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LITR 4368 Literature of the Future  |
Sample answers
for Essay 1:
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Ozzy Martinez
SciFi Studies
We don’t quite know where we’re going, but we’re getting better at
knowing that. This back half of literary studies demonstrates the blossoming
global awareness of our strengths and weaknesses, of both the nearing personal
omnipotent melding of man and machine, as well as the catastrophic consequences
of our arrogances. From visions where technology gives man limitless potential,
or requires the involuntary retreat to primitive life, futuristic literature
serves to demonstrate there is no set course for mankind, or even a guarantee of
a future.
Gibson compares cyberspace to the Wild West and with good reason. Through
the use of extended metaphor of cowboy and hustler, second story men and
cracksmen, Gibson is painting the lawlessness of the digital frontier and its
inability to guarantee any tangible safety uncharted technological abstract.
“Burning Chrome’s” “colorless non-space” evokes mental images of wastelands and
prairie, flat green wireframe deserts lacking any civilization. Like the Wild
West, authority dares not tread these open fields where law is arbitrary and
unknown, where the “corporate galaxies and the cold spiral arms of military
systems” are distanced to an apathy that cares not for the actions of civilian
individuals. Gibson’s cyberpunk futures embody the ‘punk’ mentality in the way
described by the term page: “disaffected by either hope or fear.” For Gibson,
the future with its complexities and technological disparities will leave those
able to game the system open to game it, completely unaffected and free of
repercussion. But Gibson could not imagine SOPA, or the necessity of Congress to
structure the informational superhighway, and where he imagines the rampancy of
cyber babes and highwaymen, the internet now is as commonplace and bureaucratic
as an application for a marriage license. Gibson’s futures do not fathom
repercussion, but characters acting in the immediate; Gibson’s slick and cool
futures feature beautiful dreamlike stereotypes getting away with murder,
robbery, prostitution, even treason and espionage. Neither optimistic nor
pessimistic, but not grounded in any form of reality either, Gibson writes as if
the expansion of technology allows for all possibilities to take hold, or
rather, that no fantasy can be overturned of confined. Like the images of Billy
the Kid in the Wild West, “Burning Chrome’s” protagonists are partners, one
hothead, one lookout, besting the blackhat villain and making off with the loot;
“Johnny Mnemonic” has the Ugly upped to eleven with cybernetic implants,
electrocoil enhancements with razor thin murder thumbs that follows without
thirst or hunger to worry for. It’s “Stone Lives” in its filth and obsolete
humanity further exemplified. The Killing floor “miked and amplified” is a
setting possibly only in the teenage fantasy, and “The Belonging Kind’s”
shapeshifting sexual mistress is too. The future in the eyes of Gibson has
humans, technology, and aliens all intermingling in unseen, unbeknownst ways
that fall completely out of the eyes of public view, in the hidden crevices of
humanity. Neither wrong nor right, Gibson isn’t writing for society at large,
but for the specialized niche, an impossible to dismiss future in the dark
alleyways that no civilized mind would hope to venture. His writing is not
impossible, and that’s the most credit you can give; in technical terms it could
exist, but who’s voluntarily checking? Gibson’s cyberpunk futures are
fantastical adventure romps through the unknown, but don’t have the sufficient
gravitas to feel possible.
The High Tech “Logical Legend of Heliopause and Cyberfiddle” can also be
disregarded as fantastical reimagining, but shares a deeper philosophical
inquiry with “The Onion and I” that “Burning Chrome” sets in motion. Whereas
Gibson builds a virtual world, and further takes it for granted, “Heliopause”
and “Onion” deconstruct the concept of synthetic life and ask the question of
its validity against the tangible real of analog. “Heliopause” goes so far as to
emulate the breakdown of language, with future speak emulating grunt like
patterns into purely conceptual speak, devoid of linking verb formalities and
bridging slang with emotion. “So Pryer dandles backlook databits, seeking some
ancient text.doc to fulfill Carmen Memoranda’s dreams” helps illustrate the idea
that convention dies without use, and when submerged in the immediate data
synthesis of thought, the cleanliness of speech serves no purpose in the real.
‘Databits’ and ‘text.doc’ shows the evolution of data slang as people become
immersed and detached from society, comparable to the colloquial uses of ‘LOL’
and its variants. Deeper than that, we can see the growing distancing of
humanity from the analog. In both
“Onion” and “Heliopause,” there is a desire to returning to the impractical of
“resource wasting” reality. “Nonsane,” replies the computer, “Sim one. Synth
one. Holo one. Why fabricate?” The ease of the future allows one to imagine and
recreate anything of one’s desire, but the superficial line of society does not
seek the reality of it. The father of “Onion’s” protagonist reveals “if they
cannot make a decent Cyberonion…then they cannot make a decent Cyberboy.” Whilst
Gibson can readily have his characters abandon themselves to the omnipotent
false, these authors ask the questions of why, why bother, and how readily can
you abandon the real for the pretend? The future of Gibson is so embedded with
fantasy that it does not begin to comprehend the existential repercussions of a
reality where anything is possible, and therefore meaningless.
“Onion” dives into the quandary by questioning the meaning of reality itself.
“No matter what’s inside, it’s the layers that’s important,” shedding light on
our own reality, based on fragile chemical and biological layering of atoms to
molecules to cells to organisms. Peel back far enough and we’re all false
constructs of reality. This is the ultimate solace of the narrator, who learns
to live in the dual realms of “learning and pretending,” acknowledging both
artificial layer structures and making the best of it. “Heliopause” acknowledges
and discards the artificial, despite the immediate practicality, finding a
beauty in the sweat and work of physical construction. All life and media when
digitized loses a semblance of itself (compare the reemergence of vinyl) and the
protagonist sheepishly defends his interest as data collection but desires
instead to rekindle his physical form with the aesthetic beauty of his
ancestors. As Alejandro queried during the singularity presentation, wouldn’t we
still insist on recording on strands of silver tapes due to its higher fidelity?
“Heliopause” understands that same central question, that despite the ease and
access of digital media, wouldn’t we still rather have the original analog media
for greater appreciation? Why value the effortless reconstruction, why
appreciate that which can be generated without a thought, constructed not from
millions of years of evolution but simple man made algorithms? It’s an
existential crisis that only holds argument under the shade of the apple tree,
but nonetheless asks a fundamental question of the human experience; what is
worth, what are the means and fruits of effort? If all of life can be
synthesized, why even try? For “Onion’s” protagonist, it is the imperfection,
that can’t be patterned and expected, that defies convention and gives worth to
the particular and chaotic. Ultimately, these novels diverge from Gibson’s
unsustainable lifestyles to one of absolute sustainability, questioning the
value of effortlessly synthesized reality.
“Heliopause” begins the question of appreciating the real, and “Onion”
further questions what it means to be real, but the lowtech literature stories
of “Drapes and Folds” and “Speech Sounds” move away from the question of
physical worth to emotional, laying a stronger emphasis on the familial bonds
and societal relationships. The conflict of “Speech Sounds” starts from a
disagreement, or as the narrator explains, “more likely, a misunderstanding.”
Without the common technology of language (spoken or written) society unravels
at the seams, and even the smallest altercation can spiral out to chaos. It’s
through the common guttural gestures that the main characters can not only
communicate, but commiserate, and lose themselves in a passion despite the post
apocalypse. The feeling of companionship is more evident in the femininely
charged “Drapes and Folds.” The climax of Xera’s reveal to have held on to
Pearl’s treasured article of Cloth and Diane’s small act of rebellion in aiding
to hide it can be seen as lowtech romanticism, not only as a nostalgia for
bygone era, but the triumph of Pearl’s will to be remembered through her art,
her devotion to the beauty of fabric. In this one shred of cloth these three
women (two and a half) are reunited as one familial unit, with Xera, the newone,
admitting an acceptance of her heritage as never before, and ingesting the trace
of Pearl’s work and legacy to save it. Each of the lowtech stories revolve
around the absence of technology, of reality, of one and the individual, and the
reflexive social contraction to fill the vacuum. The power of these three
stories is the implied duality between the digital and the analog, and of the
progression of the species through technology at the cost of conventional life:
“Onion’s” flight to cyberspace, “Drapes’” analogous procreation of Pearl’s
artistic seed handed down, and “Speech’s” implied death of society with the
inability to pass down one’s knowledge through language.
Where this fear of the technologies encroachment brings us is to its
eventual downfall, past the point of arrogance in ourselves and towards a more
humble sustainability. “Chocco” imagines society after our fall, kindly deriding
our civilization as that of ‘the machine people,’ and “House of Bones” puts an
existential bow on our idea of ‘primitive.’ Though both stories are heavily
dependent on community and reconnecting with nature, “Chocco” is a more
sentimental in its advocacy for climate control, though well deserved, treating
the narrative as a future point past a climate apocalypse, and written from a
point of self-reflection. Climate change, societal negligence, overpopulation
and capitalism all contributed to the great ‘Die-Off,’ humanity’s tipping point.
By having two competing voices and two competing observations, the author vents
frustration without seeming preachy, equal parts understanding and worried. The
goal feels not to advocate a purely nomadic lifestyle, but presenting the only
sustainable alternative to our actions, a regression from that which caused our
demise. “House of Bones” on the other hand plays it all as cyclical, returning
to the actual past to relativize our present. “These Ice Age folk don’t see
themselves as primitive,” writes the time traveler, “They know, they absolutely
know, that they’re the crown of
creation.” Might we find ourselves 30,000 years in the future, wouldn’t we
remark this current age as similarly primitive? The story itself is about
strength and cunning humanity displayed in its infancy, and its ability to
overcome the brunt of nature singlehandedly. But where “Bones” differs from
“Chocco” is the lack of condemnation or advocacy for simpler living. Instead,
“Bones” is a fun romp through simpler times, saying ‘wouldn’t that be fun?’
instead of ‘I told you so.’
What this ultimately brings us to is beyond ourselves. Literature of the
future is not concerned with the ‘if,’ but the ‘when,’ of society’s end, and
nothing questions are sensibilities of sustainability and reality greater than
reality of facing a civilization above our own. Our four texts of alien contact
follow the same beats as the previous stories, from Gibson’s slick “Hinterlands”
and “Belonging Kind,” to the lowtech “Poplar Street.” “Belonging” follows the
narrative of alien assimilation through Gibson’s grungy prose, with contact
following a mutually symbiotic relationship that lies hidden but exposes nothing
new; money for life sustaining alcohol, a good produced for another good
produced. Trippy but ultimately harmless, abnormal but what isn’t, this
narrative of alien life is tame in comparison, offering that life will simply go
on. “Poplar” follows a more traditional dynamic between species of different
intelligences, relegating the human race as little more than rats in a cage
under observation. Demoralizing but true, a perverse metaphor for our own
tendency to take advantage of other species for personal growth and knowledge.
“Poplar” treats aliens as just higher extensions of humanities own curiosities,
and humans as lower extensions of Animalia, hierarchically repetitive in both
directions.
The disparity between them and us is most prevalent in “Hinterlands”
where the presence of higher intelligent life renders the observer so
overwhelmed as suicidal or insane. The disconnect is so great, Gibson presents
the higher lifeforms as godlike, offering gifts of such knowledge as new
branches of science and cures for cancer. Gibson extends the metaphor by having
the returning explorers settle in an artificial, specially designed ‘heaven’ to
acclimate them back from such extremes of beauty and knowledge. Gibson imagines
a man-made heaven, a fully innocent yet hedonistic pleasure zone with freely
flowing stimulants and opiates and sexually similar organs or homely cultural
signifiers. But this is insufficient to soothe the returning, the rejected by
the higher powers. The unsaid truth of this heaven is the underlying falsity,
and beyond that, the similarly artificial human agreement of cooperation between
rival superpowers. “Hinterlands,” or ‘the undeveloped portion of the milky way,’
makes understood the crippling depression of our current civilization, still so
backwards from arbitrary political standoffs and abysmally inferior from our
neighbors. The narrator’s security in the closing darkness is the comfort of
ignorance, of knowing his place in the backseat of the cosmic vehicle, himself
and his civilization safe as children under the invisible watchful eyes of the
truly responsible.
In “Hinterlands,” the higher lifeforms pick and choose worthy travelers,
but “They’re Made of Meat” doesn’t even give humanity that much benefit of the
doubt. The truth is, for all our worth and accomplishments, we deserve no reason
to think ourselves “the crown of creation.” We should feel similarly depressed
as the returning cosmonauts in “Hinterlands,” and as similarly concerned as the
future tribesmen of “Chocco.” A society intent on escaping into the virtual
realm at the expense of appreciation for the real, and self-centered enough to
burn through resources for the immediate gratification versus the long term,
should not expect contact from civilizations humble and driven enough to have
the means to establish contact, nor should they deserve it. “They’re Made of
Meat” feels human not because of the down to earth dialogue between two
lackluster specimens on the job, but because it reflects humanity’s own ability
to be prejudiced against the less fortunate, and to abandon the desperate and
lonely simply out of convenience.
The future can’t be told. It can be warned against, and joked about, but
with society moving at an exponential rate, the stories of tomorrow are obsolete
by the day after. These future narratives serve not to try and determine a
future for us, but to guide a civility no matter what unseen paths we may
unknowingly follow, and that despite the lurking terror of the unknown, there
will always be a humanity hopeful and yearning to bring a better future for
those that will follow after us.
