Moving into the Matrix

An examination of postmodernism, Cyberpunk, and technology's role in future societies

By Tom Cronin

I. Postmodernism

In order to come to a better understanding of the postmodernism, however, it is best to understand the various trends used to describe postmodernism. Some of the concepts postmodernism includes are the neglect of originality, neglect of authority, decentralization of power, recycling of tradition, recycling of culture, and the duplication and visualization of reality. In The Postmodern Condition , Jean-Fran¨ois Lyotard contends that postmodernism is characterized by shifts from mass production to segmented production; from centralized authority to decentralized pluralism; from truth to truths; from exclusion to inclusion; from the center to the margins; from the linear to the non-linear; from consistent to kaleidoscopic sensibility; from autonomous art to mass art; from experience to simulation; from intention to intertextuality; from the verbal to the visual, from print culture to mass media; from originality to recycling; from representation to self-reflection; and from functionalism to playfulness and irony. (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition)

Another author who offers an interesting description of postmodernism is Robert Venturi. In his Manifesto, he states:

"I like elements which are hybrid rather than 'pure,' compromising rather than 'clean,' distorted rather than 'straightforward,' ambiguous rather than 'articulated,' perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as 'interesting,' conventional rather than 'designed,' accomodating (sic) rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple, ... inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for messy vitality over obvious unity ... I am for richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning; for the implict (sic) function as well as the explicity (sic) function. ... A valid architecture ... must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion. More is not less." (Venturi, 16)

Although postmodernism is one of the defining qualities of Western culture, it goes hand-in-hand with other aspects of Western culture, including capitalism, science, technology, and the idea of progress. According to Olalquiaga, "... Postmodernism is the only possible contemporary answer to a century worn out by the rise and fall of modern ideologies, the pervasion of capitalism and an unprecedented sense of personal responsibility and individual impotence." (Olalquiaga, xi) In his essay, "Progress Versus Utopia; or, Can We Imagine the Future?" Fredric Jameson said the social life of capitalism includes the disassociation of private and public; subject and object; and personal and political. (Jameson, 148) The disassociation of such principles is one of the underlying concepts of postmodernism, as well. Olalquiaga said that the process of exchange - which we commonly associate with images of such places as shopping malls and grocery stores - has not had much of an appeal in the daily lives of people until recently. Western culture today is often described as being a "consumer-based" society, where there is a constant desire to have and own things. Consumption - the driving force of capitalism - has become such a significant force in the lives of individuals that it cannot be separated from postmodernism. In fact, Olalquiaga refers to postmodernism as being the currency of capitalism. (Olalquiaga, xvii)

Postmodern literature, both fictional and nonfictional, suggests that Western culture is becoming increasingly filled with simulation and replication. Prior to the twentieth century, there was no television, there were very few films, there were no computers, and there was no Internet. The only visual medium was photography, but the effects of photography prior to the twentieth century were not nearly as far-reaching as they are today because there was no mass medium through which photographs could be spread. Before the Internet as we know it today existed and even before the "golden age" of television, Marshall McLuhan published a series of three publications that discussed the role of technological change in the constantly changing ways in which people communicate. The publications - The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), Understanding Media (1964) and The Medium is the Massage (1967) - were presented in a way that was postmodern before postmodernism came about. In "Cyberpunk 101," Richard Kadrey and Larry McCaffery refer to the structure of McLuhan's publications as being "a jagged mosaic of audacious speculations, samplings of quotes, photographs, footnotes [and] digressions." (Kadrey and McCaffery, 18) As McLuhan pointed out, technological change is the driving force between the changing ways in which people interact. Prior to the twentieth century, Western culture was basically a print culture. As technological inventions in Western culture became more and more complex, a variety of new media emerged, including but not limited to film, radio, television, home theater, and the Internet. Each of these new media represents a shift from textual and printed forms of communication to visual communication. Generation X is often referred to as being the first generation raised by the television. And although print media remain popular among older generations, studies show that fewer and fewer young Americans are reading books and newspapers. Even the print media have adapted to become more graphic and visual than textual. When USA Today was first published, the newspaper was experimental in its use of large colorful photos and infographics. In addition, USA Today was targeted at individuals with very short attention spans. Unlike in traditional newspapers, such as The New York Times , articles printed in USA Today are often as short as 100 words and go into very little depth. Despite criticism, USA Today has been very successful because of its ability to reach out to younger readers and because it is published and distributed throughout the nation. Because of both the success of USA Today and the growth of the publication's corporate giant, Gannett, USA Today changed the face of the modern American newspaper. Nowadays, newspaper layouts are much more visually attractive to the reader than they were before USA Today . The emergence of USA Today and the newspaper's impact on modern newspapers are not the only elements of the movement toward visualization. Instead, the changes in the newspaper industry are part of a larger change. With the emergence of postmodernism, magazines have also changed. While general interest magazines, such as Time and Life dominated the first half of the twentieth century, most successful magazines today are aimed at specific audiences. The use of colorful photos and infographics is even more apparent in magazines than newspapers, and many magazines are not judged by the content of what is printed in them, but by the way they are designed. Textbooks also reflect the shift to visualization. In the 1960s, textbooks - whether at the college, high school or grammar school level - were printed in a format similar to most novels: there text of the books was dominant tightly packed, and very few visual images supplemented the text. Today, textbooks at every level contain photographs, graphs, charts and maps. Some textbooks even expand beyond the print medium by offering supplemental material on the Internet.

In addition to the increasing number of images in the modern media, there also seems to be an increasing amount of duplication and a recycling of ideas. French Marxist Jean Baudrillard theorizes in his book, Simulations (1983), the idea of the "simulacra," which is a copy of something with no original. Since the age of the Enlightenment, Western culture has been a culture of ideas. As one generation replaces another, new ideas are constantly replacing old ideas. Just because these "old" ideas are covered up by newer ideas, they are rarely completely abandoned. Instead, these ideas fall to the background of Western culture, where they remain until they are forgotten by most people. Instead of being completely destroyed, however, these ideas are often reintroduced in a new light. Fashion trends of the late twentieth century are a prime example of this reemergence of ideas. In the 1980s, it often seemed that the trends of the 1960s and 1970s had completely died out. However, with the emergence of the 1990s, popular trends from the past once again became popular, but the fashion trends were altered slightly to appeal to the culture of the 1990s. Most of the ideas students learn from professors, classes, books, and even the media are not original ideas. Although they may be new to the individuals presented with the ideas, most of these ideas have been expressed in various aspects of Western culture a multitude of times. Sometimes, these ideas have been recycled by culture so many times that, as Baudrillard theorizes, one often wonders if the original ideas ever existed. Many philosophers have theorized that Western culture's pervasion with repetition and visual images is directly related to capitalism. Guy Debord's book La Sociˇtˇ du Spectacle , often referred to as the first examination of capitalism's effects on individuals, describes our "society of spectacles" as one of many results of capitalism. The book's opening statement reads: "In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles . Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation." (Debord, 1)

Postmodernism also suggests a shift in how technology is perceived. In The Postmodern Condition (1984), Jean-Fran¨ois Lyotard suggests postmodernism is a reaction to the computerization of society. As new technologies were invented, it became apparent that although these technologies made the lives of some individuals easier, technology was not a cure of the problems of humanity. In the 1950s, the dream of "progress" began to face, and the belief in a "better world" had become exhausted. (Olalquiaga, xx) The invention of the atom bomb and its use in World War II provided for the first major demonstration of the destructive potential of technology. At this point, people not only began to lose trust in technology's role as the savior of humanity, but they also began to fear technology. During the 1950s, however, Western culture was still in the midst of the modernist era. It wasn't until the post-nuclear era of the Cold War that postmodernism actually started to form. In his book Islands in the Net (1988), Bruce Sterling depicts a future where nuclear weapons have been banned and information is considered the most prized and sought-after possession. These predictions (which have quite remarkably become true) provide for an ideal description of postmodern society. Although the fear of nuclear war currently exists, use of nuclear weapons is always discouraged and usually prohibited by international organizations. As Sterling suggests, access to information has become one of the most important concepts of Western culture during the age of postmodernism. Although information has become a valuable commodity with the emergence of the postmodern world of the Internet, there has not been an increased emphasis on knowledge. In Future Shock (1970), Alvin Toffler depicts a society in which there is increased information, but decreased comprehension.

Although it is apparent that technology has become more and more complex (almost to the level where it can interface with human flesh), the question as to whether new technology actually leads to the ideal of "progress" arises. In Theses on the Philosophy of History (1939), Walter Benjamin offers the following description of progress: "A Storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." (Jameson, 147) The connotation of the word "progress" suggests that the world is being improved for all of humanity. In a society where the impact of technology may range anywhere from being an instrument to advance to humanity to an instrument to destroy humanity, one cannot say for sure that technological change necessarily benefits humanity. Despite the fact that nobody can say for certain whether technological change is "progressive" change, technology still continues to become more and more complex at a rate that is increasingly faster. This uncertainty about the impact of technology, coupled with the constantly changing worlds of Western culture and technology, forms the basis of postmodernism. If technology had not expanded to the level it has expanded to, postmodernism would cease to exist.