Gandhi Clones
The reproducible human being has been in the literature at least since Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, which was written in 1931. Most of the humans in his imagined future were not born, but decanted from a vessel whose chemical mix and hospitability depended on the caste of its embryo. The lower caste zygotes were subjected to “Bokanovsky’s Process” which cause the fertilized egg to take twinning up to as much as 96-fold.
Much later there was a richly imagined story by James Tiptree, Jr. (the nom de plume of Alice Sheldon, who kept her gender a secret from the science-fiction community and fooled even Isaac Asimov, who corresponded with “him” and referred to “him” as Tip), entitled “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” This was a future without men, and very few distinct women, who had to repopulate the Earth with their clones. Then three guys from three hundred years ago, time-warp slingshotted by the Sun, show up…
I’ve had a brief go at a clone story. The one new thing I was bringing to the party was the notion that if extensive human cloning was taking place, there would be a process called Twisting that would afford every clone something absolutely unique to her- or himself. The clone would then choose a unique name. I imagined, among other things, a Gary, Indiana populated entirely by Garys, who would jet off to wild weekends in Helena, Montana, poplated entirely by Helenas…
I have a feeling that DNA preservation is going to be big in coming decades; and, legal or not, high-profile folks (such as Mohandas K. Gandhi) might, willingly or not, be cloned, perhaps over and over again. Thus a semi-doodle of a person in lotus position bloomed into this weird Cirque du Soleil of cloned Gandhis.
Here are the words:
GreatSoul–Bapu–some roots vedic
All recordings are not vinyl
New-found tech from Chi to Vilno
Darkest dreams of Saint & Villain
Here we walk a gene-pooled vale
In our quest; seek verities
Would a cadre of Gandhis be helpful in saving civilization? I can ask that question, but I’m not arrogant enough to think I can answer it.
One with Clay, Image and Text 
I don’t expect the multiple Gandhis would be that much like him. I’m pretty sure we are both our genes and the sum of our experiences. I guess we may actually know the answer to that question in a few years. Do you know the Miles Vorkosigan stories by Lois McMaster Bujold? I expect so; I think that Miles and his twin brother Mark are probably the best fictional illustration of what cloning might bring.
The multiple Gandhis are like a out take of a Hogarth sketchbook ! Love them!
M Lamontagne
Thanks, Michel. Hope we meet some day, and toast the generous spirit of our mutual blog host Roger Ebert. It is a sad day, eh?
Sad, yes indeed. It was a strange feeling for a grow man, being a true fan. I didn’t know I had it in me. I’m glad of the experience; it enriched my life.
I also got to write, in the last few years, over 100 little essays on all kinds of subjects i’d stopped thinking about, because I thought I had the answers, and I realized I hadn’t thought about them all that much.
And of course I got to meet, in a virtual way, some interesting people. A toast seems like a great idea; the world is much smaller than when we were kids, who knows. Arizona, hum, I’m bound to go and see the Grand Canyon Someday….
The Red Rocks of Sedona are good, too, and close to the Canyon. Swing by on your way, friend!