Our contemporary society has a peculiar obsession with sorting things into groups based on how they are different. This can be useful when it comes to things such as silverware, but it starts to get complicated when we start doing this to human beings. As described by Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin in America on Film, this process is described as “othering” (54). In contemporary media, cinema and literature alike, othering has been used to shape a societal norm based around what is ideal. The only thing that stands in the way is the less than ideal: a threat to perfection only because of the risked that something flawed will somehow reflect upon the whole in a negative light. Society’s ongoing search for the ideal will forever be hindered by the desire to create a homogenous society in its place.
In Constructing Normalcy, an academic paper on the evolution of how disablement is viewed in society by Lennard J. Davis, the author dives into the origins of the societal norm. Davis makes particular note on the etymology of the root words “norm” and “average”, specifying how they “all entered the European languages rather late in human history” (3). The concept of the norm developed in the English language over the period between 1840 and 1860, with the word “norm” itself appearing around 1855 (Davis 3). Average, which came from an astronomy method, dates to 1835, with French statistician Adolphe Quetelet and his idea of the average man, “both a physically average and a morally average construct” (Davis 4). The word “ideal”, and by default the concept of the word, only predated the norm by only about two hundred years (Davis 4). The conception of the norm in European culture is usually linked to the growth of statistics (Davis 4). The conception of the norm then evolved into the further subdividing of society based on social class and disability, among other things, that we know today.
The development of a societal norm can be catalyzed from a broad range of factors. One particularly curious instance can be seen in the landscape of Philip K. Dick’s book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Devastated by nuclear war, most humans have gone to colonize space, leaving only those unfit or unwilling to leave on Earth. Out of this, a societal norm based around empathy has developed, forming into a religion called Mercerism. A large part of Mercerism is taking care of animals, somehow making up for the mass extinctions that were mentioned in the book. However, there is a distinct line drawn between androids and humans. Androids are incapable of feeling empathy; and as a result, are not to be part of the society (Dick 12). The androids, in a way, are victims of “othering”. The main character, Rick Deckard, is a bounty hunter, and has the job or retiring, or deactivating the androids. As the story progresses, Deckard develops empathy towards the androids, and decides to quit his job.
Typically, people have a hard opinion on the matter: whether grouping human is a good thing or a bad thing. There are drawbacks, usually based on moral principals; these choices have shaped our history and our society. It is the norm in the society presented in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for grouping to occur: those fit to colonize space, those who remain on Earth (and these are grouped into further subgroups) and androids. In the group of people who remained on earth, you have the subgroups of people who can afford real animals, like Bill Barbour (Dick 4), and those who can’t afford real animals, like Rick Deckard (Dick 5). There are also the Specials, like John Isodore, who have been affected by the radiation, and are prohibited, from reproducing or emigrating to Mars.
This concept or “othering” can especially be seen through the past two hundred years of American history through numerous examples of institutional racism; one of the most shocking instances of this is rather contemporary, and seen in retaliation to the Black Lives Matter movement. In the Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, Julius Bailey and David J. Leonard describe the Black Lives Matter movement as “this generations’ ongoing struggle against persistent state-sponsored violence with black bodies as its target” (Bailey 67). It’s a loose comparison, but a line can be drawn between the Black Lives Matter movement and some of the societal groups in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. African Americans have a long history of oppression in the United States, and thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement, it is being exposed that it is still happening to this day at a greater level than was commonly thought.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, there is oppression towards many groups of people, but especially towards androids and specials. Androids, on Earth, are denied life, and have bounty hunters (like Rick Deckard) searching for them (Dick 12). On the other end of the spectrum, the Specials are denied the ability to reproduce and emigrate (Dick 7). Although African Americans as a whole do not fit the mold developed in Philip K. Dick’s novel, as a group developed by white society, they are denied a sense of safety.
In their paper, Bailey and Leonard mention a few examples of the dehumanization of African Americans. One of these examples is the concept of the “no angel”, when the media focuses on the criminal record of any killed young black man (if a criminal record exists); while on the contrary, the media would portray any killed young white man as an angel, even if a criminal record did exist (74-75). As the authors continue to mention, “the criminalization and dehumanization of blackness require the hyper visibility of ‘thug’ imagery” to keep the ongoing, unfortunate tradition of dehumanizing African Americans and treating them as second-class, despite legislation, that has occurred since Civil War reconstruction (Bailey 75). Although no exact parallels can be drawn between these events in Philip K. Dick’s book, there is a strong link with the specials in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, where they were “abruptly classed as biologically unacceptable” and “ceased, in effect, to be part of mankind” (7). Although it is clear that the stigma against specials is based around a system of eugenics, while the stigma against African Americans is no longer; both groups, as dictated by society, are in some way, shape, or form incapable of falling into a societal norm, and are thus viewed as something less.
As Lennard J. Davis explains in Constructing Normalcy, “a common assumption would be that some concept of the norm has always existed” (3). The concept of disability as not ideal is rather recent. Davis explains this elegantly, putting a pinpoint on the mark in history when this idea began to rapidly change:
As we see it, the social process of disabling arrived with industrialization and with the set of practices and discourses that are linked to late eighteenth and nineteenth century notions of nationality, race, gender, criminality, sexual orientation, and so on (3).
The development of the social norm, forcing out people of the post-industrial idea disability (including race) has led to an imbalance in the world. The Black Lives Matter movement has tried to combat this by vocalizing this issue. However, from the societal norms of both sides of the political spectrum, they have received criticism. Bailey and Leonard mention how people on the right side of the political spectrum question a movement that claim black lives matter while remaining silent in relation to black-on-black crime, while some people that drift more towards the left complain about the specific nature of the movement, attempting to create the countermovement “All Lives Matter”, attempting to encompass a larger group of people that includes the cultural norm. Regardless of where they lie, however, they are not being proactive towards the movement’s mission.
One major question is presented in this phenomenon: why does society have a problem with creating a social norm that accepts people of all backgrounds? The root of the problem might lie in the empathetic response of the people in the societal norm. In the article What Becomes of Empathy, the claim is made that the empathetic response to people of different regions (people not like us, the cultural norm) is different, or less, than the empathetic response to people like us (Recuber). Tim Recuber, the author, uses America’s empathetic response to the terror attacks in Istanbul, Turkey, and compares it to the much greater empathetic response to the terror attacks in Paris, France last year. The average person simply didn’t have the same empathetic response to a terrorist attack that happened in Turkey, in different region with a different kind of people, than one that happened in a Europeanized country, like France, with a people that is similar to the “societal norm” of America. Humans were the victims of both attacks, but it is clear through the empathetic response that the average American viewed one group as more human than the other.
Something similar can be said about the Black Lives Matter movement. Although the people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement are from our country, they are still not considered the Europeanized people we have adapted as our societal norm. For some reason, this continues to be a major hurdle for the movement to gain legitimacy among the majority of the population. Since the Black Lives Matter movement advocates for the safety of African Americans primarily in urban settings, the average person from middle America has trouble empathizing with them, and as a result, is incapable of find a person reason to support the movement.
Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep purposefully makes you feel empathy for the important subplot lead John Isodore. He is portrayed as a generally good person that has been genetically degraded, and deemed less than a citizen. He is also lonely, which a large portion of the book’s audience can empathize with the romanticized version of a loner. However, the real dilemma is whether or not one can empathize with the androids. The androids come from Mars, a region that is not Earth, so using Tim Recuber’s account of the terrorist attack in Istanbul as reference; the average reader will not feel empathy for them. Androids are determined using the Voigt-Kampff Empathy Test, since androids are incapable of showing empathy (Dick 12). However, the new Nexus-6 androids’ abilities are drastically underestimated.
At the root of the issue is this search for the ideal, based off Lennard J. Davis’ paper Constructing Normalcy. The idea as a norm, as said by Davis, “is less of a condition of human nature than a feature of a certain kind of society” (3). The process of othering is our society’s way of creating a norm, and expelling people from it, citing them as less than ideal. The real question is if those marked as less than ideal are any less human. Androids, an exceptional example, obviously are not human, due to their nature, but the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep makes its audience think if they actually are. The specials, despite being removed from society, and humanity by means of sterilization, are no less human than unaffected humans. African Americans, although they have a history of being dehumanized by white society, are no less human than the rest of society. All groups, whether in our society or Dick’s fictional society, are victims of othering and the search for the ideal.
The process of othering, as described by Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin in America on Film can be seen throughout Philip K. Dick’s book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, as well as the Black Lives Matter movement. Both the androids and the specials in Dick’s book, as well as African Americans, are the unfortunate victims of othering. Due to othering, people will have different empathetic responses, and as a result, society will never find itself to be ideal.
Works Cited
Bailey, Julius, and David J. Leonard. Black Lives Matter: Post-Nihilistic Freedom Dreams. Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, Vol. 5, No. 3/4, pp.67-77. 2015.
Benshoff, Harry M., and Sean Griffin. America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies. Malden, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Davis, Lennard J. Constructing Normalcy. The Disability Studies Reader, Routledge, New York, 2006.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Del Ray, 1996. Print.
Recuber, Tim. “What Becomes of Empathy? – Cyborgology.” What Becomes of Empathy? – Cyborgology. N.p., 20 July 2016. Web. 3 Oct. 2016.