Science fiction offers two
immediate things to the reader: the ability to travel to far away times and
places, to alternate histories and to gorgeously realized other worlds. It also
often gives us a sense of great familiarity – it is, after all, other humans exploring the universe. This duality
of the genre lets the author take a modern[1]
human and put him in an altogether alien environment. The author gives this
person a series of immense obstacles to overcome so as to see how he will
react. By the end of the novel, both the author and, by extension, the audience
will hopefully learn something about the human condition. In this way, science
fiction can be thought of as a great thought experiment – projecting modern
ideas, philosophies, mores, norms etc. onto a society inherently deprived of
those very attributes. This lets the author satirize modern society, show any
glaring problems with it, and often, predict where it will end up[2]. But
this is not all that science fiction does. Perhaps by putting the recognizable
man of this world into the alien-ness
of that world, we will realize something
in humankind that is inherent to everyone, across time. Often, in the words of
Brian Aldiss, science fiction’s main goal is to define what makes us human.
But
what of the actual setting of the story? How do the starscapes, distant planets
and future Earths contribute to the definition of humanity that the author is
trying to express? After reading Frankenstein,
one of the first science fiction novels, we can see that the setting is often
an extreme representation of locations as to mirror the emotions and mindsets
of the characters inhabiting them. The monster in this book is at home in the
frigid arctic and can dance around the mountains of Switzerland with no hesitation.
In much the same way, the androids of DADES can live on the ruins of Earth with
no problem. In fact, they would prefer
to live on the radioactive-dust covered surface of our planet than work as
slaves for the rich on Mars. The androids in DADES mirror the monster in both
their ability to live in inhospitable landscapes and their role as antagonist –
and by extension as the way to define humanity[3].
Knowing
this, does DADES fall into the definition of science fiction set by Aldiss? The
answer comes down to whether or not defining humanity is of central importance
to Philip K. Dick. In the first half, where we are introduced to Nexus-6
androids – “capable of selecting within a fielda field of two trillion
constituents, or ten million separate neural pathways,”[4] –
which are indistinguishable from humans without either taking a bone marrow biopsy
or administering one of two advanced ‘empathy tests’. This is the key to the story.
In DADES, we are led to believe that empathy is the penultimate human trait.
Androids – near perfect replicas of humans – do not produce empathy naturally,
not even the Nexus-6 models. Dick appears to use this as the distinguishing
feature of humanity in the novel, however with a more subtle reading, it is
clear that he does not want empathy –
a trait raise to religious status in post-apocalypse Earth – to be the sole
definition of humanity. Take Iran Deckard for instance, the wife of Richard
Deckard, who has to ‘dial in’ artificially to be depressed at the world she
lives in. This is arguably one of the more human quirks, paradoxical as it may be,
that we see in the novel. She realizes that as a human, she should be irrevocably
depressed by living in the world she does; yet there she is, artificially
making herself depressed – an attitude she can change with the turn of a knob.
Dick
did not right DADES to show us what he believes humanity is. He instead wants
us to consider what makes us human in regard to near-perfect human replicas. In
a society that has rejected androids, he wants us to question whether or not
that society has rejected humans.
[1] Modern of
course is relative to the author’s time – in DADES’ case, it would be a person
from 1968.
[2] See 1984 for a perfect example – what was
once a warning seems to be overwhelmingly used as an instruction manual.
[3] In a
technique dating back to at least Thomas Aquinas, where one uses what a thing
is not to define what it is.
[4] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,
page 28
2 comments:
I really like your premise, but the execution could be better. I like the way you write, probably because I write with a similar style, but that means we fall into the same pitfalls. Namely, too much general reflection, not enough detailed evidence. The only evidence supporting your argument resides within the third paragraph. The second paragraph about the monster and setting doesn't seem to fit very well with your thesis or the rest of your essay as well. That being said, I really like your point; I think you hit the nail on the head there. I completely agree with you about Philip K. Dick's intentions, you just need to be a little more convincing. If someone who disagreed read this I don't think it would convince them. So all in all: more evidence, less generalizations, and maybe a bit more organization to make it cohesive. Other than that keep doing what you're doing; you've got some cool ideas.
I'm of two minds about your introduction. It's a good summary from your viewpoint of what SF is, and I actually like it as such; it's also potentially an elaborate distraction from the topic at hand. We'll see how that goes.
The 2nd paragraph is really another introduction. However, it has a *good* idea, clarifying the similarity between and importance of setting in the two novels. Really, I like everything so far - and yet I feel like there's not going to be any space here for any kind of detailed defense of any particular argument; again, we'll see.
In the 3rd paragraph you begin to really read, but even so you remain at a high level, concerned only with the earliest parts of the novel. Your discussion of Iran is ok, but in isolation - without any discussion of how empathy relates to, say, Luba Luft and Rachel Rosen, for instance, it reads more like an initial stab at at argument rather than the substance of it.
Your conclusion - "In a society that has rejected androids, he wants us to question whether or not that society has rejected humans." - is actually your real introduction. That is, if you revise, that's a great place to *start*. Which isn't to say that none of what you've written has value. In fact, some of it could find its place in a rearranged essay. But throughout you remain overly distant and abstract from the text itself. Only at the very end do you really begin to engage with this text and this author in a way which will lead anywhere which is both precise and interesting.
Matt says many of the same things, incidentally.
Post a Comment