All works of dystopian fiction that we have read so far take shots at the presence of technology in society, imposing the claim that it isn’t necessary, and even going so far as to claim that it will become dangerous in the future. A story that heavily presses this is E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops.” In this story, Forster describes a society where all humanity lives underneath the surface of the Earth, and every individual is completely isolated from all human connection and emotion. The story ends with the Machine’s collapsing, killing almost all human life, except for the people who went against the rules and lived above the Earth’s surface. Many aspects of this story forced me to constantly question technology’s existence, and even made me fearful of it.
In the society of “The Machine Stops”, the Machine creates a community of pure isolation. No one sees each other, leaves their rooms, or interacts with anyone. No emotions are felt, the closest thing to human feelings people obtain are from the technology of the Machine. With all of these inhumane conditions, society seems content. People seem to be happy with their lives. Vashti, for example, spends the majority of her days listening to lectures in search of “ideas.” She makes no contact with her son Kuno, and reveals that he lives across the world. The frightening part of all this is that she doesn’t care that she can’t see her son, and doesn’t see a purpose to do so. She initially rejects his offer to go visit him because it seems like too much work, and she does not want to leave the comforts of her room. She has become so attached to the Machine and its features that she is unwilling to leave it to see her own son in person.
Society worships the Machine in a creepy way, treating it as an all-powerful entity that they are subject to. It is essentially a monotheistic religion. And like most religions we see today, the Machine has its own book that serves as the cornerstone of its principles. It has the answer to everything, according to Vashti. Everyone carries their Book when travelling outside their rooms, symbolizing the attachment to The Machine instilled upon society. When Vashti is travelling to the Northern Hemisphere to see Kuno, a man on her air-ship drops his Book, and is unable to pick it back up. Everyone, including Vashti, stares at the man in disappointment, as if he has failed the Machine. No one seems to acknowledge the fact that The Machine was made by humans, and they follow the rules of it in a strangely religious way.
In this society, freedom is a concept that no one is interested in. People have been forced to reject all earthly and human desires, and everyone accepts it without question. If people don’t follow the ideals of the Machine, they are at risk of being put into homelessness, which we assume is a term for death. This was especially frightening to me, and made me sympathize for Kuno, who was curious to learn about life outside of the Machine. His curious personality is looked down upon, but it is he who survives the Machine’s collapse. The existence of the Machine forces us to question the human expansion of technology and become fearful of it as time progresses.
While I enjoyed reading your post tremendously, I do have one critique. In your final paragraph, you argue that "freedom is a concept that no one is interested in." And while to some extent your point is valid, I disagree: it isn't that no one is interested in freedom, it's more that no one is aware of it. Vashti doesn't even consider the possibility that she could be free, so in her eyes, there's nothing that she's not interested in.
ReplyDeleteStill, I like your interpretation of the religion as a deity. Fantastic work.
The parallel to monotheistic religion is genius. I forgot about the Book, and it does seem like a holy scripture. Not only that, but everyone worships in a self-centered way. With the old man, no one sympathizes or helps, instead they look down on him in arrogance.
ReplyDeleteThe point you make about Nature's dominance over technology is crucial. "The Machine Stops" describes this incredibly powerful technology that controls all of society, yet as the title suggests, even its era comes to an end. Time, a construct of nature, is the only thing that remains undefeated. I like you description of the 'Godliness' of the Machine. Just as you said, "Society worships the Machine in a creepy way, treating it as an all-powerful entity that they are subject to. It is essentially a monotheistic religion". Great post g.
ReplyDeleteI wrote about a similar idea in my essay about how humans have lost a personal connection with each other and are in total isolation. I think you picked up on the idea that humans are unnaturally loyal to the machine and are unwilling to go against it, as if they don't realize that the Machine was built by humans themselves long ago. I would just like to add that the contentedness of humans under the Machine is what led to their extinction at the end of the story, giving the reader a reason to be worried about their dependency on machines. Nice blog post.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the opinion you're expressing in this blog post. Because they humans do not know how to operate this machine, they're starting to depend on the machine too much, and they also do not know how to recreate the machine. This is especially a problem because the machine starts to mess up and they do not know what to do about it. I find this scary because they are supposedly in a life death situation, and they probably feel hopelessness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis of the intentions of this story. The first time I read it I felt some major "boomer vibes" from it--the typical criticism of humans becoming so attached to their technology that they completely ignore everything else and are drained of life. Technology will take over our lives so much that, as you point out the story says, we will worship it as religion. Honestly technology has been progressing extremely rapidly and integrated itself into our lives as necessity, but given how long it has been going on without any cult like behavior as depicted in the story, I don't think anything like that will actually happen.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the story did a good job of making us think about the implications of reliance on technology. I found it particularly chilling, because the story was published over a hundred years ago when we only had a fraction of the technology we do now, but it accurately predicted a lot of the technology we have today. I wondered how E.M. Forster could have known about the Internet and devices we have, and it scares me to think that we could be falling into the same trap he warned of. I know I feel very dependent on my phone and other tech, so this story made me stop and question if I could survive without it. The intense conformism and ignorance shown by the story's characters scared me as well.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is one of those things that can be interpreted in hundreds of different ways. You can be positive and optimistic, or pessimistic towards its role in society, and due to the widespread nature of technology, it makes it a very common debate. think that your points are very valid, as technology can be pretty worrisome at time, even though we currently seem to have a grasp on its capabilities.
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