Kroppssamhället ⁠— om genetikens metaforer

Abstract

Genetics is becoming more and more topical in our everyday lives. Every other day new results from research are presented, often through the mass media. But the laws of genetics are complicated. The mass media, however, help make them culturally manageable. One way this is done, is through metaphorical descriptions.

The metaphors are taken from our everyday life, our everyday surroundings. The body is often described as a factory, the cells as computers, genes as people, and the immune system as a defence against invaders in the form of e.g. a virus. The metaphors govern how we perceive of our bodies. The metaphors govern how we perceive our own body, which the American anthropologist Emily Martin shows in her book Flexible Bodies (1994).

Genetics and other natural science disciplines are nowadays considered to have the preferential right of interpretation in explaining man and his qualities. Our culture is often described as based on biology, and the individual's genetic disposition as deterministic. But as the body and its genes are described as a flexible community, it ought no to be perceived as determined by fate, but rather as susceptible to influence. In other words, biology and culture influence each other. What can be considered cultural qualities may be explained biologically, and biology is explained culturally.