Attack of the Clones (or at least Doubles)

Before the photograph, moments could only be contained in the memory of the individual. Since memory is an active process and people reinterpret episodes of their past according to their mental schemas, this was hardly an objective way to make a moment permanent. By freezing or recording images or events as a human eye from the same angle would see them, the camera and recorder have made this process less subjective and provide the ability to recall information apart from any individual’s consciousness. When these technologies are fully embedded in the consciousness of an individual, they can become a form of that person’s reality. By embracing the metaphorical realm of the island, the fugitive in The Invention of Morel enters a pataphysical realm, wherein the people with whom he observes are outside of a physical realm where he can interact with them. Instead of perceiving the metaphor of Faustine and others on the island from the vantage point of the physical, he maintains his identity within the metaphysical realm and attempts to thrive within the simulation. The simulation collapses in on him since the artificial people cannot fulfill his desires and fantasies. Inevitably, the photographic double creates possibilities for enlivenment and disaster.

In exploration of the notion of double, our society has focused on the biological double. The implications and morality of cloning humans has been at the precipice of scientific, theological, and scholarly debates. Although humans create biological and artificial intelligence by other means every day, a major aspect of cloning controversy lies in the idea that cloning implicates humans in playing God.

Although this moral dilemma has yet to be resolved, technology will bring more pressing issues to the forefront of scientific ethics. One of the most interesting ethical dilemmas of the future may be gene splicing. While splicing certain animal or artificial characteristics into human genes could expand human’s potential to navigate terrain, manipulate the environment, and produce efficiently, our political leaders and every day society may not be ready to allow this type of evolution when we attain the ability. But perhaps with the help of science fiction, people can lay the ground work for entertaining gene splicing, exploring the ethical ramifications, and eventually considering the implications objectively. As noted in Technocolyps, it could be immoral to prevent such intentional evolution through political means. While significantly improving human beings through technology has serious ethical ramifications, preventing such improvement seems like an even more morally controversial action.

In Ribofunk, the implications of splicing animal genes into humans are creatively explored. In particular, Little Worker explores the possibility of different emotional stimuli and physical contexts activating certain parts of organism’s genes. From the emotional stimuli of jealousy for Mr. Michael’s affection, “the part of [Little Worker’s] inheritance that was 30 percent wolverine took over. The four intruders soon lay dead with their throats torn out, soaking the carpet with their blood where once the Bull and Lyrical had coupled” (Ribofunk, 40). For psychologists who currently study context specificity for recall and recognition in memory activation, gene splicing could add another interesting and scary dimension to their analysis.

But the most insidious double can be achieved through brainwashing. Since brainwashing is outside the control of the individual being doubled, it cannot hold ethical water. In The Ticket that Exploded, the Nova Mob symbolizes the control that rhetorical leaders, language tradition, and current institutions possess over the masses that use that language. By cutting up his novel, Burroughs rebels against conformity in language and encourages people to escape the process of language doubling and conformity.

In The Filth, Slade is brainwashed to fulfill the obligations of the Hand to maintain the Status Q. Through doubling, the Hand transforms Slade into a vehicle of his society’s oppression. Through explicit depictions of doppelgangers, The Filth demonstrates the psychological and social implications of brainwashing to create doubles.

Entertainment and technology open the 21st century to more subtle forms of brainwashing. Through advertisement and skewing information, politicians and business aim to create as many doubles as possible. While most people consciously reject the premises of such advertisements, economic numbers indicate that they have an enormous effect on their psychology. Although marketing in and of itself is practical and perhaps necessary, a large amount of society has been brainwashed into a form of materialism that cannot be appeased. In the name of progress, conformity is justified.