Can Humans Be Raised to Be Used? The Moral Questions of Never Let Me Go — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Imagine this. You are young. You laugh.
2. 0:04You dream. You fall in love. But one day
3. 0:07you learn something devastating. That
4. 0:09you were created not to live a full life
5. 0:12but to save others and then be
6. 0:14discarded. He never let me go. Children
7. 0:17at a quiet boarding school are taught
8. 0:20art, ethics, poetry. But it's all a lie
9. 0:24because they are not there to become
10. 0:25someone. They are there to be used.
11. 0:28their lives valued only for the parts
12. 0:31they can give away. But here's the
13. 0:33haunting part. They still feel, they
14. 0:36still love, they still hope. They are
15. 0:39human in every way except how society
16. 0:42sees them. If someone is made to be
17. 0:45useful, do we still see a person or just
18. 0:48a product? The novel asks a question
19. 0:50that feels futuristic, [music]
20. 0:52but it isn't. Because whenever people
21. 0:55are seen only for what they produce,
22. 0:56[music]
23. 0:57we begin to lose sight of their
24. 0:59personhood. And that's not just fiction.
25. 1:03It's visible today. In quiet ordinary
26. 1:05ways, [music] in sweat shops that
27. 1:07stretch our clothes, in surrogates
28. 1:10treated like vessels, in caregivers who
29. 1:12serve without recognition, in migrant
30. 1:15workers kept [music] invisible. Never
31. 1:17Let Me Go. The novel isn't really about
32. 1:20clones. It's about us. about how we
33. 1:23easily justify suffering when it serves
34. 1:25our comfort and how quickly we look away
35. 1:29when a life is reduced to a function. So
36. 1:32ask yourself, if someone is raised only
37. 1:35to serve, are they still human in our
38. 1:38eyes?