The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form

by J. Neil Schulman

  The above methods to preselect sex of children, which I researched and invented, have received worldwide recognition. The scientific and medical communities accept this research to be reliable and repeatable. Gynecologists in clinical practice now acknowledge sex preselection as a reproductive choice available to their patients.

  The reality of sex selection on a clinical basis has brought out concern over the possible imbalance in the sex ratio. Sociological research of two decades ago clearly showed a preference for a first-born male. Present-day sociologists, demographers, bioethicists, and reporters voice concern over the "impending" male preference, now that a methodology can change a desired choice into reality.

  But, is the desire for a first-born male going to be fulfilled?

  It would seem not, for several reasons.

  First, the attitudes about male preference have changed a lot in the past twenty-five years. Second, couples who use our method to produce a son almost always choose to do so only after having had one or more daughters. Less than one out of every 100 couples seek a sex-selected, first-born son. When the furor dies down--or the smoke clears, or call it what you will--over sex selection, then rational thoughts will prevail. The majority of couples, in developed countries, wish to restrict the number of children and would, given the opportunity, like to have at least one child of each sex.

  It comes as a jolt to the image makers and keepers of statistics that 52 percent of the requests we receive for a sex- selected child are for girls. This percentage runs contrary to their dogma and personal bias. They do not like to believe that such a high percent of couples would seek a daughter. This high desire for girls runs counter to their predictions of biological disaster due to an imbalance of the sexes.

  My granddaughter, Marie, is aged three. When she reaches the age when most women bear children, sex selection will be no more controversial than microwave ovens are now.

  I have been accused of opening Pandora's box. Instead of opening Pandora's box, we have stimulated many scientists and institutions to initiate research in the field of male reproductive biology. The success-is-contagious syndrome is definitely at work here. None of the critics, however, go so far as to criticize anything that improves the quality of life. The preselection of X and Y sperm is only one of many facets of this field of research. Nobel prizes are awarded to discoverers of antibiotics and other breakthroughs that enhance people's lives. The field of male reproduction has now been primed, and the public will soon be the recipients of this research.

  We of the modern world frequently get caught up in our own hype. Particularly, the successes in the fields of electronics and computers have given us the impression that comparable results should be forthcoming in medicine. Organ transplants, artificial hearts, test-tube babies, and the like get considerable media attention. It should be remembered that even though the media hypes these as breakthroughs, the numbers and successes are few. To work out a system whereby the human female can conceive from a sex-preselected sperm with a reasonable degree of efficiency is no small task indeed.

  All countries, except the People's Republic of China, allow couples Free Choice in parenthood and number of children. It should remain the right of couples to have a sex-selected child. World population increase has been a major concern of governments for a number of decades. A lot of children born are the direct result of their parents seeking a child of one sex. To eliminate unwanted children would be effective family planning and, in part, sex selection serves this end.

  I do not forsee a large imbalance between the sexes due to the widespread use of sex-selection technology. Nor do I forsee that a high percentage of couples will use such technology, particularly for the first born. I do forsee more clinical use of technology whereby sperm are preselected to reduce the incidence of conceiving a genetically handicapped child. Finally, I am certain that this field of male reproductive biology will expand rapidly within the next two decades, and yield positive results beyond our present knowledge.

  GREEN

  TWO ADVOCATES OF REASON:

  AYN RAND AND C.S. LEWIS

  by Brad Linaweaver

  Brad Linaweaver is a libertarian writer whose science fiction novella, "Moon of Ice," was praised by Robert A. Heinlein and a final nominee for the 1983 Nebula Award; the novel version of Moon of Ice received endorsements from Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and William F. Buckley, and won the Prometheus Award for Best Libertarian Novel in 1989. He has also published nonfiction on political topics in The New Guard.

  Since he wrote this afterword, Brad has hit the best seller lists as co-author of the Doom series of novels, is author of Sliders: The Novel, based on the popular TV show, and is co-editor of the libertarian science-fiction anthology Free Space, coming in hardcover from Tor books in June, 1997.

  His young-adult novel The Land Beyond Summer was released through Pulpless.Comtm in 1996.--JNS, 1996

  Some things just don't go together: such as Count Dracula and communion wafers, or Turkish coffee in an Armenian restaurant. Another culinary unlikelihood, certainly indigestible as the foregoing, would be the philosophical alignment of Ayn Rand and C. S. Lewis. In what conceivable manner could a fire-and-brimstone Atheist and a High Church Christian find common ground? It takes a novel as unusual as The Rainbow Cadenza to provide an answer, and a tasty one it is.

  At this point, it is appropriate to congratulate Schulman on his presentation of an intellectual issue in a novel, thereby violating one of the sacred rules of modern-formula-crap-fiction. He dares interrupt the narrative flow for the expression of mere ideas! The dialogue between Hill Bromley and Joan Darris, in which the Rand/Lewis matter comes into focus, is the sort of exchange one might expect from intelligent people, but the High Priests of the modern novel decree that all must be copied from real life--except interesting conversation which, apparently, they've never heard.

  The differences between Rand and Lewis are many and obvious; the similarities, however, are essential: as Schulman has Bromley say, "There were two main exponents of rationalism in the twentieth century..." and then, having identified our heroes, goes on to praise their mastery of deductive logic and admirable talent for "creating metaphors to explain abstract philosophy."

  Here let Rand and Lewis speak for themselves. In her book, Philosophy: Who Needs It, Rand makes this point: "Now ask yourself: If you are not interested in abstract ideas, why do you (and all men) feel compelled to use them?" Words from the same universe belong to C. S. Lewis, writing in his book, God in the Dock: "Human intellect is incurably abstract." Neither had much use for the anti-intellectualism so in fashion in this, the most timid of all ages. Both realized that pragmatism is only useful for dealing with means, but provides no guide whatsoever for ends.

  Whatever their differences, neither would appreciate the minds that have taken over much of science fiction--supposedly a literature of ideas--with one guiding principle directing their every move: "Whatever you do, DON'T PREACH, DON'T HAVE A MESSAGE, DON'T TELL YOUR READERS ANYTHING--ONLY SHOW THEM." Anyone acquainted with abstract reasoning knows that some things cannot be "shown," but only "told." And nobody, but nobody, could weave a tapestry of fiction that performed both tasks better than the feisty lady from Russia and the patient gentleman from Ireland.

  Schulman identifies the epistemological distinction that led Rand and Lewis to different metaphysical country. Rand denied that emotions could be tools of cognition; Lewis insisted that they were legitimate guides. Surely thinkers inhabiting such different premises would not enjoy the same view from their picture windows, except that they often did! As Bromley tries to explain to Darris, morality was an area where this Atheist and this Christian shared, at the very least, an emotional affinity.

  They saw the same Evil. Look at the villainous bureaucrats of N.I.C.E. in Lewis's That Hideous Strength, or their counterparts in charge of Project X in Rand's Atlas Shrugged. These writers frequently observed that evil is an emptiness that can only be temporarily filled by drain
ing the good. Compare the views of Ellsworth Toohey in Rand's The Fountainhead to those of the Demons in Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, or the description of Hell as "smaller than one pebble of your earthly world" in Lewis's The Great Divorce. From the same book we have this statement about the good: "But it will not, at the cunning tears of Hell, impose on good the tyranny of evil." Sounds like Rand's sanction of the victim in Atlas Shrugged, doesn't it? And Lewis: "Every disease that submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not call blue yellow to please those who insist on still having jaundice ...." Aristotle would be pleased.

  Yet their art was hardly limited to morbid dissections of wickedness. In portraying the good, there were surprising convergences as well. Compare the description of John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, his face without pain or fear or guilt (remember?), to the suggestion of what salvation really means in Lewis's Till We Have Faces.

  The cleverness of what Schulman has done is to realize that "Saint Clive" Lewis's approach to Christianity was original enough (or old enough, if you prefer) to merit its own sect in the future. The modest Lewis would be put out by this, no doubt, but Saints don't decide their own Sainthood ... outside of Rand's Objectivism.

  Lewis proved that a belief in the supernatural does not have to violate the Law of Identity. A is A, even among ghosts. Rand's assertion that the universe is not a haunted house is beside the point. Kant's irrationalism derives no comfort from either proposition.

  J. Neil Schulman is not playing a game in semantics by raising this topic. Lovers of liberty sometimes forget that where a person begins (in his head) is less important than where he ends (as your neighbor). Rand and Lewis would have made good neighbors.

  Rand's egoism may have been strident, but it was always high-minded, never simple self-centeredness. She worshipped integrity. It was not her fault that manipulators twisted her ideas from The Virtue of Selfishness into an odious formula for Winning Through Intimidation. Can you imagine a face without guilt intimidating its way through life? Rand deserved better than this.

  As for C. S. Lewis, he was the Christian who, in one of his most powerful works of fantasy, has a demon describe the underside of modern democracy as, "... slavery is restored, and the individual is told that he has really willed (though he didn't know it) whatever the Government tells him to do." This is also the Christian who wrote, "... it is better to love the self than to love nothing."

  Ayn Rand and C. S. Lewis were honest individualists in a despicable period of rampant collectivism. The Rainbow Cadenza tells us, and shows us, that if there is any hope left in the future, these two will have helped provide it.

  YELLOW

  FEMINISM, AUTONOMY AND LIBERTARIANISM

  by Sharon Presley, Ph.D.

  Executive Director

  Resources for Independent Thinking

  Sharon Presley received her doctorate in social psychology from the City University of New York, where her mentor was the late Stanley Milgram, author of the classic Obedience to Authority that documented the famous experiments in which the majority of ordinary people were willing--on the authority of only a lab-coated "researcher"--to give supposedly painful electrical shocks to an experimental subject (actually another researcher faking being shocked). Dr. Presley later conducted her own research on the other side of the coin: resistance to authority, particularly among women.

  A libertarian activist for many years, Presley is former National Coordinator of the Association of Libertarian Feminists, and this afterword is a revised version of a discussion paper she wrote for the ALF.--JNS, 1996

  "The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither in the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman's soul."

  --Emma Goldman in "The Tragedy of Women's Emancipation"

  If a woman said to you, "I want to be free from the domination of men," but turned to a tyrannical husband not only for financial support but for decisions about her own personal and social life, you would undoubtedly consider her inconsistent. Yet that is what many feminists are doing on a political level. They say they want to be free of the domination of men, but ask for favors and handouts (for example, government day-care centers) from a government of men. They say they reject the authoritarian ways of thinking and acting that have characterized men throughout history, but turn around and advocate the same old authoritarian methods that men have always used--compulsory taxation and more government controls.

  But there is a non-authoritarian alternative--a philosophy that not only has goals compatible with the psychological goals of feminism but methods more compatible with these goals than the alternatives usually touted by feminists. That philosophy is libertarianism.

  Some libertarians advocate a strictly limited non-coercive government; others are anarchists. Some advocate voluntary communism (communal ownership of the means of production), others are individualists and advocate a totally free market (as distinguished from the corrupt State corporate capitalism that we now have). But what unites them all is the belief that all social interactions should be voluntary, that no one has the right to rule another, that individuals have the right to live their lives as they see fit so long as they don't initiate force against others.

  Feminists want women to be free psychologically--free of the domination of men, free to control their bodies and psyches as they see fit. Libertarians want all individuals to be free-- politically as well as psychologically--free to make their own decisions about their own lives independently of the coercive domination of others.

  Libertarians believe that we can't achieve a non- authoritarian society by authoritarian methods. If our goals are personal autonomy and individual freedom, we can't achieve these goals by taking away individuals' rights to choose for themselves. A feminist advocating anti-obscenity laws is no better than a conservative advocating anti-abortion laws. If we pass laws that force our values on others, we are no better than men who have forced their values on us through legislation. We merely substitute our tyranny for the tyranny of men.

  Libertarians refuse to play political power games. They want to get rid of laws, not to pass them. They are not interested in stopping people from smoking pot, from having abortions or having babies, or from spending their money as they see fit. Libertarians just want to leave people alone.

  Libertarians would remind conservatives who wish to deny a woman's self-ownership of her own body by restricting abortion that, as Schulman portrays, a State powerful enough to prevent abortions is also powerful enough to force abortions. Once the right of self-ownership is denied, the State is the new owner of a woman's body. Likewise, libertarians would remind liberals that a State powerful enough to tax for domestic programs is also powerful enough to tax for foreign adventures.

  Feminists are fond of saying, "the personal is the political," but have often failed to see some of the levels on which that is true. They have not carried feminist philosophical premises to the logical political conclusions. They have not been willing to recognize that power over others is as destructive on a political level as it is on a personal level-- nor is it in any way necessary.

  Feminist psychiatrist Jean Baker Miller, M.D., in her insightful book, Toward a New Psychology of Women, declares that women who have power over themselves do not need power over others. "In a basic sense," she writes, "the greater the development of each individual the more able, more effective and less needy of limiting or restricting others she or he will be."

  But the alternatives that many feminists advocate-- Liberalism or Socialism or Marxism--are just variations on the same familiar theme: power over others. Taking decision-making out of the hands of individuals and putting it into the hand of a centralized, bureaucratic State. Liberals may let a woman have an abortion (government-regulated, of course), but think they know better than she does how to spend her money and will take it by force. What they are advocating is the worst sort of paternalism. Some even want to equalize the oppression by having a Compulsory National S
ervice for women as well as men. As The Rainbow Cadenza demonstrates with a reductio ad absurdum, this isn't gaining equal rights but perpetuating slavery--equal or not.

  Socialists think they'll make us free by doing away with the power of business monopolies by substituting one big monopoly instead--the government. As Lenny Bruce once said, that would be one Big Telephone Company--and even the government finally had to admit that this didn't work very well.

  Marxists are no better: they have party structures that are every bit as centralized and authoritarian as the ideologies they criticize.

  All are based on the same authoritarian model as the patriarchal family. Decision-making is centralized in an authority figure--in one case, the father; in the others, the politicians, or President, or central committee. Involuntary means are used to induce obedience--either psychological or cultural pressures or the threat of physical force. The rationale for the role-behaviors is essentially the same--that it serves "the good of the whole," whether it be the family or society.

  When someone else controls the power and the money, there are always strings attached. What the government finances it controls. There is no historical basis for assuming that government is suddenly going to be any different with a new crop of politicians. The system is inherently authoritarian and no Liberal palliatives or Socialist edict can change it in any basic way.

  Feminists, because of their acute awareness of the destructiveness of authoritarianism, should be eager to join with libertarians in exploring non-authoritarian, non-coercive alternatives to government. We are learning to break free of patriarchy politically as well as psychologically. We don't need it either way.

  ORANGE