I chose to highlight Megan’s response because she clearly understands and states the reasons behind Iran’s and the rest of this society’s need for a mood organ. Not only does she do an amazing job summarizing the depressed like state that Iran must be in, she further goes in depth on how we would diagnose what she is feeling without the mood organ, and synthesizes her point with what Captain Richard’s from The Glass Bees would possible say about this whole situation. Furthermore, I think she gives insight into why this society is so obsessed with owning a real pet, because if they can’t go through their lives without the help of some external machine, it feels a lot better to them to be the external machines for their pets.
Quote: “But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in the building but everywhere, and not reacting-do you see?…But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it ‘absence of appropriate affect’ (Dick 5).
The novel begins with an explanation of a piece of machinery known as a “Penfield mood organ.” This device is intended to evoke whatever emotion the user wishes to feel with just the push of a few buttons. After a fairly brief, but heated argument, Iran (Rick Deckard’s wife) states that she has set aside six hours of her day for a “self-accusatory depression” something she just recently discovered in the settings of her machine. Her reasoning for this self-induced depressive episode is that when she turned the tv off in her apartment one day she could sense this emptiness around her and thus needed a mood that matched this energy she was feeling. The first thought that came to mind after reading this quote was this excerpt from The Glass Bees, “Corresponding to this change was a change in men: they became more mechanical, more calculable, and often you hardly felt as though you were among human beings” (Jünger 29). What would Captain Richard think if he were able to see this argument playing out? How human beings are dependent on code and machinery to create their emotions, no better than the androids they despise? This is a very prevalent theme throughout Philip K Dick’s novel, the blurring of man vs. machinery. The empathy test used to differentiate between humans and androids isn’t 100% reliable as Deckard’s superior points out at one point when he says that schizophrenic people, or those with low empathy, may be miscategorized as androids instead of humans. Like many other science fiction novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep begs the question, what makes us human? This quote from Iran is yet another example of how the lines separating humans from their creations is not as clear cut as we once thought. This also ties into another major theme of the novel; Is technology improving our lives or cheapening them? Judging by what little we see of Iran in the story it seems like her days, along with many others, are mainly comprised of watching “Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends” on the television. Iran is right, we would label this sort of behavior along with her inability to feel emotion as a depressive episode. But rather than these episodes popping up sporadically with emotional periods in between, this is just the norm for many people in this society. Iran clearly struggles with nihilistic thoughts and is desperate to feel SOMETHING, even if it is just sitting alone in her apartment feeling utterly hopeless. This makes the reader wonder if technology is really the key to a better world, given the mental health crisis that has taken hold of this society. The need for empathy boxes, mood organs, and animal companions shows that humanity is desperately clinging to any remnants of empathetic instincts they can find. The overall tone of this quote I have chosen is very cold and detached. Iran’s use of the word “they” to refer to the medical community of the past and her inclusion of the symptom she is experiencing, “absence of appropriate affect” makes it sound as if she is reading a diagnosis, rather than expressing her mental issues. This whole quote is devoid of any real emotion or personal touches that would make someone believe this is a human being talking. This perfectly sums up Iran’s point about how she knows that she should feel some sadness over the lonely life she is leading but is unable to feel any real emotions without the mood organ. She even acknowledges herself that this behavior is unhealthy. As mentioned previously, two major themes in this novel are what makes us human, and the impact technology has had on the human experience. This short excerpt from the novel allows the reader to confront these questions head on and question what they think about technology and society.