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.
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.
In the midst of man’s unrelenting pursuit for perfection in every aspect of our lives, we inevitably make mistakes. These mistakes are often unintended and have unforeseen consequences because as we savagely chase achievement, we become blind to the indirect repercussions of our actions. Our actions can never be undone, but I think even more than nature, fate has a way of remedying the disruption of equilibrium. To quote M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, “we will fail to acknowledge that there are forces at work beyond our understanding”, which I think is certainly the case in R.U.R. None of the characters knew precisely why mankind became infertile, they could only make logical speculations as to why it may have happened. They concluded that because humans no longer faced hardship and lived lives with no stressors, the human reproductive systems ceased to work. This would indicate that because of the unending pursuit to create the perfect society where robots do all of man’s dirty work, mankind made a fatal mistake and was left to suffer at the hands of some superior force. I think that this superior force must have been fate because the inherent motivation human’s have to continually improve is really a fatal flaw, and we will only be able to chase achievement so far until achievement decides to chase us. This is a fate that I think lies ahead for the robots as well because the robots were programmed and taught by humans, which means they are mankind's legacy and must bear mankind's flaws as well.
ReplyDeleteI thought of The Happening too when I was reading this book! I thought it had a lot to do with nature regulating itself.
DeleteSince you say that this "inherent motivation" is a fatal flaw that will be passed on to the robots, do you think this is another natural cycle that will occur whenever the "new" humans reach their apex? Is this another self-regulation?
Maybe I was too harsh on the humans in the novel and should look at "humanity" as more of an idea, as we discussed in class. Čapek does seem to celebrate humanity by passing it through to the robots as a new hope, as the humans fall and the robots rise.