Postmodernism and The

Media
Thursday, 19 January 2012

P.K.Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

P.K. Dick’s Do Andoids Dream of Electric Sheep?, published by Doubleday in March 1968

(Butler In Johnson 2005:119), is set in a post-nuclear-holocaust America. A world in which the

Earth is covered in radioactive dust, desolate due to the majority of humanity emigrating to the

new colony on Mars, and technological advances have produced humanoid robots, nicknamed

‘andys’. Dick’s novel embodies many postmodern ideas and fears; including the moods of

uncertainty and doubt, the evils of consumerism, and the illusion of truth. Although Dick’s style

of writing is not the most complex, and the genre of Science Fiction has been looked upon

condescendingly by many critics in the past, “...his general stature within Science Fiction and

beyond it (as the creator of an ouvre that an increasing body of critical opinion holds to be the

most interesting and important produced by any North American novelist since Faulkner)”

(Freedman 2000:35).

Within the novel androids play a key role in Dick’s exploration of what really makes us human;

our capacity for empathy or the way in which we behave to one another and machines?

However they also greatly benefit from a reading applying Baudrillard’s theories of simulation

and simulacra, and Adorno’s views on the culture industry. These combine to give an

enlightening insight into the postmodern aspects of consumerism and society exemplified within

the novel. In many ways Dick’s writing is rather prophetic of our current climate in the sense that

the lines between reality and hyperreality have seemingly faded, and as Baudrillard predicted

every layer of our existence has been permeated by simulacra, much as it has for the

characters in the novel. The androids in the novel are mass produced copies without an original,

Deckard indicates the extent of their diversity “...by 1990, the variety of sub-types [androids]
passed all understanding, in the manner of American automobiles in the 1960s”

(2009[1968]:12). The television advert overheard by Isidore further illustrates the interpretation

of androids as simulations, “...duplicates the halcyon days of the pre-Civil War Southern

states! ...custom-tailored humanoid robot – designed specifically for YOUR UNIQUE NEEDS

FOR YOU AND YOU ALONE” (2009[1968]:13). The language used ‘humanoid’ supports the

simulation interpretation of androids because they are a copy of something that resembles a

human being but still are not of an organic reality. The advert further illustrates what Adorno

criticises the culture industry for: classifying and organizing its consumers, labelling them so that

something can be created for all. In this case the androids are a mass-produced product and

the hierarchy is created via the ways in which the android is adapted to suit the individual

consumer, as Adorno claims the consumers comply with this by selecting the category of mass-

product produced for their ‘type’. The hierarchy of consumers is produced by the novel on a

wider scale in regards to ‘regulars’ such as Deckard and his wife (both are reproductively

acceptable and with mentality above the legalised minimum). Lower on the scale are ‘specials’

such as Isidore (who can no longer reproduce acceptably as his genes have deteriorated from

radiation). Even lower are ‘specials’ who fail to pass the minimum faculties test, branded

‘chickenheads’, a category into which Isidore falls also. The compliance of consumers to

apprehend products for their type is exemplified by “...the ads, directed at the remaining

regulars, frightened him [Isidore]. They informed him in a countless procession of ways that he,

a special, wasn’t wanted. He had no use.” (2009[1968]:15-16). The description of Isidore’s

status in society are contrasted with the tv ad sales pitch, he overhears, offering a life/status he

shall never attain.

The businesses depicted in the novel further adhere to Adorno’s view of the culture industry,

“For Adorno, the ideology underlying all forms of mass culture is one that supports the existing

power structures in society” (Butler In Johnson 2005:129). The Rosen Association at first seems

to be outside the control of the power structures (the West and Soviet governments), who want

them to cease manufacture of Nexus-6 android units which had “...evolved beyond a major –
but insignificant- segment of mankind” (2009[1968]:23). Deckard conveys the Rosen

Association’s influence “They control inordinate power, he thought. This enterprise is considered

one of the system’s industrial pivots...” (2009[1968]:36). Yet the Rosen Association, along with

other android manufacturers, rely on the governments for their business, as the advertising

slogan noted by Deckard states “Emigrate or Degenerate! The Choice is Yours!”

(2009[1968]:12), the colonization agenda of the government employs the propagandist incentive

of a free android on emigration to Mars. Deckard’s comment “...the manufacture of androids, in

fact, has become so linked to the colonization effort that if one dropped into ruin, so would the

other in time” (1968[2009]:36), exemplifies Adorno’s point that organisations (Rosen

Assoiciation) and authorities of power (government) are economically intertwined.

Further examples of Baudrillardian simulacra in the novel include the ‘Penfield mood organ’,

because the feelings produced by the mood organ are not genuine. They are simulations of real

feelings because they are selected and programmed into characters at their own will. Emotions

have become products, quintessentially, the mood organ offers a variety of settings from which

the characters/consumers can select their desired effect. In reality emotions are innate

reactions, an aspect of someone’s character, not something that can be selected at will from a

menu. Even the food in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Is no longer ‘real’ – it consists of

simulations as Isidore points out “Like a cup of water or rather milk; yes it’s milk or flour or

maybe an egg – or, specifically their ersatz substitutes” (2009[1968]:20). ‘Ersatz’ meaning “(of a

product) made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else” (Anon

2000:190). These substitutes are representations of food and drink but have entered, sign-wise,

into phase 4 of the sign – there is a complete lack of relationship between the sign and reality.

After the nuclear-holocaust fresh products must have been lost/become scarce and the

hyperreality of the ersatz products taken reality’s place. Animals have not escaped the

pervasion of simulation either, ‘real’ animals have become scarce and the new religion of

Mercerism values caring for them to such a degree that animals have become status symbols.

Due to the expense and lack of real animals fake robotic ones have found a market, though
Deckard enounces “...owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one”

(2009[1968]:6). These fake animals have become so real in appearance that Isidore mistakes a

real cat for a robotic one, “You’d almost think it was real...compellingly authentic-style gray

pelt...its vid-lenses glassy, its metal jaws locked together” (2009[1968]:56). The irony of Isidore’s

use of an artificial lexicon for an organic animal is rather amusing, moreover it exemplifies

Baudrillard’s claim that “...we cannot escape from them [simulacra], or express ourselves in

terms other than through the codes which saturate us” (Snipp-Walmsley In Waugh 2006:413).

This restriction of expression through ‘codes’ is verified by Isidore’s used of “pseudo-bony

spine...vid-lenses...metal jaws” (2009[1968]:56), along with his proclamation “Damn expert

workmanship; so absolutely perfect an imitation” (2009[1968]:57), thus making the real coincide

with the new models of simulation.

In conclusion, as the preceding paragraphs have illustrated Baudrillard’s theories of simulations

and simulacra have exemplified themselves within the novel via androids, robotic animals and

representations of organic food products. In the case of the androids these are also inextricably

linked with Adorno’s interpretation of the culture industry due to the ways in which they have

been created to fulfil a desire of society, one that has structured itself in such a way that they

are not available to all levels of consumer – ‘specials’ and ‘chickenheads’. Nevertheless the

types of consumer have been identified and a variety of mass produced products of varying

quality, “The Sundermann people showed their old T-14 back in 89” (2009[1968]:22), are on

offer. Adorno’s statement that we exist as data and statistics divided by income groups and

subjected to advertising using the techniques of propaganda (1944:1038) is verified by the

novel, albeit the consumer groups are separated more by social status (determined by

intelligence and reproductivity). Yet the constant “twenty-three unbroken warm hours a day”

(1968[2009]:13) in which consumers are bombarded with adverts, by a government funded

channel no less (2009[1968]:13), and the slogan “Emigrate of Degenerate!” act as the

propaganda Adorno refers to.

Posted by Laura B at 06:17 1 comment: 

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Adorno - The Culture Industry

Adorno proposes that within the culture industry there is an economic mechanism of selection.

There is an agreement or determination between executive authorities to avoid producing or

authorizing “...anything that in any way differd from their own rules, their own ideas about

consumers, or above all themselves” (Adorno 1944:1038). The ‘culture monopolies’ are weak in

comparison to these economic giants (executive authorities) and so they must appease the

overlords of industry so as not to lose their hold on the market by being ‘purged’. Adorono uses

the examples “The dependence of the most powerful broadcasting company on the electrical

industry, or the motion picture industry on the banks...” (1944:1038). Adorno further states that

within this sphere of dependency the individual branches of the powerful executive authorities

and culture monopolies become ‘economically interwoven’. According to Adorno the industry

classifies consumers, it organizes and labels them so that something can be created for all with

a “hierarchical range of mass-produced products of varying quality” (1944:1038), for example

supermarket value brands and their range of ‘best of’ or ‘finest’ products. Consumers then

comply with this hierarchy by selecting the category of mass product produced for their ‘type’,

we exist as data and statistics divided by income groups and subjected to advertising using the

techniques of propaganda. This is especially prominent in today’s society because, as Charlie

Brooker’s Black Mirror illustrates sardonically but acutely, we are bombarded by advertisements

every day, and are restricted to what we can buy by our income – a significant issue at this point

in a recession. Adorno further states that these seemingly varied quality products are all the

same in the end, which exemplifies the extent of how formalized the process is. Products

consist of “...ready-made clichés to be slotted in anywhere; they never do anything more than

fulfil the purpose allotted them in the overall plan” (1944:1039). Within the culture industry free

expression as protest against organization is quashed and forced to submit to formula which

replaces the work (akin to Baudrillard’s view that we’re only able to express ourselves via pre-

determined codes). The mass media stunts consumers’ imaginations due to the objective nature
 of products such as films, you are subjected to an onslaught of relentless facts to such an extent

you are unable to use your powers of observation and experience to comprehend them.

Posted by Laura B at 06:16 No comments: 

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Baudrillard - The Precession of Simulacra

The postmodern notion that we are in an age in which “...everything and everyone is

consumable...the medium becomes the message...[and] there is no hidden depth beneath the

surface...truth is just another illusion...” (Snipp-Walmsley In Waugh 2006:412-3), owes much of

its views to Baudrillard, especially his theory of Simulations. Baudrillard states that simulation

has now entered the realm of the hyperreal, present day simulators attempt to make the real, all

of the real, coincide with their models of simulation using imperialism. The differences between

one and the other has been lost at the most basic level, the sign has been depleted to the

extent that meaning – produced by the relationships between signs – is being lost at an

alarming rate. Baudrillard proposes four phases of the sign:

1. Truth – reality at its most basic and “faithfully’ represented.

2. Distorted or warped truth/reality – “truth perverted through representation” (Snipp-

Walmsley In Waugh 2006:413).

3. Absence of truth/reality – we try to mask reality/truth’s disappearance through

representation because we still attempt to cling on to it.

4. Complete lack of relationship between the sign and reality – due to the fact that “there is
no longer anything real to reflect” (Snipp-Walmsley In Waugh 2006:413)
This final stage, the hyperreal, is the one into which Western society, according to Baudrillard,

has entered. The image is now dominant, previously perceived ‘normal’ relationships have been

inverted and production has given way to simulation. This can be exemplified by the fact that

products are now sold before they exist; advertising and media create a desire in consumers for

a new product, which is then created to satisfy the desire (Snipp-Walmsley In Waugh

2006:413). Baudrillard highlights that the reality principle has been irrevocably lost, we are now

pre-coded with simulacra, “...we cannot escape from them [simulacra], or express ourselves in

terms other than through the codes which saturate us” (Snipp-Walmsley 2006:413). The real

has been consumed by what Baudrillard terms ‘genetic miniaturization’, the new dimension of

simulation. “The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models

of control – and it can be reproduced an infinite number of times from these.” (1997[1981]:2). As

a result this simulation of the real is no longer required to be rational because it is measured by

neither and ideal or ‘negative instance’, this is what makes it the hyperreal “...produced from a

radiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere” (ibid).

Posted by Laura B at 06:15 No comments: 

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Baudrillard - The Implosion of Meaning In The Media

Baudrillard’s The Implosion of Meaning In Media (1944) proposes three hypotheses as to why

meaning is being lost with the increase of information. Either; it is impossible to successfully

reinject message and content into information, and meaning is lost quicker than it can be

reinjected. Or information operates outside of meaning, according to Shannon’s hypothesis

information that is funcitional is purely technical – it does not imply meaning. Or information is

detrimental to meaning; it directly destroys meaning and signification. This is the most

controversial of the three hypotheses as it opposes all common opinions, due to the fact that

currently socialization and development are measured by exposure to the media. Furthermore
because this is seen as a positive thing its binary opposite – underexposure to the media – has

negative connotations of desocialization. It is believed that information creates communication,

but Baudrillard argues that there is a huge loss of meaning, he likens the belief to the commonly

accepted myth that material production produces an excess of wealth regardless of its

drawbacks/dysfunctions. Our belief that information produces meaning, Baudrillard claims, will

be our downfall; as the opposite is the reality – information destroys meaning. He offers two

reasons as to why information cannibalises its own content: firstly that it stages meaning,

exhausting itself in doing so, it simulates meaning rather than produce it. This information is

what Baudrillard terms ‘phantom content’ and is part of a circular process of simulation which

results in the hyperreal (more real than real). Secondly he attributes the cannibalisation of

content to the staging of communication i.e. the mass media, because information dissolves

meaning and the social. The mass media, therefore, produces the “implosion of the social

masses” (1997[1981]:81) because they are dissolving the value of the sign. Meaning lies in the

relationship between signs (Surprenant In Waugh 2006:206), if the signs themselves are losing

value so are the relationships and meanings between them, thus information is dissolving

meaning.

Full Text. http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/simulacra-and-
simulations-viii-the-implosion-of-meaning-in-the-media/

SOURCE: http://postmodernismandbaudrillard.blogspot.com/