THE PHENOMENON OF DEATH (In mass art, especially

fiction.)
Made by Denys Lysak
THIS WORK IS DEVOTED TO UNDERSTANDING THE PHENOMENON
OF DEATH (In mass art, especially fiction.)
The authors of this direction in their works violate the usual laws of reality, which
makes fiction an interesting subject of study. Using religious studies toolbox, we
will try to show how traditional for Europe, the concept of «meaningful» sacrificial
death, which is the guarantee of subsequent eternal life, was replaced within the
genre of «cyberpunk» by the idea of death as flight and liberation. In our view, this
change in the concept of death reveals differences in thanatology and, respectively,
anthropology and cosmology, which exist between religious teachings, which are
the basis of European civilization. Referring to their basic cultural code, science
fiction writers «purified» myths permeating Western culture, giving them a new
view that serves as a vivid illustration of how religion and religion can function in
secular and especially post-secular contexts.

RELIGION & FICTION

We do not support definitive limits, which we introduce and consider absolutely
immutable, such as the separation of reality and imagination or artificial and
natural. One of the modern hybrids is undoubtedly cyberpunk - the direction of
science fiction that has emerged in the 1980s and focusing on the dark sides of our
supposed future. Being between the traditional fantasy, the works of «horror» and
expressionism, cyberpunk offers a unique, underlined «mystical» a view of the
world, formally remaining in this «scientific» paradigm, inherent sci-fi (science
fiction), that is, proceeding from the fact that events take place in the «our world»,
which is governed by open science principles (as opposed to the genre of fantasy,
where no such claim).
The consideration of this genre in a religious perspective may seem irrelevant
material. However, it is worth noting that most of the cyberpunk genre contains
direct religious references. William Gibson’s independent programs took the
names of a Voodoo Lou in the central area of the «Anthilly Trilogy». The titles of
such films as «Nirvana» by Gabriele Salvatores point to world religions. Less
explicit but still notable religious references can be found in the «Matrix» of the
Vachowski Brothers, and in the video games Deus Ex, Cyberpunk 2077 and
E.Y.E.Divine Cybermancy, and in many of the literary works of this genre:
«Lavina» and «Diamond Age» by Neil Stevenson, «Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?» by Philip K. Dick.
Fiction writers are often inclined to the topic, so Cyberpunk is not the first
subgenre to address religious references. There is a simple explanation for this:
time and again referring to the issues that have traditionally been discussed within
the framework of religious or magical, discourse, the authors-phantasts are forced
to return to «language», due to their cultural baggage, upbringing and education.
Like Robert Oppenheimer, who quoted Bhagavagita to find words that would
allow him to describe his emotions after a successful hydrogen bomb test, science
fiction authors use the names of gods, the concepts of heaven, hell, and soul, to
convey to readers their own thoughts.
Using any language, we can not avoid the corresponding conceptual series. In the
same way, assigning names of gods to computer programs, and cyberspace-the
name «Paradise» can not but evoke in modern people appropriate associations,
which again returns our culture to religious or rather about religious discourse,
which deserves careful consideration.
It is within the framework of cyberpunk that the traditional Christian
understanding of life and death, which has left its imprint on the ideals of the
Enlightenment, despite its militant anti-clericalism, as well as widely represented
in mass culture, gives way to a new view of death, more organic in post-modern
culture. This work is devoted to this transition.

WHAT IS CYBERPUNK
First of all, cyberpunk is initially a separate direction within science fiction, the
boundaries of which are quite blurred. Although the very concept of «cyberpunk»
is very common in modern mass culture, it is problematic to give this genre an
unambiguous definition for several reasons. Moreover, cyberpunk was not in the
strict sense «literary» phenomenon from the very beginning, with which many
researchers and authors agree. Inspired not just previous literary works, but also
films, anime, music and clips of a number of popular bands. In its early years,
cyberpunk has developed into a distinct aesthetic, represented equally by books,
anime, films, computer games and music.
If you define this genre historically, you can say, that it appeared in 1984 with the
release of the novel William Gibson «Neuromant». Some critics link the genre as a
whole it is with this author, denying cyberpunk the presence of special
characteristics.
Such an assessment may have been justified at a time when cyberpunk was still a
rather marginal phenomenon, around the mid-1990s, but it is unlikely to be true
now that the term itself has taken on a cultural life of its own. Currently, many
authors are quite consciously seeking to «become» cyberpunk, even if earlier in
their work they were not drawn to this genre, or introduce into their works plot
moves and motifs, first invented by Gibson, but have become thanks to the
repeated use of independent elements of culture, «memes». This is just as
Tolkien’s introduction of the image of the «elves» now exists in our culture
completely separate from the «Lord of the Rings». Similarly, megacorporations,
hackers, cyborgs, and many other images originally created as part of the
cyberpunk genre have now gone far beyond it, becoming part of a common
«mainstream» set of fantasy trails. Examples include the films «Avatar» by James
Cameron and «Fifth Element» by Luke Bessona, which do not belong to this genre
but contain many elements borrowed from cyberpunk.
In addition, cyberpunk has spawned a distinct subculture-much more coherent than
the fantasy subculture, but less clearly defined than the fanatic movement
associated with a particular cult work. This subculture of cyberpunk has a unique
ability to «look at itself».
Fans themselves determine whether a movie is or not «cyberpunk», and spread the
corresponding understanding, but since they are guided by aesthetic rather than
intellectual criteria, the boundaries of the genre are very arbitrary, not
corresponding any definition.

THE IDEA OF DEATH IN CHRISTIANITY (In other culture ways)

Death will retreat if a man willingly sacrifices himself to save others. This
Christian approach was extremely relevant to Lewis, who did not hide that the
«Chronicles of Narnia» are an allusion to the Gospel. Similarly, Tolkien, a friend
of Lewis who was directly involved in his conversion to Christianity, in his book
«Lord of the Rings» «kills», and then resurrects the mage Gandalf, who, through
his sacrifice, takes the place of the fallen mage Saruman.
This cycle of death-resurrection repeats almost in all the iconic works of mass
culture of the second half of the XX century, which served its wide popularization
and to a certain extent «vulgarization». Over and over again appearing in films,
books, and games, the plot loses its original meaning-paradoxical salvation in
defiance of the laws of the world. The most famous example of such a loss is the
«Death and Return of Superman» comic book series, where the most popular
character of American comics banally dies in battle and also banally comes back to
life, which deprives these events of dramatic meaning. This led to a drop in sales
of all DC-Comics products the following year, although eventually the comic book
genre was introduced the canonical plot of «death and resurrection».

MORALITY IN CYBERPUNK
Like the world view in general, cyberpunk’s understanding of morality is nihilistic.
Mercenaries, criminals, fugitives and losers, who are the main heroes of the genre,
are best defined by the word misfits (people who do not fit into society). They are
rarely driven by abstract ideals, all their goals are extremely specific and directed
at them, although they are often far from the usual understanding of egoism: Case
is ready to do anything to regain the opportunity to go back into the Matrix; the
main character of the movie «Lawnmower» aspires to absolute consciousness;
Jimmy from «Nirvana» is ready to sacrifice his life for the fact that the character of
the computer game has finally found peace. In cyberpunk, there is a motive for
self-sacrifice for the sake of others, but it is primarily about taking care of
extremely specific, close people, a couple or three friends, who are opposed by the
rest of the world, usually extremely faceless. The lack of morality in cyberpunk is
most noticeable in the way the heroes relate to the death of «ordinary» people. This
is most evident in the film «Matrix», where the protagonists do not hesitate to
destroy any number of ordinary people standing in their way, as Morpheus, one of
the leaders of human resistance to the power of the machines, specifically warns
the protagonist Neo during training. But we meet this attitude much earlier - for
example, in «Neuromanta», where the heroes without hesitation arrange a terrorist
act, just to distract attention from the goal. Unlike, for example, the works of the
anti-utopia genre (such as «1984» George Orwell) here the death of minor
characters is not perceived as a tragedy, as a symbol of the brutality of the regime:
it simply occurs, always remaining on the periphery of perception as heroes
themselves, and readers/viewers.
In this division of characters into «categories» one can see another gnostic element
- the idea of different types of people: «spiritual», for which salvation is possible,
and «corporeal», deprived of such an opportunity.
The immorality of cyberpunk indicates its important difference from the fiction of
previous decades, primarily american. Traditionally, within this genre, fantastic
elements have served as a metaphor to draw attention to certain social problems.
Aliens reminded of racial or gender discrimination, hypothetical superweapons-
about the current problems of human survival during the Cold War, humanoid
robots-about exploitation, and the side effects of certain technologies – on
environmental problems. In such a «social» perspective, the character’s death was
perceived as undesirable: when dying, he left society and ceased to participate in
the resolution of his problems. Against this background, the heroism of those who
are prepared to die in the struggle for a better future of the world looked
particularly bright.
In cyberpunk there was a fundamental turn «inside», and the fantastic has now
become no longer a means of narrative the discussion of social and philosophical
problems, and the way to create a kind of «psychopography», allowing to raise
questions about what is human consciousness and what is the meaning of the
existence of an individual. The focus on individual death here is natural, because it
is an inevitable component of any human life that needs to be understood. It should
be noted that attention to the individual is the most important feature of «positive»,
not nihilistic ethics of cyberpunk, in the center of which is «loyalty to oneself» or
integrity. This approach, borrowed by a cyberpunk from the original punk
subculture, is to extol the «self» itself as opposed to a society that tries to force a
person to obey its rules with both money and violence.
Finally, it is worth mentioning the relatively recent popular cyberpunk game
Gemini Rue66, which brings the problem of «egoism» to a new level. In this story
devoted to the change of memory, it is stated that man does not depend not only on
his own body, but also on his own memories; personality is defined by some
elusive and indescribable «inner characteristics»that can’t even be changed by
completely removing all the memories and creating new ones.

CONCLUSION
So in cyberpunk, death is understood in a new way, in line with a changed era. In
an extremely individualized post-modern society, the concept of «death for
something», rooted in its traditional Christian understanding and maintained in
culture throughout the 20th century, has lost its relevance. It was replaced by the
concept of «death for some reason», in which death is understood as only one of
many steps in the sequence of transformations, as another element of the «post-
modern game».
And although, distracting from religion and turning to philosophy, there is the
temptation to see in cyberpunk the peculiar influence of «being to death», we
seem to be more correct to talk about the works in the genre of cyberpunk as
primarily mystical, not philosophical. The conflicts in this genre are not a struggle
of different worldviews, but the corresponding works - not a full dialogue, as we
see in the novels and dramas of the French existentialists; cyberpunk is a mystical
way to some form of transcendence, which is often identified by borrowing from
relevant religious traditions. And the appearance of the scheme «death -
liberation», as opposed to the scheme «death - resurrection», is the result of a
certain process of transformation connected with the return of mysticism in the
original meaning of the word - as «mysterious transformations»
This aspect seems to us to be a very important feature of the cyberpunk genre that
requires further study. So, decades after religion in the West mostly went into
private space, certain pathways and concepts inherited by Western culture from
religious discourse continued to exist within the genre fantasy.
The cycle of «death - resurrection», borrowed by mass culture from religion
primarily due to works Tolkien and Lewis, became an element of modern cultural
while allowing Europeans to maintain continuity with the Christian religious
tradition. Spread and the search for new religious teachings forms in the 1980s.
that this continuity was temporarily broken: the authors began to turn to another, as
ancient but less obvious idea of «death - liberation», which became mainstream.
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