Blog 12

In the passage “The Man on the Moon” by George J. Annas he discusses how people think they are the superior beings and that the people who are not like them are inferior. The ones who feel they're superior feel that they have all the rights. Annas writes about how the Nazis believe they are the superior beings and all the other people are inferior people. They set out to kill and torture the humans that are not German because they feel they do not fit with them. The Nazis believed in eugenics, the study to improve qualities of the human species. They felt that everyone had to look a certain way to their own standards and whoever did not look like them, they would try to do surgeries on them to make them look more like Germans. If they could not do such things they would torture and/or kill them.
In the movie “Gattaca” they portray how only genetically engineered people who are considered “Valid” beings are able to have a higher quality job and that they are more superior to the people who are not genetically engineered who are called the “In-valid” humans. An example shown in this movie is how in-valid Vincent was a janitor and how valid Anton was able to get a higher job status than Vincent just because of their genetics.
In both cases there are groups of people who feel they are considered “perfect” and have ultimate superiority of all humans. The people who think they are superior do not believe in equality. The higher beings think they have an advantage, and that the 'lower' humans don’t have a chance of having. I believe that the superior humans are the ones who are not genetically engineered. In the passage referring back to the Nazis they felt they were better only because of looks. Other than the example of Jesus in the bible, there isn’t anything written anywhere that describes a perfect human, not only that but Jesus’ looks can be interpreted differently. So no one can be sure of what one is supposed to look or be like. When it comes to the movie you can see that the valid humans don’t always go by what’s in their genetics. In the movie there is a part where the old director speaks of how he doesn’t have a violent gene in his body, yet he was the one who killed the new director, or how Irene has a heart defect, or even the fact that Anton wasn’t able to beat Vincent in the last swimming match. If they were genetically engineered to be perfect those instances wouldn’t have happened.
The humans who are not genetically engineered are better only for the fact that they achieved certain strengths on their own, which may or may not be in their genes but they made it possible. They can make things more possible like how Vincent out swam Anton by the carelessness of his life. He made a lot possible by just simply having the motivation. Other than that I believe they are equal because even though the genetically engineered babies are so-called programmed how the parents want them, they are still humans and have emotions and abilities of change just like anyone else.