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 20th
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.
I also thought of the industrial revolution. As technology and progress increase, so does the concept of rationalization. Rationalization is the idea that production of anything can become significantly more efficient if it is broken down. For example, building cars through an assembly line is significantly more efficient than having one person build an entire car. This concept can apply to things like sports training, eating, production, etc. Some opponents to rationalization, however, say that you cannot break something down to its parts without the loss of something essential. This is where the robot issue comes in. Although robots are extremely efficient, they lose essential aspects of humanity. Though this may initially be the point, we see from R.U.R. that a total lack of humanity in robots may not be possible.
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