Movie Review – Gattaca (In the age of genetic engineering, can customizable humans find true happiness?)

As mothers and fathers fight over their children’s superior genes, the film Gattaca compares the happiness of genetically engineered, customized humans and natural humans. Custom humans are created by parental choice and cannot experience the joy of self-actualization and can lose their true humanity. Natural humans, on the other hand, find true happiness through their own experiences and efforts, and find meaning in life through the process of discovering their unique selves.

 

There are arguments that mothers and fathers have with their children that are not the usual arguments. “She’s just like you,” a mother says when her child gets low test scores. “You’re smart because you inherited your mom’s brains, but you don’t study because you’re like your dad.” And my father says “What do you mean, she’s smart because she looks like me, but she doesn’t study because she’s lazy because she looks like you.” Each claims that they passed on their good genes to their child, and that their spouse passed on their bad genes to their child. When will this seemingly futile, poison-pour-water-on-a-hole argument end?
In the movie Gattaca, we are introduced to a world where these arguments can be resolved, or where they won’t even happen. Thanks to the development of genetics and biotechnology, it is now possible to select only the best genotypes of a husband and wife and create genetically perfect children through artificial insemination. Genetically superior children can be born to the parents’ liking. With the current state of science and technology, this is not very feasible right now, but it is not impossible. Let’s say the time comes for this fascinating idea of personalized human reproduction. If we were given the choice between a customized human and a natural human, which one would we choose to live as? Before making that decision, it’s important to consider what type of human would be happiest.
First, let’s take a look at what happiness means to humans. According to the dictionary, happiness is the feeling or state of having sufficient satisfaction and joy in life. There are many moments when we feel satisfied and joyful. We are happy when our basic physiological needs are met, such as when we eat food when we are very hungry, or when we get a good night’s sleep after a long day of work. This is the kind of low-level happiness that humans need to survive. The difference between humans and animals is that humans are capable of feeling and pursuing higher-level happiness. We are happy when long-held desires are realized through persistent effort, when we discover abilities we didn’t know we had, and when we are loved and loved by others as human beings. In light of this higher level of happiness, let’s consider the lives of a customized human and a natural human.
Customizable humans are unhappy from the start. Natural humans are the happy result of the sublime love between a woman and a man. It is a blessing from God that men and women confirm their love for each other. “In Gattaca, the main character Vincent is a natural human being, whose parents conceived him while making love in a car. Vincent’s brother Anton, on the other hand, is a customized human being, created by artificial insemination. His parents did not make love to see him. Instead, they extracted an egg and sperm and fertilized them in a test tube. Instead of a sacred union between a man and a woman, a man and a woman in their own space, an artificial, forced union with cold surgical instruments in a hospital. Which child will parents give more love to?

 

 

In the movie, Vincent and Anton’s parents give more love to Anton because he is genetically superior. But if I were the parents in the movie, I would have raised Vincent with more love. When you look at Vincent, you think of all the time and memories you and your spouse have spent together to create him, and he feels like a godsend. Anton, on the other hand, doesn’t bring back fond memories of what it took to create him. The only memories you have are of traveling to and from clinics and talking to doctors about IVF. He doesn’t have the grace of God, only the grace of doctors. It’s no wonder we don’t feel as attached to an IVF child as we do to a child conceived naturally. Even if the paintings we created as children with passion and effort are inferior in artistic value and workmanship to those of master painters, they are more precious and more beautiful to us because we made them ourselves.
In a capitalist society, material abundance has become a factor in happiness. Being materially rich guarantees a higher chance of survival in a capitalist society. If you don’t have money, you don’t eat well and you don’t sleep well. Money is just a means to fulfill basic human physiological needs. In this case, the happiness that comes from material abundance is basic happiness, or happiness on a lower level. A person who wins the lottery is obviously happy because he is materially enriched, but the fact that he wins the lottery does not mean that he has achieved a higher level of happiness because he has not achieved self-actualization through his own efforts or development of his abilities.
Humans find themselves through life. Through relationships with other human beings in society, education, and self-realization, we find our identity and realize ourselves, feel happiness, and enjoy the taste of life. This is the privilege of human beings and a high level of happiness that only human beings can enjoy. In this sense, human life is a process of constant exploration and striving for self-realization, regardless of material abundance. Let’s compare human life to a treasure hunt. Treasure hunting is a process that combines two elements: the treasure and the search. There is no treasure without the act of searching, and there is no treasure without the object of the search. Treasure is connected to human self-realization. The search is connected to our search for self-realization.
Natural humans do not know the location of the treasure, so they constantly strive and explore to find it. Sometimes they are frustrated and suffer from the bitter taste of failure, but through the sincere comfort and love of their loved ones, they get back on their feet, move forward again, and find the treasure. When they find the treasure, it has an irreplaceable value to natural humans. Furthermore, the process of finding the treasure is itself humanizing.
The life of a customized human is like going on a treasure hunt with a treasure map. The treasure map doesn’t show the location of all the treasures, but it does show the location of at least one treasure. But is the treasure you find by following the treasure map really worth the treasure? A treasure hunt that follows a treasure map to find treasure is not a treasure hunt at all. It’s not a treasure hunt, it’s a treasure claim, which means it’s not a human life.
Customizable humans are like factory-made machines. They are machines that have been customized to the specifications of their genes, so they already know what their aptitudes or abilities are before they even realize them. In “Gattaca,” there’s a pianist with six fingers. He plays a piece of music that can only be played with six fingers and receives great applause. He is a customized human being who was not given six fingers by God, but by his parents. Does he feel happy playing the piano? He doesn’t play the piano because he has six fingers, he has six fingers to play the piano. And he didn’t make that choice, his parents did. He will never be happy because he has established a self-identity that he is nothing more than a machine that plays the piano well. A customized human being who cannot enjoy the joy of discovering and developing his abilities is no longer a human being, but a mechanical part of society.

 

 

Of course, it is possible for a customized human to reject life as a mechanical part of society and live a life in search of their own identity. However, will they be willing to abandon the treasure they have found and go in search of new treasures? Once they know where the treasure is, they will not go to the trouble of digging in vain to find it. This ties in with the fact that custom humans are less willing to seek out the self. They are more likely to miss the opportunity to find a treasure that is more valuable than the one they have. Another reason why custom humans have fewer opportunities to find themselves than natural humans is that their upbringing is tailored to them. Their parents have customized them against their will, and their education will be tailored to suit their intentions. For example, the parents of the six-fingered pianist in the movie would have wanted him to play the piano from a young age. This is because his parents wanted to create a human being customized to be a pianist. This kind of parental involvement can hinder a child’s ability to find their own self. The parents of natural humans also shape their child’s education to some extent according to their wishes, but to a lesser extent than the parents of custom humans. Natural humans are able to find their own path in a relatively diverse educational environment.
Let’s say you have a natural human and a customized human who have the same extreme abilities. Given a treasure of equal value, would you choose the life of the natural human or the customized human, where you look at a treasure map and go to get the treasure? Would you choose to live a life where you strive without a treasure map and eventually find the joy and happiness of finding the treasure? If we want to be truly human, I think the answer is already determined.
True happiness in the life of a natural human being has a depth and meaning that can never be achieved in the life of a customized human being. Natural humans grow through their own experiences and endeavors, overcoming their limitations and discovering new possibilities. This process has great meaning and value in itself, and gives them a real sense of purpose and direction in life. On the other hand, customized humans, due to their predetermined abilities and aptitudes, are unable to experience the various possibilities of life and feel the joy of discovering their own unique self. From this perspective, true human happiness lies in self-actualization, which is achieved through one’s own unique experiences and efforts.

 

 

Therefore, we should not be afraid of the various challenges and difficulties we encounter in life, but should value growing and developing through the process. Choosing to live as a natural human being, rather than a customized human being, is the way to pursue our true humanity, and it will allow us to live a better life.