The slides for today bring up theories of post-humanism that emerge in the late-twentieth century and the ways that some cyborg characters in Gibson’s fiction demonstrate the potential for human re-definition and rebellion. How do you see Johnny himself at the end of the story? Is he yearning for pre-cyborg humanity or embracing the fusion of flesh and technology in his own body? Is he a figure who imagines new kinds of selfhood and political resistance, or someone who yearns nostalgically for a purer mode of human life?
6 thoughts on “William Gibson and Cyberpunk–Group 2”
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Throughout the story, we lean that Johnny is becoming disgruntled with his place in this cyborg reality and desires to split from his own cyborg half. His rebellion against the yakuza demonstrated his desire to escape from this cyborg lifestyle in which he was only an asset used to deliver and send important information stored in his head. His decision to find a way to release the information from his head with the help of Molly further define the intent to separate from this technological dynamic. Despite the danger, he decided to leak the information and utilized his leverage as the data carrier to help him eventually separate from this life. At the end of the story we find out that Johnny finds himself among the Lo Teks who end up helping him and Moly to defeat the yakuza assassin. Johnny then decides to live and remain with the lo teks and it was evident all along that Johnny was longing for this similar life away from the technological dystopia and into this new utopia. This shows us that Johnny has yearned for this pre-cyborg life and although isn’t able to return to it, finds peace within this anti-technology society.
I agree with Henry and Joseph. Johnny’s decision to stay with the Lo Teks signifies his frustration with his cybernetic alterations. Towards the end of the story Johnny’s attitude certainly feels like he is fed up with this world of technologically altered humans. As Joseph points out, a clear example of this is when Johnny states he is tired of being treated as bucket. In his view his ability and job of transferring data from one person to another also dehumanizes him. Johnny is essentially a walking flash drive. It is his cybernetic surgery that makes him an object rather than human at times. Johnny’s decision to blackmail the rest of the people whose data he has is a sign that he is fed up with being someone’s memory drive. This is Johnny’s way of revolting against being a cyborg and the society that has integrated cyborgs into everyday life.
Johnny’s decision to live with the Lo Teks after years confronting cyborg life is telling about his desire to return to a simple life, like him and Molly dreamed of. Johnny’s stint with the yakuza and constantly living life watching over his shoulder has tired him out and clearly made him dream of a simple life away from all of this madness. Johnny has seen both sides of life, the simple and the cyborg and his decision to live simply is very indicative that he wishes to distance himself and forget about what he has become.
Like Anthony and Henry both mentioned Johnny has grown tired of his service to the Yakuza and having all this information. His choice to use the data for his own benefit and to destroy the system around him is a logical one that anyone would make to return to semblance of normalcy. Lashing out at the institution that wronged you presents that closure necessary to close a chapter in life and start fresh. Johnny’s revolt is simply him committing to wanting to live a life devoid of cyborgs and machinery and live a simple life til old age comes.
I agree with Henry that Johnny’s decision to live and partner with the LoTeks seems to indicate a desire to todistance himself from the technological dystopia that surrounds him. While one could argue that his decision to live there is motivated by his need to escape the reach of the Yakuza, the tone at the end of the story implies that he identifies with his LoTek companions. “When I looked out across the Killing Floor, before he came, I saw how hollow I was. And I knew I was sick of being a bucket…I decided to stay up here” (21). In his augmented form, Johnny feels like an object, and the bucket serves as both a metaphor for his metallic composition and his role as an information receptacle for the underworld’s criminal elite. Johnny relates a more explicit desire to distance himself from technology in his yearning for a surgeon to “dig all the silicon out”.
While Johnny is clearly averse to the idea of synthesizing human and technology, it is unclear whether he has actually lived through any of the time preceding the cybernetic society of Nighttown. If not, he may have no conception of what it is like to be an unaltered human. This speaks to where we may end up if society does progress into a cyberpunk permutation; people will lose touch with their natural humanity, and only know how to live combined in a parasitic technological synthesis. Like Jones’ addiction to heroin, people will become not just addicted to the pleasure of technology, but could become dependent on it for a sense of normalcy. Like what’s mentioned in the slides, we are already seeing smart phones becoming pseudo-appendages with pervasive control over our thoughts and lives. While Nighttown is a visualization of one of the most extreme trajectories of the abuses of technology, it offers a prescient look at the modern technological condition decades in advance.
I definitely see Johnny at the end of the story as someone who is yearning for pre-cyborg life.
One of the reasons why I think this is because Johnny chooses to live with the Lo Teks. As someone who has experienced life among and not among these people, I think it is telling that after a number of years of passed, the end of the story revisits Johnny and Molly still living among these people. To me, this demonstrates a preference on Johnny’s part for being as close to pre-cyborg life as possible, especially after his experiences during the book.
Similar to what Anthony said in his post, I think it is also important to investigate the lifestyle that Johnny chooses to take up at the end of the story. Prior to living with the Lo Teks, Johnny unquestioningly transferred all the information in his head. After his experience with the Yakuza, I believe that he grows tired of serving this purpose, and wants to leverage the data in his head both to his advantage, and to the detriment of the system that initially governed him in such a way. I view Johnny and Molly’s for-profit data business as a lashing out against this system, an act that to me, again, indicates that Johnny definitely is leaning away from the cyborg lifestyle at the end of the story.
By the end of the story, I think Johnny is tired of dealing with the Yakuza assassin and wants to just be left alone. Sadly, as the main source for private data distribution, Johnny is a target since he has the valuable data and could find ways to steal or release it without the intended receiver’s consent. As the Yakuza assassin continues to pursue Johnny, this angers him and he eventually finds a way of accessing the data, with the help of a couple of his friends. This is an act of Johnny rejecting the fusion between technology and human life, as he wants all the technology removed from him.
I think this change of lifestyle is then confirmed with the ending of the story. Johnny and Molly decide that they want to counter against the all those who used him for data storage previously, and threaten to release the information. This is a major sign that he wants to transition from his life of having to store the data for the customers to a more “pure human life” where we all have our own thoughts and do not have to store it for others. I view his yearning as more so for just pure human life and less about the ideologies of society, as he wants the data removed from his head. I think his counter attack back towards everyone that used him previously is a way that he has leverage, but is centered mostly on the want to affect all those who have used him in the past. In a sense, it is a revolt against the powerful since they are the ones who have the important data that require Johnny’s transmission process. I view the actions at the end of the story as him yearning for normal human life more-so than a revolt against society and those individuals.