Deckard hunts rogue androids that, with every new model, become harder to identify and harder to regard as artificial. He relies on an empathy test to catch them, but when humans use ‘Mood Organs’ to induce emotions, asking whether machines have empathy becomes the wrong question; rather, is empathy a legitimate, or even meaningful, measure of humanity?
Emotions have become consumer goods, like the animals that are now so rare that owning one is a measure of status, each with its precise market value. Deckard isn’t rich enough to own a real animal, making do with an electric sheep, an indistinguishable faux substitute. But fidelity isn’t enough; status and worth are grounded in an increasingly arbitrary definition of real.
The world brims with Dickian consumerism; in a world with nothing, everyone wants ownership. Rather than utopia, capitalism becomes entropic decay – filling the world with worthless ‘kipple’, devaluing somatic experience. Humanity turns to a virtual religion, Mercerism, manufacturing connection and empathy through the shared hyperreality of a martyr-figure. The androids expose it as fake, but people don’t care; its reality no longer matters.
The fugitive androids shelter with Isidore, a worthless, low-IQ ‘chickenhead’, living in the run-down apartment blocks abandoned by those who’ve had the resources to move off-planet. Isidore sees the mirror of his own rejection by society in the androids and offers them help – arguably, the one character who unquestionably demonstrates empathy is the one society deems least human.
Despite watching Bladerunner countless times, I’ve put off reading the novel for fear of disappointment. I shouldn’t have been worried. Key scenes in the film align closely with the book, making for a vivid crossover experience. It builds on what I love about Bladerunner, but goes deeper in its exploration of emotions, rights, and consumer capitalism. It’s a novel exploring the boundary between the artificial and the real, while questioning whether that line should have any meaning at all.
