“First you use machines, then you wear machines…”: Technology, environmentalism, and convenient action in Isaac Asimov’s The Gods Themselves, and John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar

Abstract

I Brunner og Asimovs fortellinger, er teknologi et ideologisk verktøy for dominans over naturen. Dette fremmer narrativet om mestring av miljøet, noe som gjør oss ut av stand til å forestille en fremtid uten fossilt brennstoff. Romanenes problematisering av «den andre» viser at mennesker tenderer til å tenke om seg selv som tenkende maskiner enn følende dyr. Essayet drøfter også om det finnes en mulighet for at disse romanene forandrer diskursen rundt miljøaktivistisk tenking og praksis.

In Brunner and Asimov’s stories, technology becomes an ideological tool of dominance over nature, perpetuating the human narrative of eco-mastery and conquest for convenience, ultimately rendering us unable to look past technology to imagine a future without fossil fuels. The novels’ problematizing of the ‘other’ shows that humans tend to rather think of themselves as a thinking machine than a feeling animal. The essay also considers whether there exists a possibility of these novels to alter conversational landscapes in that they allow readers to visualize new forms of environmentalist thought and action.