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Naturally Unnatural by Will Shetterly

Naturally Unnatural

The Postnatural Politics of the

Uglies Series

By Will Shetterly

So what does it mean to be human?

In Tally’s world, it can mean radical cosmetic surgery, eyescreens, skintennas, amped-up muscles, calorie purgers, manga eyes, cutting, and even intentional brain damage. But that’s all future stuff, right? Most normal, present-day people would never do things that are so . . . unnatural. And people in the olden days were even less freaky than us, right?

Will Shetterly would respectfully disagree. In this essay, he explains how much of human history is more like Tally’s world than you’d think. It’s all there: body modifications, weird theories of beauty, even bubbly-making brain operations.

And every wacky bit of it seemed, to somebody somewhere in history, like a perfectly natural thing to do.

Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.

—Richard Brinsley Sheridan

1. What are we?

In the Academy of Athens, Plato gave a famous definition of a human: “A featherless biped.” Everyone admired that until Diogenes of Sinope tossed a plucked chicken on the ground and said, “See, Plato’s human!” Plato quickly changed his definition to “A featherless biped—with broad nails.”

For centuries, that answer was as good as any. We had no choice in the matter. We were what nature made us: a mash-up of genetic material provided by a male and a female parent.

But what would we be if we could ignore nature and give ourselves feathers, four legs, or claws? Would we still be human? If what nature gives us is natural, would we become unnatural by changing ourselves? Would we become so different that we should be called nonhuman, ex-human, or formerly human? Might changing ourselves make us so very different that we should be inhuman—monsters whose existence would threaten every natural member of the human race?

These questions are as old as science fiction. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster that is hideous and inhumanly strong, but in many ways may be more human than its creator. It thinks and loves and feels the pain of rejection. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll invents a formula that he hopes will turn him into a more perfect human. Instead, he becomes Mr. Hyde, who looks human but whose cruelty and inability to love makes him a greater monster than Frankenstein’s creature.

Science fiction asks, “What is natural for humans?” in many ways. What are we if we put our brains in other bodies? If we transfer our minds into computers? If we transform ourselves into alien shapes that can survive on other worlds? Is there any change that we can make to ourselves that should be considered unnatural?

2. Uglies

At the start of the Uglies books, Tally Youngblood believes there are two kinds of humans: uglies, who have the bodies and faces that nature gave them, and pretties, who have been improved in every way. To Tally, “natural” means being born an ugly, then becoming a pretty when you turn sixteen. She doesn’t expect anyone to care about what nature gives us.