Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of American Studies of Turkey, cilt.1, sa.55, ss.145-162, 2021 (Hakemli Dergi)
Though regarded as a philosophical movement of the 17th and 18th centuries, in the words of Adorno and Horkheimer, the idea of Enlightenment has represented throughout the history of mankind man’s effort to control nature. In today’s world, the control and manipulation of nature has reached the point of self-annihilation with the use of advanced mass deception apparatuses and creation of simulacra replacing and surpassing reality. Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a science-fiction novel depicting a future post-apocalyptic society in which the humanity’s effort to control nature through science, technology, and mass deception ends with an almost total extinction of animal life, fatal damage of our planet, and great difficulty to distinguish between the real and the simulacrum. This article proposes that, with its over-kipplized setting, physically and psychologically defective citizens, powerful mass deception apparatuses and with its simulacra surpassing their real counterparts, the post-human world of the novel represents the malfunctioning of Enlightenment ideals and the self-annihilating end that the Enlightenment ideology brings humanity to. The article studies these issues within the theoretical framework of Horkheimer and Adorno’s idea of Enlightenment and Jean Baudrillard’s idea of the hyperreal, simulation and simulacra.