esteem; besides, I'm not very interested in myself." [a]
It's somewhat surprising, therefore, that he has never regretted being the father of a son whom he loves, and loves more each time he sees in him traits of his own character "manifesting themselves over time, with relentless determinism" [109].
This repetition - even of flaws - is a source of profound joy.
On the other hand, however, Houellebecq confesses to be saddened when his son displays the signs of an autonomous personality, in which he doesn't recognise anything of himself.
Far from marvelling at this filial otherness, Houellebecq is forced to realise that a child is only a piss-poor copy or incomplete and weakened replica of himself; one that briefly reminds him of death, from which, he says, he has nothing to gain.
The expression of such feelings is not encouraged in modern philosophy; "these feelings leave no room for progress, for freedom, for individuation, for becoming; they aim at nothing other than the eternal, at the stupid repetition of the same" [110] and are ultimately "nothing other than the ever-active memory of an overwhelming biological instinct" [110].
Not wanting to die - and disappointed by the fact that a child is a far from perfect copy - Houellebecq dreams of the day when he can get himself cloned:
"I'll pay whatever price it takes (neither moral imperatives nor financial imperatives have ever weighed heavily against those of reproduction). I'll probably have two or three clones [...] Through my clones, I will have achieved some form of survival - not quite sufficient, but greater than what children would have given me." [110-111]
Houellebecq's only concern relates to the fact that the clones will be produced in a jar; it saddens him to think that they'll not be conceived in the old-fashioned manner (via sexual intercourse) and born of a womb:
"Will my little ones, born so far away from the pussy, still have any taste for pussy? I hope so for them, I hope so with all my heart." [111]
But he concedes this is simply nostalgia getting the better of him ...
II.
Someone else who imagines a time to come in which we'll be able to admire and befriend our own clones, is the brilliant singer-songwriter Nellie Mackay ...
In a comic (semi-serious?) track entitled 'Clonie' [b], MacKay tells the tale of a wealthy but lonely and infertile woman who doesn't care what other people might think about shallow gene pools and the ethical issues raised by human cloning.
Bored rich folk like her don't need to conceive a child naturally; they can have a fully-formed clone produced to order with whom they'll be able to share their lives and stroll the 'hood, side-by-side and hand-in-hand.
III.
Of course, one is reminded when reading Houellebecq or listening to Nellie Mackay, of Jean Baudrillard's work in this area ...
Baudrillard thought of cloning as the extermination of sex and death and the return of humanity to an amoeba-like state of non-individuated being prior to our becoming mortal and discontinuous; what he refers to as the final solution.
In a crucial passage, Baudrillard writes:
"Contrary to everything we ordinarily believe, nature first created immortal beings, and it was only by winning the battle for death that we became the living beings that we are. Blindly, we dream of defeating death and achieving immortality, whereas that is our most tragic destiny, a destiny inscribed in the previous life of our cells." [c]
Notes
[a] Michel Houellebecq, 'Technical Consolation', in Interventions 2020, trans. Andrew Brown, (Polity Press, 2022), p. 109. Future page references will be given directly in the post.
[b] Nellie Mackay, 'Clonie', on the astonishing debut studio album Get Away From Me, (Columbia Records, 2004): click here. And for a live version recorded at a TED Talk in 2008, click here.
[c] Jean Baudrillard, 'The Final Solution, or The Revenge of the Immortals', in Impossible Exchange, trans. Chris Turner, (Verso, 2001), pp. 27-8. Long time readers (with good memories) may recall that I discuss this passage and Baudrillard's thoughts on cloning in a post published back in April 2013: click here.
It is interesting - and disappointing - to note that Houellebecq has little or no time for Baudrillard.
