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Are We Cynics or Realists? Thoughts on John Barnes' "The Lost Princess Man" (in The New Space Opera 2)

To relax, I keep going back to a big paperback anthology I bought a few months back titled, The New Space Opera 2.  (Earlier post on this book here.)  The gem I found found this time is a story by John Barnes, called "The Lost Princess Man."

One of the things I love about the science fiction genre is that, through its allegorical tales, it offers real insight into contemporary social attitudes and ideology -- often via satire.  In keeping with this Swiftian agenda, "The Lost Princess Man" captures a key aspect of our contemporary structure of feeling.

It tells the tale of an interplanetary con man who navigates his way through a vast and incredibly dangerous totalitarian empire by working a specific scam.  And it's a particularly heartless one.

He preys on destitute young women.  He picks out a victim, and then attempts to convince her that he's been sent from on high because he has evidence that she's of a royal bloodline, and may be the "lost princess" for whom the Imperial government has been searching (to perpetuate its lineage and reign).

Once his prospect agrees to travel with him (to claim what's hers), she is drugged, turned over to plastic surgeons who make her irresistible (according to current fashion), and installed as a high-class prostitute in a ritzy bordello.  "The Lost Princess Man" collects a bounty for every "recruit" he delivers.

But then, we find out something surprising.  He says this of his marks:

"They're blunt, not easily fooled, and hate authority.  After listening [to his con] for a while, the girl says, 'I think you are working the lost princess con, and the minute you have me off the planet, you will pump me full of drugs, and I will wake up chained to a bed with a large number of Imperial troops lined up and  waiting to have a turn on me.'  At which point, I say, 'Well, of course.'" 

Asked by his interlocutor why he actually admits he's pulling a scam, the "Lost Princess Man" replies that, on balance, what he has to offer is a big improvement over the impoverished lives these young women lead.  Further, they don't get "gang banged", but instead, are considered "luxury goods" -- and (according to "sumptuary laws") their service can only be sold to a limited number of very well off individuals.

As part of the deal, they recieve an education, their artistic and intellectual talents are developed, and they become fluent in multi-planetary cultural manners.  This is why many of those he approaches agree to go along with him voluntarily.

Cynicism or Realism?

The story continues to take wild twists and turns after this (especially after we find out that the Empire really is looking for a "lost princess"), but I'll stop at this passage, because for me it rings all sorts of ideological bells.

The first thing it reminds me of is the way cultural critics such as Peter Sloterdijk and Slavoj Zizek characterize the ideology of our moment.

In the old days (according to their writings), when our glitzy, consumer culture promised us it held the key to our self-realization (in the form of eveything from cool clothes, to tech devices, to self-help schemes, to designer drugs, etc.),  we sometimes believed that such enhancements would help us find our inner lost princess or prince.

Now, we're supposedly too hip for all that.  Yet, we continue to use such props anyway -- and in this sense, "go along with the pitch", but now, with a sort of cynicism.  "I know very well," we think, "that this won't help me find the well-being I want, but, what the hell, you gotta have something."

As Zizek puts it: "Cynical reason is no longer naive, but is a paradox of an enlightened false consciousness: one knows the falsehood very well, one is aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality, but still one does not renounce it." 

On the other hand, you could argue that the "marks" in this story, rather than cynics are realists about their actual prospects. I'm thinking here about a remark the philosopher Jacques Ranciere made on contemporary exploitation.  As he put it:

"The dominated do not remain in subordination because they misunderstand the existing state of affairs but because they lack confidence in their capacity to transform it."  He adds, though, that getting such confidence depends upon there being a credible politics that offers a way out.

In the absence of that (or, say, some trustworthy form of inner transformation), perhaps the compliant folks in this story are merely being (wisely) strategic.

Nevertheless, such a tale raises a provocative question.  In our "seen-it-all-before" time, when we make our own Faustian bargains, are we being cynics or realists?  Thoughts? 

The Joys of Dystopian Thinking: Max Weber, Andre Gorz and the Film "Skyline"

The other night, I experienced one of those intoxicating moments where what I was reading seemed to provide the exact key I needed to unlock a mysterious, hidden meaning.

In this case, it was the meaning of a movie --  panned as one of year's worst -- which I, of course, had found utterly entrancing.

The movie was Skyline, which I rented on Pay-Per-View.  It's an alien invasion flick -- more or less a pastiche of films like Cloverfield, War of the Worlds and Independence Day, with a dash of The Matrix thrown in.  As Umberto Eco wrote: "Two cliches make us laugh.  A hundred cliches move us."  The trailer offers a taste: 

 

I couldn't put my finger on what moved me about this particular heap of cliches until when,  soon afterwards, I began reading an essay by the late, great social philosopher Andre Gorz.

Gorz was making a case for the continuing relevance of early 20th century sociologist Max Weber:

"Long before the creators of contemporary scientific dystopias," Gorz wrote, "Max Weber thought that bureaucratization and the onward march of machines would progress to the point where society would become a single megamachine which its human cogs 'would be forced to serve, as powerless as the fellah of Ancient Egypt.'"

The bureaucracy, in Weber's mind, I think, wasn't just "big government", as people often interpret the word today, but any massive, highly rationalized organization -- including corporations, institutions,  and (in our time) the entertainment industry itself -- with goals all of its own.  Goals that its "cogs" may not care about, agree with or even understand.

Such "megamachines" gain your support, in theory at least, by offering benefits (cash, jobs, recognition, distraction, etc. ) -- but often "at the cost of deprivation of meaning and freedom."  This all results in "dehumanization."

Gorz' short exposition reframed, for me, many of the "humans vs. machines" Science Fiction films I've seen in the last few years.  (Think of The Matrix!)  In Skyline, though, it seemed to speak to the specific anxieties of indie artists -- particularly filmmakers.

The film opens with Jarrod, an artist of some sort, and his partner, Elaine, at a ritzy party in L.A. They are boho types (I think from Brooklyn) who are impressed, but almost a little taken aback by, the success of Jarrod's best friend, Terry.  It seems Terry's special effects company has made it to the big time in a big, big way.

The party (at Terry's new pad) is stocked with all the accoutrements of L.A. glamour: posh decor, very beautiful, flirty people, booze and presumably all sorts of other decadent highs.

Mid-way through the party, a friend of Terry's congratulates Jarrod for joining the company and deciding to move to L.A.  Elaine is shocked (has Jarrod sold out?) -- and reveals that she's pregnant.  Jarrod assures her that this is the first he's heard of the gig (and that the matter isn't decided).  Soon after they crash -- and that's when the weirdness begins.

Jarrod wakes in the middle of the night to bright lights.  We soon learn these are from aliens in humongous, robotic craft, hovering near the high rise's window.  And it's not only their overwhelming size and force that make them terrifying.  It's the way the draw you in.

It seems the light they shine into your face is incredibly beautiful.  If you stare a moment too long, you get vacuumed into their craft.  Next thing you know, your brains are sucked out and used as a sort of neurological fuel (and the rest of you is cast, headless, into a pile of other victims).  Your mind becomes one with the machine.  Talk about dehumanization...

But Is It All a Dream?

After reading Gorz, I began to wonder if the last two-thirds of this flick were in fact a literal nightmare -- one expressing the artist Jarrod's anxieties about selling out. Isn't one of the cliches about organizational exploitation that you get sucked dry of your ideas (and cast into the heap of fellow burnouts)?

With a little imagination, you can extend this interpretation to the situation of the film's directors, the special effects gurus the Brothers Strause.  Is not an indie outfit like their own always faced with such creative pressures (not to mention battles over who owns "intellectual property") from the big studios they deal with?

But Why Now?

The theme of humanity vs. "the machine" is older than Science Fiction itself.  Why then its almost incessant repetition today?  I guess one quick answer is that we're simply surrounded by more machines and mega organizations than ever.

A friend told me recently, for example, that after resisting Facebook for years, she finally relented. Upon joining, one of her first welcomes was from a friend who quoted Pink Floyd.

He wrote, simply, eloquently: "Welcome to the Machine."  Thoughts? 

 

Existential Pop: Dr Pepper Meets the Incredible Shrinking Man

Lately, I 've found myself amused at a Dr Pepper commercial (originally created, I think, in 2009) set in a self-help group.  It seems the animated characters in the spot meet for support in dealing with a particular social handicap: the world refuses to acknowledge their existence:

 

What caught my eye about this commercial was its comic light touch -- even when alluding to something everyone from therapists, to philosophers, to the great modern writers seem to agree is a serious one: the establishment of a personal sense of "being" -- or, as it's more commonly referred to today, an "identity."

This concern even got translated into a specific form of cultural politics (usually called "identity politics" or "the politics of recognition").  In the 80s and 90s, "identity" movements arose on the liberal side of the spectrum (concerning rights around the issues of gender, ethnicity and sexuality).  Later, this style of politics was mimicked on the Right, often around religious beliefs and traditionalist lifestyles.

Cultural Studies scholar Nancy Fraser analyzes the philosophical roots of this tendency:

"The usual approach to the politics of recognition -- what I call the 'identity model' -- starts from the Hegelian idea that identity is constructed dialogically, through a process of mutual recognition. According to Hegel, recognition designates an ideal reciprocal relation between subjects, in which each sees the other both as its equal and also as separate from it.  This relation is constitutive for subjectivity: one becomes an individual subject only by virtue of recognizing, and being recognized by, another subject.  Recognition from others is thus essential to the development of a sense of self."

As Fraser indicates, a sense of identity is created socially as much as it is internally.  One essential for its establishment is that others take you seriously.

What's comic about the spot is that you see this logic  applied to establishing a brand identity.  The problem the Dr Pepper guy has is signaled by Santa Claus: people think what he stands for (a diet soda with great flavor) is a laughable myth.

Intentionally or not, what this setting also brings to mind is the brand identity issue a soda with a hard-to-categorize taste like Dr Pepper already carries with it.  As the Wiki about Dr Pepper puts it:

"W.W. Clements, a former CEO and president of the Dr Pepper/7-Up Company, described the taste of Dr Pepper as one-of-a-kind, saying "I've always maintained  you cannot tell anyone what Dr Pepper tastes like because it's so different. It's not an apple, it's not an orange, it's not a strawberry, it's not a root beer, it's not even a cola."

For that matter, even where the name "Dr Pepper" comes from is somewhat of a mystery.

In any case, such a lighthearted take on angst about the "question of existence" brought to my mind, by way of contrast, another version of pop-culture existentialism -- this one from a much earlier era...

"The Incredible Shrinking Man" Ponders His Existence

If you're obsessed with classic Science Fiction films like I am, you may be familiar with the story of "The Incredible Shrinking Man."  In the 1957 movie, the hero of this flick runs into a radioactive cloud, while he's out boating.  Soon after, as a side effect, he begins to shrink.

As he gets smaller and smaller, common household creatures -- cats and spiders -- turn into horrific monsters.  But as the movie progresses, he becomes too small for even them to see (or torment). Then his problems grow more philosophical.  As he faces the prospect of becoming as tiny as a molecule, or even an atom, he wonders whether, since living things can no longer recognize him, he even still exists.

Here's the way he resolves his quandary in the closing monologue (which ends "I still exist!"):

 

Whatever Happened to the Age of Anxiety?

In this clip, it's the gaze of God that assures the hero of his continuing identity/existence.  But today, it seems to me, many people look elsewhere for the recognition they need to build their sense of self.

Is not one of the appeals of social media, with all the "friending" it encourages, that it offers a quick, technologic way to make a person feel like somebody?  And, establishing an identity this way is certainly achieved with a lighter touch than in previous eras: a modicum of recognition is just a few clicks away.  No wonder even "identity politics" seems to be fading from the scene.

But I wonder, does this mean the "search for authenticity" will soon be passe?  Any thoughts on this -- or these clips?

 

What's So Alien About Artificial Intelligence? Thoughts on AI, Science Fiction and "Consciousness"

Recently I found myself fascinated with a group of articles in Wired Magazine re-examining the theme of Artificial Intelligence.  Enthusiasm about AI, it seems, after a pessimistic "winter', has experienced a renaissance.

The lead piece, by Steven Levy (which offers an enormously useful capsule history of theories about the field) shows that the development of artificial intelligence is proceeding at a faster pace than ever -- but that it comes in a completely different form than was previously imagined.

Gone are the fantasies of the metallic humanoids you saw it movies like I, Robot (itself based on classic science ficton tales from the 40s/50s by Isaac Asimov).  Engineers have given up trying to replicate the human brain (as was thought achievable in the 50s).

But their inability to do so turned out to be a fortunate fault -- for it led to the creation of a rich array of smaller, intelligent machines, each furnished with  "clever algorithms" that enable them to accomplish a limited number of specific tasks:

"Once researchers were freed from the burden of building a whole mind, " Levy writes, "they could construct a rich bestiary of digital fauna, which few would dispute possess something approaching intelligence."

Along the way, "the AI crowd" made a key discovery:

"'The big surprise is that intelligence isn't a unitary thing,'" says Danny Hillis, who cofounded Thinking Machines, a company that made massively parallel supercomputers.  'What we learned is that it's all kinds of different behaviors.'"

Because of the success of these new machines, Levy concludes that we are more dependent on Artificial Intelligence than ever.  We use AI to help us drive, invest, and find answers to nearly everything (via Google), just to name a few of the types of robots who assist us everyday.  Such dependency leads Hillis to conclude, "the computers are in control, and we just live in their world."

And this is a world we don't understand.  Levy tells us that these new machines reason in ways vastly different than human logic.  If anything, their consciousness is more mysterious than the soul searching, existentialist machines imagined (but never realized) during Science Fiction's Golden Age.

Different but Same

I asked myself what I found so intriguing about these ideas, especially seeing as I'm more of a pragmatist than a utopian (or dystopian) when it comes to technology.  At first, I thought it was the cool "otherness" these thinkers achieve when talking about what seem to be mere gadgets.  The vision of AI they propose -- multiple, ubiquitous, alien -- and with a "will of its own", is reminiscent of the founding science fiction narrative of the current technologic sublime: The Matrix.

And then I wondered if what drew me to these ideas was not their alien but familiar quality.  Maybe this is because this tale of alien intelligence replays recent theories of what human consciousness is all about. 

Take the idea, for example, that the minds of the new machines are too strange to comprehend.  In Susan Blackmore's concise introduction to contemporary thinking on "Consciousness", you find out that there is a school of thought, dealing with human and animal consciousness, based around the same assumption. 

Its proponents are labeled "mysterians."  They argue "that we humans are 'cognitively  closed'  with respect to understanding consciousness ... Just as a dog has no hope of being able to read the newspaper, he so happily carries back from the shops." (p. 7-8)

Or the idea of intelligence as multiple rather than unitary.  It turns this is the standard, materialist account of human consciousness as well.  As Blackmore puts it:

"There is no single location from where my decisions are sent out.  Instead, the many different parts of the brain just get on with their own jobs, communicating with each other whenever necessary, and with no central control." (p. 15)

And it's not just in the realm of philosophy such ideas seem familiar.  The arts of our time, both popular and avant-garde, are obsessed with the multiple -- and the "otherness" it supposedly forces one to confront.  And this is not to mention (before the crash at least) the praise heaped upon "de-centralized" approaches to business management and economic policy -- all said to be increasingly necessary in a "multi-centric" world.

All of which is to say, I suppose, that as "otherworldly" as the workings of artificial minds may appear, when it comes to describing them, the influence of worldly, human culture and metaphor is as powerful as that of science.

This may also be why the literature of really great science fiction, rather than being escapist, is the true realism of our time.

For often you need the technology of the future to get a clear look at the now.

 

If You Create a New Species, Is It OK to Have Sex With It? Thoughts About the Movie "Splice"

(Spoiler Alert: Contains details about the movie plot.)

I recently saw Splice, the latest film inspired by the ethical questions raised by genetic research.  In it, a married pair of scientists, played by the always cool Sarah Polley and Oscar winner Adrian Brody, through gene splicing experiments, create a new life form.

As in earlier films, like The Island of Dr. Moreau, the being is an amalgam of creatures.  It's got some of Polley's genes, so it looks partly human.  But it has legs like a bald kangaroo's, and a tail with a stinger (like a scorpion or stingray).  It chirps like a menacing bird -- and it unfurls majestic wings when excited, taking on the look of something above-human: an angel.

The being can look sexy, too.  Played by Delphine Chaneac, the creature sometimes resembles a runway model. The following scene captures a bit of the sexy/scary quality of this "new species":

What I like about this clip is that it suggests the mix of fascination/horror public discourse about new science and technology often carries with it.  We love this stuff, yet we're afraid it will kill us if we get too close.

In fact, what's new about the film is that it pushes that "love" all the way into Eros.  There's even a sex scene between Brody's character and Dren (the name given the creature), where her angel wings flutter in ecstasy.

But, as the stinger at Polley's throat reminds us, Dren is "not of our kind."  (That stinger will pierce the heart of one of the characters later, administering a death blow not unlike what killed Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter.)

One of the things that keeps the film from resolving into cliche is that it maintains this ambivalence through to the very end.  Of course, Polley and Brody are punished in various ways for their Promethean hubris.  Like Adam and Eve, they've accessed knowledge it seems they should have left alone.

But in the last scene, this idea is thrown into doubt.  We find out Polley's character is pregnant. The baby could be the progeny of her (now dead) husband or of the creature itself -- who at one point transformed itself into a man and raped her.  In a rather futuristic take on the Pro-Choice position, she decides to keep the baby.

And her boss at the genetics firm has gone from condemnation of her creation to approval.  It turns out her research produced profitable new patents for the company.  Polley's character is lauded for her courage.

Tradition and the Posthuman Individual

As I was wondering about the film's vacillations, I came across some interesting observations by the philosopher Slavoj Zizek on the public rhetoric surrounding genetic research.

 Zizek, thinking about the way the news of genetics breakthroughs has been received in Europe, notes a tendency which "on the one hand, tacitly tolerates scientific and technical progress, while on the other...tries to control its effects on our socio-symbolic order, that is, to prevent the existing theological-ethical world picture from changing." (p. 62)

I think Zizek's comments explain the caution around such discoveries when it comes to public policy rhetoric.  In the U.S. at least, such "official statements" are influenced by a politics that speaks the language of (if not rules according to) Judeo-Christian ethics.  And the film certainly reflects this influence. But what of its simultaneous delight and endorsement with such dabbling? 

There's one U.S. institution stronger than Church and State combined: Business.  And this force is governed more by cost/value equations than ethics.  As such, it tends to be morally agnostic.

The movie can be read as a parable about the difficulty of splicing all these forces together -- into anything resembling an integrated social whole.  And though this integration never happens, along the way the film offers up some fascinating and hilarious conundrums.  Here's my favorite:

After walking in on Brody and Dren, Polley's character mutters a standard movie expression, along the lines of: "There are some things you just don't do."  This draws a big laugh from the audience.

Maybe that's partly because it's hard to define Brody's transgression: has he committed adultery?  Incest? Or something new -- human/alien sex -- that we don't have a sin for yet?  In which case, you find yourself asking: is it really bad?               

Is Nature Superstitious? Science, Religion and Science Fiction

Recently I bought an anthology of science fiction stories titled The New Space Opera 2.  The beginning of one tale in particular, "The Island" by Peter Watts, compelled me to read on:

"You sent us here.  We do this for you: spin your webs and build your magic gateways, thread the needle's eye at sixty thousand kilometers a second.  We never stop, never even dare to slow down, lest the light of your coming turn us to plasma.  All so you can step from star to star without dirtying your feet in these endless, empty wastes between. 

Is it really too much to ask that you might talk to us now and then?" And then, a little later on the page: "Why have you forsaken us?" (p. 31)

The addressee here is not God but, as far as I could tell on first reading, a post-human intelligence, perhaps some combination of man/machine.  And this prayer is uttered not in a Church, but in one of those Cathedrals of the far future: a rocket ship.

The character thinking these words is tens of thousands of years old.  But she's not supernatural either. She's simply one of a small crew of workers whose Sisyphean task is to travel thousands of light years across the cosmos, as she helps build things for a kind of intergalactic Robert Moses (the "person" addressed earlier).  To make this task possible, she and her crew only get to stay awake for a few weeks every thousand years or so (the rest of the time they're kept in an "undead" state by intelligent robots).

Talk about work alienation: "...there is no finish line," she mutters.  "We go on forever, crawling across the universe like ants, dragging your goddamed superhighway behind us." (p. 69)

Natural Supernaturalism

Why was I compelled to read on?  The pleasure of this text for me was in watching how it elegantly translated the motifs of older, biblical, devotional and mystical literature (and the feelings these stirred) into a secular tale.  In this, the SF genre shares something with Romanticism.  It too derives some of its appeal from what the great literary scholar M.H. Abrams termed (in a book of the same name) Natural Supernaturalism.

According to Abrams, the Romantics (and their progeny) -- reacting against the more mechanistic side of the Enlightenment -- found ways to reinvent older spiritual (and biblical) literatures by "reconstituting them in a way that would make them intellectually acceptable, as well as emotionally pertinent." (p. 66)

So, for example, the figure of "Prophet" becomes the "visionary poet" in Wordsworth.  "Providence" is transformed into the march of the Idea through history by Hegel.  The Millennial Kingdom is reborn as the post-historical age of Communism in Marx.

Pulp Vs. Hard SF

From what I know of the history of SF, the term "Space Opera" (derived from "horse opera") was originally derogatory.  It described a strain of the form full of fanciful science, with a premium placed on adventure. It was also known as "Space Romance."

"The New Space Opera" appears (at least on the basis of this tale) to be an attempt to renew the "wow" factor of its pulp ancestor (its sense of the cosmic infinite or sublime) by offering greater attention to hard science fact and theory, in order to enhance speculative plausibility.

 What's touching in this tale, though, is a sense of mourning for the lost innocence of older SF.  At one point, for example, there is a vision of nature reminiscent of a more Romantic heritage: a living star that signals "Stop, stop, stop" to the rocket as it nears.

The narrator tells us that no human crew has been able to communicate with an alien life form, and the very possibility sets off her utopian imagination.  She becomes convinced this being (called "The Island" or DHF 428) is evidence of a kinder, gentler, version of evolution: 

"The Island puts the lie to everything we were ever told about the machinery of life.  Sun-powered, perfectly adapted, immortal, it won no struggle for survival: where are the predators, the competitors, the parasites?  All life around 428 is one vast continuum, one grand act of symbiosis.  Nature here is not red in tooth and claw.  Nature, out here, is the helping hand." (p. 54)

But, as one might expect from a post-Romantic Space Romance, this proves untrue.  Through great effort, the ship, heeding the pleas of 428, adjusts its course, so as not to collide with it.  Later, though, we discover this being "conned" them" -- into killing another life form in its vicinity.  "I let myself believe in life without conflict," the narrator mourns, "in sentience without sin." (p. 69)

Science Vs. Ideology

Have we then, through this disillusion, escaped the Natural Supernaturalism of the Space Romance? Perhaps.  But doesn't it sound like the narrator, presenting a more "realistic" version of evolution is getting it mixed up with older doctrines like "Original Sin"?

Some cultural critics consider this "dog-eat-dog" version of "hard science" to be suspiciously close to competitive market rhetoric.  Evolution, so I've read, can be influenced by cooperative ventures like culture, as well as "selfish genes."

So you might read this tale as a cautionary one.  Perhaps it warns that sometimes you give up religion, only to replace it with ideology.