We humans are a very intelligent and emotional species completely different from any other being on this planet. As humans, we tend to ask ourselves philosophical and existential questions about our lives and usually they are never truly answered. Being able to read, analyze, and come up with conclusions from our gathered data is one of the many things we can do that no other being can. Having the ability to ask questions is what makes us human. Many are drawn to this theme of not knowing the true answer to those heavy questions we ask ourselves and that common theme is presented in many different forms of media and entertainment. Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is one of those stories that begs the existential question, “What Makes Us Human?”
Philip K. Dick is known for writing novels that debate some of these commonly asked existential and philosophical questions. His writing hit its peak during the Cold War, a time of high political tension primarily between the USA and USSR. A plethora of reasons caused the tensions to erupt, like the wall built to separate East and West Germany, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Space Race. Today, we’re seeing similar tensions, like the wall being built to separate USA from Mexico, the North Korean nuclear missile threats, and the future deployment of the American Space Force. Us humans are very stubborn, so we have politics issued in our governing systems to work-out the debates that mean a great deal to us. A major component of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is empathy, which is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy had a part to play in the Cold War, given two of the largest powers of the world were in total disagreement with one another over a plethora of reasons. A short article related to empathy discussed data that was gathered by Keith Oatley, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto and he found that, “the most important effect that literature has on people is stimulating a social world which prompts empathy and understanding in the reader.” (Surugue). This is partly why humans are drawn to media that begs those deep, existential questions: we seek answers, to know and to understand more about one another and ourselves. We need to find ways to start understanding one another, tensions in the world have risen again since the Cold War and empathy is one of the most important parts of finding those answers.
In the novel, a few androids escape from Mars and flee back to Earth in search of their own freedom. This is seen as a very serious crime so bounty hunters are hired to hunt and kill the fugitive, run-away androids. From this perspective, we can see that the androids are basically slaves to the human race. But the issue that causes a debate amongst Dick’s readers is that the androids show signs of empathy, a commonality amongst humans, so why do they deserve to die? After all, the main character Rick Deckard was called a, “Murderer,” spoken by Iran, his wife, “hired by the cops.” (Dick 12). This suggests that some of the human population, like Iran, the wife of a bounty hunter, are against killing androids.
At first, Rick Deckard shows absolutely no signs of empathy towards anything. His wife suffers from severe depression and no matter what he does to keep her spirits up she falls back into the same pattern of sadness. “Keep your hand off my settings.” Iran says, “I don’t want to be awake.” (Dick 11). Iran uses a mood organ that can dial in different emotions to change its user’s behavior, yet she’s using it for the wrong reasons. This is a parallel to a drug addict suffering from addiction. Deckard has been dealing with his wife’s depression or “addiction” to sadness for some time and has done everything he can so he seemingly doesn’t care about trying to help her anymore. Also, because his job is a violent one, Deckard doesn’t think twice about having to kill an android. When he gets word that he has to hunt the run-away androids that have recently fled to Earth, he sees it as just another day on the job, this time just as busy-work because there’s more than one android he has to kill. One of the androids, Pris, gets in-touch with a human living in isolation, Isodore. He is what’s known in the novel as a “chicken-head” because he has been physically altered by the radioactive dust and is deemed un-worthy of creating life on the new planet. Isodore is lonely, he lives alone in an abandoned building and nobody wants to talk to him because of his physical deterioration. When Pris comes to him, Isodore accepts her company possibly because he seeks a friend in his lonely world. The fact that she’s a fugitive android doesn’t bother him. Pris on the other hand isn’t ugly or lonely, she’s actually very smart. She uses Isodore’s abandoned estate as a hide-out from the authorities and remains with Isodore in hiding for the majority of the novel. They reside together in the abandoned building and become very close with one another. Because the androids show signs of empathy towards others, which suggests they aren’t that different from us, Deckard is essentially a gunman hired by the government to pick off run-away slaves. But just because they aren’t seen as being equal doesn’t mean that they aren’t human on the inside.
One issue to discuss is Isodore and how he sees Pris; does he think she’s a human? Like stated before, Isodore either doesn’t care or doesn’t notice that she’s different. If we put ourselves in Isodore’s shoes, and we’re unable to see the physical difference between ourselves and Pris, than what does it matter? Another article related to empathy touches on seeing differences in one another. The article states, “as long as some people continue to imagine that phenotypical differences are markers of significant distinctions between themselves and others, then we can expect empathy to have trouble crossing racial and other boundaries.” (Recuber). People in Dick’s novel don’t have issues with the color of people’s skin, the issues come from their physical make-up. Pris comes to Isodore and continually asks questions about his life or life in general, like how we ask ourselves existential questions. Pris wants to gather knowledge on life, she’s asking questions about the human race, obviously she’s trying to fit-in so-as to better disguise herself, but she’s asking intellectual and existential questions like the ones we impose every day. No other species has the ability to question their existence like we can. Pris is exactly like us because she has that ability to ask questions.
Furthermore, Deckard has an encounter with one of the other androids, Luba Luft, who disguises herself as an opera singer. Upon arriving at the opera house and seeing Luba Luft for the first time Deckard is captivated by her beauty and can’t help but feel sexually attracted towards her. Deckard find’s her back-stage in her dressing-room and begins his interrogation, but during the conversation Luba Luft suggests that Deckard is the android. This puts Deckard in a state of confusion and for the first time he begins to question his own existence. Nearing the end of the novel, Deckard has another encounter with an android, Rachel, this time a sexual one. Deckard’s job is to hunt and kill these androids, yet he feels attracted to some and actually has sex with another. If we now put ourselves in Deckard’s shoes, and we know that the person we’re about to sleep with is a machine, created in a factory, yet we sleep with them anyway, why is there a line drawn between man and machine?
Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Rick Deckard, with his sexual interactions with androids, understands their humanity and can find joy in sleeping with them. Pris gathers knowledge from one of the lowest human beings on Earth and discovers that she can be just like everyone else. These characters have empathy and because human beings can ask existential questions we all can have empathetic feelings about others simply by getting to know them and asking questions. Being able to ask those questions, to gather data or knowledge and to ultimately learn from our findings is what makes us human.
Works Cited:
Pages, The Society. “What Becomes of Empathy?” Sociological Images Racializing the Abortion Debate Comments, 26 July 2016, thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2016/07/20/what-becomes-of-empathy/.
Surugue, Léa. “Reading Books and Watching Films Makes You Kinder in Real Life.” Via.hypothes.is, CNBC, 19 July 2016, via.hypothes.is/https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/reading-books- watching-films-makes-you-kinder-real-life 1571434#annotations:_MOsQlpyEeaiesf9ed4wVw.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Del Rey, 1968. ebook.