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Chimeras oppose the 'naturalness' of the world and in doing so challenge human identity juxtaposing science with morality, and self with other. The following paper treats The island of Dr Moreau (Wells, H.G.1896) as remaining contemporary in its relevance to science fiction and, briefly mentions, the Alien franchise (Alien 1979, Aliens 1986, Alien 3 1992, Alien: Resurrection 1997) to relate the anxiety faced by cultural masculinity when confronted with social chimera. Following Pendrick's experiences on the island this paper parallels his response to a culture contrary to the hegemonic order he had previously occupied, this same effect is mirrored in Kane as he becomes host to the alien offspring. The chimera is a multi-faceted creature comprised of different entities, some with human qualities, and symbolically it may be interpreted as a gender redefining image. This image rebukes the ontological values and prestige of the socially dominant ideology and dispenses alternative markers for power. Weiss' statement that “Monsters symbolize alterity and difference in extremis. They manifest the plasticity of the imagination and the catastrophes of the flesh” supports a consideration of the mutability of gender in the plasticity of chimeric orientation. The chimera can appear as a scientific development of the fragmented subject, common to early 19th century Gothic, amalgamating parts that are not envisioned as a harmonised whole by, and within, society. The 'normative', termed by Judith Butler, is antagonised by the appearance of intelligible gender yet as seen through Pendricks eyes the normative “takes its colour from the average hue of our surroundings” (Ch. 15). The predominant issue with any classification of gender is its attempts to categorise an entirely subjective and ever changing set of circumstances. McAleenan's comment “why does it matter if men are bisexual or not? Whether they are largely gay but just haven't accepted the fact yet, or largely straight with a touch of gay thrown in” demonstrates social attempts to classify sexuality. The orientation of a person may transmute due to a myriad of psychological circumstance, it may be a genetic predisposition, creating concerns surrounding the appropriation of foreign genes during chimeric vivisection. This fluctuating circumstance, however caused, is best seen through the work of Delueze & Guattari who consider the subject as a non-entity, 'a series of flows, energies, movements and capacities, a series of fragments or segments capable of being linked together in ways other than those that congeal it into an identity' (Grosz, E. 1994. A thousand tiny sexes. In: Rizzo, T. The 'Alien' series: A deleuzian perspective. pp.1). This amorphous category can be witnessed with Theodor Holm Nelson's interpretation of 'the simulation of hierarchy and the simulation of paper' in data architecture ( Nelson, T. 2004. A Cosmology for a Different Computer Universe: Data Model, Mechanisms, Virtual Machine and Visualization Infrastructure). Any form of sequential hierarchical definitions are fundamentally flawed in their purpose. The classification of people into demographics is only one means social narratives self-perpetuate and define gender identities. The chimera, in contrast, provokes the binary notions of masculinity and femininity, human and non-human, and creates within itself a catastrophe of the human-other classification. It is from humanity's ubiquitous, and almost pathological, need for classification that all gender issues arise; in whatever system classifications are utilised, segmentation and value are arbitrarily denoted. The chimera propagates a set of unique problems within classification; at what point does a homoeopathic, hypothetical creature become a member to the species of which its genetics have been assimilated? That is to say, genetically we are all different, so at what point does this variance become intersected into newer versions of human? An extra appendage is a biological anomaly but the person is still human, the cross pollination of embryonic blood results in human chimera (as dubbed in medicinal fields) and yet these 'chimera' remain entirely human. H.G. Wells writing in 1896 preceded the science and created, within The island of Dr Moreau, a juxtaposition of advancing physical eugenics against the reluctance of advancing a harmonising social ideology. As much as the Beast-Folk may, in postcolonial terms, be sub-alterns they are also in contemporary terms representative of a group disavowed acceptance of full sexual autonomy. During the exposition of Dr Moreau in chapter 14 he is narrated as saying 'Very much indeed of what we call moral education, [...] is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion.' [my emphasis]. These notions of a perversion of instinct are applicable to those identifying themselves as homosexual, lesbian or transgender. The natural instinct is instead labelled as unnatural and subsequently modification must take place to maintain the normative values of the pseudo morally-driven, patriarchal society. The social context driving the unnaturalness argument can be debated as either an intrinsic or extrinsic objection. Extrinsically, the wrongfulness of something unnatural appears in the effects it may have on the eco-system or environment it occupies. The intrinsic objections stem from religious prerogatives as thought by John Stuart Mill “The consciousness that whatever man does to improve his condition is in so much a censure [...] to be generally at first under a shade of religious suspicion; as being in any case uncomplimentary, and very probably offensive to the powerful [being(s)]” (1847) to, in recent times, other forms of hegemonic opposition (Baker, G. 2014. Farrall, L. A. 1985. Searle, G.R. 1976). The religious enmity to social eugenics finds its own roots within the patriarchal hierarchy that has arisen throughout history to subjugate the sexual autonomy of women. Simone de Beauvoir in The second sex (1949) highlighted the otherness of women as institutionalised relatives to the dominant male. Critics of her work such as Stevie Smith and Francis Jeanson accused her of 'unconscious misogyny' representing herself almost as a woman transcended from the struggle of womanhood (Bair In: Beauvoir, 1989). I feel as though Beauvoir's introduction describes a project undertaken with an air of rationalism converted into study of social consciousness. Her summation of some woman's need to 'deny feminine weakness' or 'lay claim to masculine consideration and respect' (xx) describes objectively the process through which the masculine quality needs to be addressed. However any threat to this communion between men and power, when classified, begins to be subverted and constrained within the phallocentric language system. Beauvoir's attempts to study the 'historical situations which made alterity possible in the first place and what circumstances made it legitimate'(xii) comparatively broke down the value systems of colonial oppression and applied 'othering' to women. A woman, in the freudian sense, is always relegated as an absence of the phallus symbolically denies her a sense of subjectivity and instead relates more to the position of ‘object’. The chimera opposes this denial by being able to add potentially more phalluses to the individual and hence create a subject of greater importance than the singular man. The man in relation to the chimera becomes only an object, part of, and not the overarching whole. This shift of power denotes a level of anxiety in the male ego, attributing the chimera a situation of man 'plus something' (to which I use the neologism Male+) Having experienced the symbolic culture of the Male+ chimera in that of the Beast folk, Pendrick's own place in society is challenged, he becomes, ironically, “almost as queer to men as I had been to the Beast People”(Ch.22). Embodying the chimera as a metaphor for sexual or gender ambiguity relates interpretatively an abjection within the masculine identity. Bi-sexual males are not ubiquitously considered a superior quality of man despite their erotically diverse interests and yet, unsurprisingly, the bi-sexual female is idolised as being of higher value than her heterosexual counterpart. The reification of woman to woman sexuality is not a threat to the male prestige system and, if anything, creates a situation in which more prestige can be acquired through the male domination of multiple partners simultaneously. Interestingly it has been remarked of late that women are more adaptable sexually than men, Dr McClintock who led the study noted, “Having flexible sexual attractions may grant greater importance to contextual and experiential factors when it comes to sexual identity” ("The Social Context of Sexual Identity," Aug. 25, 2015. Chicago. In Knapton, 2015). It would not be without merit to draw comparisons between the chimera and female sexual identity as both being indicative of the Male+ demographic. The chimera, representative of an unnaturalness in nature, draws the parallel to feminine appropriation of non-feminine value systems and just as the bi-sexual male challenges masculine notions of sexual prestige so too does the feminine cultural autonomy unease the 'naturalness' of male dominance. Pendrick faces this dissolution of hegemony as the 'Law' begins to be subverted by bestial instinct and “females—began to disregard the injunction of decency, deliberately for the most part. Others even attempted public outrages upon the institution of monogamy” (Ch.21). It is not entirely a matter of unnaturalness that presents hegemony with issue, humans are indoctrinated with societal values from birth much as the Beast people “had certain fixed ideas implanted by Moreau in their minds, which absolutely bounded their imaginations” and were “told [..] that certain things were not to be done” (Ch.15). This subjective conscience, the 'big other', promotes a tolerance for order descended from authoritative figures. The fear of a chimera may be grounded in the dissolution of these authorial laws as the chimera itself contains laws not of the same species. Once exposed to the Island, Pendrick's return to society holds a new fear as the conceptualisations of the chimera have transgressed the mythological imagination and become symbolically conjoined to the real. I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation of the Islanders will be played over again on a larger scale. I know this is an illusion; that these seeming men and women about me are indeed men and women,—men and women for ever, perfectly reasonable creatures, full of human desires and tender solicitude, emancipated from instinct and the slaves of no fantastic Law,—beings altogether different from the Beast Folk. (Ch.22) What alienates the humans from the Beast Folk is an 'emancipation from instinct' or what could be described, at least in part, as 'Human dignity'. This nebulous term regarding 'the possession of certain morally valuable cognitive and emotive capacities' (Streiffer, R. 2014) constrains the chimeric values which I have already attributed to the Male+ construct. By appropriating the terminology to cultural ends the human-nonhuman and nonhuman-human represent opponents to the patriarchal complex. When described as masculine-nonmasculine the transition instantly castrates the male subject without method or means described. The chimeric disunion of the male ego into a new bestial non-male ego not only represents a shift in value orientation but in acceptance of culturally authoritative systems. The argument surrounding human dignity problematically questions how one may have their dignity inversely affected Karpowicz et al. describe the two forms of chimera and the issues of both. By giving nonhumans some of the physical components necessary for development of the capacities associated with human dignity, and encasing these components in a nonhuman body where they would either not be able to function at all or function only to a highly diminished degree, those who would create human-nonhuman chimeras would denigrate human dignity. The torturer or the enslaver of human beings denies them the option of exercising the capacities associated with human dignity. The creator of the human-nonhuman chimera would do even worse—he or she knowingly would diminish or eliminate the very capacities associated with human dignity. (In Streiffer, R. 2004) The moral confusion argument begins to be associated with the degrees of separation between the human-nonhuman chimera. This same anxiety can be applied to the male ego as it is confronted with the realms of Masculine-nonMasculine sexual identities. The grey divide between heterosexual and bi-sexual or bi-sexual and homosexual reciprocates similar conflicts of moral status. Sexual preference and gender performance are linked within society's collective consciousness; heterosexuals must dutifully assert their 'straightness', as homosexuals must assert their, for lack of a better politically correct term, 'same sex attraction-ness'. Within each community there are status pursuits such as: amount of sexual encounters, types of sexual encounter and difficulty of acquiring said sexual encounter. The sexual chimera though is able to graft values from the 'other' and in doing so presents a resistance to the single minded values of each categorisation of preference. The autonomy of a chimera seems somewhat causally linked to Neitszche's ubermensch able to discern at will its own sexual prestige status. It is this culturally confused power relationship that further regresses the masculine dominance over sexual activity. Beyond being a 'stud' capable of sexing large quantities of women the bi-sexual can have even more encounters and as such is capable of more symbolic prestige than heterosexual masculinity permits. The appropriation of both aspects of male and female sexuality blurs the boundaries of sexuality and parallels the difficulty Franscoise Baylis and Jason Scott Robert discuss as “no extant species concept justifies the erection of the fixed boundaries between human beings and nonhumans that are required to make breaching those boundaries morally problematic”(In: Streiffer, 2004). The morally problematic sexual chimera is judged as being non-conformist to the patriarchal society, indiscriminate to biological or gender identification, its openness of sexuality threatens the policing of predominantly female sexual autonomy but also bi-sexual prestige. The chimera in this sense acts upon the masculine centred ego by diminishing the levels of status obtained through solely heterosexual orientation and opens the way towards a problematic free sexual agency. Ridley Scott's Alien takes this process to life as the alien emasculates Kane and subjects him to the trauma of a Masculine-nonMasculine castration symbolically sublimating Kane into the role of (m)other. At the same time the alien is acting with complete sexual autonomy regardless of any predetermined ideological constraints, it simply fulfils its reproductive function and attributes no status or prestige to the action. The chimera acts in the same manner objectifying humans as sexual objects whether male or female both are equally viable targets for amorous activity. The unbiased approach to sex antagonises the patriarchal anxiety originating in years of parental uncertainty. The prescriptive religious framework judges this sexual agency unfavourably in humans but in animals it is merely accepted as part of the over-arching design of a higher power. The chimera perturbs this natural division, as with the case of Wells' Beast folk, they may display the necessary qualities to achieve full moral status and yet are not considered 'people'. DeGrazia (2007 In Streiffer, 2009) defines the qualities necessary to be a person as: autonomy, rationality, self-awareness, linguistic competence, sociability, moral agency, and intentionality in action. I somewhat disagree with DeGrazia on this note as rationality, albeit logical sequences, and linguistic competence can be remiss in people of certain mental or physical conditions. Ridley's alien through the series gradually begins to develop each of DeGrazia's ‘person’ qualities. The alien itself begins to conform to the mother-child ideology which in turn begets its downfall. The sociability of this relationship, adhering to patriarchal representations of maternity, costs the alien in Alien: Resurrection as it is betrayed and forcibly ejected from the security of the feminine maternal embrace. Ripley's rejection of her own chimeric affiliation to the creature aligns her back with humanity and the dominant human species’ identity. Though Ripley is a chimera, as are Moreau's Beast Folk, the borders of personhood are not conflicted enough to warrant her to regard the alien as anything more than alien. Its absence of moral agency and limited linguistic competence are all that is needed to relegate the creature to a being of less moral status than human. Adjusting this moral positioning to reflect the male power struggle the outsider, though the same, can be removed from the security of acceptance and distanced from access to power through associative denigration. The bi-sexual male is met with prejudice for being willing to engage sexually with other men. Patrick McAleenan recounts this animosity suggesting “guys who admit to a dabble still face the questioning stares, and whispers of is 'he gay, straight or lying?'". The reluctance to accept open sexual autonomy has been championed in the fear of the chimera both in film, literature and science. The heterosexual masculine prestige and dominance over cultural standards still heralds the rejection of chimera on moral grounds but as Dr Moreau envisioned these 'moral education' institutions will one day be opposed unilaterally. In humanity's progression towards unilateral moral status for life, the ethical debate of Male+ or even Human+ chimera will address issues of contemporary, cultural acceptance. It may be said, the closer we are to accepting the non-human the closer we are to accepting all that is natural. References
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