So far I think the hardest part about junior theme has been coming up with a direction/focus of my paper and my thesis idea. I have been finding lots of articles and at first I was a little overwhelemed about all the information I had and how to narrow it and make connections with all of it. I have found lots of articles about the history of eugenics in the US, but I am still looking for more articles about genetic engineering in our society today. I am also reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which is very pertinent to my topic. It is fairly disturbing but really good!
The question my paper is centered on is why are we trying to engineer the composition of American society? And my tentative answer to that question is: While historically the American goverment has tried to shape the characteristics of society in order to maintain a certain image of America, today engineering (need a different word there) is occuring on an individual basis because we strive for perfection. I know that this is a little wordy right now and there are some words I need to change to make it a little clearer. I want my paper to reflect the fact that, in the past, the government set in place certain laws and restrictions because they were trying to control how are country looked - they wanted it to be "white", "intelligent", and "American". The laws were all set in place for the improvement of society as a whole. Now however, most people would agree that using eugenics to shape society such as allowing all humans to design their children, would not be a good idea for society and could possibly reflect a distopia (like in Brave New World). Yet, on an individual basis, parents are competitive. And they want what's best for their child. They strive to create the best baby they can, and if technologies could make their baby prettier, smarter, more athletic... why wouldn't they?
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