Managers as Androids: Reading Moral Agency in Philip Dick

Abstract

Philip Dick's science fiction (SF) offers a stimulating critique of modernity. One of his important themes was the gradual replacement of the empathy of humans with the cold logic of machines. Using Arendt (1964), Bauman (1991) and Tester (1997), I argue that managers are prone to moral indifference. This tendency was termed androidization by Dick, the transformation of human beings into machines. Through two novels and a film adaptation, I discuss how his characters combat this tendency, exercising moral agency. I point to the importance of identifying avenues for managers to resist their androidization.

Materiality and Space

“…Important processes operating at the boundary of individual identity and organizational identity, such as role narcissism, should be considered by organizational researchers. This will help us to depart from the idea that people obey 'unreflectively', like homogeneous automatons, android-like (Srinivas, 1999), and that the adherence to organizationally destructive processes is a result of passivity and powerlessness.…”

The Theory and Practice of Utopia in a Total Institution: The Pineapple Panopticon

“…Ingredients such as utopian purity and the consequent separation between 'us' and 'them', the search for conformity, the non-existence of channels for dissent and disagreement, the lack of checks and balances, the intertwining of power and identity, and the diffusion of responsibility that it creates -none of these are uncommon in organizational settings. We need to depart from the idea that people obey 'unreflectively', like homogeneous automatons, android-like (Srinivas, 1999), and that the adherence to organizationally destructive processes is a result of either passivity and powerlessness or individual organizational misbehaviour. The dynamics of utopian vortices not only in DK but also in places such as Srebrenica, and Homs, Syria, stipulate the need for organizational and not just psychological analysis.…”

La vigilancia en la obra de Philip K. Dick: Identidades, deseos y conflictos sociales

“…La vigilancia se dibuja como multidireccional, descentralizada y heterogénea y no como un instrumento de control unidireccional, centralizado y homogéneo (Sheldon, 2015). A veces la vigilancia sirve al Estado, otras a las corporaciones, pero también ayuda a la resistencia, la revuelta y la construcción de la agencia moral de los actores (Srinivas, 1999;Bould, 2015). De esta manera, la visión de Dick, como sugiere Best y Kellner (2003), es apocalíptica pero no carente de una cierta esperanza irónica.…”