Ahead of Its Time - SlothJockey.com

Karel Capek. R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). (1921) Penguin Books, 2004. 84 pages.
ISBN 978-0-14-118208-7

It's hard to believe that Karel Capek wrote the play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1921. In the early part of the 20th Century, who was actually thinking about robots rebelling and overtaking the factory that made them—and eventually taking over the whole world? And why would anyone have thought it way back then? I mean, today, it is more or less understandable, given the state of contemporary technology, to question whether robots might eventually evolve into some enlightened state. But in 1921... really? What about the awkward machines of those days would have made anyone raise this question at all? (Of course, one could ask the same thing about Rene Descartes' essay from 1546, in which he raised the question of an automaton that would be indistinguishable from a living creature, but we'll save that for another day.)

In R.U.R., the scene is set for robots to take over the globe. We are presented with humankind's creation, a servant class of mechanized humanoids, that develops feelings of resentment toward the masters. It is not some sort of natural selection that leads to the new level of awareness but the decidedly unnatural selective process of the robots' makers dabbling with the programming. It all unfolds in a rather intriguing way, with convoluted dialogues between the various characters about freedom, the dignity of the individual, and all the various emotions the master-slave dynamic always raises.

And that is what's really at the heart of this play. It explores the problems of oppression and dominion in the context of masters and slaves. In fact, the word "robot" has its roots in the Czech word for "slave," and it is thanks to Capek's play that the word "robot" entered our language at all. It is rather telling, then, that we continue to use this word to denote the machines that make our lives easier. They are there to serve us, and are naturally viewed as objects. But what happens if they decide that needs to change? That is precisely the question this play raises for us. And in doing so, it raises the contemporary (then and now) social issue of what happens when those humans who have traditionally been on the wrong end of an oppressive relationship decide that enough is enough. It depicts a Marxist move toward a new utopia, ending with a sort of revamped Garden of Eden. The play is the story of how we get from here to that paradisiacal setting.

Amidst all the serious issues the play explores, it somehow still manages to be very funny. The over-the-top verbal exchanges are loaded with exaggeration and all sorts of farcical expression. One can easily imagine, in reading the play, just how funny it could become on the stage. Within the space of about an hour and half, you can finish reading the words on the page, but both the humor and the ideas presented make it stick with you long after you've put it back on your shelf.

Reading R.U.R. and pondering the forces that led Capek to author this play so many years ago, one wonders what texts being written today might still resonate so strongly in another century. And one cannot help but wonder if those texts might not speak then in ways that can hardly be imagined today. It seems to me that this is exactly what has happened with R.U.R. I have a feeling that it says something rather different today than it did in 1921, but it is no less meaningful a text now than then.

From the play:

Domin: First he tried to create an artificial dog. That took him a number of years, and finally he produced something like a mutant calf that died in a couple of days. I'll point it out to you in the museum. And then old Rossum set out to manufacture a human being.

[pause]

Helena: And this is what I shouldn't tell anyone?

Domin: No one in the world.

Helena: It's a pity this is already in all the papers.

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