*Minor spoilers for those of you that haven’t seen The Book of Boba Fett*
The Book of Boba Fett
I recently started watching the new series on Disney+, The Book of Boba Fett. For those of you who are completely unaware of the Star Wars franchise, Boba Fett is a bounty hunter from the original trilogy. The Disney+ show explores his story from different periods of his life ranging from a variety of past movies and tv shows.
Though none of the backstory matters in this blog. The thing that got me thinking was in the fourth episode of the series.
Fennec Shand is an assassin and companion of Boba Fett’s. Her story is not as engrained in the Star Wars franchise, not by a long shot. But during a flashback in episode four we see the event that began the relationship between bounty hunter and assassin.
Fett is camping in the deserts of Tatooine when hears a sound and a flash in the distance. We see him approach the sight to find a wounded Shand. Shand had been shot and left to die. Boba Fett takes action and carries her to a “mod parlor”. The “parlor” is more akin to a tattoo shop than it is an emergency room. As the scene is set you see people fitted with robotic parts and attachments as casually as people get their ears pierced today. But Shand needs something that’s more than just superfluous enhancements. She is given major surgery, and it saves her life.
This is in contrast to the people in the shop itself, and in contrast to characters from the episode prior. It is clear that many go to these “parlors” for what can only be described as upgrades. And in fact, when Fennec Shand wakes up and realizes what has happened she is in shock. It is understandable. But the surgery was a necessary one. What Shand receives is not new legs to let her fly, or a sword for an arm. Shand receives life saving care.
This is what got me thinking. Seeing the difference between Shand and some of the other characters made me think of two things. The first is the advancement of technology and medicine in our own time. The other is the ideology of Transhumanism.
Transhumanism and the Mod Parlor
What is Transhumanism? One definition could define it as a
“…social and philosophical movement devoted to promoting the research and development of robust human-enhancement technologies. Such technologies would augment or increase human sensory reception, emotive ability, or cognitive capacity as well as radically improve human health and extend human life spans. Such modifications resulting from the addition of biological or physical technologies would be more or less permanent and integrated into the human body.” 1
As you can imagine such ideas and goals raise a host of questions ranging from the technological to the ethical. Many are racing towards this possibility, but not everyone is on board with the transhumanist movement. An article in the Guardian shows the two sides of the issue. Blay Whitby, an AI expert from Sussex University, says the following in the article;
“…if such an operation came before any ethics committee that I was involved with, I would have none of it. It is a repulsive idea – to remove a healthy limb for transient gain.”
The contrast is found in a person like Kevin Warwick, of Coventry University, where he states;
“What is wrong with replacing imperfect bits of your body with artificial parts that will allow you to perform better – or which might allow you to live longer?” 2
And the possibility of doing something like this. Modifying yourself, so to speak, is something that may certainly be possible in our lifetime. Elon Musk is working on implants currently that can treat “serious spinal-cord injuries and neurological disorders.” 3
Although this is far from the cybernetic enhancement desired from transhumanists, it does show that the technological possibilities are closer to being reality than some may think.
The patrons of the mod parlor exhibit some of the thoughts and ideas found in the transhumanist movement. They aren’t concerned with healing ailments. The Star Wars mod parlor patrons are more concerned with breaking past human limitation. This is not what Shand experiences.
Life Saving Technology and Shand
Shand is given life saving surgery. True, they utilize technology that is normally reserved for the excessive parlor patrons, but it is clear that Fett doesn’t have another choice.
What Shand is given is not too dissimilar to what Luke Skywalker is given after losing his hand in The Empire Strikes Back. Skywalker’s prosthetic hand may be more advanced than what we have now, and certainly more sci-fi at the time, but it is still a prosthetic at the end of the day. That is something that certainly doesn’t have the ethical baggage of transhumanism. Many people today receive medical treatment, and benefit from technological advances that can treat a whole host of maladies.
Advancements in medical knowledge and technology have led to things ranging from eyeglasses to prosthetic limbs and cochlear implants. These things are quite different than transhumist goals, and should rightly be seen as such. Although it will become increasingly difficult to parse the moral and ethical landscape around all these things.
A Biblical Take
Genesis 1 we see God creating and deeming it to be “good”.
31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. 4
Unfortunately things go downhill fast. Humans rebel, creation experiences sin, and things fall into disrepair. This introduces death, the contrast to life supplied by God, and the full effects of it. God doesn’t allow for the broken state of sin to exist in perpetuity, however. He seeks to redeem and reconcile Himself to creation in a full and perfect way. God’s plan for the Israelites to be this solution seems to fail time and time again in the Old Testament, until Jesus Christ.
Jesus takes on the full effects of sin and death at the cross. He takes it on, and defeats it when no one else could. He makes a way for us to experience what was lost in the Garden!
Transhumanism does two things that conflict with Christianity. The first is, it risks redefining what God had created as good. It takes humanity and attempts to change the things that aren’t even broken by death and pain. Transhumanism attempts to take humanity and remake it into a different image. This is an image different than the one God had hoped for in the beginning and the one that we will experience after Christs’ return.
The second error in transhumanism is a major escape plot. Humans planning an escape route from death outside of Jesus. It’s the very thing that God stopped in the Garden! Imagine, humans living in tension and turmoil for eternity. War, fighting, and pain without an expiration date. God enters into creation to save it from this, and create a way to live in Jesus’s Kingdom that is defined by His values and not our deeply flawed ones.
I’m not an alarmist. In fact I doubt that transhumanism will find significant success. Just like at Babel, I believe that God humbles those who desire to make themselves into something new within a new domain to rule apart from Him.
Even in a fictional universe, some people are conflicted with the ambition of remaking themselves. Ultimately the most important thing we can trust in and hope for isn’t death defying technology. I firmly believe that the complete work of Jesus Christ is all we can truly hope and rest in. Paul says as much in his letter to the Corinthians when he says;
50 Now I say this, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold, I am telling you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. 55 Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 5
Where do you find yourself in this moment? The world is full of “mod parlors” that tempt us to reshape ourselves. We may not be fitting ourselves with cybernetic implants, but we can be tempted to take what God has deemed good and distort it. We may be tempted to escape reality and seek salvation by our own hands. Transhumanism, and the things like it, ultimately are a poor substitute to the perfect victory that is found in Christ.
Thanks for following me down this rabbit trail, and I hope you found it interesting! I hope to explore more trails as time goes. I hope you can join me.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/transhumanism
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/06/no-death-and-an-enhanced-life-is-the-future-transhuman
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-neuralink-hopes-to-start-human-testing-2022-2021-12
Genesis 1:31 NASB, New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.
1 Corinthians 15:50-57 NASB, New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.