Show Me The Bloodmoney! (or, Fun with Dick and Jameson.)

First, Brave New World (revisited) - but not the book "Brave New World Revisited," just a revisiting of Brave New World, you know, the topic...

Let me revisit the topic and answer the unanswered question from last week. (You remember when Anthony asked me to define science? and you remember when I declined? Yeah, that was cool...) Anyway, here is something that approaches identifying my idea of Science & Technology as the object of the uncritical acceptance and obeisance to which I referred. (Such uncritical acceptance, I help, was the root of the "dys" in dystopias of Huxley and Forster.)

The idea of Science & Technology as the new "God" of these ages might be reflected by the comments on the names in BNW (Marx, Ford, Freud, etc.) made by Peter Firchow, in The End of Utopia. Firchow points out that points out that “All these forces share the claims of ‘totality,’ to a final knowledge… All are fundamentally materialist….” So, THIS is maybe what I meant by SCIENCE.
That is basically where I get off proposing that:

These dystopias have enthroned Science and Technology as God and King. The new ruler sets out to accomplish that bureau-lutionary process by which the ruling paradigm insulates itself from other ideas. (This same bureau-lutionary process is what creates “normal science,” and privileges ruling paradigms in theory, politics, and any number of other systems.) This process insures unity in the topia it rules. This unity is what Kenneth Burke might call a “congregation by segregation.” Oppositions to the throne (heretics) are segregated, excluded, marginalized, ghetto-ed, interred, but…. still existing in the ex-stasis, waiting. (from my previous blog)

Now, onto my ponderings on this week's readings...

So much to say - and my last blog was not a blog at all - but rather a "paper" - shiver! Does this reflect the power of the ages of print-centricity as ruling paradigm? You bet you sweet bippie!

This week, a shorter, more focused observation on... Bill. Bill, the "invisible friend" revealed to be invisible only because of his (ex)status/(ex)stasis as homunculus - contained within a more visible, but still marginalized body of a girl - his sister. Jameson's use of the communication grid situates Bill as the "receiver" or the "Other."

In order not to rehash or summarize what you have already read, let me problematize Bill's position as the "Other" in relation to his movement within the narrative of Br. Bloodmoney. For Bill to escape his position of ex-clusion, he must enter the world from which he is ex(oc)cluded, and must move within that world. Readers may see the world from which Bill is excluded as being primarily visual, or perhaps socio-political. Jameson sees the linguistic/communicative dimensions of the world from which Bill is cast outside:

Clearly, Dick's solution of the fundamental politico-existential problems facing humanity is here slanted toward art and language rather than toward an explicit scientific diagnosis which would meet the political problem head on. Nonetheless, Dick seems to realize that the verbal, linguistic or communicational field cannot by itself provide a solution. The playful character of Bill rises therefore, by his at least approximate synthesis of verbal and kinaesthetic powers, of communications and active physical intervention, to the status of final mediator, arbiter and one could almost say saviour in the microcosm of Dr. Bloodmoney. (Jameson, "After Armageddon," Archaeologies of the Future)

“The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”Audre Lorde's famous quote regarding ruling paradigms (particularly patriarchy) may be challenged by the movement of Bill in Dick's dystopia. Bill's narrative movement depends on access to, and conveyance through, those "within" the master's house (system), even if only marginally "within" and even if the "system" is only marginally a ruling paradigm. Edie was useful, as was Hoppy, both within the dominant system. (Admittedly, so was the owl, but that's another discussion...)

• It seems that the master's tools are always already being used to dismantle the master's house.
  
• In fact, perhaps the master's tools are a NECESSITY to dismantle the master's house.
• And further, perhaps the master's tools are teleologicaly DESTINED to dismantle the master's house.
• OR - is the master's house EVER REALLY dismantled? Can it be? Or is every "revolution" simply a REMODELING of the same house after all?
  

But, to quote Dieter (of Sprockets)

"Yes, Ve are doomed and I am filled with remorse, and it is most delicious. But enough, I have become bored vith this... Now is the time on sprockets ven ve dance!"

Free from Our (de-constructed) Angels

It seems to this blogger that our last Topias class discussion was quite full of interesting interrogations of the works at hand, with examinations and deconstructions of nearly every potential topic: capitalism, classism, feminism, ecocriticism, genderism, racism, and more. Yet, I say NEARLY every potential topic, for it seems one sub-ject seemed to fly (almost imperceptibly) below the radar. That topic/subject/(no.some)thing? As Thomas Dolby would say…

SCIENCE!

Even the remarks made about science as related to our “science fiction” served, not to deconstruct or interrogate, but more to reify science as a static, fixed, totalizing, objective truth. Comments like, “the fact that Herland depends on parthenogenesis makes this novel un-scientific” seem to allude to a universal, immutable, higher standard by which ideas are measured and found either unacceptable or acceptable. We can’t be blamed, critics though we be, for science has been ensconced in a position of authority that is higher that beatification, and perhaps approaching deification. We come by our acceptance of science as something other than “fiction” honestly. You could say, we were "blinded by science."

However, a study of the Rhetorics of Science problematizes our acquiescence to Science as Objective truth. Readings from Kuhn or Latour or Feyerabend make the rhetoric of science to become “visible,” giving us a behind-the-curtain look at how the magic is made – or how the “knowledge” of science is “made.” We may legitimately ask whether oxygen was “discovered” or whether it was “constructed.” (Of course the same cold be asked about the “discovery” of America.)

Our hands-off approach to science has its results. Uncritical veneration of science produces a “brave new world” where the only rescue is the hope that “the machine stops.” Yes, this is the (dystopic) Kingdom of Science, and its co-ruling cohort, Technology. The dystopias of Huxley’s Brave New World and Forster’s The Machine Stops are worlds tamed by, re-created by, ruled by, and watched by, the all-knowing, all-seeing Science and Technology.

In his book, Ecocriticism, Greg Garrard devotes a chapter to “Wilderness” in which he proposes that “The idea of wilderness, signifying nature in a state uncontaminated by civilization, is the most potent construction of nature available to New World environmentalism.” As a corollary, I propose that the dystopias of Huxley and Forster are precisely the opposite of wilderness. That is to say – they represent worlds that are, or at least seek to be, constructed worlds of (and by) Science and Technology uncontaminated by nature or wilderness.

SciFi theorist Alicia Hatter raised the question about the connection amongst the names Huxley uses to represent the ruling paradigm of Brave New World. “What connections do these disparate names have with your idea of Science and Technology as the new deities of Huxley’s dystopia?” Indeed the names mentioned range from Freud to Ford to Marx and beyond, but there is a common element that binds them together – their position as unquestioned, totalizing authorities. Peter Firchow, in The End of Utopia, points out that “All these forces share the claims of ‘totality,’ to a final knowledge… All are fundamentally materialist….”

These dystopias have enthroned Science and Technology as God and King. The new ruler sets out to accomplish that bureau-lutionary process by which the ruling paradigm insulates itself from other ideas. (This same bureau-lutionary process is what creates “normal science,” and privileges ruling paradigms in theory, politics, and any number of other systems.) This process insures unity in the topia it rules. This unity is what Kenneth Burke might call a “congregation by segregation.” Oppositions to the throne (heretics) are segregated, excluded, marginalized, ghetto-ed, interred, but…. still existing in the ex-stasis, waiting.

Those not cast out to reservations, made “homeless,” etc. are confined within a certain prescribed range of motion. This range is limited spatially, intellectually and spiritually. For example, lectures and learning and discussion are seemingly limitless in quantity, but not in direction or intent. Consider the description of learning (which rings eerily prescient of post-modern theory) in The Machine Stops:

"Beware of first- hand ideas!" exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. “First-hand ideas do not really exist… Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine - the French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought LafcadioHearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French Revolution… there will come a generation that had got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colourless, a generation seraphically free -- From taint of personality"

Beatirce Battaglia refers to this passage (without crediting this blogger, mind you) as she describes how the ruling system allows a motion of ideas that is “merely circulation” or the “illusion of movement,” but not real intellectual movement (Histories of the Future, 61).

“Seraphically Free.” Free LIKE an angel? Or more fitting – free FROM angels? Delicious. A pogrom against angels. Rich. The ostracizing of seraphim. After all, if you let angels rush in… will the fools be far behind?

How can such a ruling paradigm be overthrown? What is the “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” in these dystopias?

It begins when one of the excluded, marginalized savages has a “discovery” that is dangerous to the system.

“He had discovered Time and Death and God.”
(Huxley, Brave New World)

Go ahead, you know you want to...

It's Not Nice to Fool Mother (Herland) Nature!

In explaining the objections to the Cornucopians’ environmental stance in his book, Ecocriticism, Greg Garrard points out that:

A more serious objection is that cornucopians take little or no account of the non-human environment except insofar as it impacts upon human wealth or welfare. Nature is only valued in terms of its uselfulness to us. Many environmentalists argue that we need to develop a system which takes intrinsic value of nature as its starting point. (Garrard, Ecocriticism,18)

Working from Garrard’s statement, we might wonder whether the inhabitants of Charlotte Glman’s Herland are, to some degree, Cornucopians. (I capitalize Cornucipians because, though it sounds so wonderfully Swiftian.) Herland has forests that are amazingly fecund and fruitful and, above all, useful to the human inhabitants of Herland. Everything in Herland’s “natural” environment is gauged by usefulness to the human community. The forest in Herland could hardly be considered “wild” since it consists of only trees and plants which serve a certain utility to the humans, namely, providing foodstuffs. Brambles and briars and brush and “weeds” are all removed from the Herland environment. Entires species of Herland’s plants were wiped out by this approach.

But not only plants. Many species of other (non-human) animals also faced extinction at the hands of the Herland society.

“Have you no cattle – sheep – horses?” I drew some rough outlines of these beasts and showed them to her.

“We had in the old days, these,” said Somel, and sketched with swift sure touches a sort of sheep or llama, “and these,” dogs, of two or three kinds, “and that” – pointing at my absurd but recognizable horse.

“What became of them?” asked Jeff.

“We do not want them anymore. They took up too much room – we need all our land to feed our people. It is such a little country, you know.” (Herland, 49)

Undesirable plant species? Discarded .

Undesirable animal species? Eliminated.

Undesirable humans? (And by humans, I mean here, women, of course. And women separated from the influence of men for as much as 1,400 years.) Also - disposed of. (as recently as 600 years before the fictional conversation, some women were (natural born?) “criminals” in Herland. The society simple “bred out” or “trained out” the undesirable elements of the human population. (Foreshadowing of future readings from Huxley? Shadows of the Third Reich?) Even humans that didn’t fit the narrowly contrived social standards of Herland society fared no better that useless “dogs” or “weeds.”

Like the Prometheans as described by Garrard, Herlanders did “actively manage” their environment, but with total disregard to ensuring “as much biological diversity as possible” (Garrard, 20). The women in Herland were, in this sense, less kind “managers” of the environment. In fact, the managing of the environment in Herland amounts to a very heavy-handed forcing of nature to yield to its hu/wo-myn colonizers.

Goodbye, spotted owl. Goodbye Spot. Goodbye women who have the individual audacity to think you have rights to bear and raise your own children

In Another Place and Time...

Illinois' Secretary of State, in order to avoid having his signature affixed to the same document as impeached governor Blagojevich, signed a separate document to officially seat the next senator of the state. Unfortunately, instead of naming Roland Burriss to the position, a typographical error will now send Giants receiver Plaxico Burress to the senate. The Giants are relieved to be free of the salary committment to the now-former star player, but not entirely happy with the aging Roland Burriss at the wide receiver position. Giants coach Tom Coughlin issued the new Giant Burriss a pair of sweat pants, a handgun, and directions to several swinging hip strip joints in the NYC area, telling Burriss to "live it up - you're an NFL celebrity now." Prognosticators predict an opening at the wide receiver position by the beginning of Spring Training camp.

TOPIAS - Time Enough at Last!

Ah the return to literature.

Pure, sweet, undefiled muthos, narrative, story...
And u/dys/mis/his/her/etc. - topias - how cool. The stuff that I loved so much about Jonathan Swift and Samuel Butler and Ray Bradbury and Piers Anthony others, oh... to read the writing of writers again - not just reading what critics and theorists write about the writing.

My literary reading has been overwhelmed by the demands of academic reading - always bullying me away from literature toward "serious reading."
"What are you doing Mr. Nichols? Is that a (gasp) NOVEL? Get back to your Foucault and Derrida and Latour and Deleuze this instance!"
But now - a whole seminar about books!

• Philip K. Dick and Huxley and Forster!
• Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopic Futures - material to refresh the starving soul.
• And wonderful people with whom I can discuss books on the first week and the second week and the week after that and the week after that....

And the best thing is that there is time enough at last.
What could possibly go wrong?