Blood_Music_by_Greg_Bear

Greg Bear's Blood Music story belongs to early cyberpunk genre. In the late 70's there was a confrontation between two main literary groups in U.S: the humanists, who persisted to write according to old fashion canon, with highly precise grammar and syntax, emphasizing on the character's inner world and its complexity rather than a cyberpunk group, which was more interested in ideas and philosophical issues rather than analyzing the character. In this paper I will try to analyze Greg Bear's Blood Music story through the prism of point of view of cyberpunks. The cyberpunks describe futuristic world, based on high-technology, wide use of computers, including an antagonism to laws and government, and believing in creative thinking. The cold war between former U.S.S.R and U.S roughly began after the world war two. It was not literary a war of fighting each other, but a political tension, while each side considered its ideology as the right one: Soviet Union was a communist country, and therefore, every country which contradicted communism and opposed its beliefs, was considered as an enemy. Both sides were eager to prove each other that they are the mightiest. The space race was one of the outcomes of the cold war: Yuri Gagarin was the first man in outer space and the first to orbit the Earth in 1961. A few years later, America had sent its representatives to moon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. The military competition between two powerful countries was enormous, and came to its peak in early 80's, when U.S.S.R invaded Aphganistan. Ronald Reagan called U.S.S.R "The Evil Empire". Each country had highly dangerous threatening nuclear weapon and this fact generated a tremendous fear for both sides of the ocean. Thus, the apocalyptic plot served as a representative of anxieties of people, and could possibly become a reality. Vergil, a scientist who injected mysterious intelligent cells into his blood, soon becomes a victim of his own creation: the cells start to empower his mind. The same was prominent in former Soviet Union: citizens had been brainwashed by media means that the communism is the right ideology to believe in. The government developed a strong propaganda for studying Russian language for all the people who were part of U.S.S.R. The people were taught how to live and behave according to strict rules inscribed by the government. The opponents were sent to jail, to hard work in Sybir, and to death. The message was that a person was nothing without being a part of something big: U.S.S.R. There was no place to creativeness, or freedom of mind and speech. A person was mentally in jailed. Every resisting voice was muted. People became literally into cells, little pieces of a big one puzzle. Their wishes, personal memories, desires, thoughts, were summoned to one big idea: the communism. Nowadays, we face a phenomenon of Globalization: integration of trade and cultures among the countries. To be more specific, the acculturation, or the cultural appropriation is widespread today. English has become to an international language which everyone, who considers himself as a "man of the world" has to know. This phenomenon leads to mainstream fashion in all spheres of life as well: giant corporations "invade" other cultures with their chain stores, and directly affect the taste of people in food, clothing and music. We can see today almost everywhere people wearing sneakers, jeans and t-shirt, eating at McDonalds and listening to contemporary American mainstream music. By doing so, the cultural boundaries between societies are weakened. It is like to return to times of before the tower of Babel, when people spoke the same language and could understand each other. Beside the benefits of globalization, there are also side effects. People lose their own identity; without any suspicion their culture is invaded and manipulated by exterior arms. The seemingly freedom to choose is misleading. A power of globalization rules people, and therefore, it can never be named freedom. When Vergil's friend, Edward, realizes that in order to stop the reproducing of cells, he must kill Vergil, it comes out that the murder was unnecessary, since the cells are contagious, and Edward is already infected. Edward's attempt to stop the plague was meaningless: the cells have already infected his wife Gail. It is exactly what happens in our world: American culture is the leading one nowadays, and it spreads itself quickly around the world. For the past thirty years, science contributed a lot to human beings in almost every sphere of life: great progress in medicine, high-tech technology advancements, and computers revolution. Apart from the innovations which made our life easier, with help of science, people created means that can destroy our world and us: chemical weapons, poisonous gases, and high-tech artillery that one day may bring an end to our lives. These facts bother our minds and serve as a good foundation to create apocalyptic narratives. People like to read and watch movies about disasters. Does it mean that they really want catastrophes to happen in real life' No one wants to experience a real life disaster. We are interested in accidents that happen to others, but when they come to ourselves- we try to avoid them. Curiosity is an un-separate part of human nature. We are all capable to imagine catastrophes. It gives to some of us a real pleasure, adrenalin that drives us to imagine and find out what can happen if the world were destroyed. Narratives of catastrophes have always been a part of human culture: the Biblical flood (Noah's ark), the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah and the book of Revelation with its apocalyptic prophecy. The positive meaning of these myths is understandable. Human life is full of trouble, thus, we have to appreciate each day we live. Through these apocalyptic fables a man realizes that he is lucky enough to stay alive in a relatively quiet time. It is all relative, since, that quiet idyll is not meant to be forever, thus, the constant expectation that something will happen in a near future always remains.