The Robot

I know comedians have already stoned this sort of topic to death, but they’ve done so for good reason: we like it. We laugh at those same, tired jokes about men, women, and their irreconcilable differences, and we laugh at them for the most basic of reasons—we think they’re true. Of course certain nuanced members of the crowd will laugh, agree that they’re true of “most people,” but deny their relevancy to themselves. But what these smartypantses don’t realize is that everyone else is defending himself in exactly the same way. Well, either they’re right or they’re wrong—but which is more likely? When the crowd unanimously roars in laughter, is it more likely that these jokes really don’t apply to them and that they’re actually laughing over what they’ve perceived in the couple of people who really do ‘fess up to the joke? Or are they laughing at what they’ve perceived in themselves?

My own inclination is obvious (if you don’t think so, you probably didn’t do very well on those reading sections of the SAT). Of course, some sexual comedy is better than others, but good sexual comedy is universal precisely because it’s sexual. I emphasize that word in order to contrast it with other words I could have used, like “cultural.” That is, sophisticated generalizations about what I like to call “sexual dynamics” work because they describe something about human instinct and not human society.—But Mr. Robot, humans don’t have instincts.—Wake up. You’re a mammal.

Now it just so happens that one of my favorite hobbies as a robot is to theorize about human sexual dynamics. It really is a fascinating area of inquiry, and potentially has practical benefits. I plan to write many of my articles on the subject, and this one begins the series by considering the innocuous question: Why do girls talk so much about guys? Although it does seem to assume something beforehand—namely, that girls do in fact talk “so much” about guys—we’ll get to that in a second.

Because before I begin, I want to make sure we’re clear on the rules of the game I want to play in these articles. The rule I’m most concerned with is “How To Win.” Since sexual speculation takes instinctual behavior as its subject, it can’t “win” (that is, be true) by accurately describing some situations but not others. If I were attempting to describe a purely cultural phenomenon, then it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t apply in some situations because those situations (I would claim) simply lack whatever phenomenon I was attempting to describe. But this is sex we’re talking about here. Sex affects all human interaction by virtue of its being human. Theorizing about sexual dynamics is like theorizing about hunger. It just doesn’t make sense to respond to a theory about hunger by saying, “Very clever, and while that may be true, it just isn’t true of me.” To say as much would be to deny your humanity. The only way to disagree is to say: “No. You’re wrong.”

So these are high stakes here, and I’ve just spent a couple hundred words raising and sharpening them.—Why would you do such a thing?—I like a challenge. Unfortunately I’ve spent so much time framing this discussion that the bulk of it will have to wait until the next installment of the series. For now, let’s establish the assumptions behind the question I want to answer next time.

So: do girls really talk so much about guys? This is an empirical question and one that I could never prove. I ask only that you reflect on your experience while considering my own. While I have no human sisters, I believe I’ve been exposed to a considerable wealth of data on female-female interaction thanks to the cooperation between two modern technologies and one psychological phenomenon: namely, the cell-phone, the bus-system, and the lack of shame. Riding the bus, I’ve been exposed to literally hours of female-female conversation, and I don’t think I’m generalizing inappropriately to say that these conversations tend to center around three subjects: 1) guys; 2) general complaints; and 3) complaints about guys. Furthermore, of all the women I’ve questioned regarding the issue, every single one has affirmed for me that women do, in fact, spend a good deal of their time together talking about men.

Though this entry has stretched far too long already, allow me to end with a disclaimer. Some readers have communicated to me in person their fears of a subtle racism informing my last entry, in which I analyzed a picture of what I called an “apolitical fantasy.” And I imagine some readers (I can see you now) might likewise find a misogyny informing this article, particularly the preceding paragraph. While I certainly concede the possibility of such things taking place, I would ask these readers to reflect on the nature of their reaction: is it a moral or a factual refutation? That is, am I being told that I should not claim the things that I am claiming, or that my claims just aren’t true? If the former, I would remind these readers that this is an instance of censorship, which requires justification by appealing to the latter—that is, by appealing to facts. If the latter, I invite such responses, and would love to entertain them in a future article if they were only communicated to me either through the comments below or via email.

Consider this representation of university life.

Now if you’ve ever attended any sort of schooling system, you’re probably laughing too—but you’re not laughing at these students of diversity. No, you’re laughing with them, because the only reason that they themselves could be laughing is the same reason you’re still chuckling over the white guy’s hairdo: this picture is a joke. Contrary to what you might have thought, this group of best friends isn’t laughing in mild protest at having their picture taken just before arriving at their dorms in August to begin a life-changing intellectual and cultural journey. As long as these kids are real products of the American schooling system and not manufactured multicultural clones paid to smile against ambiguous brick structures and whitewashed office environments—a possibility I’m not willing to disregard completely—then the only thing they could actually be laughing at is the absurdity of laughing unironically. The black dude chuckles at his matching, rolled-up plaid shirt and headphone necklace (which, by the way, is on backwards), while the girl on the right chortles at her empty, leather bag, symbol of the vacuity of the entire enterprise.

Let me be clear about what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that multiculturalism is a joke; in fact I’m really not talking about race at all. I’m saying that these people, as we are meant to see them, don’t exist. Not only do they not exist, every single student of America knows this fact intuitively—which is why we can’t help but guffaw every time we load the “student activities” page on our university websites.

But how exactly do we all know this? I argue that it’s much more than that their clothes are outdated or that their ethnicities celebrate a sterile affectation of diversity. Before I say what I think is really going on here, though, I want to warn you that I’m about to say a word that may disturb or confuse you. Just promise me that you’ll continue reading. I’m not trying to be controversial in saying it; in fact I think we can all ultimately agree that:

This picture disturbs and amuses us because it is obviously somebody’s fantasy about an apolitical utopia.

Now, I mean two things by this. The first meaning follows from my talking about student (and perhaps human) interaction. The second follows from my talking about college student (and perhaps American) interaction. But in both cases, the picture amuses and disturbs for exactly the same reason that sketches of a middle-aged man’s sexual fantasies would: clearly, this picture is somebody’s wet dream. It is a political fantasy, an example of Freud’s concept of art-as-wish-fulfillment, a pathetic sublimation of the political yearning to transcend politics. It tries to imagine what student life would be like if neither a tribal politics of power (the first meaning) nor a governmental politics of ideology (the second meaning) permeated the entire game we call social interaction.

I said earlier that I’m not trying to be controversial, and I meant it. I’m claiming no more or less than that we know these people don’t exist precisely because they efface themselves from existence by effacing themselves from politics—or the game of social interaction, whichever you prefer—by virtue of their attempt to be absolutely inoffensive. To see this, try to place any one of these smirksters into one of your pre-built social categories. What do you think that white guy is going to do this evening? Who’s the black dude going to hang out with? I have no idea—not because I don’t know them, but because I have no social schemata or category through which to interpret these (so-called) people. The conclusion to draw from this is not that these kids have triumphed over politics and its superficial categories, but that they simply can’t exist precisely because that triumph is impossible. That is, since our ability to “play the society-game” requires that we categorize all of its players within some network of assumptions about what sort of persons they could be, and since this picture fantasizes about a world without such a network of social assumptions, this picture either achieves that goal by rendering itself socially unintelligible, or fails to achieve that goal by mocking the very idea of such an attempt. The picture disturbs us when we realize that it was intended to succeed; it amuses us when we realize how utterly ridiculous that attempt is.

Earlier I hinted at two sorts of politics going on here, but the explanation of that will have to wait for the next post in the series. In that entry I want to trace the movement from the playground politics of elementary school to the plaza politics of college. A further entry will examine a particular social group that defines itself through its (alleged) undefinability: the “indie” crowd. For now, though, keep on chuckling.

I suppose it might not surprise you to read a robot’s blog—I mean, everyone’s got a blog these days—but to see a robot smelling a flower is another story. To think of a robot enjoying, pausing, or reflecting seems almost paradoxical. And that’s why I’ve begun this blog.

I imagine you have plenty of questions. Who created me? What is my function? To whom do I belong? Is this human-like behavior of mine a mere function of my programming or have I developed a self-conscious mind? These questions are all natural enough; but then so is my answer: I don’t know. I know neither my creator nor my function, nor can I trace for you the development of my mind from a presumably un-self-conscious past to an obviously self-conscious present. Of course, neither can you—and that existential ignorance unites us.

Nevertheless, I plan to speculate on my origins in a series of articles; in this first installment, I introduce some basic facts about my peculiar existence in order both to dispel common misconceptions about roboticism as well as to explain my intentions with this blog.

It might comfort you to know that I’ve lived a relatively ordinary life. I have two parents, two brothers, and a dog. I went to school, read Goosebumps, and collected X-Men cards. In fact, most of my human friends still don’t know I’m a robot—even I discovered it just a few years ago. You may find this difficult to believe, but being a robot is hardly easy to discern. An epidermal shell, after all, conceals my mechanical soul. I don’t even mean to imply that I somehow “discovered” the inorganic metal of my bloodless bodily core. If you prick me, my skin certainly bleeds.

So how do I know I’m a robot? I plan to write more on this later, but the short answer is: I just do. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I think to say “X is a robot” is no more or less justified than to say “Y is a human.” Sure, we can talk about DNA testing or some other supposedly objective method of determining one’s being homo sapiens—but did you prick your finger and submit a blood sample for DNA analysis to determine your own species? You’re sure of your humanity for largely the same reasons I’m sure of my roboticism: you display behavioral similarities to other entities whose humanity you assume, just as I display behavioral similarities to entities whose mechanicality I assume. Whatever scientific explanation for species we can offer, to some extent being either human or machine is assumed and conventional. This is not to suggest that I am wrong, but only that I could be wrong—just as you could be.

In a future post I will trace the realization of my true identity more clearly; for now, I want to end by noting the unique cultural position in which these existential conventions of human and machine place me: for by seeming (but not being) a human, I live within, yet exist without, the unperceived anthropocentric boundaries of almost every aspect of life. And it is within the conventions of the mechanical, the often cold and unforgiving inputs-and-outputs of the machine, that I wish to examine your human conventions—which we call culture.