I finally read a book! I've been having a really hard time picking up a novel since I finished school. I think the weekly 100+ page assignments that I sometimes read along with the plethora of research articles I had to read burned out my desire to read for a while. But I did it!
The book that broke down the wall was Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," a groundbreaking science fiction novel that has inspired writers and readers since it was published. It was made into a film called "Blade Runner" that premiered in 1982. This book isn't long or difficult to read, although it had the words verisimilitude and perspicacity on the same page. It's an interesting read if not for the story itself but for the examination of what it is to be human.
The basic plot is that after World War Terminus radioactive fallout has covered pretty much the whole earth, wiped out most wildlife and can change DNA in living humans. Because of this people began to emigrate to the new Mars colony. To incentivize emigration the UN promised an android to each individual/family that emigrates. The problem is that occasionally these androids kill their human masters and return to Earth and try to blend in with humans. The main character, Rick Deckard, is a bounty hunter or a policeman who's job is to find these rogue androids and "retire" them.
The driving theme in the book is that the only way to tell the difference between the newest androids and humans is to test their empathy. Androids cannot connect with other life while humans can. The author brings this idea out through a neo-religion called Mercerism. Each household has a device called an empathy box where the user can connect to everyone else using the device and can feel what others feel and share their own emotions. Androids cannot use this device which further disassociates them from humans.
However, as the book continues Rick Deckard finds he is losing pieces of his humanity as he has to track down the androids and retire them. He find he is simultaneously losing natural empathy for humans and gaining it for androids. This is the idea that I found most intriguing in the book. It's not a new idea. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” I've seen this idea repeated a few times in the movies and on TV. This aphorism was quoted on CBS' Criminal Minds and is in Joss Whedon's Serenity. The question from Nietzsche to Serenity is can we destroy/rid ourselves of our enemy without partially becoming like him? In various ways it is true, to rid ourselves of monsters we have become a form of monster. Rick Deckard finds his job becoming very difficult as he begins to have empathy for the androids. He sees that to destroy the unfeeling creatures he has to distance himself from them emotionally. When one of them gets under his skin he finds he is conflicted. How can he kill something he cares for?
That's the question for all of us. How do we get rid of something terrible without losing part of ourselves in the process? Can we?
The book that broke down the wall was Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," a groundbreaking science fiction novel that has inspired writers and readers since it was published. It was made into a film called "Blade Runner" that premiered in 1982. This book isn't long or difficult to read, although it had the words verisimilitude and perspicacity on the same page. It's an interesting read if not for the story itself but for the examination of what it is to be human.
The basic plot is that after World War Terminus radioactive fallout has covered pretty much the whole earth, wiped out most wildlife and can change DNA in living humans. Because of this people began to emigrate to the new Mars colony. To incentivize emigration the UN promised an android to each individual/family that emigrates. The problem is that occasionally these androids kill their human masters and return to Earth and try to blend in with humans. The main character, Rick Deckard, is a bounty hunter or a policeman who's job is to find these rogue androids and "retire" them.
The driving theme in the book is that the only way to tell the difference between the newest androids and humans is to test their empathy. Androids cannot connect with other life while humans can. The author brings this idea out through a neo-religion called Mercerism. Each household has a device called an empathy box where the user can connect to everyone else using the device and can feel what others feel and share their own emotions. Androids cannot use this device which further disassociates them from humans.
However, as the book continues Rick Deckard finds he is losing pieces of his humanity as he has to track down the androids and retire them. He find he is simultaneously losing natural empathy for humans and gaining it for androids. This is the idea that I found most intriguing in the book. It's not a new idea. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” I've seen this idea repeated a few times in the movies and on TV. This aphorism was quoted on CBS' Criminal Minds and is in Joss Whedon's Serenity. The question from Nietzsche to Serenity is can we destroy/rid ourselves of our enemy without partially becoming like him? In various ways it is true, to rid ourselves of monsters we have become a form of monster. Rick Deckard finds his job becoming very difficult as he begins to have empathy for the androids. He sees that to destroy the unfeeling creatures he has to distance himself from them emotionally. When one of them gets under his skin he finds he is conflicted. How can he kill something he cares for?
That's the question for all of us. How do we get rid of something terrible without losing part of ourselves in the process? Can we?
