Speculating Robots and Historicizing Golems
All forms of literature reflect to some degree the individual author and the way that that author views, experiences and navigates the culture within which he or she is situated. While this is true of all art, this paper will investigate the different and complimentary ways that speculative and legendary fictions reflect the society and cultural context of their author and how they, in turn, serve different functions. More precisely, it will look at the way that legends take note of the present day and use fiction to explain and authenticate the ways and culture of the present society as seen in Rosenberg’s golem tales. Alternatively, speculative fiction, as represented by Capek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots, make observations about the culture in which it is produced in order to predict the outcome of modern trends. Significantly, both reflect the culture of their production, even share common messages, but they vary in their means and function in a compelling way.
Legends can act as a mechanism of authentication by providing a community with a long historical precedent of cultural production. As Ira Robinson explains Jewish Orthodoxy “proceeded to imitate [the modernists] in many respects, not the least of which was to desire to publish ancient and medieval Judaic texts” (61). This desire to have a long history of texts and literature is what lead to forgeries such as those produced by Rosenberg. Looking to the past was not only a source of history but of authenticity as Robinson states, “On both sides of the kulturkampf the legitimacy of Judaism was felt to be at stake” (61). Interestingly, Rosenberg’s tale is reflecting what was generally perceived as a lack in the Jewish community at the time, the lack of authenticity that accompanies longstanding and continual textual scholarship. Further, legends and alternative histories, like those written by Rosenberg, act as a source of cultural cohesion and recognition. Being able to use legends as a mirror- to see one’s own people reflected in art- allows individuals to imagine communities beyond the geographical ones they traverse every day. The defined community borders that these tales espouse not only represent unity but also protection of cultural production from the manipulation, appropriation and misrepresentation of that culture. Fear of this misrepresentation of Jewish culture is evident in Rosenberg’s tales when the malicious priest intends to launch a blood accusation against the Jews right before Passover, contorting the tradition of making matzah bread into a murderous and cannibalistic act. It is not a coincidence then that Rosenberg chose to pen these stories through the Rabbi’s son-in-law Isaac, as there is an emphasis on heritage and bloodlines as a form of not only kinship but of cultural and social reproduction as well. “Rosenberg believed that Orthodoxy was in crisis because the younger generation was falling prey to the wiles of the secularists” (Robinson, 65), and in forging these new legends, his goal was to “attract the younger generation to Orthodoxy through the literary medium (66). Thus we see legends reflecting not only a culture and it values, behaviours and traditions, but we also see legend as a reflection of that community’s need to transmit their culture generationally. Finally, legends help to provide logical explanations for the behaviour and beliefs of the modern day. This is evident in the way that popular culture began to conflate the local trend of repeating the commencement prayer on the Sabbath with the legend of Rabbi Loew. While the legend grew to account for this action by claiming that Loew was interrupted in his first attempt at the prayer by his rogue golem, there is reason to believe that this was simply due to the presence of an organ which would accompany the first prayer but not the second, signifying the transition into sacred time. In this account, we have the naturalization of the modern behaviour through legend and the naturalization of legend through sustained modern day authentication.
While legends have a long reach into the past that reflects the time of production, speculative fiction by definition has its roots firmly planted in the present and its gaze steadfastly on the future. Capek’s work, like that of Rosenberg can be seen as reflecting the world of its author. Instead of looking to the past for explanation or validation, Capek looks to the future to investigate the possible repercussions of the patterns developing around him. Ivan Klima situates Capek’s work within a volatile post-war Europe in stating,
“RUR was written at the beginning of 1920, a time when the battles in Russia between defenders of the legitimate government and the red army were ending, when Europe was only with difficulty recovering from the war, and circumstances seemed conducive to utopian visions: societal as well as technocratic. Both sorts of visions intrigued Capek his entire life, but ideas for revolutionary change struck him as dubious and dangerous” (Klima, 77-78)
What is made obvious in this quote is the way that the social and political landscape of Capek’s world influenced the way that he imagines the future playing out, and the possibilities and the threats that are inherent in that future. Notable is Klima’s use of the word ‘technocratic’ implying leadership by those who have technological knowledge (including individuals such as RUR’s engineers and scientists), which will arguably espouse “progress”. In writing RUR, Capek is interrogating both this privileging of technology and the very notion of ‘progress’. He appears suspicious of the notion that any development for the leisure of mankind is to the benefit of mankind. This is best articulated in Fabry’s ill-fated remark, “It’s great progress to give birth by machine. It’s faster and more convenient. Any acceleration constitutes progress, Miss Glory. Nature had no concept of the modern tempo of work” (Capek). Given the morbid demise of the play’s human characters, the irony of Fabry’s speech is profoundly morose. In situating nature and natural reproduction as the antipode of the technological progress, Capek seems to not only emphasize technology’s departure from conventional means of production and reproduction, but also issues a warning, carrying with it all the negative connotations of the word ‘unnatural’. The machine is not at the service of man so much as it is set to replace him, this being evident in not only the machine’s efficacy in all of human functions and production, but also in the way that human interaction is being mediated by capitalist structures which seek to reduce employee/ employer relations to the strictest utilitarianism, to the degree that employees resemble robots. This becomes clear in Klima’s discussion of RUR’s theme,
“By its consistent development of utilitarian relationship with employees, capitalistic rationalism achieves the ideal of a dehumanized worker, leading to a fantastic increase in production. But this dehumanization can be taken only so far. The moment workers understand their position within the system, they rebel and destroy it” (Klima, 73).
This not only serves to draw connections between the world Capek observed and the repercussions that he imagined in his work, but it also evokes the theme of utopia and dystopia which dates back to 16th century writing of Thomas More. Capek’s pieces belongs to a great collection of works which not only dares to imagine the contingencies of a perfect world, but is also able to recognize the inevitable failure in the execution of these worlds. The dystopian ruin into which the characters of RUR fall is the result of utopian fantasies, the imagining of a perfect world that is overly dependent on robotic production and human leisure.
While these two pieces are markedly different, for the reasons explicated herein and for reasons beyond the scope of this paper, there are very important commonalities that speak to the universality of the human experience. Neither piece is a guidebook for navigating the scholastic or political world in which readers find themselves, rather they each notion to the caution that must be exercised in creating something new, in reading something ‘old’, or in whole-heartedly buying into the new cure-all paradigm of the day. Whether looking to the past or the future, both of these authors use their modern times as a point of departure, and their imaginations as vehicles by which connections are made, possibilities are explored and obstacles can be overcome with renewed hope.
Works Cited
Klíma, Ivan. Karel Capek: Life and Work. North Haven, CT: Catbird, 2002. Print.
Robinson, Ira. "Literary Forgery and Hasidic Judaism: The Case of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg." Judaism 41.1 (1991): 61-78. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
Rosenberg, Yudel. The Golem. Ed. Joachim Neugroschel. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.
