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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/06/the-guardian-view-on-westworld-science-fiction-fresh-look-at-the-present
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| The Guardian view on Westworld: science fiction’s fresh look at the present The Guardian view on Westworld: science fiction’s fresh look at the present | |
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| Almost all injustice comes from the sense that some people are worth less than others. So we can behave as if women are worth less than men; foreigners less than we are; poor people less than rich ones, and slaves, paradigmatically, are worth less than free people. This is so obvious that it is difficult to think about, and difficult sometimes to see. One way to make it fresh and unavoidable would be to set it up as fact. Suppose there were a class of robot servants, things which were by definition not properly human, and which could not, because of the way they are made, suffer in the ways that we do, even if they appeared to be anguished. What would be the moral wrong in mistreating them? | Almost all injustice comes from the sense that some people are worth less than others. So we can behave as if women are worth less than men; foreigners less than we are; poor people less than rich ones, and slaves, paradigmatically, are worth less than free people. This is so obvious that it is difficult to think about, and difficult sometimes to see. One way to make it fresh and unavoidable would be to set it up as fact. Suppose there were a class of robot servants, things which were by definition not properly human, and which could not, because of the way they are made, suffer in the ways that we do, even if they appeared to be anguished. What would be the moral wrong in mistreating them? |
| This is the premise of Westworld, the latest big-money, made-to-be-a-box-set television show, in which rich tourists are set loose in a gigantic wild west theme park populated by entirely lifelike androids whom they can treat exactly as they like. The violence is almost as enjoyable as in real cowboy movies because we know the blood, however copious, isn’t real. But the androids must eventually acquire consciousness, and the story will reach a denouement as old as Frankenstein. | This is the premise of Westworld, the latest big-money, made-to-be-a-box-set television show, in which rich tourists are set loose in a gigantic wild west theme park populated by entirely lifelike androids whom they can treat exactly as they like. The violence is almost as enjoyable as in real cowboy movies because we know the blood, however copious, isn’t real. But the androids must eventually acquire consciousness, and the story will reach a denouement as old as Frankenstein. |
| Westworld is an example of the power and vitality of science fiction in both its modes. One mode is world-building, which in its elaborations appears to move us further and further from the real world. The other performs like journalism: it simplifies, and then exaggerates, to show the deep structure of the contemporary world more clearly than the news can do. The mode of simplification and exaggeration will always return to certain fundamental human drives and their conflicts – in Westworld, the conflict between compassion and the instinct to dominate and exploit – but the world-building mode is potentially unlimited. Each attempt becomes a reworking, as well as an extension, of previous worlds. In the 70 or 80 years since science fiction fandom first became, like Frankenstein’s monster, conscious of its own existence, the original, tentative worlds have been explored and reworked by so many writers, directors, readers and viewers that they are now firm enough for anyone to walk in. We can all imagine the moment of contact with an alien race, or the sensation of cracking open the airlock on a strange planet, so easily that we might be remembering it. | Westworld is an example of the power and vitality of science fiction in both its modes. One mode is world-building, which in its elaborations appears to move us further and further from the real world. The other performs like journalism: it simplifies, and then exaggerates, to show the deep structure of the contemporary world more clearly than the news can do. The mode of simplification and exaggeration will always return to certain fundamental human drives and their conflicts – in Westworld, the conflict between compassion and the instinct to dominate and exploit – but the world-building mode is potentially unlimited. Each attempt becomes a reworking, as well as an extension, of previous worlds. In the 70 or 80 years since science fiction fandom first became, like Frankenstein’s monster, conscious of its own existence, the original, tentative worlds have been explored and reworked by so many writers, directors, readers and viewers that they are now firm enough for anyone to walk in. We can all imagine the moment of contact with an alien race, or the sensation of cracking open the airlock on a strange planet, so easily that we might be remembering it. |
| People know more of these imagined futures than they know of their own real history. There is a lot to celebrate in this. History is invaluable as a way of thinking deeply about the present, but so is science fiction. Two of the great classics of 20th-century science fiction – Brave New World and 1984 – helped their readers to understand the human implications of technology in a way that no amount of history could have done. And history can numb us, whereas the future can make the present seem fresh, and properly disturbing. | People know more of these imagined futures than they know of their own real history. There is a lot to celebrate in this. History is invaluable as a way of thinking deeply about the present, but so is science fiction. Two of the great classics of 20th-century science fiction – Brave New World and 1984 – helped their readers to understand the human implications of technology in a way that no amount of history could have done. And history can numb us, whereas the future can make the present seem fresh, and properly disturbing. |
| Westworld is a show about power relations, but even this draws back from their full cruelty. Part of the show is set in a brothel, which makes it a rather sanitised version of the contemporary real world’s sex tourism – none of the android prostitutes are underage, or ill, and none have pimps, or families to feed. The poor in Westworld suffer from many ills but not from actual poverty. The series was made, after all, as a piece of profitable escapism. Even in safely made-up worlds, humankind cannot bear very much reality. | Westworld is a show about power relations, but even this draws back from their full cruelty. Part of the show is set in a brothel, which makes it a rather sanitised version of the contemporary real world’s sex tourism – none of the android prostitutes are underage, or ill, and none have pimps, or families to feed. The poor in Westworld suffer from many ills but not from actual poverty. The series was made, after all, as a piece of profitable escapism. Even in safely made-up worlds, humankind cannot bear very much reality. |