What are monsters? Who are the monsters? Clawed brutes, winged terrors, and giant robots are examples that fill popular fiction. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick focuses on monsters that are not so easily identifiable. These monsters have human appearance but lack human feelings; they are defined and governed by the technology that surrounds them, reduced to little more than cogs in a machine. The technology present in Dick's post-apocalyptic world is dichotomous and extrapolates from current technological trends. Technology serves as a means of connecting people, but at the same time isolates them. It is intended as a tool of empowerment, but is instead used for peacemaking. Through the theme of technology in Androids, Dick echoes bioethicist Leon Kass, who believes that “technical conquest of its own nature would almost certainly leave humanity completely weakened” (see in Bostrom). In this article, I will discuss how Philip K. Dick uses technology in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, to warn of the danger of such "androidization", the exploitation of humans and the loss of individual will and expression . The reader is first introduced to the Penfield Mood Organ, a mood-altering device that highlights the prevalence of human objectification and the loss of authentic human emotion in Dick's dystopian society. The characters, for the most part, ignore this fact as they readily accept technology into their lives. The novel begins when Rick Deckard is awakened by a “cheerful little surge of electricity transmitted from […] the mood organ beside his bed” (Dick 3). Rick is attached to the mood organ all night and from the beginning of the day his behavior is artificial, created by a device. Like a switch, Rick i... center of card ......mimicked the sense of connection while promoting isolation. The literary critic Jill Galvan states that the empathy box is promoted by a class or a hegemonic government precisely to obtain the pacification and domination of the masses: By interpelling the political subject and fixing him passively in front of the screen, Mercer's image does not it serves the purpose of social solidarity but disintegration, an outcome that dramatically reduces the potential for public unrest. (416)Indeed, through technology, people like Iran Deckard and John Isidore are manipulated and deceived. They remain satisfied as their idea of empathy, among other human values, is warped and deconstructed. Empathy becomes a meaningless buzzword, intended to force consumers to purchase extremely expensive animals (real or electric) and convince them of the acceptability of android slave labor..
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