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@Dazrin. Interesting viewpoint. Personally I think the view of human nature you present here is a little optimistic. We have great capacity for good, but also great capacity for indifference or even evil. And a great capacity for rationalisation.
Yes. The clones are people, which is brought home to us as readers very well by the in-depth portrayal of the characters. This is just the point. The more removed people are from other people, the more prepared we are to treat them badly. But I'm not sure that even being confronted every day with the fact they the clones are people would make any difference whatsoever to many. How do you weigh the life of a stranger against the life of someone close to you, or for that matter your own life. Particularly when it is made easy for you to ignore the issue.
Like much in the book it is not made very clear, but it seems to me in any event that the reason for the rural settings and the lonely roads is that the Centres are kept in these areas. The carers travel from centre to centre. Whilst they are obviously not prevented from mingling with the rest of society, when they do there is nothing to make them stand out or alert people to what they are. And the rest of society just doesn't want to know. It seems that when this is disclosed, it is greeted with revulsion, for many reasons.
The society is no more repulsive than some that have existed for much of human history. In fact, for the majority of those living in that society it is probably about as close to a utopia as we have come. Think our society but with virtually all illnesses cured. Are people really going to give that up for the sake of a tiny minority kept in the shadows?
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