Technophobia In Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens Of Titan

As a significant theme of science fiction,Technophobia is often a complex exclusive to writers that scholars have to face when they are studying literature works from the late20^th century.In The Sirens of Titan,a novel first published in 1959,Kurt Vonnegut the American postmodernist writer tends to reveal his fear and anxiety towards technology and the discursive logic it represents.With such complex as a target,this thesis will make an exploration of the reflections on technology and its discursive system that shows up almost everywhere in this novel,and an explanation for Vonnegut’s solution to his anxiety is thus expected.The fear endowed in this novel mainly covers two origins:the symbolized progressivist ideas represented by super weapons when technology is regarded as progress as such;and the disenchanting inclination to destroy everything that is naturally born with the discursive system of science when it is seen as an order.Building on that,the true essence of Vonnegut’s complex of technophobia thus is presented in two aspects:fatalism generated by the ultimate ending presumed by progression,and the meaningless void they get trapped in after unrestricted exploration of disenchantment.Meanwhile,Vonnegut gives his own solutions to such a mental predicament.To oppose the neo-Gnostic stand of“technophiles”,he seeks a possibility that would not bring about the return of the dominance of any discourse.On the one hand,the fictive religion created in this novel serves as a satire both to traditional Christian theology and modern technology,generating an eclectic stand that dispels the authority of technology.Besides,the characters in this novel are depicted as atheists.Elements of“Space Opera”from pulp science fiction are employed to mock the authority of a scientific God,while a pre-Enlightenment worldview of Spiritualism is summoned to re-enchant the disenchanted world.Eventually,the consolation for Vonnegut’s technophobia is thus achieved.The technophobia revealed by The Sirens of Titan is universal.When confronting the adversity of humankind as a result of technological philosophy,Vonnegut deconstructed the binary conflicts existing in and out of modern technology by means of constructing the so-called“dynamic tension”,to find himself a new sort of mental peace.With the vigorous development of posthuman technology nowadays,strategies of Vonnegut as resolutions to his mental crisis are worthy of further research,while they also offer a valuable reference for us as a human community with a shared future when we are dealing with emerging issues coming along with technology.