What really makes us human? This question has been asked for centuries and yet we still do not have a definite answer. The question at hand is more complex then it seems, not only are there biological aspects that could define us as human, but there are also actions and emotions that we express that need to be taken into account when defining someone or something as human. Empathy is defined as “the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions: the ability to share someone else’s feelings” (Empathy). Many people believe that empathy is what truly makes us human and without empathy you would be considered an android. Androids are human-like; they walk, talk, and even look exactly like humans however they lack a certain emotional connection that humans are known to have. As humans in the 21st century, we have an addiction to technology. Technology is the basis of our culture and it runs our daily lives. You can’t even walk into a grocery store without technology being present in some way. With technology running our lives we have to wonder if our reliance on technology makes us less human; makes us less empathetic. The novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick, shows how the line between human and android can be blurred further making the question, what makes us human, an anomaly.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter of androids, it is his job to hunt down androids and “retire” them (kill them). During his quest to hunt down and retire highly intelligent androids, Rick starts to realize that androids just might not be any more non-human than Rick himself. This realization comes from Rick’s ability to realize that the androids he is hunting do indeed exhibit empathy, however they exhibit in a way that does not necessarily follow the norms of Ricks society. In Ricks world, empathy is established through the caring of animals. If you own a real animal then you are considered more human, more empathetic, than someone that owns a fake electronic animal. Androids are even hunted using a specific test, the Voigt-Kampff test, which uses scenarios involving animals and the reactions of the one in question. The test proves somewhat effective however, Rick starts to notice that the androids might not have empathy for animals per-say but that they do in fact have empathy for other androids. We know this because “andy’ Rachel Rosen sleeps with Rick in the hopes that he would gain even more empathy towards the androids and stop the killing. Rick starts to wonder what defines true empathy. Does it make the androids less empathetic then Rick if they only care about other androids? Is Rick more empathetic then the androids because he only has empathy for animals and other humans? This is where the line between human and android begins to blur in the novel. Rick however is reminded by fellow bounty hunter Phil Resch that “This is necessary. Remember: they killed humans in order to get away” (Dick 136). Rick is also reminded by androids themselves that they lack certain human qualities. When hunting down Luba Luft, Rick has doubts about retiring her because he has developed empathy for the androids he even gets Luba Luft a book. Luft goes as far as to say to Rick that “There’s something very strange and touching about humans. An android would never have done that” (Dick 133). Luft admits to Rick that androids indeed lack certain emotional aspects that human’s poses. Rick goes on to terminate the remaining androids on his bounty list and on his way home he finds an electric toad, an animal though to be extinct, and although the toad is not real Rick realizes that “the electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are” (Dick 241). Rick has realized that caring for an electric animal versus a real animal makes neither more empathetic than the other. The electric animals need just as much care if not more than the real animals and that their lives matter too.
Like our society today, Rick and Iran Deckard both have an addiction to some form of technology: the mood organ. Iran deliberately tries to contradict the norms of society by not following the proper etiquette when it comes to using the mood organ, a machine that is programed to make someone feel a certain way based off of not personal choice, but how someone is expected to feel in certain situations as well as a schedule of emotions for each day. Iran refuses to rely on the mood organ and chooses to dial in as depressed as a form of rebellion. We have many similarities between the mood organ and today’s society. The mood organ is used to help someone wake up, be happy, get through the work day and has many more functions. Although our “mood organ” might not necessarily be a machine, we have tools in which we use that act as a mood organ. To wake up in the morning one might drink a large cup of coffee, to become happy one might listen to upbeat music or watch a funny YouTube video. All of these thing seem natural to us, but Dick presents the mood organ just like a cup of coffee, it’s natural to them. Waking up and dialing in to the mood organ is a daily occurrence however, Dick presents it in such a way where we can start to question whether our actions are “android like.”
Many believe that we are too dependent on technology. Everything we do has technology integrated into it in some way and it is almost impossible to go a day without using a smartphone. However, we have people in our society who think that society is not addicted to technology. These people claim that technology is something we can disconnect from and is a tool we use to aide in our day to day lives. But it can be supported that technology has become a norm in society. If someone does not own a smart phone they are ostracized and made fun of. Lennard J. Davis’s article “Constructing Normalcy” puts this into context: “We live in a world of norms. Each of us endeavors to be normal or else deliberately tries to avoid that state” (Davis). Many people believe that relying on technology is a necessity, something we must do in order to function properly in today’s world. However, there are those that defy that norm and believe that technology is turning us into androids. In the lengthy “A Cyborg Manifesto” Donna Haraway creates a dichotomous key focusing on “the rearrangements in worldwide social relations tied to science and technology” (Haraway 300). Her list includes things that were once controlled by society are now influenced by technology. For instance, she lists things such as sex, labor, and mind followed by genetic engineering, robotics, and artificial intelligence (Haraway 300). Everything fist listed comes natural where as those things she counter-listed have been touched by technology in some way and are what is present in our society to this day.
We in fact could consider ourselves androids. Our day to day lives center around technology so much that it’s virtually impossible to go more than 24 hours without a smart phone. Many people claim that this reliance on technology has made our society less empathetic. Tim Recuber talks about this empathy gap in his article “What Becomes of Empathy?” Yes, our technology does have the ability to make us more empathetic due to “increasingly timely and intimate forms of news gatherings in the digital age” (Recuber). However, technology limits us from experiencing other cultures and immersing ourselves into other situations. We are addicted to viewing instead of immersing ourselves in the situation. In their article “Is the Internet Killing Empathy?” Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan claim that our “brains [have] become so desensitized by a 24/7, all-you-can-eat diet of lurid flickering images that we’ve lost all perspective on appropriateness and compassion when another human being apparently suffers” (Small). We are constantly exposing ourselves to “shocking and sensational images and videos,” this constant exposure can result in “desensitization of neural curcits to the horrors we see online” (Small). When looking at current situations in the world things like the Syrian refugee crisis, the Orland shootings, and terrorist attacks are all effected by technology. We have become desensitized, many people don’t sympathize with the Syrian refugees however, many people sympathized/ felt empathy for those involved in the Orlando shooting. This is because our empathy is selective these days, studies have shown that “even on a sensory level, people experience more empathy for the physical pain of those with the same skin color” (Recuber). This is how the gap is formed, we are uninformed and uneducated in situations involving those different from us. We create a barrier that to this day is hard to break. One might look at a picture of a Syrian refugee lying dead on the beach however like stated before we have desensitized ourselves from what we see online. This creates a lack of empathy among the technological age again making us more like androids.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? can be somewhat confusing to someone if they don’t look deeper into what Philip K. Dick was trying to convey to his readers. Yes, empathy is complex and there is no concrete way to define empathy; we all experience it and express it in different ways. Technology however is the reason why empathy has become so complex. Technology is what blurs the line between what is human and what is android. We have certain aspects in our lives which can be conveyed or interpreted as android-like tendencies. What was once a normal human function, such as drinking coffee in the morning, are now considered dependencies similar to a mood organ. Technology has help our society immensely however we spend so much time invested in technology that we don’t see the bigger picture. Our society has become desensitized. Dick shows how androids are desensitized to animals in the novel and just like the androids we as humans have become desensitized to situations around the world because we allow ourselves to become exposed to horrific situations on a daily basis through the use of technology. I am not saying technology is bad but I am also not saying it is 100% good. Technology is a platform that allows us to stay connected, learn, and experience different things but too much access/ too much exposure can sometimes make something that was originally good intentioned turn into something that is hurting our society. We have become androids, a thing that people fear and can’t accept. The answer to what makes us human is so hard to find because as a society we ourselves don’t even know what makes us human.
Work Cited
Davis, Lennard J. “Constructing Normalcy: The Bell Curve, the Novel, and the Invention of the Disabled Body in the Nineteenth Century.” The Disability Studies Reader, Routledge, New York, 2006.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Del Ray, 1996. Print.
“Empathy.” Merriam-Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy
Haraway, D. “A Cyborg Manifiesto”. The Cybercultures Reader. Bell, D. and Kennedy, B. M. Routledge, 2001.
Recuber, Tim. “What Becomes of Empathy?” Cyborgology, 20 July 2016.
Small, Vorgan. “Is the Internet Killing Empathy?”. CNN.Com, Feb. 8, 2011.http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/18/small.vorgan.internet.empathy/index.html?hpt=C2. Accessed Oct. 10, 2016.