A Novice on the Difference Between Cyberpunk and Science Finction
September 14th, 2009 at 17:11I must admit to feeling like a total novice in answering this question. I mean, if I knew the answer to this in Week 1 before our first discussion, I wouldn’t be signed up for the course! I read Do Androids Dream for the first time last week. I’ve seen The Matrix movies (Matrices?), read a little Neal Stephenson, and seen things like Serial Experiments: Lain (which is truly fabulous). What unites works like these? And what separates them from science fiction? I’ll probably unknowingly disagree with some cyberpunk experts out in the ether, but…
1. Many of these stories scream “prophetic warning” to me. They seem to be meant to jar you and I from our easy thinking about how dandy a life filled with increasingly advanced technologies will be. The problems technologies create can be philosophical or moral (Do Androids Dream, and I suppose I, Robot), or threats against life itself (Terminator comes to mind). Cyberpunk seems to be asking, ‘do you really want to go here? Let me show you what you’re asking for…’ On the other hand, much of sci-fi seems to reinforce the narrative that technology will make things better (e.g., in the future Star Trek world no one needs or uses money.)
2. The heroes begin the tale not knowing they are heroes. This isn’t a particularly cyberpunk quality, I suppose – the trait that unites Neo, Luke Skywalker, Paul Atreides, and Harry Potter is that they all come slowly, unbelievingly, and hesitantly to their gifts. It’s a tale that is delicious to many – that I might one day wake up as a normal Joe and go to bed that night having learned that I am The One, have the force, am the Kwisatz Haderach, or am a wizard. But as I said, this seems to be a trait shared by much of sci-fi as well. Does cyberpunk have a special angle on this?
3. Finally, although I can hear people throwing things even as I type the phrase, cyberpunk seems to have a very Christian sensibility about it. By this I mean that when you consider the audience of most of Christ’s messages, they were the outcast fringe of society. He spoke to them almost exclusively, ignoring those who were wealthy, popular, or had “made it” from society’s perspective, trying to instill in the wretches the belief that even the most boring, mundane person matters and can make a difference. Cyberpunk seems to also celebrate the fringe, the nerd, the cubicle-warrior, and focus on what they are able to do and how valuable to society they are. In contrast, many sci-fi heroes are perfectly respectable contributors to society (e.g., Hari Seldon is a math professor).
Well, this is a slightly embarrassing contribution, but not as embarrassing as not contributing at all! I’m looking forward to our discussion Wednesday…
September 15th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I’m fascinated by the hero characters in cyberpunk, who, I agree, tend to be outcasts who go through their own process of development and change through the narrative. Which doesn’t make them all that different from say, Macbeth or Don Quixote. But what’s just so damn groovy about cyberpunk heroes is how very dissolute and marginal they are, probably becuase the worlds in which they roam are so tainted. Cyberpunk was the first genre to celebrate geek machismo, which is kind of easy to forget these days.
September 15th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I too am a fan of Serial Experiments Lain, which in addition to being very Cyberpunk also follows the traditions of many other Anime in that it is deliciously mind bending.
September 16th, 2009 at 4:07 am
I think that Neo of “The Matrix” fits well into this Christian sensibility issue. Even though Neo doesn’t seem fond of the idea. At first.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:57 am
I was really drawn to the idea that ‘heroes begin the tale not knowing they are heroes’, I’m not sure if a universally accepted maxim when applied to cyberpunk but it certainly resonates. I think much of that might be that heroes in cyberpunk often come across as being loners, who are disaffected and marginalised by the world they live in, and often choose to remain at its fringes until something forces them to confront it or want change it.
It hammers home a quote borrowed from Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, which is used heavily in Ghost In the Shell Stand Alone Complex, by the ‘Laughing Man’, who to me is an archetypical cyberpunk : “I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf mutes … or should I?’
September 16th, 2009 at 11:14 am
as i drive by the cotton wood evangelical mega church facility in cypress ca (a few short miles distant from dick’s santa ana) i do not think of cyberpunk but perhaps i should. there is an inhuman feeling that emanates from the vast, strictly construed parking lots, institutional learning facilities, and welcoming signs posted for first time attendees to park in the near lots so as to encourage visitors to formally emigrate ? … the modest empty spaces that preceded the asphalt and mega facilities … all gone, nature, gone, yet … ? so too beowulf was likely corrupted by christians ages after the story’s spoken word birth in the pagan darkness of medieval europe. we see what we wish to see in literature and stories — that’s their ultimate beauty.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Philip K. Dick has a lot of interesting religious themes, you should check his “Divine Invasion,” he has lovely theological discussions there. Also “Ubik” was labeled as the 3rd most important book after the old and the new testament. And “Valis” is quite a strange read.
Mercer being a fake in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, doesn’t change a thing; I think I’ve read (in his biography “I am Alive and You are Dead” by Emmanuel Carrère) about him discussing the same thing about Jesus with his friend Bishop Pike.
December 21st, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Hello, everyone, I just came here, nice to meet up with you, welcome to visit my site and space, happy to be friends to you, love your little Tom