Energy and Alienation

Several times throughout Nova, characters use “Ashton Clark” as part of “good luck” phrases, and it is only towards the end of the novel that Mouse asks Katin why. Ashton Clark was a 23rd century philosopher-psychologist whose theories found a solution in neural plugs. He believed that the separation between a person’s work/production and their everyday life was “psychologically damaging” to humanity, and that unless people exerted their own energy in their work, they’d feel that their lives were futile (218). So Souquet invents neural plugs and sockets, and all major industrial work becomes broken down from factories that could be operated by one man at the push of a button into “jobs that could be machined ‘directly’ by man” (219). This philosophy “returned humanity to the working man,” eliminating many feelings of alienation and rendering war impossible.

I’m not very familiar with Marxist theory (feel free to correct me if any of this is off), but one of Marx’s general ideas is that the Industrial Revolution (with mass production and assembly lines) caused an increasing alienation between workers and the products they put together - at best, they would produce one small aspect of a product, and then they would have no direct connection to that product other than the money they received for it. The wages they received, abstract representations of their connection to their products, were too small to allow them economic access to many of the materials they were producing. As technology improves, and industrial labor becomes less specialized and more machine-based, the alienation between worker and the economy continues. So when Ashton Clark proposes bringing humanity closer to the intimate control of machines to remedy human alienation from production, he’s responding to Marxist theory (I found it interesting that Marx wasn’t mentioned at all in the novel, though). The tradeoff for this “return to humanity” is a sacrifice of distinct cultures and certain art forms (and the rise of sensory art forms like the sensory-syrynx). Individuals become tied to their machines, dependent on energy and victims of wealthy families’ energy wars, or they can be like Mouse, part of a Gypsy class that resists plugging in, still attached to cultural traditions.

Sleep Dealers, which has some uncannily similar technologies to Nova, shows an opposite effect of alienated labor. Memo comes from Oaxaca, a village in Mexico where people do not work through nodes (somewhat like Mouse before he gets sockets). He moves to escape his father’s death, gets nodes, works in one of the sleep-dealer factories, where he plugs into jobs thousands of miles away. This is part of “the American dream”: “work without the workers.” Americans can profit off of this cheap factory labor without being forced to recognize the laborers as “human,” and the workers are entirely alienated from the work sites. (Paradoxically, the neural networks are also supposed to bring people closer together.) Like the Gypsies in Nova, the people in Memo’s community live completely outside of this new kind of labor. Also like Nova, the people who do “plug in” become dependent on energy - the workers literally have the energy trained from their bodies. (Also, as a sidenote, writing turns into a sensory memory experience, just like novels and other art forms in Nova).
Moon shows an entirely different aspect of alienation from the labor force. The Sam Bell clones are replaced every three years. They work on the moon, harvesting energy and sending it back to power the Earth. To motivate the clones, they are charged with Sam Bell’s memories and video clips from his wife - the clones think that they are actually Alex, and after three years of solitary labor, they can return to their family. This, I think, is supposed to bridge the gap between total alienation from the product. If a clone is stuck by himself on the moon, expected to send energy back to a world that he will never be a part of, he will have no motivation or connection to that life. Or he might decide to rebel against his fate, as one of the Sams does. The Sam at the beginning of the film, however, blissfully unaware that he's a clone, also seems heavily alienated from society - he represents exactly the type of worker that Marx was cautioning people against — people whose entire existence drives towards harvesting energy that will drive further types of production that they will never directly benefit from.

Does Nova really offer a solution to labor alienation? Is it fair to tether people to their machines to the point where their identity becomes based on the work that they do rather than any other cultural identity? It seems slightly better than the alternatives offered in the two movies — sapping the working class of their energy from thousands of miles away so that wealthy Americans don’t have to look at them or implanting clones with human memories and emotions so that they can feel connected to a life they will never have — but I’m still unsure whether solving alienated labor is worth the sacrifice of cultures.

Three Years on the Moon

I have only had time to see Moon, so far, so that is what I will be posting about this week. Alas, there is plenty to say.
As soon as the infomercial for Lunar Industries at the start concluded, and the heavy handed ominous music began, it was clear to me that something was amiss on the lunar base. The first moment I realized that Sam was probably never going home was when there was an obvious cut in the video communication with his wife, and Sam called out for GERTY to fix it, but he was too distracted to ultimately question what had gone wrong.
As the end of the film approached, it was my understanding that these Sam clones were designed to only have a three year life span, which is why the first Sam became increasingly ill over the final few days before he was 'scheduled to return home.' However, I read somewhere after the fact that his illness was due to overexposure to the atmosphere. Further, that even if the clones were healthy after three years, they were still executed, so that a new Sam could emerge and take over the human duties that need to be performed on the base, and live out his three years. I suppose it doesn't really make a difference as the clones have a three-year life span either way.
Before I begin discussing ideas about cloning and humanity, I had a minor moment of confusion that I am hoping someone can clear up. I understand that they had to call it 'a rescue mission' in order to maintain appearances for the newly awakened Sam, but when the 'rescuers' arrived at the crashed rover they said something along the lines of, "Well he's not going anywhere." Wouldn't that be a given since this Sam was at the end of his three year contract and was scheduled to be executed soon? Was that just an incidental comment, and the point of the rescue mission was to clear up damage from the crash?
Returning to the idea of these clones as having a three year life span--I thought it was very interesting how they kept the clones complacent. The idea of artificial memories being implanted in these clones reminded me immediately of Dollhouse and Total Recall. The Dollhouse's ability to manipulate memory is far more advanced than the manipulation in this film. It seems that the very need to implant these clones with a back- story and family life to enjoy, underscores their humanity. These are definitely not replicants that feel nothing but can perform human tasks -- they are real humans with complex emotional interiors. Of course, this film centers around a glitch in the smooth system of rotating in a new Sam every three years, so we see the whole system fall apart. What is revealed is a morally bankrupt corporation that is participating in the creation of life only to then engage in mass murder of the very lives created--there were many Sam clones waiting on the lower decks.
I liked that the film was couched in terms of energy, because the lack of energy resources on earth already causes such an immense amount of conflict-- wars, bloodshed, and death. It is interesting to see the way this film presents the deaths needed to meet the world's energy needs. Did anyone else think about the many deaths of Sam in the context of current energy crises?