The Workers Rise

R.U.R presents us with a pretty clear-cut scenario of worker versus the bourgeoisie. The managers of the factory explicitly make the robots for their cheap labor, denying them humanity in order to achieve this end. They relish about the profits the robots can exponentially make them and directly link this to the free labor they provide. As the robots are created more intelligent and sophisticated they become, not sentient necessarily, but increasingly aware of their own strength, value, and population they begin to rebel. This rebellion is fuelled by this gained by the sense of superiority over the humans. Radius says, “You are not as strong as the Robots. You are not as skillful as the Robots. The Robots can do everything. You only give orders. You do nothing but talk” (II-47). Radius, who becomes the head of the rebellion in the factory and eventually the leader, expresses his issue with what has become a bourgeoisie class of humans—they do not produce. The value of manual labor becomes the distinguisher between the two classes of worker Robots and managing humans. The only human that is sparred and survives the rebellion is Alquist because, “He works with his hands like the Robots.” Unfortunately, this is the downfall of the Robots, who have lost the knowledge of their own creation.

I found that R.U.R. describes a system of labor that leads to a Mutually Assured Destruction situation. The humans cannot have a workforce of Robots. Their simplicity makes them vulnerable to unintentional self-destruction; Dr. Gall creates “pain-nerves” for this reason. Yet as the robots are made increasingly refined, humans lose their ability to work—there is no need. The humans become fully the head of operations, but not the actual operation. The Robots stand opposite to this; they are all manual labor but none of the brains. Marx’s prediction of the fall of capitalism is spelled out—when the worker is not a part of the means for production, the whole system is destined to fall in itself.

Materialism and the Soul

Defining human nature, as I see it, is the process of resolving the differences between our souls and our bodies. There are two pervasive philosophical schools of thought that define this relationship. The first is dualism, it comes in many forms primarily through religion. It states that humans have a soul or spirit that is independent of our physical form. Our souls give us our personality, idiosyncrasies, emotions, moral fiber, and other qualities we would define as being unique to humanity. Materialism, on the other hand, states that all the phenomena we observe, including the qualities that would otherwise be a consequence of the soul, are entirely caused by physical processes. R.U.R rides a fine line between dualism and materialism. In the opening act Helena Glory, concerned with the humane treatment of the robots, travels to America to dissuade the scientists from making the robots for work. They try to put her thoughts to rest by explaining the robots do not have souls and thus do not feel mistreated nor have the right to be treated fairly. However, we are given hints to robot agency and the germination of free will when the robots grind their teeth and cease to work. Eventually Dr. Gall designed a way to gift robots with a soul, that is, give them characteristically human qualities, particularly love. In the last act Primus and Helena's love exhibits man's capability to manufacture human robots and manufacture the experiences we attribute to the soul. Since Rossum and the proceeding scientists could manipulate the physical produce our human experience it our nature must be intrinsically physical.

The Replacements

When the reproductive process become obsolete in a species, they will manifest itself into a newer, more relevant one. Čapek explores the purpose of reproduction through taking away humans’ ability to reproduce. Helena is confused and hurt by her sterility, and wonders if humans have become irrelevant. I believe nature has taken away this gift of life because humans no longer serve any purpose on Earth – the robots do all the work. The only work that humans do (such as operation of the power plant) can be done by robots, and all the human brainpower goes into improving the robots. As humans become weeded out, the gift of life is bestowed upon robot Helena and robot Primus to continue any progress the humans could have made. They gain new feelings that they were not initially programmed to have, and become a new hope for the continuation of the robot species. The robots have essentially replaced humans, per nature’s intention.
Čapek seems to have a very optimistic outlook on the environment, and seems to believe that the Earth can bounce back from anything. The scenario in R.U.R. is that if there is anything, anything at all that upsets the balance of nature, nature itself will readjust the circumstances to return to equilibrium. (See M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening.) This may be so, over long periods of time, but currently, humans are changing the environment at a rate that is hard for any naturally-occurring regulatory processes to keep up with. Like in the novel, our goal for a luxurious lifestyle is what creates our own demise.

Chiasmus.

What struck me as odd was the psychological changes of Dr. Gall’s robots two years after the robots revolution. Radius, the first leader of the robots, in his conversation with Helena, expressed his discontent for human beings who could only “give orders – utter empty words” (p. 37). The feelings of discontent, of dissatisfaction with the way humans treat the robots, and the sense of superiority, which Dr. Galls have installed within the next generation of machines, led to the demise of the human civilization in this dystopian society. One can recount the words of the character Nana to think for themselves whether or not the downfall of human kind was a direct result of their total blasphemy against God as they attempted to create robots in their own image for their own purpose: “churning out these machine-made dummies is against the will of God.” (p. 27)

Regardless, excessive gluttony and greed of humanity for everything have left them with nothing, reduced them to nothing, because with the introduction of robots, the world for men became void of struggles, and men became void of progress. Infertility, a sense of anachronism, in addition to the inevitable total annihilation of the human race but for the one Dr. Alquist, are the prices a very angry Mother Nature forced humanity to pay.

So as men fell, robots rose and took the place of their previous rulers, but only for so long; their pre-decided inability to procreate, which still remained unsolved at the end of the play, proved that in due time they would meet their makers just the same. This course of event was to be expected. However, what intrigued me was the way they responded, or rather, reacted to this circumstance, as if out of fear and desperation. Confronting the weary Dr. Alquist two years after the incidents that took place at Rosssum factory, Radius, Damon and other robots, in an ironic turn of events, became the ones to give orders and utter empty words. Upon knowing that Dr. Alquist was yet to make any progress in making anymore robots, this commitee of robots took turn and pleaded the doctor to keep on going. “Name your price. We will give you anything… Teach us to make Robots… Hear us, oh, hear us! People are our fathers… Pass the legacy of people on to us. Tell us the secret of life… Do experiments. Look for the formula.” (p.76-77). The table has turned. The chiasmus was complete. Robots, in the image of their creators the human race, were made and were doomed.

In the final scene, the robots Helena and Primus ran off from Dr. Alquist, leaving the battered man behind full of hope that “life will not perish.” (p.84) But this prophecy could never come true. If “life” was to be defined as an experience that can be perceived by the mind, this definition, just like the prophecy, is a selfish thought, as the mind is merely a speck of dust in the sand-lock of the universe whose core lies in the duality of entities, not in the singularity of an eccentric one. Admittedly Helena and Primus were then capable of feelings, but what was the use of such emotions if they could not be sustained in generations after generations of these robotic neo-humans due to their inability to procreate? What, then, is this prophecy but simply gibberish talk of a mad man in the remains of the day?

Industrial Robotic Revolutions

The creation of the robots in R.U.R. is described as an assembly line. The nerves are spun like wool, there are kneading troughs for skin and vats for organs, and the bodies are put together on a conveyer belt before being “left to dry” at the very end (p. 13).  Karel Capek wrote the play in the 1920s, right at the end of the second industrial revolution, when the assembly line was becoming widely used in the production of manufactured goods, especially automobiles. The efficiency of the production of automobiles in the industrial revolution of the early 20^th century is the same as the manufacturing of robots in R.U.R. except that robots are biological instead of mechanical. The robots in the play are biological because they are made of human tissue. What distinguishes them from true living beings is that they are assembled by many factory workers rather than produced by two parents, and that their creation can therefore be altered to suit the needs of the human beings in charge. This play was published in the 1920s, the same time that companies like Ford Motors were incredibly successful for their assembly line techniques, but were also problematic sociologically. Assembly lines were criticized for detaching the workers from the product and getting rid of creativity or individualism in production. R.U.R. also critiques the assembly line by showing the problems of mass production of individuals. The robots could be produced much more quickly and efficiently than humans, but their production was reliant on scientific knowledge rather than biology.

Who is Alquist?

The end of Act 2 caught me by surprise when only Alquist was spared from death, but because he was forced to labor over test tubes searching for Rossum’s formula alone for years, maybe he wasn’t actually spared from death, but instead doomed to an even worse fate. The robots claimed that because Alquist worked with his hands like robots did, he deserved to live and he should be used to their advantage. This was especially troubling for me because before this point in the play I could think of no exceptionally distinctive characteristics that Alquist obtained. The name Alquist is composed of “al” derived from “alder” and “quist” an old spelling of “kvist” meaning twig. The alder tree has medicinal properties that native americans exploited for survival purposes which include treating poison oak, insect bites, skin irritation, lymphatic disorders and even tuberculosis. This makes sense when considering that Alquist was the last human left at the factory, and therefore left to cure the human race, ideally by eradicating the robots and reestablishing humans as the dominant species on earth. This of course doesn’t  happen and instead Alquist is the only human left on the planet making it entirely impossible for the human race to recover, but towards the very end Alquist cleverly notices the level of compassion that robot Helena and Primus demonstrate for each other. He knows that these feelings are what will allow the robot race to continue and the manufacturing process is trivial compared to the power of nature. This is why the character of Alquist plays such an important role in demonstrating how Capek is warning the reader against the human quest to obtain a godlike status. As Alquist exclaims at the beginning of act 3 “O night what purpose do you serve? There are no lovers, no dreams. O nursemaid, dead as a sleep without dreams, you no longer hallow anyone’s prayers. O mother of us all, you don’t bless a single heart smitten with love. There is no love” (72), we are finally able to understand the ramifications of tampering with natural order.

Who is Helena Glory?

Throughout this play, I was struck mostly by Helena Glory's character. When I first saw her name, I thought two things: (1) This girl is R.U.R.'s Helen of Troy. (2) Her last name is glory, that definitely means something important.
To speak to the first reaction--in simple terms, Helena plays a beautiful woman on the side of the robots who is then taken (in some sense of the word) by Harry Domin. Years later, the revolt of the robot begins. Though Helena's 'kidnapping' does not necessarily cause the revolt, she does switch sides from supporting liberation of the robots to having rather blasé opinions about their actions but casually wishing they might have souls. Maybe she would have prevented the revolt if she had never joined the side of the robot-makers. So, this storyline actually does somewhat mirror the story of Helen of Troy, but I'm unsure if it is only a coincidence. Whether or not Helena represents Helen of Troy, I really just do not like her.
She entered Domin's factory with a plan, and dropped it within seconds when he asked her to marry him. Though she was resistant to his request, she came around almost immediately. The play then jumps abruptly to ten years later--so I cannot imagine she opposed his desires at any point thereafter.
Later when she secretly burned the directions of how to build a robot, I thought she was finally taking a stand, or attempting to display some act of courage or heroism. Only pages later, however, she crumbles when asked why she burned the directions, and questions her behavior incoherently. Her performance was so pathetic that I wonder if I actually missed some underlying clue where Helena is actually the secret hero. I would appreciate anyone's feedback on that one...
And to speak to my second reaction--though I mostly already described my sentiment for Helena, this stems back to her last name. Of course, Helena is glorified by all the men in the play (p.s. why?!), but she never physically does anything worthy of glory. She does not live up to her name, which perhaps suggests that glory under a falsified God is impossible. I am interested to see if everyone else detested Helena as much as I did.

Doomed for Failure

Domin’s obsession with creating a better human world leads to the creation and production of robots that are superior to their human creators. Sounds familiar, right? Victor Frankenstein is blinded by knowledge, and so he creates a being that becomes superior to him, eventually leading to his downfall. Domin and the rest of the robot creators are in a similar situation: their quest for a better world leads to their downfall. Their downfalls stem from the experiments to make the robots “more human.” These tests cause the robots to understand they are more powerful than their human creators, at which time they decide to replace the human race as punishment. However the robot’s massacre of humans backfires when they realize they are unable to replicate themselves. The robot-human relationship needs to be balanced appropriately and this balance is thrown off when the robots terminate humanity. Both races are doomed at this point: Alquist is the only surviving human and the robots are unable to replicate themselves. As a result, both races must wait to die off. Domin’s fellow creators warn him of the robots’ capabilities yet his obsession to solve all of man’s problems gives him tunnel vision. As a result he seals their fates. Alquist alone is spared since “he works with his hands like a Robot. He builds houses. He can work” (70). His survival, coupled with Robots Primus and Helena escaping together, suggest a fresh start for the world. Since Alquist calls them Adam and Eve, their story alludes to a hopeful future despite all of the loss that has filled their world.

Plan A or Plan B

Playing God is always a dangerous game, yet somehow we, as human, never cease to strive to create and command beings who are far more perfect than we are. Pursuing to create flawless creatures that are able to do all of men’s “heaving lifting,” both the young and old Rossum created the robots. The robots were perfect machineries until they were given emotions by Dr. Gall. Filled with emotions, pain, and soul; the robots turned human. But before the rise of the “human” robots, Domin’s plan was to create national robots. By dividing robots into different ethnic groups with different languages, the robots would worry too much about their differences to even think about conspiring against humans. If this was Domin’s grand plan, can it also be our “creator”’s grand design? If we are indeed the “robots,” was God’s plan all along to create conflicts base on the differences in our characteristic to keep humans from uprising against God? If this is so, then it has work perfectly, we divided ourself in different boxes carrying multiple labels that we gave ourself as well as receiving labels from others (both biological and social): sex, religion, ethnicity, social class, interests, etc. 

Rossum's plan is to create superhuman with no emotions for the labor. These robots are exactly alike with no conflict among them. But after Domin steps up to managing the robots, the robots were deemed useless without emotions/pain as they breakdown (as they hurt would themselves unintentionally). Domin’s plan A would be creating robots with emotions/pains to keep them from breaking down. But by giving robots emotions, they would revolt against human. Domin’s plan B is to give the robots both emotion and biological characteristics to create conflicts and ideas (free will) between robots and keep them at bay. The contradiction here is to create flawless beings but going backward and make them flawed. This is backward with God’s plan. Where God would start with Domin’s plan B giving the different characteristics and emotions first creating both conflicts and ideas (free will). Then by introducing moral teaching (Bible), God would create the perfect human — Domin’s plan A and ultimately Rossum’s original plan but with emotion and freewill. 

Playing God in RUR and Frankenstein

Victor Frankenstein and the character’s in Capek’s RUR make attempts at playing God when they create life, however they seem to have different motives.  Victor Frankenstein was motivated by family and relationship issues, as well as his own ego, to create his creature, while old Rossum was motivated to show that God isn’t necessary for life and young Rossum was motivated by the desire for wealth.  Though they had different motives, the stories ended somewhat similarly, with the destruction of Victor in Frankenstein and the destruction of the human race in RUR.  Both stories can be considered cautionary tales that warn us against overstepping boundaries in a quest for something unnatural.  The idea of a cautionary tale appears to be a theme in the science fiction genre that may stem from the uncertainty that comes with scientific advancement and the dangers it may hold.

Connections in Europe

After reading this novel, I thought “hmm” interesting prelude to German occupation. Hitler clearly didn’t read “R.U.R,” or maybe he did.. Like Hitler, Domin wants to create a human machine, a group of people—or robots in this case—empty of emotions who will work for a certain purpose. Nazi Germany highlighted people’s national and religious differences in an effort to create a more perfect human race and ignite a cult that would work on their behalf. Domin and his followers think about using nationalism to create a perfect workforce of robots. He suggests making the robots different from one another. “We people will help to foster their prejudices and cultivate their mutual lack of understanding, you see?” (p. 46). In both cases, differences are used to bring people together under a cult like atmosphere. Nazi Germany and Domin’s intellects seek to inflict pain to further their agenda of creating a perfect human machine. Why create a perfect human machine? Domin wants people to live to do what they want—to live to perfect themselves over anything else. Reading “R.U.R.” over my break in the south of France—a rich town of French bourgeoisie—was an interesting experience because I was surrounded by people who appeared to be living only to perfect themselves. Shopping and eating at cafes all day didn’t seem like much fun. 

Vril-ya and Facebook

I wonder how The Coming Race would read today, via our dependence on social media. Think of how the Vril-ya would exist in a world of social media. Check out this video for inspiration:

What FB is doing to your brain is kind of shocking

Therion - Enter Vril-Ya

Just found this gem. Making a Vril-ya MV worth a paper grade? Yay or nay?

The Utopia

So far, The Coming Race seems to be an exploration of what Bulwer-Lytton believes to be a utopia. Many of the Vril-ya's societal standards conflict with those of Western society. Bulwer-Lytton constantly brings up religion, and how the Vril-ya have a belief system somewhat similar to Agnostic belief. He also dedicated a few pages to discuss the difference between the genders - although I do not agree with all of what he says, I appreciate the fact that he gives the females, the Gy, assertiveness and confidence.
Each characteristic of the Vril-ya leave me wondering which one(s) have furthered their race so far beyond our own. The Coming Race reminds me of the society in Lois Lowry's The Giver and El Dorado in Voltaire's Candide. Each of these fictional societies are considered utopias, but all have stark contrasts of what makes them into utopias. In The Giver, people live in an "ignorance is bliss" mindset, where atrocities occur behind closed doors. The people's apathy allows these atrocities to continue in order to uphold the peace. No one in this society lives in wealth, and they seem happy to keep it this way. In Candide, the people of El Dorado are happy because there are no closed doors - there is complete transparency between the government and the people, and thus there is a mutual trust formed. These utopias bring back the question of knowledge: Is too much of it a bad thing? Can there be too much knowledge? These two societies are polar opposites in trying to answer these questions, and as this book progresses, I hope to find out where the Vril-ya lie on this issue of knowledge as a factor in utopian societies.

Setting and Scenery: A Thematic Vehicle

In The Coming race, Edward Buler Lyton relies heavily on setting and scenery to convey his messages to the reader.  The book very quickly opens with the setting of a mine, and this very quickly allows the author to distance his message from the society of his time; this distance in turn permits Lyton to make critical comparisons between above ground society and below ground society in a politic fashion. It seems this cavernous setting has been replaced in modern science fiction by space and the aliens that might inhabit this similarly unknown domain.  As the story progresses Lyton uses the exotic subterranean landscape to create a sense of utopia; early on his narrator describes the “silvery light” that seems to come from nowhere yet is everywhere. Is this not a perfect light source? As he continues to describe the flora and inhabitants his comparisons between this utopia and the world above become clear. Additionally with such focus on setting and with the awe it creates in the narrator Lyton subtly hints at environmental themes which are surprisingly relevant today; the peace between this subterranean race and their environment, especially today, serves to create an ideal society.

Overcoming Fear of the Other

Edward Bulwer-Lytton begins the second chapter describing the excitement mixed with doubt the protagonist feels when going down the mine shaft. He writes, “…I thought he must have been under one of those hallucinations which seize on our fancy or our nerves in solitary, unaccustomed places, and in which we give shape to the formless and sound to the dumb.” This seems to be a sentiment he carries in to the new world he falls to. In his adventures, he shifts from fear to serenity with every new exposure with the new race he encounters. When he is overcome with fear of their unknown, they repeatedly remind him that he is welcome among them as a relative equal: he sits with them, he walks with them, and their languages are translated. The new race’s treatment of the protagonist all points to a population that is not afraid of other. The author writes about them as if they are untainted, “They seemed as void of the lines and shadows which care and sorrow, and passion and sin, leave upon the faces of men, as are the faces of sculptured gods, or as, in the eyes of Christian mourners, seem the peaceful brows of the dead” (chapter 5). This paints them as a pre-civilization, yet far advanced civilization (the autobots seem like advanced technology). Despite the vast difference between the protagonist’s culture and this new one, they still resort to one of the oldest form of storytelling: pictures which are referred to as hieroglyphics. Art becomes increasingly important for mutual understanding, particularly where words fail. A house, a tree, a bird, a man; the simplicity of meaning in these figures seems to be what gives it the most importance for definition of culture. Where fear damages or stifles and words fail, overcoming and bridging differences begins with art.

Prejudice Among the Fair and Tolerant Vril-Ya

Throughout the first half of “The Coming Race”, the narrator spends his time cataloguing the intricacies of the Vril-Ya. He describes the fairness and equality of their society; everyone is considered equal and is treated fairly. The society appears to be perfect, with no crime or destruction- the race only seems to improve with time, discovering new technologies and interbreeding with the higher races. Despite this superficial fairness and tolerance, the Vril-Ya look down upon what they perceive to be the lower races, who cannot harness and control the power of vril. To the Vril-Ya, these races are barbarous and to be avoided at all costs. Even the narrator’s race is looked upon with contempt: “…such were the feeble triflings with nature of our savage forefathers…”(92).  The Vril-Ya may claim to always be respectful and compassionate, but they regard lower humans with the greatest disdain. They even treat the animals they find useless with more compassion, always making room for them to graze around the outskirts of their cities. The lower races are referred to as “primeval savages who dwell in the most desolate and remote recesses of uncultivated nature” and are compared to grotesque insects and vermin: “as do many creeping, crawling and flying things”(51). How can a race so proud of their equality and tolerance harbor such scorn for another race? There is something amiss with this race- they cannot be nearly so fair and reasonable as they claim. They despise these barbarous races, and even seem to be practicing a form of social Darwinism, refusing to interbreed with these uncivilized races, lest they taint their perfect evolution. This subterranean race is hiding much less sympathetic and impartial feelings and I can't wait to find out what will become of these views.