Here are ten philosophical insights embedded in the extended prologue to this highly inventive 1920 science fiction three-act play by Czechoslovakian author Karel Čapek. And, yes, this play marks the very first appearance of the term “Robot” as in R.U.R. – Rossum’s Universal Robots – mass produced, human-like machines to perform manual labor and function as servants.
1. Old man Rossum was a biologist who failed to create actual humans in his laboratory; engineer son Rossum invented the living labor machine, the Robot, a natural progression of production (son) following discovery (father). After all, as the present central director of R.U.R. states: “If you can’t do it faster than nature, what’s the point?” Let’s not forget this is 1920, the engineer is king and speed, machines, factories and efficiency are all the rage. Speed and machines even made headway in the world of art some year prior, especially among the Italian Futurists such as Mainetti, Boccioni and Bella.
2. The central director continues: “Production should be as simple as possible and the product the best for its function.” And “The creation of an engineer is technically more refined than the product of nature.” The spirit of these statements was captured magnificently in the film “Modern Times” with Charlie Chaplin. Since the prologue is peppered alternately with satire, comedy and black humor, it’s as if the creators of that Chaplin film mined a number of ideas from Čapek’s play.
3. Young Rossum started with twelve-foot Superrobots but they kept falling apart so he began manufacturing Robots of normal human height and respectable human shape. Curiously, when Robots mimic human dimensions, there is something inexplicably appealing about their physical presence. For example, witness the computer generated American football playing Robot one of the large commercial stations uses in their broadcasts – the Robot signals a first down, spikes the ball and even does a little dance after scoring a touchdown – all very charming for football fans – just Robot enough to be fantasy; just human enough to seemingly possess human emotions and feelings.
4. A recent arrival to the R.U.R. factory, Helena, a sensitive young lady converses with the central director and mistakes the director’s beautiful secretary, a Robot named Sulla, for a real person. Oh, no, no! Helena is quite upset and initially refuses to belief such a gorgeous woman, just like herself, isn’t human. Ah, there’s something so very compelling about a woman’s beauty – we refuse to believe a young woman with such beauty lacks heart and feeling – case in point, the 2015 film “Ex Machina.”
5. The way they are constructed, Robots never think up anything original. As the director notes: “They’d make fine university professors.” Did I mention Karel Čapek’s infusion of satire and black humor? Such a nice touch – not too much satire to sound preachy but enough to let us know much in his society and culture, all the flummery about “progress” and the eventual perfection and purification of mankind through scientism, is so much smoke and mirrors.
6. Turns out Helena has traveled to the R.U.R. factory on behalf of the League of Humanity in order to incite and liberate the Robots. All the factory directors in the room, all six men, laugh and tell Helena everybody from the outside who comes to the factory wants to do good by the Robots and set them free. As the central director, Harry Domin, informs Helena: “It would amaze you to know how many churches and lunatics there are in the world.” Churches and lunatics . . . you gotta love it! As events unfold beginning in Act One, Helena’s words take on stinging irony.
7. Helena wants to know if you can show the Robots a bit of love. Impossible, retorts the directors, since Robots are made for one and only one purpose: work. For Robots have no sense of taste nor do they ever smile. Considering how many 21st century factory Robots have been successfully constructed for nonstop work, this passage takes on a particular resonance. And, God forbid, if there is work where Robots can’t replace humans, there is always the opportunity to move your factory to a third world country and corral the poverty-stricken into your sweat-shop for next to nothing. Much of the themes of R.U.R. are as relevant today as they were in 1920.
8. But, but, but . . . there is a chink in the armor. As one director sadly states: “Occasionally they go crazy somehow. Something like epilepsy, you know? We call it Robotic Palsy. All of a sudden one of them goes and breaks whatever it has in its hands, stops working, gnashes its teeth – and we have to send it to the stamping mill. Evidently a breakdown of the organism.” Sound like trouble? Such breakdowns prove to be big trouble.
9. Powerful economic forces are at work. One of the directors pronounces how their Robots have cut the cost of labor, so much so that non-Robot factories are going belly-up. Many are the zingers the playwright hurls at a society reduced to the forces of supply and demand where the requirement to produce profits for shareholders takes top priority at the expense of humanity. Money, money, money . . . the lifeblood of the modern world then and now.
10. Harry Domin proclaims how no longer will mankind have to destroy his soul doing work he hates; people will live to perfect themselves. Considering the modern phenomenon of the couch potato and numerous other mind-numbing addictions, unfortunately there is substantial evidence the vast percentage of the population is far from “perfecting itself” given time free from work.
So, Act One, Act Two, Act Three take place at the R.U.R. factory ten years after the prologue. It's Robots vs. humans. I encourage you to read the play to find out what happens. And I highly recommend this Penguin edition which includes a most informative introductory essay by Czeck writer Ivan Klima.
Comments
Post a Comment