Do “Aspies” Dream of Electric Sheep? Part 3: The Autistic Mode

This final part of my essay on Blade Runner and Asperger’s syndrome moves into more speculative areas and draws on linguistics and literary theory to examine how Blade Runner and postmodern texts in general present as autistic.

In “Part 1: Autistic Noir” I described the traits associated with Asperger’s Syndrome (e.g. linguistic and social deficits, a marked lack of affect, and difficulties with cognitive empathy) and showed how each of these traits is presented by the characters in Blade Runner. In “Part 2: The Neurodivergent Worlds of Philip K Dick” I looked at Dick’s original novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) in the context of his other work of that period, his deepening interest in the dramatic and philosophical possibilities presented by different neurotypes, and how his work prefigured the more modern work of autism specialists like Simon Baron-Cohen and Uta Frith.

In this chapter I hope to take the affinity between Blade Runner and Asperger’s further still by exploring the deeper waters of postmodern theory and neuroscience.

The following argument is complex so I’d like to layout the stages in advance.

• Firstly, I want to argue that Aspies have a preference for metonymy over metaphor, and that the reasons for this can be understood in terms of current research into neuroscience.
• Secondly, I will argue in favour of Damien Broderick‘s contention in Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction (1995) that science fiction is a genre – or mode – which privileges metonymy over metaphor.
• Thirdly, I will look at the analysis of postmodernism proposed by literary theorist Frederic Jameson in Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) to propose correspondences between postmodern texts and what I’ll call the Autistic Mode of expression.

Do “Aspies” Dream of Electric Sheep? Part 2: The Neurodivergent Worlds of Philip K Dick

This is the second part of of my essay on Blade Runner (1982) and Asperger’s Syndrome.

In ”Part 1: Autistic Noir” I looked at the parallels between Ridley Scott‘s film and the experience of people on the autistic spectrum, particularly those like myself who have Asperger’s. I gave a summary of some of the common AS traits and looked at how most of these traits, particularly social isolation and flattened affect, are exhibited by almost all of the characters; I also looked at how the common Aspie experience of prejudice is reflected in the experiences of the replicants (androids) and how their supposed lack of empathy is used to legitimate their status as less than human.

Although there are many difference between Blade Runner and the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) on which is based, the test is taken directly from the book. In this section I want to look at how Philip K. Dick’s novel addresses the themes of social isolation and flattened affect also present in the film, and look how Dick anticipates some of the current theorising of Asperger’s as an ”empathy disorder” (with particular reference to the work of Simon Baron-Cohen) – despite being written decades before the condition was recognised.

I also want to place the novel in the context of Dick’s other work of this period – particularly The Man in the High Castle (1962), Clans of the Aphane Moon (1964) and Martian Time-Slip (1964), which showed an increasingly sophisticated interest in different neurotypes. I will examine how Dick himself, as indicated in non-fiction essays like ”The Android and the Human” (1972), shared many of Baron-Cohen’s assumptions about empathy as constitutive of human nature, and I will look at the concept of empathy in some depth; I will also argue that the ambiguities of Dick’s fiction undermines these essentialist assumptions and exposes empathy and it’s associated ”emotional ground tone” as a socially constructed and historically contingent.

Do “Aspies” Dream of Electric Sheep? Part 1: Autistic Noir

This is the first in a series of essays on popular culture and neuroscience. I’m starting with my favourite movie, Blade Runner (1982), and the novel  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) on which it is based, partly because I have been obsessed with both since I was a teenager, but mostly because I can write about both from inside the condition these texts illustrate: autism, and in particular the autistic spectrum disorder still referred to as “Asperger’s syndrome” or “Asperger’s disorder.”

It may sound a surprising claim Blade Runner as an “autistic” film to anyone used to more literal representations of autistism in films like Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988) or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Stephen Daldry, 2011) but in many ways Blade Runner is the “Aspie” [1] film par excellence.

Most films about autism are targeted at non-autistics, reflect the non-autistic values and assumptions, and are ultimately and ultimately designed to meet their emotional needs. Many revolve around finding a cure: in Change of Habit (1969), for instance, Elvis Presley, in his last film role, cures an abandoned autistic girl by hugging het close and telling her she has to learn how to love people.  Sometimes the direction of cure is reversed:  caring for his autistic brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) redeems the selfishness of yuppie Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise). Either way the autistic experience is framed within the point of view of the non-autistic. But Blade Runner is different; Blade Runner largely dispenses with the non-autistic point of view.

Blade Runner features no characters explicitly identified as having Asperger’s Syndrome; in fact few of them are even human. When Blade Runner was made Asperger’s was barely recognised in the English speaking world (Lorna Wing translated Hans Asperger‘s work in 1981 when the film was already in production). Yet every character, human or otherwise, displays recognizably autistic spectrum (AS) traits – as I will hopefully demonstrate!

The film also reflects the experience of alienation, social exclusion and prejudice common to aspies; what’s more, the film’s intense auditory and visual style and obsessive attention to surface detail mimics the local precedence bias of autistic perceptual processing and induces an effect of sensory overload aspies are familiar with. It features a diagnostic test that bears an uncanny resemblance to tests used in the assessment of autistic spectrum disorders. But most importantly of all, the major theme is one which is of particularly salience to Aspies; the notion that empathy is constitutive of being human, and that a deficit in this often vaguely defined quality is used the marginalise and discriminate against certain groups by denying them humanity (hence the title of this first part).

And to top it all the film features an actress who was herself diagnosed with Asperger’s.

Happy Incept Date, Roy!

Science fiction fans mark some odd birthdays: that of The Terminator‘s Skynet on August 4th 1997; or 2001: A Space Odyssey computer HAL 9000 on 12th January 1999.

Today, 8th January 2016, is the birthday – or incept date – of iconic Blade Runner replicant Roy Batty.

This seems an appropriate day to reboot my site after a long absence from blogging. I have a series of posts inspired by Blade Runner and I’ll be posting them soon.

Please check them out!

The Art of Penguin Science Fiction: David Pelham

David Pelham studied at St Martin’s School of Art in the 50s and had worked on the export magazine The Ambassador (later retitled International Textiles), the arts magazine Studio International and Harper’s Bazaar; he joined Penguin Books in 1968 after the departure of the great Alan Aldridge. Following the departure of Germano Facetti in 1972, David Pelham’s role as art director for fiction was expanded to overall art director. He left Penguin in 1979.

Pelham’s first covers for Penguin Science Fiction were for the 1971 reprints of Fred Hoyle‘s novels The Black Cloud (1957), Fifth Planet (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle, 1963) and October the First Is Too Late (1966).

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A Clockwork Orange

Among Pelham’s most iconic covers was that for a reprint of Anthony Burgess‘s classic novella A Clockwork Orange (1962) released to coincide with Stanley Kubrick‘s 1971 film adaptation.

The director had shown no interest in the remarketing of the book so Pelham had freedom to design the cover without too much reliance on the film. This classic image was actually a last minute job because the original commissioned artist had been unable to come up with anything satisfactory within the time available and Pelham had been forced to take on the job himself.

Pelham himself is not overly fond of the cover:

“I don’t like the image. I really don’t but it has become iconographic. I don’t like it because it was primarily done overnight, with very little thought, really. It was an emergency: a graphic design emergency because we had to a have a cover, because we’d miss the hit of the movie.”

Nevertheless the cover has become a pop art iconic image, adorning posters and t-shirts. While the film version was banned in the UK Pelham’s cover defined the film for many denied access to Kubrick’s masterpiece.