The Genomic Imperative: Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island

Abstract

“The Genomic Imperative” focuses on French writer Michel Houellebecq's 2005 dystopia The Possibility of an Island (La possibilité d'une île). In its introduction, the essay links Houellebecq's work to the recent tradition of postmodern fiction (on the one hand) and to modern philosophies of the “human” (on the other). The introduction is followed by an analysis of the cultural-existential predicament of Houellebecq's “neohuman” world with particular emphasis on the cloning theme. “Neohumanism,” I argue, rests on a radical abolition of difference. Identity is eminently serial in a disenchanted “society” where “the freedom of indifference” is the ultimate ideal. Notably, indifference is not just a matter of psychology, an attitude toward others. It also speaks to a dedifferentiated world that smudges the vital demarcations between self and other, private and public, interior and exterior, and culture and nature.