Interview with a Critic:

Going Beyond Binary Disposition of 0/1: Rethinking the Question of Technology by Gyu Han Kang 

          There is no information included in the article “Going beyond binary Disposition of 0/1: Rethinking the Question of Technology” about its author Gyu Han Kang. The copyright date is also missing; however, through further searching it can be discovered that this particular article was published in 2009, well after Philip K. Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Because it was written so recently, the author is able to utilize many articles concerning noted SciFi literature as well as other media sources –such as the film adaptation of Andriods—to support his argument. The title of the journal in which this article was published is Midwest Quarterly; this title gives little indication about the average reader of the journal. However, as the title lacks a reference to any scientific or technological theme, it is likely primarily a general literary journal, rather than a science fiction one.

            Gyu Han Kang begins the article by stating that technology is one of the most important developments of mankind and that it is and will forever more be inseparable from mankind’s history. For this reason, the topic of technology in literary works must be explored. The author explains that in most science fiction novels, technology is described as either something inherently evil that will lead to the downfall of mankind, or as something that can be used to achieve once unimaginable goals. He argues that, rather than viewing technology in either extreme, instead it should be viewed as neither good nor evil. Technology should be seen as something much too complex to be pinned down in such categories. His evidence for this argument includes analyzing the complex relationship between man and technology—specifically concerning cyborgs/androids and mankind. As technology becomes more advanced, the differences between man and machine can no longer be pinpointed, and the question arises if there is any difference between the two at all. The author repeatedly makes the point that in science fiction works machines seem to gain humanity as technology progresses, while humans seem to lose their humanity, increasing the difficulty of categorizing technology as “good” or “evil”.  I, the reader, developed many questions while reading this argument.

            Why do human beings lose their humanity in these SciFi works?  What are the processes and reasons by which these results come about, and could the machines’ more human-like behavior be the product of not having to undergo these experiences?

 It often seems as if humans undergo horrible tragedy (such as Philip K. Dick's "World War Terminus") in science fiction literature, and that this is the cause of their loss of humanity. The machines, however, usually do not undergo this tragedy; they are created by humans in accordance to an old model of humanity that these human beings can no longer apply to themselves, after the tragedies that they have been through. Another, related question also arose during my reading of this article.

Are the definitions of humanity and inhumanity the same in each of the works described in this article, or do they vary? If they do vary, in what ways are they different?

If the definition of what it is to be human varies from setting to setting, perhaps this could be evidence that "humanity" is constructed and influenced by culture, events in history, etc. Perhaps the human-like machines of one science fiction novel would not be considered very human-like at all in another SciFi work and vice versa, suggesting that “humanity” is not a fixed definition.

If these questions were addressed by the author, his discussion of the relationship between technology, mankind, and being classified as “human” would become even more complex, adding more layers to his analysis of technology in literature and providing more evidence that technology is neither an extremely good nor acutely evil development in mankind’s history.