After witnessing her son’s homicide on nationwide tv, Kurt Vonnegut’s fictitious Hazel Bergeron responds absent mindedly, “Gee…. I may inform that one was a doozy.” Within the quick story “Harrison Bergeron,” Vonnegut explores a future by which the federal government makes everybody equal, via absurd devices. Just like different dystopias, the highly effective eat these with out energy at nice value, however what makes this quick story distinctive is that it ends with out a imaginative and prescient to unravel the insanity. It identifies the difficulty, making it bigger than life with a purpose to horrify readers, but it surely fails to discover a answer—presumably, this improper steadiness of energy will proceed on with Harrison Bergeron’s dying.
Whereas The Stepford Wives offers an apparent ethical problem with the killing of 1’s spouse to switch her with a robotic, the Apple tv sequence Severance offers extra subtly with the morality of making individuals with a purpose to eat their efforts.
Tales like “Harrison Bergeron” take one’s pure incapability to like thy neighbor and stretch it to its limits to see what would possibly occur. Within the case of “Harrison Bergeron,” it ends in a society the place everybody experiences inhumane remedy by the hands of the highly effective. Equally, in Ira Levin’s novel The Stepford Wives and in Apple TV’s Severance, the highly effective eat the efforts and humanity of the individuals they’re supposed to guard. In The Stepford Wives, husbands homicide and substitute their wives with literal robots who prepare dinner, clear, and submit mindlessly, whereas in Severance, the Lumon company divides the consciousness of workplace employees, creating two consciousnesses that exist in the identical physique but are managed by workplace administration. Each tales impel us to think about a world the place people societally commodify different people, however ultimately, we’re left wanting an answer to the insanity.
A Spouse Consumed
In his novel The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin presents idyllic Stepford, full with blissful husbands, who spend their evenings on the secretive Males’s Affiliation, and submissive wives, who spend their days trying flawless and waxing their flooring. As the latest neighbor, Joanna Eberhart can’t fathom why these ladies are solely occupied with their properties, however she finds pals in Bobbie and Charmaine, who moved into Stepford not lengthy earlier than her. Joanna turns into more and more suspicious and remoted when Charmaine abruptly tears up her beloved clay tennis court docket (so she will substitute it with a placing inexperienced for her husband) and exchanges all of her private pursuits for a newfound dedication to cleansing her residence; a couple of month later, Bobbie undergoes an analogous change.
Whereas trendy language tends to take the time period “Stepford spouse” and apply it to a girl who likes to maintain her home clear and look after her household, this isn’t an correct illustration of Levin’s imaginative and prescient. It’s price noting that he wrote this novel within the early ’70s—a distinct political panorama from the one we stay in now—and as Peter Straub factors out within the novel’s introduction, “it is a novel that satirizes its oppressors and their wishes, not their victims” (xi). In different phrases, Levin isn’t out to criticize ladies who take pleasure in homemaking; he’s out to criticize those that eat them.
A Stepford spouse is a commodity, created by the egocentric creativeness of her Stepford husband. The Stepford ladies are described as lifeless and robotic, fixated on the cleanliness of their properties and the happiness of their husbands on the expense of the whole lot else—they drop all of their hobbies, pursuits, jobs, and autonomy. They spend their days and nights talking sweetly to their households, making ready meals, sustaining their properties, and sexually pleasuring their husbands, and whereas their husbands stay like kings, it’s not clear how their kids fare (when Joanna attends parent-teacher conferences, she notes that the occasion is ill-attended by both mum or dad, hinting that Stepford moms aren’t occupied with their kids). The twisted creativeness of the Stepford males is greatest illustrated when Joanna’s husband, Walter, invitations pals from the Males’s Affiliation over for drinks. Joanna joins their dialog earlier than realizing that Ike Mazzard, {a magazine} illustrator identified for sketching “dream women,” is sketching her. Everybody falls into uncomfortable silence, the boys are embarrassed, and Joanna receives a “flattering” sketch by the top of it; the remaining he retains. The lads have engaged her in dialog with a purpose to distract her from their precise function: to design a “dream model” of Joanna Eberhart who will finally substitute the precise Joanna. Later, she’ll understand the Stepford males are proficient in vinyl polymers, engineering, electronics, and animatronics, the proper credentials to create subservient robots. The Stepford males aren’t occupied with wives or companions; they’re occupied with making a product that may fulfill their wants with none reciprocal effort on their half.
Sadly for the Stepford wives, Levin doesn’t present any form of redemptive future for the city of Stepford. Ultimately Joanna, on the verge of a breakdown and rightfully paranoid, follows the city’s males to satisfy the brand new Bobbie in her kitchen. Brandishing a butcher knife, Bobbie tells Joanna that she is going to lower herself to show that she remains to be capable of bleed–nonetheless human, nonetheless Bobbie. Joanna strikes nearer to witness this proof earlier than we’re abruptly taken to a different day months later on the native grocery store. We’re drawn into the attitude of the latest resident, Ruthanne, who sees Joanna buying, her cart and look completely tidy. When Ruthanne asks Joanna about her images, she admits that she dropped it to pursue house responsibilities. Ruthanne is stunned however returns residence to speak together with her husband about their getaway the next weekend, which we all know would be the demise of Ruthanne and the addition of one more Stepford spouse into the neighborhood. So the cycle continues, for ever and ever and no answer supplied.
A Consciousness Consumed
Whereas The Stepford Wives offers an apparent ethical problem with the killing of 1’s spouse to switch her with a robotic, the Apple tv sequence Severance offers extra subtly with the morality of making individuals with a purpose to eat their efforts. On this sequence, staff of biotechnology company Lumon endure a process that leaves them consciously severed, with a brand new consciousness current solely inside of labor, whereas their common consciousness exists as regular exterior of labor. Known as “innies” and “outies,” the one has no reminiscence or realization of the opposite, although they exist in the identical physique. The controversy over the severance process is multi-faceted: individuals condemn the “outies” who’ve undergone the process as unethical; traders and supporters applaud the ingenuity of Lumon; and (it’s revealed later) inside leaders of Lumon eat the inside consciousness seemingly for his or her private achieve.
The consumption of the inside consciousness isn’t instantly obvious, for the reason that process appears to learn those that have undergone it. In an commercial, Lumon describes the innies as members of the family who share the identical beliefs and are excited to uphold the work of their firm. Mark, the protagonist, initially appreciates the process as a result of it permits him to work his workplace job and neglect concerning the dying of his spouse for eight hours. Mark’s innie co-workers obtain prizes and affirmations once they do their job effectively, and so they’ve come to just accept that life inside Lumon is all they bear in mind.
When Helly is launched, her discontentment threatens Lumon’s steady workplace life and challenges us to contemplate the ethics of a severed consciousness. Whereas her inside workplace life begins by watching a video of herself peacefully consenting to the severance process, Helly refuses to just accept the workplace life she has been given. She persistently makes an attempt to ship a message to her outie, satisfied that if her outie knew how sad she was, she would present compassion and permit Helly to stop. Believing administration is stopping the switch of messages, she tries to offer her discover of resignation on her physique, in her physique, and even via a damaged glass window, slashing her arms within the course of. Lastly, she forces administration to document her resignation video to her outie, however she shortly receives a recorded response from her outie, threatening and disparaging her: “I perceive that you just’re sad with the life that you just’ve been given. However you understand what? Finally, all of us have to just accept actuality. So right here it’s. I’m an individual. You aren’t. I make the selections. You don’t.” Whereas co-workers and administration look on unfazed, on this second, Helly realizes that she has no autonomy or acknowledged personhood. Her inside consciousness is on the mercy of her outer consciousness, and she is going to spend the remainder of her days waking within the elevator, working her eight-hour shift, getting into the elevator to return residence, after which instantly exiting the elevator to work her eight-hour shift, till—effectively, we’re unsure when the cycle will finish. That is their lives now.
A Love-Thy-Neighbor Kind of Imaginative and prescient
Whereas John Calvin by no means wrote fictional something (that we all know of), his consideration of the greatest commandment in Mark 12 means that his dystopia would possibly look much like The Stepford Wives, Severance, and different tales like these: “It’s a mercenary love which the kids of the world entertain for one another, as a result of each considered one of them has regard to his personal benefit.” A mercenary love is one which loves for one’s private achieve versus loving for the nice of one other. It’s a distorted imaginative and prescient of the biblical command to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” first introduced within the Previous Testomony and later affirmed by Christ himself, and it makes use of, terrorizes, and dehumanizes fellow man. In tales that commodify people, we see this mercenary love, this distortion of Christ’s command to like thy neighbor, stretched to absurd limits, and we’re horrified.
I don’t count on Severance to provide a perfected answer at its sequence’ finish, however in mild of inconclusive endings, we’re left questioning: the place is the choice imaginative and prescient to the mercenary hellscapes offered? Severance creator Dan Erickson has provided hints of what that answer would possibly appear like: “I simply hope that folks keep in mind that they’re much more necessary as human beings than they’re as cogs in an organization. As a result of we’re all cooler, weirder and extra attention-grabbing than the worth we’ve got to somebody’s backside line.” Erickson’s want is that viewers will worth their humanity, the individuality that makes them human.
The decision to like one’s neighbor takes this recognition of 1’s humanity and applies it outwardly, to others. It destroys hierarchy, ranges the bottom on which everybody stands, and calls for that we love our fellow people with the identical dignity that we present ourselves. In God’s imaginative and prescient of neighbor loving neighbor, we’re not left questioning what this love ought to appear like or the way it ought to be outlined. In accordance with Jesus, the second command is outlined by the opening strains of the Shema—“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Who God is precedes the power for love of neighbor, offering the “why” of loving one’s neighbor—the command offers the “how” of residing in a world by which that dignity is honored and upheld.
Levin and Erickson have invited us right into a world the place the biblical cost to like thy neighbor is opposed, however now we’re left questioning: is there one other approach, an alternate imaginative and prescient that pulls out what the world would possibly appear like if this command was adopted? I might argue that there’s:
Desirous to justify himself the lawyer requested Jesus, “And who’s my neighbor?”
A husband referred to as to like his spouse grew uninterested in her, murdered her, and changed her with a machine that would serve his each want.
A pacesetter who promised to do good created an inside consciousness, took benefit of her, and violated the dedication to honor her as household.
An outcast occurred upon a person who was badly injured, cared for him like he beloved him, and offered for all of his wants.
However who is my neighbor?
“The one who had mercy on the person.”
Jesus instructed him, “You go, and do likewise.”
