They Can Build You
by Steve ThomasA vampire has been calling me on the telephone.
At least once a week I hear his strange voice, thick with the need for my blood demanding “May I speak to Ste-fen Thomas?� The accent is Pittsburgh black, not Transylvania Cartoon, but the terror it inspires is the same.
The sinister voice goes on to demand that I come to the vampires’ lair somewhere in the decadent heart of downtown and allow them to drain a pint of my blood. Of course this being the politically correct modern era the vampires claim not to want my blood for themselves—no, they intend to give it to three other people whom, they say, need it far more than I do.
I find this whole situation rather disconcerting. If someone were to call demanding that I give—say—my TV, or my cat or my furniture to random strangers who claim to want those things at that moment no one would fault me for getting angry. But let me talk back to the Blood Bank—let me have the gall to suggest that the physical components of my body are not something I’m willing to give out randomly to whomever come who may—and I’m as bad as twelve Nazis, three Stalinists and an abortion doctor.
Everyone can use my O-Positive blood, and everyone is convinced that they have a right to.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not being needlessly selfish. If someone I care about were to need my blood I would give it in an instant. But to demand that I give it out to anyone in need of it seems to me to treat human beings as nothing more than complex machines. Repair them and put them back on the assembly line.
It isn’t just me who thinks so. The vampires’ own website says as much:
***
What if it were you: A six year old is undergoing chemotherapy … Another is having a transplant…A worker is severely burned on the job … Who are they? Just a small sample of the people in need of blood products - everyday. What if it were your child? Your mother? your co-worker?… What if it were you?
***
Look at their language: “people in need of blood products.� My blood, one of the substance which composes my self, my existence is “a product.� Not an indivisible part of me—but a product produced by me. If that is the case, then what am I?
To answer that I have two options:
A. I’m an invisible alien waiting to die and return to my homeworld (or if I’ve been bad, the Lava Planet). Choosing this option provides a pretty good incentive for giving up one’s blood, organs, etc, and organizations who believe this often fund blood drives. I don’t think I have to do much to deal with the moral implications of this belief (Mr. Marx having beaten me to the punch by 150 years), except to note that it has been increasingly discredited by the same scientific system that’s brought us blood transfusions.
B. I’m only (or at any rate “primarily� or at least “equally�) this body. This option has two suboptions: 1. I’m this body, which is an unconscious robot tricked into thinking it has a self, or 2. I’m this body, which is a wonderful community of flesh and blood and cells and bacteria. Whichever option you go with, to describe the components of my body as “products�—and more to the point, to use them as such—is to make me a machine. (And of course, it’s not just our “blood products� they want—the Vampires lust after our organs as well.)
I’m fairly certain in any event that this is the reason for the appearance of Option B1: The “ghost in the machine� is losing popularity. But the economic system needs us to be machines of some sort (so that 1. we can be replaced and go back to work and 2. so that we can pay exorbitant amounts of money to the medical industry for rebuilding us), so along come Richard Dawkins and his breed with a new theory: machine without a ghost.
Returning to the website, look at the questions left unasked and unanswered in that quote. What if instead of a poor six-year-old, it’s an adult? Someone who hated me? A rapist—a child abuser—a soldier or cop? For that matter, what if I don’t know this poor innocent six year old—what is my obligation to him? Does he have no friends, no family whatsoever?
Probably he does. But if he doesn’t, it’s not my fault—it’s the fault of this disgustingly individualistic culture. In a decent society this child would be born into a group of people who would protect and nurture him, without being compelled to by the government. Even if I were willing to give this make-believe child blood—certainly not an impossibility—I don’t get to make that choice. The Doctors make it for me. They are the ones who decide where my “blood product� (!!) will go.
This, of course, is the value system of this culture as a whole, reflected in every one of its facets. It’s the same set of values that drives the Christian Right’s “Culture of Life,� where life only means “number of humans produced per year.� It’s the value system of the whole economy, the measure of which is only quantitative (leading to the would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-so-hideously-true joke that the best thing for the economy is a cancer patient going through a rough divorce). And of course, our warped version of medicine, in which humans are taken into bizarre torture chambers, completely isolated from their fellow life and “healed� using industrial poisons and precision-violence.
To refuse to let the vampires steal your life’s blood is to risk being labeled immoral or selfish. Their website clearly states it, as do the reactions of the vampires when you tell them “no.� This is fine: it is okay to violate a moral system which springs from an industrial (read: immoral, inhuman, insane) economy. Trapped by such a moral-economic system I can only echo what Winston said to Julia, “I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.�
I am neither an unconscious robot possessed by delusions of selfhood, nor an invisible alien from Cloud City. I am myself, and all that I consist of is me: multitudinous yet indivisible. On the day I die all that I am will to go others. But it will be my choice: my hope is to come to know intimately the ground in which I will be planted, the beings who will recieve my life.
I just got off the phone with the Blood Bank. I asked them to remove me from their calling list. The woman on the line spoke with a sugary-sweet Southern accent. She said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Thomas. You have a nice day.�
you nazi!
i just got a paper cut
and you werent there for me
with minimum octane rating blood
Comment by Anonymous — 10 June 2005 @ 1:04 AM
I’m guessing you were on the call list because you’ve donated blood previously?
-Jim
Comment by JCamasto — 10 June 2005 @ 1:48 AM
jim–
twice. so if i’m wrong my conscience is cleared anyway, heh.
Comment by Steve Thomas — 11 June 2005 @ 2:07 PM
I am somewhat ashamed to say I read your entire article, and I plan on billing you for the five minutes of my life I wasted on such trivial coochwaddery.
First of all, what gives you the right to your blood? Well, not you. Then who? Why, you don’t know, because you’ve never REALLY been challenged to survive a single day in your life. There have always been streetlights, police officers, pavement, hunters, farmers, feminists, soldiers, children, police officers, dingleberries, pies, cats, houses and goverments to smooth out the bumps in your life.
You’re alive because you’re in the machine. You participate, oil, fuck, give backrubs to, and jerk off on the face of The Man/The Machine/OMG CORPORATE AMERICA.
At this pace, I’m sure you’ll eventually conclude you are a tepid sack of jiggly proteins very painfully and slowly migrating the surface of the planet.
Your mission: Survive.
Your capabilities: Able to Use a Microwave.
Your enemies: Every other organism on the planet.
Your society: The only organization thoughtless enough to try to help you.
Comment by King Of The Housecats — 12 June 2005 @ 9:16 PM
My, my, how presumptuous. Actually, Steve’s more independent of that system than most. How about you, oh mighty king? Are you any less guilty?
Me, I freely admit my hypocrisy. It’s the first step to recovery, I say.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 June 2005 @ 12:24 AM
Whoever that is, they probably know me or my work relatively well, to be using that handle. If this is a friend or family or fan or acquantence of mine–you don’t have to be a coward about disagreeing with me. I use my real name.
(Maybe one day I’ll give a detailed reply to this–but probably not, it’s my usual policy to leave people who completely disagree to their opinions.)
Comment by Steve Thomas — 13 June 2005 @ 3:15 AM
Well, King Of The Housecats’ odd little contribution aside, I have to say that your article does appear to have a few logical flaws. First and foremost I suppose is your comparison of people in need of blood to somebody asking for your TV, your cat, or your furniture. Last time I checked, there wasn’t anybody who needed your TV, your cat, or your furniture to survive. But there are many people who need blood to survive. So the comparison is fundamentally flawed.
Also, your objection to the phrase “blood product” seems to me to be mostly a matter of disliking corporations. The term “product” does not necessarily have to be a product in the marketing sense. A product is anything that is created as a result of some process. Your blood is, in fact, a product created by the combination of cells from your bone marrow. And in this particular context, the phrase “blood product” seems to be mostly a matter of accuracy. Blood banks don’t just give people blood. Often they take the blood you give them and break it down into its constituent parts. And what they give people is that material that is produced from your blood, i.e. blood products.
You talk about how you don’t get to decide where your blood goes, and a few paragraphs later your write, “On the day I die all that I am will to go others. But it will be my choice: my hope is to come to know intimately the ground in which I will be planted, the beings who will recieve my life.” But of course, that’s not entirely true. No matter how well we plan our own deaths, none of us really have any say over what happens to our bodies when we die. We don’t get to decide which worms consume our corpse. Besides which, your body is already falling apart without your permission. Even as we speak, hair follicles are falling away, skin cells are dying and being replaced by new ones. Practically your whole body is in the constant process of dying and rebuilding itself. Yet none of this seems to send you into an existential crisis of self.
According to you, if somebody can’t get blood, “itâ??s the fault of this disgustingly individualistic culture.” I suppose we’ll ignore for the time being the fact that certain types of blood are very rare. What amazes me is that you can criticize individualism in a post that is essentially an ode to the self. After all, you’re you and all that you consist of is you. You don’t owe anybody else anything, right? Nor do you need to listen to what the “industrial economy” says is moral. You can make your own decisions about right and wrong. In other words, what we have here is individual liberty, importance of the individual, self-reliance, and independence. That sounds an awful lot like individualism to me. You do, of course, see the problem, don’t you? If you do have a moral responsibility for others, then you should give your blood. If you do not have such a responsibility, then you are being just as individualistic as the culture you say caused the problem. And since that culture is wrong, you should give your blood.
It’s an interesting read, but I just don’t see how philosophical musings about the nature of the self is more important than saving a person’s life.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 13 June 2005 @ 10:02 AM
“Last time I checked, there wasn’t anybody who needed your TV, your cat, or your furniture to survive.”
Say my food, then, or my money.
“Your blood is, in fact, a product created by the combination of cells from your bone marrow. And in this particular context, the phrase “blood product” seems to be mostly a matter of accuracy. Blood banks don’t just give people blood. Often they take the blood you give them and break it down into its constituent parts. And what they give people is that material that is produced from your blood, i.e. blood products.”
As for this, I think I already thoroughly explained my objection. If you can’t see why the industrialization of the human body is wrong or why I would object to it, I really don’t think we have much to discuss.
“What amazes me is that you can criticize individualism in a post that is essentially an ode to the self.”
Maybe I should have said individualistic economy. Don’t blame me for the shortcomings of the English language. There is a key difference here; we’re talking about two different kinds of individualism. There is an individualism in which individuals mutually work for the needs of each, and there is this sort of individualism, in which some individuals are rewarded at the expense of other individuals, and yet at the personal level this sort of “ethic of replaceability” dominates.
“Rare types of blood.”
Look at what I already said. “it is not impossible that I could be persuaded to give this child blood,” I wrote. Even if I didn’t know her/him. The keys are choice and respect.
“You don’t owe anybody anything, right?”
Did I say this?
I owe a lot of people a lot of things. You probably owe a lot of other people a lot of different things. Some people probably don’t owe anybody anything. I don’t owe anyone anything automatically.
“That sounds an awful lot like individualism to me”
It should. You said it.
“If you do have a moral responsibility for others, then you should give your blood. If you do not have such a responsibility, then you are being just as individualistic as the culture you say caused the problem. ”
This is a false dilemma. I have a responsibility to some others, AS I SAID. Let’s quote me again: “Donâ??t get me wrong. Iâ??m not being needlessly selfish. If someone I care about were to need my blood I would give it in an instant.” Perhaps I should have made this statement a little more clear: since blood transfusion technology exists, I’d be more than willing to take advantage of it where and when I chose to do so. Again, there are some individuals to whom I have a responsibility. There are others to whom I do not.
Do you see the nuance of that? Not “I have a responsibility to others.” That sort of thinking is disrespectful both toward myself AND TOWARD THESE “OTHERS,” who are recieving my help NOT because they are a person I respect and care about and toward whom I have freely entered into a relationship of mutual responsibility, but because some incorporeal outside force told me I HAVE to.
I already made this point. You are choosing to ignore it. AND I made the point that BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THIS SOCIETY many people DO NOT HAVE that kind of support network and that THEREFORE, I WOULD BE WILLING TO DO WHAT I COULD TO HELP THEM if the situation called for it.
“And since that culture is wrong, you should give your blood.”
I don’t need to address this in depth again, but I’m very bothered by your use of authoritarian language here.
“It’s an interesting read, but I just don’t see how philosophical musings about the nature of the self is more important than saving a person’s life.”
There are two issues here: “philosophical musings about the self” and “saving a person’s life.” As for the first, I’ve already addressed it. I shouldn’t have used the word “individualistic” to describe the corporate econoomy. That is their appropriation of the word; it’s not individualistic and it never has been. From its inception industrialism has been based upon destroying individual identity (while, of course, rewarding a few individuals at the expense of many, many more). That is the basis of the system that is killing the planet and I refuse to allow it into my own body.
As for “saving a person’s life”… That’s a bad justification for anything, in my opinion, because any number of things could “save a person’s life,” like outlawing abortion and exterminating snakes spiders and jellyfish, and they’re still wrong. I know you don’t agree with the cases I just mentioned. That’s not the point. The point is in my opinion–and more to the point, in my practice–this is one of those cases. You may have a different opinion and follow a different practice, and that’s fine–I never said “No one should give blood ever.” I never used the word “should” at all. All I ask is the same courtesy.
Comment by Steve Thomas — 13 June 2005 @ 10:40 AM
OK, everybody calm down. Steve, I think you’re reading a lot more commandment into Mike’s comment than he meant. Mike is talking about logic and philosophical ethics. I don’t think he’s really interested in telling you to do one thing or another. He’s much more interested in the reasoning, than in the conclusion. His “shoulds” indicate logical implication, not moral correctness.
Myself, I liked the article. It’s interesting, well-written, and passionately argued. I don’t necessarily agree (in my own case, not giving blood actually causes me physical ailment, as too much iron will get clogged up in my veins … not only do I get to help some miscellaneous someone, I also help myself), but I can see your point.
Perhaps the larger issue which, correct me if I’m wrong but, seems to be underlying your case here as an unspoken assumption…. There is a difference between a love of mankind, and a love of men. Donating blood to a blood bank helps “humanity”; donating blood for your cousin helps a human.
Tribal societies concerned themselves only with humans. They helped the people they knew. They formed a community where they supported one another. That worked very well. That is very evolutionarily stable.
Today, we try to help humanity. We try to stop starvation, disease, homelessness and poverty on a global scale. The result is war, famine, genocide, overpopulation, and catastrophe. A love of humans is sustainable; a love of humanity is the well-intentioned road to hell. Donating to a blood bank is another incarnation of that, asking us to sacrifice ourselves personally for the abstract concept of “humanity” as a whole–so that our species may be spared all ill, and instead enjoy unchecked, eternal, exponential growth. As any tumor should.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 June 2005 @ 11:27 AM
What if your blood doesn’t go to a 6-year-old girl from a poor family? (Like the bloodbank’s sermons go.)What if it goes instead to a selfish bastard who has been treating people around him like dirt all his life and expresses no gratitude towards the fact someone compassionately give up part of his body for him?
Comment by Bram Janssen — 16 June 2005 @ 3:17 AM
Sweet six year olds can grow up to be serial killers; and selfish bastards can see the error of their ways and change their life. So I take Gandalf’s advice: “Many live who deserve to die. Some die who deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be so quick to deal out death and judgment; even the very wise cannot see all ends.” True geeks may even recall that this was in context of discussing Bilbo’s pity sparing the wretched creature, Gollum. Gollum ends up being one of the most vile, treacherous, deceitful villains Frodo faces: but in the end, when Frodo’s strength fails, it’s Gollum’s greed and lust that winds up saving Middle Earth.
So, I have no more problem saving selfish bastards as I do saving little girls. It’s not for me to determine who should live and who should die, and I’m not sure if a selfish bastard’s claim to life is any more or less valid than a 6-year-old girl from a poor family.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 16 June 2005 @ 8:16 AM
Okay, let’s say that. Would you be offended if someone were to ask you to donate food to the hungry? Or money to the poor? Maybe you would, but I don’t think the majority of us would respond the same way.
But my point is that just because we happen to associate the word “product” with capitalism does not mean that these people are “industrializing the human body.” As far as I can tell, you’re simply reading too much into a phrase that was used mostly for the sake of accuracy.
Okay, well now I just have no idea what you mean when you talk about “individualism.”
And they’re asking you to make a choice. It’s not as though somebody’s holding a gun to your head. You’re perfectly free to say no.
My point was just that saying that it’s society’s fault if someone doesn’t happen to know anybody who can give them blood is probably an oversimplification. There are other factors that come into play.
From an ethical point of view, however, what makes people you know any more important than those you don’t know? Is your entire view of morality based solely on subjects’ relation to yourself?
Authoritarian language? Yes, soon I will crush the entire world under the jackbooted heel of normative ethics!
These situations aren’t equivalent, though. Outlawing abortion may help some people. But it would also do alot of harm. Same with exterminating snakes, spiders, and jellyfish. Giving blood isn’t the same thing. It’s pretty clear cut. This is something that’s going purely toward medical purposes.
Somehow, I don’t think you can compare donating blood to what happened in Rwanda. The problem is not that we have people who want to help humanity. The problem is that most of the people who want to help humanity aren’t doing it. If everybody who wanted to help humanity actually was helping humanity, we’d be in great shape.
I’m sure if you were the one in need of a blood transfusion, you wouldn’t be looking at the blood bank as a “tumor.”
Comment by Mike Godesky — 16 June 2005 @ 3:51 PM
Sure I would. The “tumor” reference was to our unchecked, exponential growth, as recklessly ignorant of its host and its host’s health as any cancer cell. Like cancer, we grow unabated. Like cancer, this is because we no longer recognize ourselves as belonging to a larger system. Like cancer, this course is ultimately lethal–to ourselves, if not our host.
The reason we have global warming, a mass extinction event on our hands, and are looking long and hard down the barrel of our own gruesome extinction is because there are 6.5 billion of us: a totally unsustainable state of affairs. And that’s due to our philanthropy. We love humanity, and we act on it. None of us ever die, but more are constantly born. We rush food and medicine where it is needed. The efforts of our entire species even out all shortfalls with charity, to ensure that there is never a plague or famine. Like the U.S. forestry service’s anti-fire programs of the 1980s, this well-intentioned road to hell has set the stage for an inevitable catastrophe far worse than any of the shortfalls we bridged previously. Rwanda is a microcosm; it’s the end result when we swoop in with our help to keep people from starving to death. The population goes up, and then the genocide begins. Ultimately, all our philanthropy accomplishes is a far greater disaster, postponed slightly into the future.
It’s the same attitude behind giving blood. Loving your flesh-and-blood neighbor is sustainable; an abstract love of humanity is not. The selfish gene is the cornerstone of life, and though altruism can develop as a great way to attain our selfish ends, it’s not sustainable when we extend its benefits to the abstract level of our entire species, benevolently protecting people we’ve never met.
I’m not arguing it’s ethical, except that the long-term consequences of philanthropy are far worse than the short-term benefits. I’m arguing that it’s unsustainable, and the root cause of our current crisis. We refuse to countenance any of the natural up-and-down of life. We want to go up, always up, all the time. We don’t ever want to taste down. Keep going that way long enough, and you run into the sun.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 16 June 2005 @ 4:15 PM
Not to give blood means one has no expectation of receiving it.
Comment by Jon S. — 25 June 2005 @ 4:58 PM
This is the stupidest thing I have seen on the Internet in over 6 days. Congratulations. If you don’t want to give blood don’t. Tell them you have low blood pressure or poor circulation or just to fuck off and that they should take you off their call list. You want a Nobel prize in thinkology for not giving blood? Sounds like you are ‘fraid of needles and you want to reason yourself out of guilt.
By the way, if you ever get critically injured you can only receive O blood. Maybe someone out there will have been “individualistic” enough to have dropped a pint for you.
As opposed to treating them like disposable flashlights?
Like I said, stupidest thing in 6 days.
Comment by Oh My Freakin' God! — 24 July 2005 @ 11:42 PM