Gonzalez’s “The Face and the Public” and Samuel Delany’s Trouble on Triton

Despite the repeated assertions of William Gibson’s place as the seer of all things digital in SF, I find that the more obscure and certainly less approachable Samuel Delany has proven to be a nearly preternatural predictor of both the technological and ontological problems of the contemporary world. Certainly, his 1984 novel Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand (possibly the best title in SF history) reveals early thought concerning the applicability of a worldwide information network (i.e. the Internet), as well as a method for determining “sexual compatibility” that bears a striking resemblance to E-Harmony. Yet, I find that Delany’s earlier novel, Trouble on Triton (sometimes known simply as Triton) serves a better purpose for this week’s discussion of avatar culture, especially in relation to Gonzalez’s discussion of race and the avatar.

In Delany’s novel, the residents of Triton possess the capability to alter their bodies in any number of ways; they can determine their own race, gender, even sexual preference through a mere trip to a store. In a world such as this, one would imagine that racism, sexism, and homophobia would be meaningless, considering any person you speak with very well could have been born and lived most of their life in any number of different racial or sexual paradigms. Yet, we find in the novel, that just as those Internet users who obscure their identity behind the shield of the Internet reinforce racist norms, the characters of the novel choose their physical appearance based upon predetermined stereotypes. The main character, Bron, for example, changes himself into a woman when his lover scorns him. His action is motivated by a desire to be the sort of woman that he himself would be attracted to, and thus his feminine personality is dominated by his masculine desires.

This literalization of the avatar problem begs a central cultural question, a question that Gonzalez fails to answer: Is it possible to truly put an end to racism and sexism without simultaneously putting an end to identity itself? Gonzalez asserts that “the philosophical imperative for a homogenous universal subject, without racial or cultural specificity, who might therefore properly participate in a neutral public sphere can be seen as a demand for subjects not only to reveal their secrets but also to find ways to live without them; in other words to find ways not to be disturbing” (59-60). Ultimately, if we use the Habermasian definition of public space, the public space ultimately must be a repressive space, disallowing differentiation.

P.S. As far as DIY stuff goes, I've decided I'm going to use my newfound electronic skills to fulfill a life dream: I'm building a theremin. Check out discovercircuits.com, for those of you who want to make all kinds of stupid things like theremins, motion detectors, and burglar alarms that play shrill synthesized versions of Billy Ray Cyrus songs (though I think that might be a bit beyond my expertise).