MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Philip K. Dick’s “The Hanging Stranger” (1953), though on its face a tale of invasion by buglike aliens with powers of “mimicry” and “mind control,” functions as an allegory for midcentury cultural conformity and the power of foreign propaganda. The aliens, aware of human conscience, hang a stranger in the public square; anyone who calls attention to the stranger can then be identified as having (so far) escaped their control. Thus, at the heart of the story is a powerful notion: humanity is not measured by Turing-test performances of human intelligence, but recognition of and responsibility to unknown (human) “others.” “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams” (2017), Amazon’s ten episode series of adaptations of Dick’s short stories, includes an update of “The Hanging Man” (Episode 10 “Kill All Others”) recast in light of contemporary techno-fear and global anti-democratic political trends. “Kill All Others” retains Dick’s ironies while flipping its literal and allegorical readings: There are no bugs now; tracking technologies, ubiquitous corporate presence, and a single, controlling political party are the enemy. It poses political questions first and leaves questions of humanity to be inferred: If we can’t recognize the “other,” in what sense are we capable of democratic self-governance? And, then: Have we retained our humanity (and not simply the mimicry of it) in the face of techno-fascist invasions of our homes, bodies, and minds? Characteristically, Dick treats conscience darkly, as necessary for human and political agency and, yet, as a source of existential vulnerability. Moreover, though both the original and its adaptation exaggerate the identifiability of the enemy and the functionality of conscience, in exploring the ties between democratic fitness and humanity, they ask the timeliest of questions.