The Literary Wombat

Date Published: 1968, Del Rey.
ISBN: 978-0345404473
# of Pages: 244

This novel was assigned for my Philosophy in Religion course (ENG 223) for our unit on evil. I really, really disliked it from a philosophical perspective, but I enjoyed thinking about the setting and characters, and I've given it the above rating with both of those factors considered.

What I disliked about the novel philosophically was the pedestal it placed humans on, and this is actually a problem I've come up against really often in my normal life and that not very many people understand. I've worried before that it makes me seem cold and non-empathetic, so maybe this is why I am sympathizing with the androids here. :)
The story follows a man, a bounty hunter, whose job it is to hunt down androids on this post-nuclear Earth where there is very little left alive and most people have emigrated to colonies on other planets rather than live with the nuclear fall-out. The androids are a threat because they were meant to be given as incentives to people to encourage them to emigrate, but some androids manage to kill their captors and escape from the colonies and attempt to live on Earth and pass as humans. This is possible because these androids are made of biological materials.

The only way you can tell whether or not somebody is an android is to either give them one of various tests that are meant to quantify empathy ability in the individual or for them to submit to a bone marrow test. The bounty hunter, Rick Deckard, finds himself feeling ambivalent about whether or not androids should be hunted down and killed or whether androids are actually incapable of empathy.

I think a lot of people have read the novel as kind of pro-android, but I see it very differently and that is why I am uncomfortable. Siding with androids seems to make Rick Deckard fall into a pit of misery that ultimately culminates in a very pessimistic ending -- not just for him, but for humans in general. Human empathy is still elevated above all other things (i.e. intelligence) and what I really think it boils down to is that androids should not be considered human because they lack what I think Dick wants to claim makes us human -- some kind of soul or something. The "artificial" way that androids are created, despite being made of organic materials, makes it impossible for them to have a soul and thus they cannot feel empathy, which is what Dick imagines separates us from other beings.

Obviously I think this is crap and it severely overestimates what empathy is (the product of being a social animal, in my point of view, and can be identified in other species -- though perhaps not articulated by them, which is neither here nor there really). I am a complete materialist and so the message of this book rings totally false to me and even slightly disturbing, because the implications could be very severe. Especially in light of the implication that Mercerism, the religion in the book built on empathy that is shown to be a fraud by the end of the story, is still upheld as "correct" because it has a positive affect on people. What is to be understood is that while the religion might be false in the literal sense of the word, what it teaches is still true/relevant -- which is again to assume that we need religion to feel like things like ethics are validated. Also people can't seem to understand how it's possible to feel happy and fulfilled without believing in God. I'm kind of irked.

Certain things were "fun" to read about (the empathy box, the mood organs, etc.) and I really enjoyed his writing style and "voice", so I do think he deserves credit in that respect, but this book had been hyped up to me in the past and so I am very disappointed and mildly concerned.