Introduction
In his work Neuromancer (1984, 17), William Gibson explains that the economy of the future is experienced as “a constant subliminal hum, and death the accepted punishment for laziness, carelessness, lack of grace, the failure to heed the demands of an intricate protocol.” This approach to capitalism seems to be a staple when it comes to the Cyberpunk genre, a sub-genre of science fiction that explores the integration of technology into different aspects of life in an urban, dystopian setting, often elucidated through the motto “High tech, low life.” (Abreu 2022). The incorporation of technology can be observed through characters often sporting technologically advanced prosthetic limbs, eyes and even organs. While physical alterations in merely, say, phalanges may seem a big step, Cyberpunk also introduces hypothetical technology with the ability to plunge us straight into a realm known as Cyberspace. Cyberspace or The Net is “a vast telecommunications network that joins all of the computers and telephones on earth. It is formed by radio, telephone, and cellular phone links, with microwave transmitters beaming information into orbit and beyond” (Pondsmith 1990, 127). The Cyberpunk 2020 manual goes on to state that in the early 20th century, Cyberspace was only accessible through a specific device, but in 2020, it could be entered through merely the brain (ibid.). Clearly, a contemporary phenomenon pointing toward the manifestation of a Cyberpunk-esque future is exemplified through the development of virtual reality and the Metaverse.
While the most famous breakthrough of the genre stems from Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner, Cyberpunk has delivered eerily accurate prophecies concerning the current state of the world since the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 70s (Duran 2020).
This shift from using technology as a tool to the complete integration of it in both society and the body itself will be explored through a case study of the dystopian sci-fi work of Mike Pondsmith. The works analyzed are Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk 2020, and the work it was based on, Neuromancer, by William Gibson. These works, along with works such as Blade Runner (1982) and Ghost in the Shell (1995), show us the possibility of our projected future. Through an exploration of postmodernity through Mark Fisher’s work, Capitalist Realism (2009), a modification on Hannah Arendt’s conceptualization of the human condition, and various science fiction authors, this case study will analyze how the Cyberpunk genre succeeded in projecting our future. Through further exploration of how the neoliberal revolution has affected our use and dependence on technology, this essay will, finally, aim to answer the question: is capitalism becoming part of the human essence?
Part 0.5: Welcome to Night City
An important aspect to roughly grasp the feel of the genre is the commonly used setting. Both Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk 2020 and Neuromancer are set in Night City, also referred to as “the Ninsei,” specifically in Neuromancer. Night City, in Pondsmith’s work, was founded in 1994 by a land developer called Richard Night. Initially the city was a mere clustered section of suburbia on the American west coast, so a harbor city, which later encompassed San Francisco and Los Angeles. Night City was planned as a clean city, free of crime, and “by offering lucrative tax packages to several major corporations, he was able to establish a strong economic base as well as an instant population of corporate employees.” (Pondsmith 1990, 216). This plan was interrupted, however, as Night used his own resources, thereby excluding major unions and construction firms all controlled by organized crime syndicates, which, in turn, assassinated Night and took over. In the period that followed, the city turned into a sprawling war zone, run rampant with drugs, prostitution, and crime. In 2009, the corporations on which backs’ the city was built decided they had had enough of this; they “eliminated most of the gang leaders and established a corporation-controlled City Council.” (Ibid.). This city council secured its status as an autonomous Free State; while considered part of the United States, it had the option to declare its own federal laws (Ibid.). In the ‘present’, Night City is a rapidly growing metropolis teeming with both crime and economic growth, which is almost impossible to leave: “Nobody ever leaves Night City. Except in a body bag.” (Ibid., 217). While this fantastical city is rich with lore, the most crucial aspect is that it was originally meant as a so-called “everycity,” or a city that could be found anywhere in projected futuristic America, exemplifying the neoliberal revolution the genre expected.
Part 1: Capitalist Futures and Hyper Commodification
Such “everycities” are merely a projection of how the genre recognizes late-stage capitalism to be changing the current state of society. In the Cyberpunk genre, this state of being is magnified to the point of societal integrity, including ‘non-partisan actors’, and even governments are privatized, formulating a hyperbolic neoliberal framework. Philosophers Fredric Jameson and Mark Fisher explore the, albeit, less dramatic, realistic conception of this societal stage.
Fisher draws heavily on American literary critic and fellow philosopher Jameson, who speaks on the conception of the postmodernist movement in his 1991 work Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. The beginning of this movement finds its roots in globalization, and the commodification capitalism spurs on in international finance, mass communication and multinational corporations (Jameson 1991). Nevertheless, postmodernism remains a contested phenomenon in terms of definition, and the term in of itself implies that modernism “possessed revolutionary potentials by virtue of its formal innovations alone”. What Jameson saw happening instead was the incorporation of modernist motifs into popular culture (suddenly, for example, Surrealist techniques would appear in advertising)” (Fisher 2009, 8).
While Fisher prefers, for these reasons, the term capitalist realism, he also states that “what we are dealing with now, however, is a deeper, far more pervasive, sense of exhaustion, of cultural and political sterility” (Ibid, 7). Fisher’s interpretation of the term capitalist realism is defined as capitalism being so ingrained that we can see no economic or political alternative, referring to Margaret Thatcher’s infamously pro-market slogan “There is no alternative” (Krämer 2013). Our current stage of being is seen by Fisher, as an ontology rooted in business. In this ontology, we cannot exist in separation from capital, including mental states such as the feeling of nostalgia and depression, which is why the Cyberpunk genre may prove yet again to be a realistic and inevitable scenario.
The capitalization of nostalgia and culture is a theme found throughout Fisher’s later work Ghosts of my life, in the form of the Derridean concept of ‘hauntology’. In Fisher’s work, this term refers to a “melancholic refusal to give up on the days of popular modernism where everything seemed possible, and a refusal to yield to capitalist realism and postmodern finitude” (Diaz 2021). In layman’s terms, Fisher’s definition of hauntology can be explained as the gripping-onto of past cultural phenomenon and reproducing them to monetize nostalgia, leading to a complete Avant-guardian halt. Through hauntology, what Fisher calls ‘the slow cancellation of the future’ is introduced. He notes that this phenomenon is best observed through the transformation of musical trends throughout the last century:
Rather than the old recoiling from the ‘new’ in fear and incomprehension, those whose expectations were formed in an earlier era are more likely to be startled by the sheer persistence of recognisable forms. Nowhere is this clearer than in popular music culture. It was through the mutations of popular music that many of those of us who grew up in the 1960s, 70s and 80s learned to measure the passage of cultural time. But faced with 21st-century music, it is the very sense of future shock which has disappeared. (Fisher 2014, 7)
Fisher argues that at the point where everything becomes retro, “we lose our grasp on history – and, without a sense of why the past happened the way it did, our anything.” (Hsu 2018). Capitalism keeps us in constant cultural stagnation as the feverish hunt for nostalgia is turned to a motive for profit. This hunt forces humanity to turn art, music, and anything we produce as an expression of ourselves into a hypercommodified sphere; keeping in mind that the price paid for sentimentalism is exuberant.
Aside from this analysis of the relation between consciousness and capitalism, cyberpunk, also lays huge emphasis on how capitalism physically affects humanity. A pillar of Cyberpunk as a genre, alongside the nearing rabid thirst for profit, is cybernetic augmentation and the theme of the body invaded by technology. Such bodily ‘invasions’ as prosthetic limbs, cosmetic surgery, and ways to ‘jack in’ to cyberspace are most common. Not only does technology become an extension of the body, but also of the mind, through said cyberspace. Through the gradual bodily takeover by such innovations, it becomes less and less a vessel for experiences such as sensations and thoughts, considering this is now no longer human. As such, the parts of the body that have died off in favor of using technology are now revived, resulting in “futureshocked zombies.” For science-fiction author Bruce Sterling, this branch of Cyberpunk is post-humanist, spurring on “technological destruction of the human condition [that] leads not to future-shocked zombies but to hopeful monsters.” (Sterling 1987, 4-5). This quote, as used by post-humanists, refers to the type of change technology brings to human nature.
In both Sterling and Gibson’s works, characters are regularly subjected to a scenario likened to a futuristic ship of Theseus. The thought experiment centers around a ship of which every plank is slowly being replaced one-by-one. The question resulting from this is: once every component of the ship is replaced, can it still be considered the same ship it started out as? In this soon to be contemporary version of the well-known thought experiment the subjects are continually reshaping their bodies. Thus, notions of human nature through a purely physical essence lose credibility, and a redefinition of what it means to be human becomes necessary (Hollinger 1990, 8).
Such a discussion of the ship of Theseus is, however, incomplete. As the classic experiment goes, it merely involves the vessel it discusses, and not the ship’s characteristics and purpose. Considering the application of this investigation on humans, another layer must be added through Hannah Arendt’s work on the human condition.
In exploring this added layer of how the human condition affects our behavior, the resulting feeling of alienation in the context of the Cyberpunk genre will be further discussed.
Part 2: The Human Condition and Its Dichotomies
Hannah Arendt introduces us in her work The Human Condition, first and foremost, to the term vita activa, and distinguishes between three forms of activities: labor, work, and action. Each form “corresponds to one of the basic conditions under which life on earth has been given to man.” (Arendt 1958, 7). ‘Labor’ refers to biological processes concerning the human body; its human condition is life itself. ‘Work’ is the opposite of labor, with a definite beginning and end, representing the creation of a product, such as a work of art. Yet, what makes work different from labor is the desire to create, and not the need for survival as observed in labor. The human condition for work, according to Arendt, is worldliness: the possession of tangible references in the world and the partaking in a political world. What sets both labor and work apart from ‘action’, is that for Arendt it specifically takes place in the web of human relations through both speech and action, and it is what we both use to set ourselves apart from others and to build relationships. Arendt describes this to be the ultimate expression of freedom one can partake in. Action adheres to the human condition of plurality: we are shaped by those around us and our environments, which we shape in turn (ibid., 7-8). To define plurality, in this sense, distinction is a necessity as “if people are not distinct, then a person would only be like everyone else, there will be no need for neither speech nor action to manifest him/herself.” (Bas 2013, 13). Along with distinction, another characteristic of plurality is equality. This condition of equality is not inherited through birth but through speech and action. Employing these methods, humans can create the polis, a public sphere through which distinction and equality can be enabled (ibid.).
A central thesis in her work is that, opposite to earlier epochs, labor has been glorified, contrasting with its earlier and significantly lower status (Beiner 1990, 360). This glorification is the consequence of John Locke discovering labor to be the source of all property. This claim, followed by Adam Smith’s assertion of labor leading to wealth, found its zenith through Karl Marx’s “system of labor” (Arendt 1958, 101). In said system, labor became the ultimate method of wealth accumulation and expression of humanity (Ibid.). These three thinkers,
Though Marx with greatest force and consistency, held that labor was considered to be the supreme world-building capacity of man, and since labor actually is the most natural and least worldly of man’s activities, each of them, and again none more than Marx, found himself in the grip of certain genuine contradictions. (Ibid., 101)
Arendt notes that such contradictions arise from the fact that these authors equated work with labor, bestowing labor with attributes only found in her definition of work. Marx claims labor to be the measure of all human productivity, whereas Arendt finds distinction within labor being unable to produce anything eternal, only able to maintain perishable human life. However, while definitions differ, both philosophers seem to agree on Locke’s dichotomy of “the labor of his body, and the work of his hands,” referring to the body constantly laboring to keep itself alive, and the hands working to create a durable result (Locke 1980).
Part 3: Alienation and Reconciliation
While Arendt and Marx consider different definitions of work and labor to be correct, they find agreeance in the concept of alienation resulting from glorifying the accumulation of an end product and wealth. Arendt opens the Human Condition by discussing the launch of Sputnik in 1957, which was met with an immediate reaction of joy that “expressed on the spur of the moment, was relief about the first “step toward escape from men’s imprisonment to the earth.”” (Arendt 1958, 1). This reaction troubles Arendt, forcing her to pose the question as to why humankind has such a strong desire to ‘escape’ its home, in exchange for an unexplored, largely empty, void. She believes that we have made our planet inhospitable, causing an alienation from it. Arendt believes that our world has been lost to modernity, which is emphasized by Arendtian theorist Ring:
It [the world] contained needs that Arendt believes are universal: the need for permanence and structure that survives beyond the lifetime of a single generation. The creation of permanence, which she refers to as the creation of objectivity, constructs an essentially human activity. (Ring 1989, 433).
I propose that Arendt’s conceptualization of the human condition can be used as a model to show how technoscientific and economic developments of capitalism have alienated us from both the world and from ourselves. This is achieved through the literal invasion of the human body and mind, as observed in the Cyberpunk genre. In an attempt to cling to the conditions listed and to reconcile ourselves with our home, we try to adapt through the concept of the world. Arendt’s concept of the world is meant not as a reinterpretation of nature but as a product of human work, the products produced are the realization of models or hypothetical blueprints (Arendt 1958, 139-144), “they include institutions as well as material things such as buildings, tables and computers.” (Chapman 2007, 435). While humans inhabit the world, Arendt also argues that the world is lived on, creating a human “artefact”, and created from what we are given by nature (ibid.). The world is meant as a place that humans inhabit, seeking to understand each other. For this, Arendt introduces the metaphor of the table; the table acts as an analogy for worldliness, perpetuating a hypothetical space over which people can relate to one another and a shared cause while remaining individually in their own chairs (Bas 2013, 2). As Arendt writes:
In acting and speaking, men show who they are, reveal actively their unique personal identities and thus make their appearance in the human world, while their physical identities appear without any activity of their own in the unique shape of the body and sound of the voice. This disclosure of “who” in contradiction to “what” somebody is – his qualities, gifts, talents, and shortcomings, which he may display or hide – is implicit in everything somebody says and does. (Arendt 1958, 179)
If this table, and so the world, are abstractions for a common political sphere in which humans form each other, it is only natural that current political, and thus economic, ideas become embodiments of their abstractions. In the current iteration of the world, in which everything must be efficient and function as a well-oiled capitalistic machine, the body can no longer compute. This could be interpreted, as for Arendt’s version of alienation, that the overwhelming joy felt once interplanetary escape became an option stems from an extreme technological advancement housed only in the world while the body lags further and further behind. Yet, in an Arendtian framework, the conclusion of technology breeding reconciliation could never be accepted. This is, of course, unless the only option is to remain stagnant in an ever-changing world, where to reconnect, humans must also become more technologically advanced. This rise of technology promises to free humanity of any limitations as upheld by the human condition, and so the Cyberpunk genre would, through cybernetic prosthetics and augmentation of the body, provide both further alienation from our bodies, but an option for reconciliation with a more and more technologically advanced planet as well.
However, it can be noted that if, for humanity to be reconciled with its home, both the planet and humanity must keep developing technologically, capitalism will forever remain unable to escape. The environment keeps changing, forcing its inhabitants to do so as well, spurring the idea of the human body not being utopian but dystopian. We want to free ourselves from the human condition through progress. Still, we lose everything in doing so: belonging in the world and the ability to fantasize about a reality where we are indeed free from the whims of merely an economic system.
Conclusion
While in Cyberpunk, late-stage capitalism and all its consequences are vastly magnified, the works of Mark Fisher and Hannah Arendt allow an interpretation that provides a scope of the future that runs rampant with everything the science fiction genre has to offer. This specific branch of sci-fi is often elucidated through the motto of “high tech, low life,” exemplified predominantly through its extreme focus on highly advanced technology and the accumulation of wealth. A pillar of the focus on technology lies within the exceedingly easy, even encouraged, installation of cybernetic augmentation and prosthetics. Through this invasion of capitalistic ideals, such as efficiency through the human body, and a study of Arendt’s conceptualization of the human condition, this essay aimed to answer the question: “Is capitalism becoming part of the human essence?”
From Fisher’s works, Capitalist Realism and Ghosts of My Life could be gathered that we presently find ourselves under ingrained and inescapable conditions induced by capitalism, for which humanity is unable to even ponder an alternative. Even abstract concepts such as nostalgia and depression are wrung out for profit through the regurgitation and remaking of art and culture, obstructing the creation of anything new. As humans apparently yearn for the feeling of a simpler time, the production of avant-garde expressions is just not profitable enough. Human existence has become ensnared deep within the maul of capitalism, forcing humans to abide by an ontology rooted in business. Living by this ontology forces society to turn anything that results from Arendt’s interpretation of action into a monetizable commodity or service.
Along with Arendt’s conceptualization of the conditions for being human, work, labor, and action, a compelling aspect considering humanity’s future is her iteration of alienation. This is first mentioned in her work, when discussing the launch of Sputnik: “In 1957, an earth-born object made by man was launched into the universe, where for some weeks it circled the earth according to the same laws of gravitation that swing and keep in motion the celestial bodies” (Arendt 1958, 1). For Arendt, alienation is the estrangement of humans as fundamentally “earth-bound creatures” from a world we have made inhospitable. Through her metaphor of the table, a common sphere where humans seek to understand each other through a common cause, it becomes a necessity for abstractions to become part of our lived-upon “human artefact”. As our “artefact” has technologically hyper-progressed, humans have realized that this will soon become a hostile environment for the human body, alienating us from our home. This essay argues that the Cyberpunk genre has seemingly provided humans with a hypothetical opportunity for reconciliation with the world through means of the adaptation found within the abstract bounds of cybernetic augmentation, but in reality has done quite the opposite. In our frivolous search for adaptation, humanity has entered an unescapable cycle of “progress”, leading to the further breeding of alienation.
In a state of Fisher’s capitalist realism and through a reinterpretation of Arendt’s human condition, it has, unfortunately, become a realistic possibility that capitalism has become an overwhelmingly prominent aspect of what it means to be human.
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