Society simply accepts or excludes certain ways of living. It normalizes some lifestyles that are apathetic, lazy, and stupid, while sub-cultures, outsiders and critics are pushed to the margins, made vulnerable and ultimately made to pay dearly for their choices. Peace advocates have their phones tapped, antiglobalization protestors are thrown in jail, political and critical writers like Dick have their homes ransacked and their safety threatened, drug users like Arctor are either hunted down or left to suffer alone, their pain attributed to their addiction, not their social rejection. A Scanner Darkly questions why some gain acceptance into the social fold and not others, which visions of the good life are valued and which are considered insidious, and what happens to those unfortunate enough to find themselves on the outside looking in.
Arctor, Barris, Luckman, and Frick all understand in one way or another that the best values are not necessarily awarded by society. Evidence of the unfortunate truth surrounds them. Think of the rabble that comprises the Brown Bear Lodge membership. They are comfortable and content, too content for the sloth and stupidity they represent. Or how about the tactics used by the County Sheriff’s Office? They coax Arctor into a mind-altering addiction all for the outside chance that he will lead them to the evidence they need to nail New Path. And of course there is Donna. She has taken on the life of a formless shadow, a narc who seduces a well-intentioned, naïve fellow narc and leads him down the valley of the brain dead.
Or consider Thelma Kornford, a “straight” who once came over to Arctor’s place to ask if someone could kill a big bug in her apartment. The group of druggies came over only to find that it was a mosquito hawk, “a great harmless bug that in fact did good by wiping out mosquitoes.” Her reply stunned them. She said, “If I had known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.”
That had summed up to them (and still did) what they distrusted in their straight foes, assuming they had foes; anyhow, a person like well-educated-with-all-the-financial-advantages Thelma Kornford became at once a foe by uttering that, from which they had run that day, pouring out of her apartment and back to their own littered pad, to her perplexity. The gulf between their world and hers had manifested itself, however much they’d meditated on how to ball her, and remained. Her heart, Bob Arctor reflected, was an empty kitchen: floor tile and water pipes and a drainboard with pale scrubbed surfaces, and one abandoned glass on the edge of the sink that nobody cared about.
At the same time in the novel, Arctor also muses in another way about how mainstream society prioritizes things. He remembers, before going totally undercover, one time when he took a deposition from “a pair of upper-class well-off straights” who said that “People who would burglarize your house and take your color TV are the same kind of criminals who slaughter animals or vandalize priceless works of art.” Arctor explained to them that junkies rarely hurt animals, and would often rescue and care for animals that most people would simply “put to sleep.” But their second claim made the smugly uncritical moral superiority of these straights—certainty about who, exactly, is the real “criminal” and why—seem even more ignorant and oppressive to him. He thought to himself,
As to “priceless works of art” he wasn’t too sure, because he didn’t exactly understand what that meant. At My Lai during the Viet Nam War, four hundred and fifty priceless works of art had been vandalized to death at the orders of the CIA—priceless works of art plus oxen and chickens and other animals not listed. When he thought about that he always got a little dingey and was hard to reason with about paintings in museums like that.
Can we say that any of these “straights” represent commendable values, values we would want promoted in our society? And yet these people are ‘winners’ in life. They end up with the job, the wife and kids, the security and safety of being on the inside of the social divide. On the other hand the ‘loser’ Arctor is used as a tool, an instrument in the pursuit of others’ means.
Drenched with self-loathing, admitting her complicity, Donna’s last words reveal her own disgust, “It is easy to win.” It’s easy to stay the course and follow the road to success. It is easy because it doesn’t require taking a stand, or choosing your values rather than having them chosen for you. It’s easy because as part of dominant society you don’t need your identity to be recognized and accepted by others, or your values to be incorporated into something larger and more influential than your own sub-culture. As part of dominant society, as one of the winners, life is undoubtedly easy.
Cultural Minority Report
But what of those who don’t choose the easy way out? What of the ‘losers’? What of the Bob Arctors? Can the outsider live in society with dignity? Eminent thinkers have dedicated volumes to solving the problem of cultural inclusion. They aim to include sub-cultures into mainstream society without threatening or alienating, assimilating or destroying them. It’s a tricky task. On the one hand are the demands of social conformity. Societies can’t work unless there are a number of questions we agree on. Some are basic and easily answered. Must we pay taxes? Must we stop at traffic lights? Must we follow the law, basically?
There are cultural questions too. Can children wear religious symbols at school? Can parents arrange marriages for their offspring? These are more difficult to answer as they introduce unfamiliar practices into the social fold. There is no clear ethical or practical answer. We cannot say it is morally wrong to wear crescents in gym class, nor is it heinous for families to choose partners for their children, so long as the children consent. And they rarely pose a practical impediment. Is wearing a turban dangerous? But some people might still feel uncomfortable with a police officer who dons a religious sash. Or they might find arranged marriages questionable because they seem to hinder freedom of choice, an essential value in our society.
Such cultural demands are demands for the right to freely choose how we wish to live. This stems from a desire to live authentically, which is only achieved by living in a way that reflects ones values and identity. People have the right to demand freedom of expression and religion because we recognize that those are essential to the individual’s liberty, identity and values. Could we include the right to use drugs and the right against being socially ostracized if drug use were part of our individuality and liberty? Do drug users deserve those rights, so long as they do not threaten the health and safety of others?
The debate comes down to the importance and protection of liberty and identity. How much autonomy should we afford the individual and sub-culture in order that their unique identities might flourish? When do their practices become intolerable and threatening to mainstream society?
Charles Taylor, a political and moral philosopher known for his work on identity politics, has proposed that dominant societies have a duty to recognize and affirm the value of sub-cultures. To do otherwise, he says would be to commit an egregious harm. He argues that it is essential to human identity that one’s personal uniqueness and one’s community be recognized by the greater society. This recognition is needed for the sense of self-worth of individuals and groups required to empower them to become free, equal, and autonomous agents in both private and public life.
Politics and societies, even today, overlook recognition and threaten to impose homogeneity rather than promoting plurality. Dominant societies are often slow to question their own values. Conservative interests rally to entrench tradition and exclude threatening ways of life. Subordinate groups generally find that there is little space to negotiate mutual respect. Hence they become marginalized, pushed to the fringes of society, where they are vulnerable to all sorts of social ills.
We need to be wary of this cycle. Demeaning and disrespecting identities undermines the self-respect of those excluded and their ability to resist injustices. Think of the disastrous effects of cultural colonialism on native populations. In North America and Australia indigenous groups were denied the right to practice their traditional ceremonies. Today many are still fighting for the capacity
to live and work in ways that reflect their values and identities. Denied the land central to their livelihood, denied the resources and rights required to form culturally significant identities, indigenous communities have suffered from low standards of living while residing in countries among the world’s richest.
Immigrant populations have similarly suffered from cultural prejudice, leading to poverty and social despair in many communities. In the United States, Mexican migrant workers have been derided culturally while being subjected to perilous and illegal working conditions. In Canada and Australia, Southeast Asian communities have been branded as violent and all too often involved in organized crime. The stigma has resulted in alienation of communities, pushing many immigrant youth to accept their typecast identities and become disproportionately involved in gangs. In France and England, second-generation immigrants were expected to cast off their traditional cultural ties and assimilate into the mainstream. However, disrespect for their parents’ cultural identities and practices and social and economic alienation have infused these communities with a feeling of neglect and disgust with how they have been treated and demeaned. The consequent clashes with authority have pushed the children of immigrants even further to the margins of European society.
In each case the disrespect for sub-cultures and their members’ identities has resulted in oppression, marginalisation, lack of self-respect and esteem, alienation, community decay and high rates of substance abuse, unemployment and suicide.
Clearly this dire reality has to be avoided. Recognition theory argues that we must instead promote valuation of these cultures. If all were mutually recognized all would be mutually respected and free to pursue their own unique visions of the good life and all would be healthy, contributing members of society.
A Scanner Darkly is in part a rich conversation on the possibility and desirability of this recognition. Despite their antisocial behaviour, Arctor and his friends never fully relinquish an American dream in which their values and communities might gain acceptance. They use drugs both as a means to escape and reconcile their affiliation with society, whereas society itself takes on the form of an object whose acceptance is ambivalently desired and detested. In light of Taylor’s philosophy, Arctor and his friends’ struggle for recognition forces us to ask whether there is space for the inclusion of drug cultures in contemporary America. Or, alternatively, are some attempts at identity inherently unacceptable to an ethical order that nevertheless ostensibly values pluralism? A Scanner Darkly seems to claim that even pluralistic America cannot accept this kind of outsider.
The Problem with Drugs
Arctor and his friends are denied social inclusion for two reasons. The first is privileging of dominant community rights over individuals and sub-communities in California. The Brown Bear Lodge and the Sheriff’s Department take it for granted that drug use should be prohibited because it is harmful to others and society in general. They will argue, along with those who believe in the right of the community to protect itself against anomalous individuals and sub-cultures, that the state has the legitimate authority to uphold and enforce its own norms and standards in order to preserve its unique identity and way of life.
This assumes that there is only one community to be defended, or at least that only one, usually the dominant one, is worthy of being defended. This is at the cost of the multitude of sub-communities that might live peacefully together with dominant society if given the freedom to do so. This communitarian view also misses the point that most individuals will belong to multiple cultural groups, not simply one. A college kid from a middle class white family might be a drug user, while an Indian American who supports arranged marriages might also be a union rep at his factory. In this way, a communitarian view consequently hurts members of every community by privileging one over all.
Douglas Husak, moral philosopher and defender of the right to drug use, is a strong critic of the communitarianism poisoning California’s moral landscape. He argues that the whole point of moral rights is to protect persons from interference supported by a majority. According to him the crusade against drugs is another manifestation of cultural hegemony. Drug use has been attacked as subversive of social institutions throughout American history. The drugs in disfavour at any particular time are generally associated with immigrants, aliens and others who have been alleged to threaten “our way of life.” In this way communities “assume what should be in dispute, the moral legitimacy of existing institutions.”
Is it accidental that we have outlawed cocaine, marijuana, and opiates—associated with blacks, Mexicans, and Chinese, respectively—but accepted alcohol and tobacco use as matters of autonomous choice that must be left to the individual? Is it because alcohol and tobacco lead to less chronic illness and fewer deaths and, hence, represent lower social costs? (Hint: No.) Couldn’t it be more simply because these particular drugs are widely adopted by mainstream culture and by the ruling class?
It’s the Nausea
However, the second reason for Arctor’s and Dick’s social marginalisation is much more problematic in considering the limits of contemporary cultural recognition theory.
It’s the nausea. Arctor is just too sickened by what he sees in dominant social values to bother compromising with it. He relishes his difference and independence. The value in his identity, where he gains a sense of self-worth and place, is from opposing the stupidity and struggling against society. His nausea forces him to its margins and makes it nearly impossible for him to be reconciled with society’s values. He and his friends gain their sense of uniqueness and superiority to the ‘straights’ from being outsiders. In other words, what they value most is what society and even the most liberal theories of recognition and inclusion cannot accept: They value being wolves. They value being different, critical, and in their eyes superior. Ultimately it is for their difference, their superiority, and for their refusal to compromise either that they are punished like the wolf.
And yet Arctor and his friends are not simply in opposition to society. Arctor even attempts to improve society as Fred the narc. He works at the County Sheriff’s Office of Orange County trying to bust drug-dealers. His dedication to this line of work is no farce or simple cover story for his other life as druggie. You can feel that his venomous hatred for dealers in his speech to the Brown Bear Lodge is real; there is a part of him that wants the entire Substance D world to go to hell, and to help put it there. He may be disgusted by aspects of society, and reject its values, but he never rejects that this society is his society.
It seems, then, that Arctor and his friends find value and identity not in their acceptance by society or their straightforward opposition to it, but in their struggle with it. In this struggle they find the possibility to form new values and new ways of life. Arctor’s ambivalent relationship to the mainstream is therefore identity-creative and liberating.
Arctor’s split personality is symbolic of this relationship to society. As Bob he is sickened by it and chooses the path of the outsider. As Fred he is a pessimistic public servant doing his best to make what little difference seems possible. As a singular identity he is neither for nor against society, but in a relationship of permanent provocation.
Wolves Finish Last
What’s the result of this relationship? In the end Arctor and his friends suffer immensely for it. Orange County does not budge in its stance against users. The Sheriff’s Department does not relent in its pursuit of the drug manufacturers, even if it means wasting the lives of innocents. The fact that he’s an addict makes it easy to turn Arctor into a puppet. He has no legal protection. And he has no moral ground to stand on, seeing that he’s already an outcast.
Arctor’s resistance reveals society’s inability to recognize sub-communities on the one hand and, on the other, the violent reprisals held in store for the especially threatening kind. A Scanner Darkly can be read as showing the boundaries of acceptance into even modern, supposedly pluralistic societies. It appears
that some identities are simply too offensive and too antagonistic to be recognized and respected. Those that provide their uniqueness and value to their members in opposing the mainstream stupidities are pursued and persecuted.
Arctor, Barris, Luckman, Frick, and the sort of paranoid counter-culture they have embraced, are in a struggle for recognition with society at large. They are different, they are sick of much of what society has become, they value their uniqueness and are proud of their choice, but they do not wish to alienate themselves entirely from the world around them. What they actually want is liberty, independence, and freedom. They have not given up on the American Dream; they just think the rest of America has. And now the rest of America is out to get them.
Futurity Doctored
24
I Know What You Did Next Summer
PAUL ATKINSON
Philip K. Dick’s stories “The Minority Report” and “Paycheck” ask questions about what would happen if we could predict crime or step into the future. Both stories have been made into movies, which explore similar issues of time but in their own, largely visual language—as films, they always want to show us the future, not just predict what’s going to happen.
Dick’s stories and the film adaptations present many different ways of knowing the future. This is the kind of question that the philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) also grappled with. Bergson doesn’t believe we can know the future, but he explains why we sometimes think we can. This is typical of philosophy, which likes to settle issues; to play the role of umpire rather than flex its muscles on the field. But philosophy does not simply blow the whistle and shout, “You’re wrong” or “You’re right,” for it is always involved in writing the rules of the game. Bergson’s philosophy, due to its focus on time, is perfectly placed to write the rules governing time travel; a game that is played often in “The Minority Report” and “Paycheck.”
Philip K. Dick and Philosophy Page 28