Not Even Human
“My mother? Let me tell you about my mother.”
(Leon Kowalski, 2019).
In 1968, science fiction writer Philip K. Dick published his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It imagines a future in which synthetic human beings are produced in order to perform menial and dangerous jobs. These synthetic human beings are called “replicants.” A portion of the plot focuses on a detective whose job is it to locate and eliminate replicants who try to pass themselves off as humans.
Dick has said that he wrote the book in response (at least in part) to citizen’s response to seeing images of the Vietnam War on the nightly news. He felt that we had grown so numbed and so alienated from what was happening in that war, that we were no longer human beings. In some cases, he imagines these non-humans as robots. In this novel, he imagines them as synthetic beings. In either case, they are not even human.
As many of you probably know, Ridley Scott took that novel and directed the movie Blade Runner in 1982 (though it’s set in 2019). Leon’s quote above is taken from that film. Scott makes some fairly significant changes from the novel to the film (but that’s another essay altogether). However, both the novel and the film ask a similar question: what makes someone human? Or, put another way: what makes someone NOT human? What is the thing that distinguishes human beings from NON-humans? How are we different from other beings? Is there something that, if we no longer have, we are no longer human? Can we LOSE our human-ness.
In a word, “Yes.”
Both the novel and film focus on empathy as the defining human characteristic.
In the above scene with Leon, he’s been called into an office to take a “Voight-Kampff test.” While the name sounds like the last names of the two people who developed it, it really is just a homophone for: “void comp” or “void of compassion.” In other words, a lack of empathy.
The VK questions in the 1968 novel include ones that ask about a “calf-skin wallet,” about an “insect killing jar,” about cooking a live lobster, about a wasp on your arm, about a Playboy centerfold, about someone getting an abortion. The 1982 movie includes these and a few others, including one about oysters and “boiled dog.” The detective asks these questions and monitors physical responses to the questions to see if the replicant is emotionally responding to any of the situations.
In the film, the detective, Holden, asks Leon about a tortoise on its back in the desert. Leon is not having an emotional response, and he knows that he is caught. And, so, he shoots Holden.
With the premise of the test now established, we see our two principles, the detective, Deckard, and the daughter of the corporate genius, Rachel, also engaged in a Voight Kampff test. Is Rachel human, or not? Is she really a replicant? Deckard establishes that Rachel IS a replicant, but he is baffled that she herself does not know that she’s a replicant. “How can it not know what it is?” (Note the deliberate use of pronouns there.)
Just as Dick was responding to changes in US society in the late 60s, I would suggest that the novel (and film) have something to say about changes in today’s society, as well. What does it mean to be human? And has that changed? Would people today pass the Voight-Kampff test? Would our politicians and business leaders? Would Donald Trump pass it?
In a word, “No.”
For example, in November 2015, Trump appeared to be mocking a news reporter who has a “congenital joint condition” that affects the way in which he can move. In the video clip, Trump can be seen both verbally and physically mocking the reporter’s movements. Mocking someone with a congenital physical condition really exemplifies the lack of empathy. Trump does not — and cannot — put himself into the reporter’s shoes. He cannot image what the reporter experiences nor what the taunting must feel like. Instead, he uses the reporter to make political points. A failure of empathy and a failure as a human being.
In October 2016, the contents of the so-called Access Hollywood tape were released. In the tape, Trump and Billy Bush are in a vehicle, talking about women. According to the transcript, Trump brags that he tried to “fuck” a TV star, even though she was married. He moves on to more generalized comments. He claims that he just forces himself on women because he’s a “star.” He claims that, because he’s famous, they will let him do anything he wants: including “grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” The comments reveal his attitudes about women: they are objects, they are possessions. He cannot empathize with them. He cannot imagine what they are thinking in those situations. (The later E. Jean Carroll case further demonstrates that he really cannot imagine it.) Another complete failure of empathy and humanity.
One of the enduring images of the Trump administration is the children in cages. That situation was the result of Trump’s “zero-tolerance policy” on immigration and his practice of family separations. Now, this policy is not solely the result of Trump’s core beliefs. He had a lot of help behind the scenes. Both Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, for example, had a hand in crafting the policy. Nevertheless, Trump enacted it. He could have rejected it as cruel and inhumane, but he did not. Further, when he was campaigning in 2018 for the 2020 election, he called for a return to the policy. In the current campaign (2024), he is still arguing for the zero-tolerance policy. However, Trump does not see the asylum seekers as human beings; he does not see their suffering back home nor on the way to the US border; he does not see the horror of parents and children being forcefully separated as a problem. He has NO emotional response to it. Instead, he argues that it successfully deterred asylum seekers (a dubious claim, at best).
Trump’s antipathy for the military showed itself early. For one, he disparaged John McCain, who had been captured and tortured in the Vietnam War. Trump said McCain was no “hero,” and that he preferred “people who weren’t captured.” A bit later, Trump disparaged a Gold Star Family member, Khizr Khan, whose son was killed in Iraq. A letter written and signed by 17 Gold Star Families asked Trump to stop “cheapening the sacrifice made by those we lost.” And, of course, in 2018, Trump infamously cancelled a trip to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France. Because Trump was really concerned that his hair might get tousled in the weather, he called off the trip. However, at that time, he said he didn’t want to visit a cemetery filled with “losers.” He also called 1,800 Marines who were killed in a battle “suckers.”
Trump, who dodged military service himself, cannot put himself into their shoes. He cannot imagine the self-sacrifice made for something larger than oneself. For Trump, nothing and no-one is more important than himself. He cannot imagine doing what they did. He cannot see the values in what they did. He cannot have any emotional response to those individuals nor for their families.
And the list goes on. . . .
It seems likely that Donlad Trump would not pass the Voight-Kampff test. Am I suggesting that Donald Trump is a replicant or a robot? No. But I am suggesting that he lacks the empathy that we hold so important to being human beings. In reality, Trump is not the problem. He’s a symptom of a problem. True, he has — perhaps — exacerbated the problem. He has certainly given the problem legitimacy. But the issue is larger than he is.
In the essay “Cultivating Empathy,” psychologists note the importance of empathy in human interactions. They note that empathy can motivate people to help out other people who are in need. Empathy can enable us to be more cooperative and “less retaliative.” Empathy can enable us to meet and interact with strangers in more positive ways. It can help us negotiate relationships with marginalized or stigmatized groups and individuals.
Now, imagine Trump with empathy. Imagine that he were better suited to help those in need. Imagine that he could face strangers with compassion and not fear. Imagine that he were more open to the experiences of the marginalized and stigmatized (racially, ethnically, sexuality, socio-economically, etc.).
Now imagine that ALL of us had these abilities. Imagine that we ALL greeted strangers and difference empathetically. It would be a very different world, indeed.
Ritch Calvin is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of Queering SF: Readings (Aqueduct Press), Feminist Epistemology and Feminist Science Fiction (Palgrave McMillan) and edited a collection of essays on Gilmore Girls (McFarland). His most recent book (2024) is Queering SF Comics: Readings (Aqueduct Press).
