Cyberpunk Literature: A Dim View of the Future
Lauren Steates
Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre that is distinguished by its focus on cutting-edge technology and its effect on future society. There have been numerous books and articles written in the genre that contain stories about technological interaction with humans. In general, cyberpunk authors attempt take technology that exists at the time they are writing the book and project it into the future. The cyberpunk extension of current technology into future society is hardly new in the field of science fiction. Indeed, it is the basis of much of science fiction, dating back to the days of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. However, it is the particular way that cyberpunk authors morph their future technological projections that sets their genre apart.
The main cyberpunk setting is one where technology has led to devastation and the collapse of society. Unlike many previous utopian science fiction settings, cyberpunk immerses readers headfirst into dystopian futures. Darkness and confusion rue the day. Government structures have disintegrated into chaos, and the world is largely ruled by huge, powerful corporations (all with a sinister motive, of course).
In William Gibson’s Neuromancer, written in 1984, the novel opens in Night City, the drug and techno-driven, twenty-four-hours-a-day section of Chiba City, Japan. In the first line of the book, Gibson sets the tone for the entire novel: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”. Gibson then plunges forward, immersing us into a dark, hopeless world in which humankind and machine are irrevocably intertwined. Gibson’s imagery places us squarely into what we now recognize as 21st century technology. He writes of hacking software penetrating “the bright walls of corporate systems, opening windows into rich fields of data”. He envisions economic systems where cash is not only rarely used, but illegal. He portrays the “electronic thunder of an arcade”, enticing dozens who stand at the consoles “lost in the games”. He describes Night City as a “deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself”. He paints a picture of surgically and genetically altered individuals, routinely rebuilding and reconstructing their bodies.
Another cyberpunk novel that portrays the technologically advanced future as dark and dreary is Marge Piercy’s He, She, and It (1991). The book is set in 2059, where present-day earth has been transformed into an environmentally ruined world politically dominated by huge multi-national corporations.
Similarly, Bruce Sterling’s Novel Distraction takes place in 2044, a time where America is in great distress. Both environmental and economic failure has left a society twisted by its own collapse. America is spiraling out of control: the United States government and armed forces are just about bankrupt, there over a dozen different political parties, states are practically autonomous, and nomads wander around everywhere with no chance of ever finding a job. In those states that are not burned to the ground, a majority of the populations are “proles,” people that do not have a job or a chance of ever finding one, that are living in the streets “off the grid.” Because of all of the chaos, Congress has been replaced by an Emergency Committee. The United States Armed Forces have resorted to blocking roads in order to collect “voluntary donations” from the public. A new cold war exists, this time with the Netherlands. The global economy is largely a thing of the past; China has ruined the American economy by decimating its software industry, and the United States to struggles to maintain its own existence.
Within the worlds envisioned by the three authors noted above, each explores another of cyberpunk’s common themes: How does technological advance change the way people fit into future society, and how do the characters in their novels deal with the challenges presented them by that society? As noted by Laurence Pearson in his 1998 Notes Toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto : “Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body.”
Gibson’s protagonist, Case, was a “cowboy”, a computer hacker and thief who was “jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied consciousness into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix.” Caught stealing, his employer damaged his nervous system so that he was unable to access the global computer network. Deprived of his “bodiless exultation of cyberspace” he becomes frustrated, suicidal and drug-ridden. Floundering aimlessly in the excesses of Night City, he is recruited by Molly, who works for an ex-military officer named Armitage. Enticed with the prospect of regaining his ability to plug in to the matrix, Case agrees to work as a computer hacker for Armitage. Using his renewed abilities, Case become connected to an artificial intelligence named Wintermute, who was programed to merge with another artificial intelligence, Neuromancer. Case and Molly find that Wintermute has manipulated Armitage to recruit Case to unite the two. Case, fully reimmersed into cyberspace, finds himself struggling to separate his own identity from that of his indentity in cyberspace.
Within the setting established in He, She and It, the story begins with a custody battle between the main character Shira and her ex-husband, Josh, over their son, Ari. Because Ari is considered “property of the father’s gene line,” Josh wins custody of Ari, and Shira is heartbroken. In order to have “time to heal” and figure out how to regain custody of Ari, Shira returns to the independent free town where she grew up. Once home, Shira’s grandmother, Malkah, provides her with family companionship.
Shira decides to take a job working in network programming, and is assigned to work on the programming for an illegally created cyborg, Yod. Yod (the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and (coincidentally?) a symbol for God in the Hebrew discipline of Kaballah) is the tenth generation of a physically embodied artificial intelligence, and is to be used to protect their home city from attacks from the multi-nationals. Yod has been built with a human physical appearance, and designed with human-like mannerisms and thought processes. The novel explores the relationship between Yod and Shira, with the two eventually becoming lovers.
In Sterling’s world, the main character, Oscar, flits from subplot to subplot. Sterling offers us dramatic advances in technology, but then offers us little hope that humans are capable of grasping the technology and using it in a way that improves the Earth’s quality of life. Instead of drawing a picture of Utopia, he offers us a mild version of hell. Humans seem to take the new technology, and twist it until it becomes a perversion. Oscar is himself such a perversion: not quite human, genetically engineered (far from perfectly so), seemingly incapable of consistent ethical behavior. His view of the world he lives in is increasingly cynical: “Oscar Valparaiso had once imagined politics as a chess game. His kind of chess game. Pawns, knights, and queens, powers and strategies, ranks and files, black squares and white squares. Studying this tape had cured him of that metaphor. Because this phenomenon on the tape was not a chess piece. It was there on the public chessboard all right, but it wasn't a rook or a bishop. It was a wet squid, a swarm of bees. It was a new entity that pursued its own orthogonal agenda, and vanished into the silent interstices of a deeply networked and increasingly nonlinear society.”
Wintermute, Yod and Oscar lead us to another of cyberpunk’s themes. With the continued narrowing of the gap between human entities and artificially replicated intelligence (or a hybrid between the two), where does life end and where does technology begin? How do we separate our (real?) existence from an existence in cyberspace? At what point does genetic, chemical and surgical modification change an individual so much that he or she is no longer human? And, most provocatively, can an artificially created entity be considered alive?
The most disturbing extension of technology in Neuromancer may well be the international computer matrix. The matrix in Gibson’s novel is a network that humans can physically plug into, connecting their consciousness directly into cyberspace. The user can navigate though the computer matrix. In Neuromancer, Case’s consciousness is fully involved in the matrix; his consciousness no longer exists in the “real” world. His interactions with the artificial intelligence Wintermute are fully interactive. When does this immersion into cyberspace become so complete as to replace Case’s physical existence with his existence in cyberspace? It takes little imagination to extend this scenario to that portrayed in The Matrix series of films where one’s physical being is virtually replaced by existence within the Matrix. Battles and wars are virtually fought, people virtually live (and die).
Sterling introduces us to a frightening use of technology, an agent that when introduced into humans directly affects the brain’s cognitive process, presumably to improve its functioning, but ultimately to be used to further the interests of unscrupulous politicians. The chemical, mechanical, or electronic control of a person’s brain may directly affect that person’s ability to be themselves. How far can this manipulation of body and brain be taken before one’s very existence is extinguished? To take Sterling’s scenario to the extreme leaves us to a future-day Frankenstein, with one man’s brain in another man’s body.
On a different level, Marge Piercy drops us into a world that is not too difficult for us to imagine, and within that world asks us to explore the definition of life. While setting forth the character of Yod, Piercy intertwines Yod’s story with the 16th century Jewish narrative of the Golem of Prague, a being created from clay by a Rabbi, to protect the Jewish inhabitants of that city. Jewish lore tells us that a golem, being made of man and not of God, is imperfect. It cannot speak, has no soul, and can act only at the request of a man. Yod takes the dilemma a step farther, however. Yod, made by Man, but programmed to have human characteristics, senses his own existence. When Shira asks Yod, “Do you consider yourself alive?” He responds, "I'm conscious of my existence. I think, I plan, I feel, I react. I consume nutrients and extract energy from them. I grow mentally, if not physically, but does the inability to become obese make me less alive? I feel the desire for companionship." Piercy presents us with futuristic thought-provoking issues. Future technology may soon lead us to a future-day golem. How do we limit its capabilities? What rights do we endow upon it? Do we hold it responsible for its actions or inactions, and do we reward it for its successes. Perhaps the most important question to ask (and perhaps the most difficult to answer) is when does such an entity become alive.
In the twenty-some years time since Gibson’s Neuromancer introduced us to the world of cyberpunk, incredible technological changes take have taken place at an almost unimaginable pace. In the course of human history, twenty years is merely the blink of an eye, but the same time frame juxtaposed against the current technological explosion is an eternity. To the average reader, it may seem incredible that the three cyberpunk novels mentioned were written before the 21st Century, because there are connections one can draw between much of the technology mentioned in the book and our evolving world today.
Cyberpunk doesn’t only show what our future with technology can (or will) be like, but it challenges to think of the ugly effects that technology can have on humans and their social interactions. Cyberpunk takes the negative aspects of technology to an extreme. It suggests how powerful technology can be and how it can control an entire society. The technology that cyberpunk shows us is extremely advanced but at the same time shows us a less advance society, one that is harsh, materialistic and selfish.
In the world of cyberpunk, there is very little evidence of successful technology. Society lets itself be totally controlled by the new technology. Members of society pervert the use of technology for their personal evil gain, disregarding society’s well-being.
Our world and society is already shaped by the technology around us. Cell phones, Blackberrys, iPods, video games, and the Internet are increasingly taking up more and more of our daily routine. Technologies start to become part of our cognitive processes, as they affect the way we think and obtain information. Genetic engineering and drugs that alter the body’s physical and mental processes are already here.
Although advancements in technology have helped us in many ways, some of the dreary side effects that cyberpunk authors suggest may already be present. For example, computer and Internet sites such as Facebook and MySpace have led to a new kind of crime, allowing unscrupulous persons anonymous opportunities to harass or exploit. Cybercrimes such as credit card fraud, identity theft, and copyright infringement are now all too prevalent.
Although these examples may not compare to the devastation that is described in many cyberpunk novels, they may be a sign that technology is heading us in the wrong direction. Perhaps cyberpunk’s cynical view of future technological disaster is meant to offer us a warning- a warning that an extrapolation of the past and the present will very often lead us directly to a vision of the future. A warning that cyberpunk’s particular vision of the future is not necessary that far away, and that some of the scenarios presented in the genre are not that improbable. Technology can and should be used to enhance our lives, but not used to control our lives. We should tread carefully to not allow technology to dominate us as individuals, and to not allow technology to make our world so complex that it leads to a perversion of our societal ethics and responsibilities.
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