Draft: The Plasticity of Culture

              When analyzing how the cultural response to and opinion on medical technology has shifted, works of fiction provide a clear window into the theoretical extrapolations of current progress and the potential cultural backlash involved. Stories where medicinal technology has surpassed what is considered humanly normal are no longer fiction, however.  By interpreting these stories through the world view that has been set by intellectual goliaths such as Darwin and Einstein, the relative plasticity of these perspectives becomes apparent. Darwin’s and Einstein’s work fundamentally requires open-mindedness and the understanding that nothing is permanent.

                Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee who caused headlines when trying for the Olympics, faced accusations that his prosthetic legs gave him an unfair advantage in terms of mechanical efficiency. Miguel Sapochnik’s movie Repo Men focused on what defined a human being by extending the ship of Theseus metaphor to internal organs. The sustaining of people in a irreversible vegetative state is one of the most common examples of where technology has outpaced the culture understanding needed to rationally deal with these kinds of situations. This trend of popular media that examine reality and humanity, from the directly medicinal to movies like Terminator and Inception, drives and works in parallel with the aforementioned world view, a shift in cultural ideology that points to a more open and understanding perspective. However, the shift from media to cultural norm depends on factors that transcend pop culture.