Doomsday

I’ve been long interested in how we construct reality, but I’ve mostly thought of it in psychological or technical (not technological terms) –  like how we project a persona or how images or words in film or literature create meaning.  Obviously technology has or will soon have the ability to create possibilities of experiences that were not previously available.  Here, I use  the word “experience” as opposed to “reality.” But the question of what is reality is at the base of much of what we have read for this week.  Further, I find it most interesting to cast this question of reality into apocalyptic terms.

Quinby calls the social domination allowed by technology “technopression” and argues that it presents and seeks to control power, truth and morality in an apocalyptic mode.  Technology allows for the dream of transcendence of human limitations,  a millennialist dream she says.  Indeed, the idea of transcendence of human form and constraints squares well with ideas in BOR about the impurities of flesh and the promise of freedom from sin once the end arrives.  It’s also the 144,000 undefiled by sex who will be saved.  But stepping aside from this obvious reference, technopression’s problems are more insidious.  Programmed perfection as Quinby calls it, or Vinge’s “utraintelligent machine,” both seek to change a current reality into a new, sanitized one.

With the advent of the Singularity, which Vinge casts as an Apocalyptic event , will come a change in time or nature of intelligence.  He argues that more detailed knowledge of science takes away from the fantasy of what is possible.  Vinge also points out that truly productive work will become the “domain of steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity.”  IA creates cynical elite, which corresponds to an apocalyptic mode of electism, where only a select few are worthy of redemption.  But Vinge also points out that we are the initiators of the inevitable.  Thus, the Singularity raises issue about free will and determinism.

In Vinge’s post-Singularity world, pieces of ego can be merged/copied and “size of self awareness can grow or shrink to fit nature of problems under consideration.”  The SQUID device promises exactly this new reality, one which Quinby sees as having an alienating effect.

As I was reading for class the other night, I listened to a song by Regina Spektor titled “Hooked into Machine.” The main character of the song basically describes her life as a cyborg. She writes to the higher power that is “the Machine” because it “lacks [her] perspective” and it “lacks [her] organics.” Thus, even though the character of the Machine is very powerful, there is still something that this God wishes it had that its people do– this God is dependent on Man for new ideas. This brings to mind the benevolent God/gods idea by Isaac Asimov quoted in Vernor Vinge’s “the Singularity.”

However, I have trouble believing that machines will ever be anything more than “willing slaves” unless computing changes drastically within the next few decades (which it absolutely can). Moreover, I cannot imagine technology taking over the human race. Currently, we program computers. Without the instructions, the computer cannot do much of anything. All of its thinking is contained within the lines of code that we, humans, have defined. Computers with higher processing power may be able to go through these instructions faster, however, they cannot come up with any new ideas. That is why Vinge’s example of computers that can beat humans at chess does not impress me: all the computer is doing in this case is considering all the possible moves at a quicker pace than its human counter part. However, chess is played with a few strict rules, the rules for survival as a species are not that easy.

Also, pure machines will not be able to compete with humans on a survival level until they learn to reproduce on their own or maintain themselves forever without human help. Furthermore, there is no real reason why they would develop feelings of dissent towards their human masters. Without emotions, the capacity for ambition, or the ability to feel fatigue, machines are not going to have a motive for bettering their situation. In fact, they are the perfect slaves. In the Regina Spektor song, the main character also mentions that the Machine “covets [her] defects”– it is these defects of emotion and, otherwise emotional thinking that usually clouds up our judgment, that brought the human race thus far in the game of survival.

However, although I do not see technology taking us over in the form of some twisted dictatorship, I can imagine this happening in two other ways. One, people can come to depend on technology to the point that they cannot live without it, and even, become addicted to it. The first relationship between humans and the technology God is already something we see. Computers we have readily available today are capable of pretty high processing speeds and we do depend on them quite a lot. In such a setting, people become very dependent on those who have the knowledge to control the computers. This creates a special class of people with the ability to control us all. Also, as in the example presented by Lee Quinby of the movie Strange Days, people can become addicted to technology and use it as a means of escape– this kind of dependence creates a dystopia, but, the technology itself has no conscious control. In the second scenario, cyborgs (humans with capabilities enhanced by technology) will have the ability to control and eliminate the human race if given the chance because they will have the higher rate of processing with the ability to invent.

Thus, although I do not believe that a techno-apocalypse is on its way in the sense that machines will revolt, I do believe that it is completely possible that technology will fall in the wrong hands and facilitate an apocalypse.

I’ve seen the Matrix a few times but I understood it was a very intellectual movie but Rosen’s analysis of the many apocalyptic readings made me want to see it again.

The Wachowski Brothers said that they tried to incorporate as many ideas as possible into the films. The dualities etched by Rosen: Neo as both messiah and antichrist, the tethered humans as both sinner and saved, the machines as both “nurturing protectors and tyrannical parasites” highlight the importance of prospective in the apocalyptic narrative.

The case can be made for both a human apocalypse and a machinist apocalypse since both species are working towards creating a New Jerusalem free from the other but as Rosen argues in the world they live in they can’t survive without one another. This calls into question the need for evil to define good and the need for good to define evil. Can there be a Christ without an Anti-Christ? Is this why Satan gets released after a 1000 years to tempt humanity again?

Today, technology and humanity are co-existing. Humans use technology to make life easier but they also have come to depend on it for survival. If any of us were asked to live off the grid and wash our own clothes and do cook our food without assistance for more than a weekend camping trip we would have great difficulties. We also depend on technology to keep us alive in medical emergencies. We create these machines for both convenience and survival, but for many IT workers, it gives their life purpose.  While many people complain about living in a cubicle with only a desktop as company, they, no doubt, choose to live such an existence. We voluntarily live under technnoppression. We create the need to constantly check our e-mails or Facebook accounts. We create the conditions by which we can allow ourselves to be dominated by technology by placing a value on the benefits of the sprawling world of ones and zeros.

Quinby states, “Access to information banks is redefining truth and complicating whether truth can be established amidst an overwhelming flow of data. (135)” The spread of information can allow everyone to look at the numbers and define their own individual truth. This reveals the other sides of the coin that technology can be both liberate as well as imprison humanity. Rosen’s acknowledgement of the multiplicity of truths in the Matrix comments that with many truths comes the obliteration of Truth with a capital T.

I guess this is my lucky year. This is the first time (as far as I can recollect at least) that all of my courses overlap in subject matter and discourse. Oppression whether it be patriarchal, environmental or economic, I have been forced to reckon with its varying forms. This week I got to grapple with “technoppression” or technology used as a tool for apocalyptic domination. I have become more than familiar with Hollywood’s admonition that machines or technology will first enhance and eventually replace mankind at a final showdown (see every Will Smith movie for examples).  Despite my exposure to such influences, I rarely considered the implications of rapidly developing technology and its impact on the concept of the human body. Earlier this summer I read Bodies by Susan Orbach a psychologist who explored the idea of the manufactured western body. According to Orbach the body has become a form of work on which we are constantly improving, fixing and changing in order to become “better” versions of ourselves. Granted enhancement for beautification purposes is hardly a new topic but she drew upon the indispensability and the decreasing diversity of the “perfect” body that Quinby mentions. Even right now as I think about this I realize that this is evident is quite a few places. I had the opportunity to read another book titled Killing the Black Body, which mentioned the history of eugenics in this country and its racialized targeting of African Americans for sterilization. I was horrified to find out that many of the hysterectomies preformed even into the 1970’s upon black women were without their consent in attempt to eliminate the “black” gene and all of the social baggage that comes with it in this country. I do not know if it would be a stretch to say that this was an earlier form of genetic engineering but I believe that this continued technological development will only negatively affect those who do not fit in the idealized mold. “Programmed perfection” is so pervasive its somewhat upsetting. Personally I can easily draw and example from the issue of black females and their hair. It is shocking and disappointing that black females spend billions of dollars annually on making their hair look “right” through the use of weaves, corrosive chemicals and other magical tricks. Usually the finished product no longer mirrors the tenacious and unique curls that springs from their heads but instead is a sleek and shiny imitation of the idealized European standard.

I watched “Strange Days” before reading Quinby’s reading, and though I agree with most, and love the Foucauldian analogy between alliance, sexuality and programmed perfection, I have a three points to quibble on:

1. “From the Book of Revelation of the Heaven’s Gate website, denial of embodiment has been a heterosexist obsession that defines itself oppositionally to women’s bodily excess and lesbian and gay sexuality.” (135)

Perhaps true for Revelation and Heaven’s gate, there are others reasons for “denial of embodiment.” In Buddhism, it is because the body and all conceptualization of self cause suffering. In Kabbalah, the body is in direct contrast to the soul, or more broadly, to spirituality. In Tristan and Isolde, the body is what separates the two lovers from union, and in some stagings of Wagner’s opera, Isolde sings her final aria while slowly humping Tristan’s dead body, as if they were both floating up together, spirits entwined, into the afterlife – at least according to Prof Long at Hunter College.

I agree the castoff of the body can be read as discriminatory towards women and gay sexuality, however this is not the sole propagation. To my dismay, this point was made then abandoned without greater discussion.

2. “Max’s desire to have Lenny jack in to his acts of rape and murder of Iris and his sadomasochistic sex with Faith fuel homophobic fears and hence fortify the “safe” and “healthy” heterosexuality represented by Lenny.” (142)

Lenny is the one, however, who is quick to offer the Lawyer at the beginning fantasies involving men and chooses for him to be an 18 yr old female washing her body in the shower. If Lenny personifies white-male heterosexuality, he is certainly comfortable with a variety of sexual practices and inter-racial love.

The greater point is that Max’s desire to have Lenny watch his rape is not homosexual. Like the argument goes, rape is more about expressing power than sexuality. Here Max uses his rape as power over Lenny, not to entwine them homosexually. Also, porn is often watched in groups of heterosexual men as a means of establishing a collective base for what’s cool and what’s not etc and certainly the heightened sense of group/communal involvement – perhaps a psychological facet of gang-rape.

3. “When Mace turns to Stickland as her champion, activism is replaced by a reassertion of authority of the white-controlled state.” (145)

This feels overly pessimistic. Why “replaced?” And not, “activism working together with authority?” Also, why is it important that the chief is white? If he were black, would it be a reassertion of the black chief who sold out? Authority will perpetuate and so will activism, the two should work together.

However, it does point to the weakness in the storytelling of having a good man at the top but corruption omnipresent beneath him – but then again, Kathryn Bigelow is not a filmmaker known for her consistency but rather adrenaline-pumping male-centered action films.

Lastly, techno oppression has already manifested in our society and will continue to do so. However, technology seems more to me like the great and final democratizer. Cyborgian culture will rip down the walls between gender and all other classical notions about what it means to be human. From our insides to the outside, our economic and social infrastructure will change. A collective consciousness will arise. Governments won’t be necessary… But these are just my crazed, pseudo-prophetic ramblings, not be taken seriously, for sure.

One of the more interesting concepts in machinist apocalyptic thought is that of the cyborg. Part man and part machine, the two species merge as the necessary yet incestuous lovechild of evolution. The existence of the cyborg is not truly questioned because we have yet to truly examine what a cyborg is. The stereotype that science fiction generates is Star Trek’s Borg—a mishmash of wires plugged into flesh, a product of the distant future that cannot yet possibly exist in our modern world.

Yet, cyborgs do exist and humanity is the parent. We have become cyborgs out of necessity. According to Dictionary.com, a cyborg is “a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.” By that definition, anyone with a pacemaker in her chest is a cyborg. There also exists a growing trend of parents implanting tracking devices in their infant children in case the child is ever kidnapped; does this make the children cyborgs? The reality of the human robot is here.

However, we must ask ourselves several questions. The first is what we sacrifice for technology’s sake. With the reality of cyborgs comes concerns about the impending tide of technoppression. As Lee Quinby wrote in Millenial Seduction, “Programmed perfection does not just promise that electronic prosthetics will perfect life—it mandates it.” (134) As technology allows humanity to achieve more than is humanly possible, evolution dictates that we must reach for this or risk becoming obsolete.

At the risk of sounding like a bad joke, I ask whether we create technology, or does it create us? Have we lost ourselves in this pursuit, so much so that we create for the sake of creation, because we are compelled to for no other reason than to lose ourselves in the frenzy that comes with playing God? Are we truly building this great technology to further humanity’s interests or because we are competing with an imaginary rival whom we can never beat and thus, will never surrender to?

Angels in America challenges dogma and relativism by creating its own moral universe. But this new universe is at odds with variety of other universes, for example, the Mormon universe, which considers homosexuality an affront to G-d. If you create a moral universe you’re bound to step on someone’s toes. The skeptic steps on everyone’s toes.

Skepticism, it seems, is a means to a democratic end, which to the best of my knowledge is a means to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But “the pursuit of happiness” always sounded like an empty phrase and certainly not one of the cardinal goals in life. Can one pursue happiness? Should one to pursue happiness? Or to be straight – wouldn’t the pursuit of “satisfaction” or “contentment,” words that encompass a greater scope of human experience, be a better goal?

Victor Frankel says that as long as there is meaning in occurrences the human mind can bare the pain.

And on the topic of pain: Malunkyaputta once asked the Buddha a number of questions including, “is the universe eternal?” “Is the soul the same as the body?” “Does the Tathagata (Buddha) exist after death?” The Buddha replied, “The holy life does not depend on these views.”

A moral world is necessary for greater good and questions are necessary to come to a moral understanding, but should every dogma be questioned? Sometimes the hermeneutics of trust are a greater means to moral understanding, but then again, the end goal must be defined.

Note: I published a link to an interview with Kushner – Mother Jones – that Prof Q refers to in her book. Maybe he felt like he didn’t need to justify or explain what “progressive” meant for the magazine, but his end goal is unclear. I’m wary.

Most cultures possess some form of death tradition. By death tradition, I include all deathbed rituals, after death ceremonies, beliefs, and traditional practices. A prominent example is the Last Rites of the Catholics, a deathbed ritual in which the dying is absolved if hers sins, clearing their path to Heaven. Another is the ancient Egyptian practice of mummification, by which the body of the dead is preserved for its repossession by the soul. Personally, I have memories of going to cemetery plots every few years and burning what amounts to Monopoly money with my great grandmother’s name on it and pouring rice wine over her grave, in hopes that it reaches her in the Chinese afterlife.

However, I have never heard of the Kaddish. For me, one of the most haunting scenes of Kushner’s “Angels In America” is Ethel Rosenberg possessing Louis, and saying this Aramaic mourning song over Roy Cohn’s dead body. A quick Google search produced a translation of the prayer, which is written in classical Old Testament style.

But Rosenberg added something extra to the Kaddish. The translation I found (obviously) did not include “You sonofabitch.” Her bit of improvisation broke the spell the recitation of the Kaddish wove. The Kaddish, as all are death rituals, is rarely done for the dead. What can harm or help those who have shaken off their mortal bonds and earthly aesthetics? Will rotting hurt those who can feel? Can wine sate those who no longer thirst?  Neither Ethel nor Louis is saying the Kaddish for Roy’s sake. Ethal is saying it for herself and Louis is saying it for Belize who, despite her disdain for the corrupt powerbroker, had pitied Roy. The Kaddish was for their sake.

Death rituals help people cope with death. Perhaps the idea of an afterlife, to which those in this world can contribute, soothes the soul.

KADDISH TRANSLITERATION
Yis’ga’dal v’yis’kadash sh’may ra’bbo, b’olmo dee’vro chir’usay v’yamlich malchu’say, b’chayaychon uv’yomay’chon uv’chayay d’chol bais Yisroel, ba’agolo u’viz’man koriv; v’imru Omein.
Y’hay shmay rabbo m’vorach l’olam ul’olmay olmayo.
Yisborach v’yishtabach v’yispoar v’yisromam v’yismasay, v’yishador v’yis’aleh v’yisalal, shmay d’kudsho, brich hu, l’aylo min kl birchoso v’sheeroso, tush’bechoso v’nechemoso, da,ameeran b’olmo; vimru Omein.
Y’hay shlomo rabbo min sh’mayo, v’chayim alaynu v’al kol Yisroel; v’imru Omein.
Oseh sholom bimromov, hu ya’aseh sholom olaynu, v’al kol yisroel; vimru Omein.

May the great Name of God be exalted and sanctified, throughout the world, which he has created according to his will. May his Kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the entire household of Israel, swiftly and in the near future; and say, Amen.
May his great name be blessed, forever and ever.
Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored elevated and lauded be the Name of the holy one, Blessed is he- above and beyond any blessings and hymns, Praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; and say Amen. May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and life, upon us and upon all Israel; and say, Amen.