http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/07/far04025.html
George Orwell Meets the Matrix
by Maureen Farrell
(Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.)
"We appear to be edging towards an era of 'mind control' -- a time when human brains might be manipulated routinely by highly sophisticated technology." -- Nicholas Regush, ABC News, Sept 5, 2001
"I've spoken about this at academic conferences. I find that the first reaction people have is, maybe, disbelief. But if I talk for two minutes, suddenly they begin to turn somber and say, 'This is the scariest thing I have ever seen.'" – University of Kansas research professor Jerome Dobson, on technology that could make George Orwell's "Big Brother nightmare...look amateurish," the Kansas City Star, March, 7, 2003
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On July 19, Denzel Washington appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman to discuss his role in the Manchurian Candidate. Saying that his character and others are carted off to be "manipulated" after being attacked during Desert Storm, Washington addressed the real-life implications behind this fictional drama:
WASHINGTON: (Referring to a film clip which also features fellow cast member Liev Schreiber) I know that they’ve actually put these. . . implants, these chips inside of us, which they actually have nowadays.
LETTERMAN: Is that right?
WASHINGTON: Yes.
LETTERMAN: Behavior modification chips?
WASHINGTON: They say for security and global positioning reasons. . . They can put one in you now and know where you are all the time.
LETTERMAN: It’s creepy isn’t it?
WASHINGTON: It IS creepy.
Not only is it creepy, but it sounds out-and-out ridiculous -- sort of like when Timothy McVeigh told friends that he thought the Army had implanted a microchip in his buttocks so the government could keep track of him.
Of course everyone (except for a handful of researchers and McVeigh’s prison counselors) thought the Oklahoma City bomber was 100% Grade-A delusional, but microchip technology to monitor humans (and manipulate behavior) is very real.
While The Manchurian Candidate itself is generating plenty of buzz, with folks speculating on everything from the corporation that lies at its center ("Think of it as the Carlyle Group or Halliburton on steroids," Frank Rich wrote) to Meryl Streep’s muse (She told Entertainment Weekly that Peggy Noonan and Karen Hughes offered hyperbolic inspiration, but Noonan keeps pushing the Hillary Clinton myth), the real life technology behind the plot is particularly intriguing.
Because regardless who the "Prentiss family dynasty" is supposed to be (they’re just "one syllable removed" from the Bushes, Rich said), such talk is mostly a matter of educated guesswork, sprinkled with a side of speculation. And while gossip usually fades fast, implants, on the other hand, are making their mark. Literally. For real. Even as you read this.
But, even so, could Denzel Washington’s "creepy" comment be considered a case of thriller-induced paranoia? Could he be taking his movie role a tad too seriously? After all, it’s clear that microchip technology, despite fears of Big Brother monitoring and other sinister applications, will improve countless lives.
With the future fast approaching, it’s questionable, as always, how we "ethical infants" will handle it. Yet, remembering that this journey began, to some degree, in collaboration with Nazis, it’s wise to remain somewhat suspicious.
With that in mind, here is a brief history of the technology of the future:
(snip)
While this is just a sampling of research and technological advances, one thing is clear, a brave new world awaits. "Humanity’s ability to alter its own brain function might well shape history as powerfully as the development of metallurgy in the Iron Age," cognitive neuroscientist Martha Farah and others wrote in the May issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Yet, given technology’s potential to go haywire, warnings issued in films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Terminator and The Matrix have more at their heart than mere celluloid.
And movies like I Robot and The Manchurian Candidate aside, the original Star Wars remains the ultimate in archetypal entertainment. When Bill Moyers interviewed Star Wars collaborator and legendary scholar Joseph Campbell for PBS' "Power of Myth" series, Campbell explained its underlying timeless theme. "Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man," he said. "When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute. . . [Star Wars] shows the state as a machine and asks, 'Is the machine going to crush humanity or serve humanity?'"
But it’s not just filmmakers asking such questions. Scientists like Bill Joy have weighed in, too. As he explained in Wired: "Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation, seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; we have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of science's quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own."
And so, from 2001's HAL to Darth Vader to "chipped" assassins, we’ve had a series of fictional reminders that the battle between what is cold and hard and inhuman perpetually rages against what is human and loving and kind. And, of course, it’s naive to think that the fight begins and ends with what’s up there on the screen.
As we enter this new era, wherein technology can either free or enslave us, it’s best to remain mindful of the monster that has, throughout the ages, paced hungrily through History’s darker halls.
Though it remains faceless, and for many, nameless, it exists, just as surely as love and hope and compassion exist. And it is out there, crouching, ready, once again, to devour what is uniquely and gloriously human.
Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.