More ‘It’s Not My Fault, It’s My DNA!’ Nonsense
March 17, 2008It’s not my fault I’m obese- it’s my DNA. It’s not your fault if you stop shoving 30 donuts a day down your gullet, but isn’t it funny (odd) that only American DNA seems to be afflicted with the obese gene? I have yet to see an obese Ethiopian.
Alas, we Americans are so hell bent on avoiding any responsibility that we will blame something as teeny as our DNA for every behavioral aberration we can imagine. We live in a period of history which nearly demands, it seems, that we blame something external to our own decisions for every perversity we embrace. It’s not your fault you’re fat. It’s your dna. It’s not your fault you steal. It’s in your dna. Hey, it’s not your fault you’re a child molester, it’s your dna’s fault.
Sure, dna plays a huge role in hair color and eye color and height and build and that sort of stuff, but are we seriously to believe that we are all such slaves of our dna that we are incapable, at the end of the day, of choice? If so, then if someone is found guilty of a crime even once and it’s traceable to their dna, then they should be shunted off forever to prison or executed since they will never be able to change.
Before it’s all over with- you’ll be absolved of everything if ’science’ has its way. You’ll not be held responsible for a single thing, bless your heart, because you just can’t help it. So - off with you- eat till you burst and then when your family looks down at your grotesquely inflated body in your extra large coffin they can comfort themselves with the thought that DNA did it.
Like if your teeth fall out because you don’t brush enough. So what if you have soft enamel?
Nah, no need to brush at all. It’s all predetermined. By your DNA.
Jim,
You should be reading the quotes I’m posting on my blog from the book I’m currently reading. Yesterday’s was appropriate:
http://anebooks.blogspot.com/2008/03/monday-quote.html
“The post-industrialized self is sinned against, not sinner. They are the helpless victims of social structures, institutions and corporate bodies. It is with these perpetrators that responsibility lies, not with the ‘innocent victims’ of their distorted practices. Obligations and responsibilities lie fairly and squarely with institutions in the story the post-industrialized self tells. Therefore, there are no duties they have failed to fulfill, no forbidden acts about which they should feel guilty, no ’sins’ that need confessing.”