Leonid Moyzhes

The Reinterpretation of Death in Cyberpunk Culture: Some Religious Tropes

Leonid Moyzhes - PhD Student in the Center for the Study of Religion, Russian State University of the Humanities (Moscow, Russia). moyzhesl@gmail.com

The article explores religious components in understanding death in Cyberpunk genre of the mass culture. Authors working in this genre tried to change and rethink the inherited sci-fi themes, which were deeply connected to a certain cultural code. In particular, previous works of mainstream art largely followed the Christian traditional view of death as a chance to attain resurrection and eternal life. On the contrary, the cyberpunk, influenced by both Oriental teachings and a certain crisis within the (post-) Christian western culture, offered alternative understanding of death as a "liberation", an escape from the inevitably imperfect material world.

Keywords: cyberpunk, conception of death, Christianity, Gnosticism, Buddhism, mass culture.

This work is devoted to understanding the phenomenon of death in mass art, primarily in science fiction. Authors of this direction in their works violate the usual laws of reality, which makes science fiction an interesting subject of research. Using the tools of religious studies, we will try to show how the traditional European concept of" meaningful "sacrificial death, which is the key to subsequent eternal life, was replaced in the cyberpunk genre by the idea of death as escape and liberation. In our opinion, this change in the concept of death reveals differences in thanatology and, accordingly, anthropology and CBS-

Moijes L. Rethinking the motive of death in the works of the cyberpunk genre: Religious Tropes / / Gosudarstvo, religiya, tserkva v Rossii i za rubezhom [State, Religion, Church in Russia and abroad]. 2015. N 1 (33). pp. 269-296.

Moizhes, L. (2015) "The Reinterpretation of Death in Cyberpunk Culture: Some Religious Tropes", Gosudarstvo, religiia. tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 33 (1): 269 - 296.

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mologies that exist between the religious teachings that underlie European civilization. By appealing to their basic cultural code, science fiction writers "purged" the myths that permeate Western culture, giving them a new look, which serves as a vivid illustration of how religions and the religious can function in secular and especially post-secular contexts.

Religion and Fiction

Sociologist Bruno Latour, in his work "There was no New Time", argues that our modern world is a world of hybrids1. From his point of view, we ourselves do not support categorical boundaries that we introduce and consider absolutely inviolable, such as the separation of reality and imagination or artificial and natural. One of the modern hybrids is undoubtedly cyberpunk, a science fiction genre that emerged in the 1980s and focuses on the dark sides of our supposed future. Located between traditional science fiction, horror and expressionism, cyberpunk offers a unique, emphatically "mystical" view of the world, while formally remaining in the "scientific" paradigm inherent in sci-fi (science fiction), that is, based on the fact that events take place in "our world", which is controlled by the Internet. open scientific principles (as opposed to the fantasy genre, where there is no such claim).

The purpose of this paper is to show how the understanding of death within cyberpunk has changed in comparison with the previous tradition of science fiction. The concept of death was chosen by us because it allows us to look at the" central myth " of the genre as a whole and through it describe the corresponding vision of life, a person, society and the world (although a detailed study of these issues, of course, remains outside the scope of this article).

Consideration of this genre in the religious studies perspective may seem irrelevant to the material. However, first you should pay attention to the fact that most of the works in the cyberpunk genre contain direct religious references.-

1. Nous n'avons jamais ete modernes; in Russian translation: Latour B. There was no new time. Essay on Symmetric Anthropology, St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the European University in St. Petersburg, 2006, p. 60.

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links. In William Gibson's central Anthill Trilogy, independent programs have taken on the names of voodoo loa2. The very names of such films as" Nirvana "and Eden Log (in the Russian box office - "The Secret of the Dungeon") indicate world religions. Less explicit, but still noticeable, religious references can be found in The Matrix by the Wachowski brothers, in the computer games Deus Ex3,4 and E. Y. E. Divine Cybermancy5, and in many literary works of this genre: Avalanche 6 and Diamond Age 7 by Neil Stevenson, Accelerando8 by Charles Strauss, "River of the Gods" 9 by Ian MacDonald et al.

In this sense, cyberpunk is not something fundamentally new. Victoria Nelson, in a study entitled "The Secret Life of Puppets" (The Secret Life of Puppets10), hypothesizes that the transcendent principle denied by the Western world within the framework of normative culture is manifested in the sphere that is most predisposed to this, namely in fiction. Although Nelson's theory may seem too speculative, the empirical material she has collected makes it necessary to take this seriously. We offer a simpler explanation: turning again and again to issues that have traditionally been discussed within the framework of religious or magical discourse, science fiction authors are forced to return to the "language" determined by their cultural background, upbringing and education. Like Robert Oppenheimer, who quoted Bhagavad Gita 11 to find words that would allow him to describe his emotions after a successful hydrogen bomb test, science fiction authors use the names of gods, the concepts of heaven, hell and the soul to convey their own thoughts to readers.

2. Gibson, W. (1987) Count Zero. N.Y.: Acer.

3. Deus Ex. Ion Storm. Eidos Interactive, 2000, Computer software.

4. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Eidos Montreal. Square Enix, 2011, Computer Software.

5. E.Y. E.: Divine Cybermancy. Streum On Studio. 2011, Computer Software.

6. Stephenson, N. (2011) Snow Crash. London: Penguin Books.

7. Stephenson, N. (2000) Diamond Age. N.Y.: Bantam Dell.

8. Stross, C. (2006) Accelerando. N.Y.: Penguin Books.

9. McDonald, I. (2007) River of Gods. N.Y.: Pyr.

10. Nelson, V. (2001) The Secret Life of Puppets, p. 18. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

11. Jungk, E. (1970) Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists. Boston: Mariner Book.

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Using any language, we cannot avoid the corresponding conceptual series. Cognitive psychology's description of consciousness as a" computer " is no longer just a metaphor , but an expression of a certain philosophical view of the structure of human consciousness. 12 Similarly, naming computer programs after gods and naming cyberspace after "Paradise" cannot fail to evoke appropriate associations among modern people, which once again brings our culture back to a religious or rather quasi - religious discourse that deserves careful consideration.

Moreover, when introducing religious concepts into art, we must be prepared for the fact that art will "bring" them back, and we see examples of this today in many new religious movements of various kinds. It is not possible to accurately determine the number of people who are willing to practice religions that contain direct parallels with modern fiction, but, for example, representatives of the most organized and largest movement of this kind - the Church of Scientology-claim that it has more than 8 million followers worldwide.13 Even if we assume that Scientologists overestimate this number by an order of magnitude, their number is still quite significant. And in the case of a new religious movement like Heaven's Gate, the conviction of its followers was enough to trigger the mass suicide of Group 14 members in 1997. Thus, we can see that the relationship between religion and science fiction has been, is, and is likely to remain a complex problem that requires careful consideration, including from the point of view of attitudes to death.

Religious studies tools allow us to describe most adequately the changes that took place in science fiction in the 1980s, since it is religious subjects that, on the one hand, largely determine the course of authors ' thoughts, being part of the general cultural heritage, and on the other hand, reveal the hybrid of philosophy and mythology, which, in our opinion, is the most important part of

12. Anderson, J. R. (2009) Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications. N.Y.: Worth Publishing.

13. Statement of Scientology Media Relations Director Linda Simmons Hight, scientologytoday.org. May 11, 2002.

14. Lewis, J. R. (1995) The Gods Have Landed, pp. 137 - 166. N. Y.: State University of New York Press.

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Science fiction. We assume that it is within the framework of cyberpunk that the traditional Christian understanding of life and death, which left its mark on the ideals of the Enlightenment, despite its militant anti-clericalism, and is also widely represented in popular culture, gives way to a new view of death, which is more organic within the framework of postmodern culture. This article is devoted to this transition.

Cyberpunk: an attempt to define

Although the very concept of "cyberpunk" is very common in modern mass culture, it is difficult to give this genre an unambiguous definition for several reasons. First of all, cyberpunk is initially a separate direction within science fiction, the boundaries of which are very blurred. Moreover, cyberpunk from the very beginning was not strictly a "literary" phenomenon, as many researchers 15 and the authors themselves agree 16. Inspired not only by previous literary works, but also by films, music and music videos of a number of popular bands (in particular, Velvet Underground), cyberpunk already in the first years of its existence turned into a special aesthetic, represented equally by books, films, computer games and music.

If we define this genre historically, we can say that it appeared in 1984 with the release of William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer" 17. Some critics associate the genre as a whole with this author, denying cyberpunk the presence of special characteristics 18, except for following the tradition set in "Neuromancer" and the subsequent two books - "Count Zero" 19 and " Monet

15. McCaffery, L. (2007) "Cutting Up: Cyberpunk, Punk, Music, and Urban Decontextualizations", in McCaffery, L. (ed.) Storming the Reality Studio, pp. 286 - 308. Durham, North Carolina.

16. Gibson, W. (2007) "Interview to Larry McCaffery", in McCaffery, L. (ed) Storming the Reality Studio, pp. 263 - 286. Durham, North Carolina.

17. W. Gibson Neuromant, Moscow: ACT, 2000.

18. Csicsery-Ronay, I. Jr. (2007) "Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism", in McCaffery, L. (ed.) Storming the Reality Studio, pp. 182 - 194. Durham, North Carolina.

19. Gibson, W (1987) Count Zero. N.Y.: Acer.

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Lisa Overdrive"20, - which together make up the so-called "Anthill Trilogy".

This assessment may have been valid during the period when cyberpunk was still a fairly marginal phenomenon, that is, until about the mid-1990s, but it is unlikely to be true now that the term itself has taken on a life of its own in the culture. Currently, many authors quite consciously strive to "become "cyberpunk, even if earlier in their work they did not gravitate to this genre, or they introduce into their works plot moves and motifs that were first invented by Gibson, but became independent elements of culture,"memes" due to repeated use. This is similar to how Tolkien's image of "elves" now exists in our culture completely separate from"The Lord of the Rings." Similarly, megacorporations, hackers, cyborgs, and many other images originally created within the cyberpunk genre have now gone far beyond it, becoming part of the overall "mainstream" set of fantasy tropes. Examples include the films Avatar by James Cameron 21 and The Fifth Element by Luc Besson 22, which do not belong to the genre under consideration, but contain many elements borrowed specifically from cyberpunk.

In addition, cyberpunk has created a separate subculture-much more integral than the subculture of science fiction fans, but less clearly defined than the fan movement associated with a particular cult work (for example, "trekkies", fans of the TV series "Star Trek"). This cyberpunk subculture has a unique ability to "look at yourself". Fans themselves determine whether a particular film or book is "cyberpunk" and spread the appropriate understanding, but since they are guided by aesthetic rather than intellectual criteria, the boundaries of the genre are very arbitrary, not corresponding to any definition.

The history of cyberpunk research is also quite complex. There are not very many authors who deal with this topic, and everyone offers their own definition of the genre and topics of sa-

20. Gibson, W. (1997) Мопа Lisa Overdrive. N.Y.: Spectra.

21. Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)

22. The Fifth Element (Luc Besson, 1997)

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mym sets the boundaries of its research; as a result, there is no general answer to the question of what set of works of art we are talking about. Of course, there are "central" works, primarily books by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, as well as a number of their lesser-known colleagues (D. Shirley, R. Rooker), but there are few of them compared to the full list of works of art that certain researchers refer to as cyberpunk. "revolt" against the established canon of science fiction 23, but in the 1990s itself became mainstream. Although there are still films, books, and computer games that are defined as cyberpunk, which implies the existence of fiction that does not belong to this category, many cyberpunk motifs, as already mentioned, have spread extremely widely, becoming part of a more general "language". Therefore, it is not easy to determine when we are talking about cyberpunk as such, when-about a separate element of it, and when - about fiction in general.

Nevertheless, we can name some monographs devoted to the study of this particular genre. These are primarily "Virtual Geographies: Cyberpunk as the Intersection of Postmodern Literature and Science Fiction" 24 by Sabine Heuser and "Cyberpunk and Cyberculture" 25 by Dani Cavaloro. It is also worth noting a number of works devoted to a certain element of science fiction, in which it is considered, including in the framework of cyberpunk. This is a collection of essays dedicated to dystopias: "Dark Horizons: science Fiction and dystopian visions"26; "Melancholy of the Android"27 by Eric Williamson, which examines the image of an artificial person; "Aliens and Angels" 28 by Kate Thomson, where traditional myths are compared with modern stories, and many others. Pain-

23. Sterling, B. (ed.) (1986) "Preface", in Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology. New York: Arbor House.

24. Heuser, S. (2003) Virtual Geographies: Cyberpunk at the Intersection of the Postmodern and Science Fiction. N.Y.: Rodopi.

25. Cavallaro, D. (2000) Cyberpunk and Cyberculture. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

26. Baccolini, R. and Moylan, T. (eds) (2003) Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination. London: Routledge.

27. Willson, E.G. (2006) The Melancholy Android: On the Physiology of Sacred Machines. N.Y.: State University of New York Press.

28. Thompson, K. (1993) Angek and Aliens. NY: Ballantine Books.

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the large number of such works makes up for the lack of research devoted to specific aspects of the cyberpunk genre itself. However, such studies still appear, for example, Mary Flanagan's book "Reboot: Rethinking Women + cybercultural literature" 29-about female images in cyberpunk. Finally, we should mention texts whose authors analyze specific works or the work of individual authors, for example,"William Gibson: a Literary Guide" 30 by Tom Hentron and "Studying the Matrix" 31 by Karen Haber. In addition, you should pay attention to the large number of articles about cyberpunk published in both scientific journals and sci-fi publications. Let us also mention the anthology Storming the Reality Studio 32 edited by Larry McCaffrey, which contains a large selection of such articles, allowing you to get a general idea of the ways of thinking about the genre in question in the 1980s and early 1990s. It is interesting to note that most of these articles are devoted to the question of "what exactly is cyberpunk?", which brings us back to the problem of defining this genre.

The difficulty of defining cyberpunk makes us, following Ludwig Wittgenstein, define this genre as "family". It is obvious that there is a certain "hard core" of the genre that defines the main set of its characteristic features, the presence of which in other works allows the latter to be attributed to cyberpunk, even if not all the features are represented there or if they are not presented in the same way as in other "family members". This approach allows us to most adequately describe the historically formed cyberpunk genre, as it is understood by modern mass culture, which sometimes refers to it very dissimilar works. As the principal characteristics, we suggest separate trails or rather groups of trails, the presence of at least one or two of which, as a rule, is sufficient to classify the work as a cyberpunk genre.

29. Flanagan, M. and Booth, A. (eds) (2002) Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture Fiction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

30. Henthorne, T. (2012) William Gibson: A Literary Companion (McFarland Literary Companion). Jefferson, North Carolina: Mcfarland pub.

31. Haber, K. (ed.) (2004) Exploring the Matrix: Visions of Cyber Present. N.Y.: St. Martin's Griffin.

32. McCaffery, L. (ed.) (2007) Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk & Postmodern Science Fiction. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

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1. High tech, Low life (conditional translation: "high technology, bad life"). This is the most popular definition of cyberpunk, which is given by fans of the genre themselves. High tech refers to the indissoluble connection of cyberpunk with science fiction and new technologies, while Low life indicates that most of the characters in these works are connected with the criminal world or, more precisely, with street culture. Mercenaries, crooks, murderers, thieves, tramps, street artists and just plain losers are the traditional cyberpunk heroes. It is important to note that, contrary to popular belief, these characters are not necessarily on the wrong side of the law. So, the main character of the film "Blade Runner", which defined the visual appearance of cyberpunk, is a policeman who honestly performs his duty until the last minutes of the picture, but his connection with street culture and slang is as obvious as in the case of other heroes.

2. Violation of human boundaries by technology. The symbol of cyberpunk is the "cyborg", a hybrid of man and machine, and this mixture of categories is one of the most important characteristics of the genre. Instead of contrasting or at least separating man and machine, as science fiction writers of previous eras did, cyberpunk constantly blurs the boundaries between them, and cyborg is just the most famous example. Direct interaction between the human mind and the computer, "uploading" the mind to an electronic medium, erasing memory and artificially creating a new personality - all these are aspects of the general feeling of" invasion "of machines in human life, in the body and psyche. This very motive of "invasion", without the traditionally accompanying motive of resistance, is, according to some researchers, a hallmark of cyberpunk 33.

3. Attention to the market economy. Cyberpunk pays a lot of attention to money, its receipt and spending. Within the framework of this genre, many heroes are mercenaries, and special attention to everyday life leads to the fact that the issues of buying food, paying for electricity, etc.are touched upon by the authors, albeit casually, but very often. We should also mention the motif of "corporations", huge multinational (and sometimes trans-

33. Hollinger, V. (1990) "Cybernetic Deconstruction: Cyberpunk and Postmodernism", Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 23: 29 - 44.

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planetary) companies that act either as antagonists or as" magic assistants " of the heroes.

4. Collage technique. The most" common " feature of cyberpunk, its characteristic aesthetics, is associated with the desire of authors to combine things that seem to be opposite, to collect in one scene, one plot or one character different elements that at first glance do not imply each other. A true master of this technique is the founder of the genre, William Gibson. In his books, you can find programs that behave like voodoo deities, a Rastafarian community living on a space station, corporate samurai and ninja. This "blending" aesthetic has already become mainstream in recent decades, but at one time such a peculiar rejection of the "futuristic future" attracted a lot of attention. It is this technique that makes many researchers perceive cyberpunk as postmodern literature, as its "ideal embodiment" 34.

Christian Death in Mass Art

The traditional attitude to death in twentieth-century European genre art was most fully expressed by Clive Staples Lewis in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The resurrected lion Aslan, the incarnation of God in the world of Narnia, explained to the main characters his return to life as follows: "The sorceress knows Secret Magic that goes back to time. But if she could look even deeper, into the silence and darkness that existed before the story of Narnia began, she would read other Magical Signs. She would have known that when someone who was innocent, who had committed no treachery, voluntarily ascended the sacrificial table instead of the traitor,the Table would break and Death itself would retreat before him. " 35 If we summarize these words, taking into account examples from a number of other works, we can deduce the following formula: death will recede if a person goes to it voluntarily, as a sacrifice for the sake of saving others. This Christian approach was extremely relevant to Lewis, who made no secret of the fact that The Chronicles of Narnia was an al-

34. Heuser, S. Virtual Geographies: Cyberpunk at the Intersection of the Postmodern and Science Fiction.

35. Lewis K. S. Chronicles of Narnia, Moscow: EKSMO-press; St. Petersburg: Terra Fantastica, 2002.

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luzy on the gospel 36. Similarly, Tolkien, a friend of Lewis's who was directly involved in his conversion to Christianity, in his book The Lord of the Rings "kills" and then resurrects the magician Gandalf, who, through his sacrifice, gains the right to take the place of the fallen magician Saruman.37
Much has been written about the influence of religion on the work of these two authors, including themselves, but our approach is appropriate not only for Christian authors. The path of Gandalf and Aslan is repeated by the cult character of the Star Trek series Commander Spock, who sacrificed his life to save his ship 38, but later resurrected 39, as well as Darth Vader (aka Anakin Skywalker) from Star Wars, who saved his son at the cost of his own life and thanks to this returned to the Light Side of the force, gaining eternal life with other powerful Jedi40.

This cycle of death and resurrection is repeated in almost all the iconic works of mass culture of the second half of the XX century, which served as its wide popularization and, to a certain extent, "vulgarization". Appearing again and again in films, books, and games, this plot loses its original meaning - a paradoxical escape against the laws of the world, 41 what Tolkien called the eucatastrophe in his essay On a Fairy Tale. The most famous example of such a loss is the Death and Return of Superman comic book series, 42 where the most popular American comic book hero is banally killed in battle and also banally comes back to life, which makes these events lose their dramatic meaning. This led to a drop in sales of all DC-Comics products in the following year, although eventually the canonical "death and resurrection" storyline appeared in the comic book genre.

This plot is so widespread that it seems that there is no alternative to it and there can be no alternative. Of course, sometimes the hero can die "permanently", finding a new life

36. Lewis, C.S. (1996) Letters to Children. N.Y.: Simon and Schuster.

37. Tolkien D. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. Leningrad: Severo-Zapad Publ., 1991, pp. 495_49b.
38. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (dir. Nicholas Meyer, 1982).

39. Star Trek III: The Search for Spok (dir. Leonard Nimoy, 1984).

40. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (dir. Richard Marquand, 1983).

41. Tolkien D. R. R. Fairy Tales of the magic country, Moscow: AST, 2010.

42. Jurgens, D. (2007) Death and Return of Superman Omnibus. N.Y.: DC Comics.

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only in the memory of other characters or not finding it at all, but this kind of ending is not very common, especially within the framework of fantasy genres. Starting with Arthur Conan Doyle's attempt to "get rid" of Sherlock Holmes, death ceases to be the final event in genre Western European art, and many authors sooner or later resort to this cycle of death - resurrection, even despite the initial desire to "bury" their hero at last. It should be noted that in recent decades, commercial considerations have also encouraged the use of this technique. However, we cannot get into the authors ' thoughts, and therefore identify their true motivation, and it is hardly correct to accuse the authors of commercialism. The approach to death itself has simply changed, and in a number of genres, the resurrection of the main character has simply become a continuation, a "development" of his death.

At the same time, in the 1980s, a different view of death was spreading in mass art, which should also be considered from a religious perspective. By analogy with the "death - resurrection" principle described above, this new view can be designated as "death-liberation", since it implies a denial of goodness or even meaning to the surrounding world, and the main motive in this case is an individual "exit" from the world, an escape to a different, better space, which is only accessible to other people. it feels like death.

In describing the death - resurrection cycle above, it is no coincidence that we started with a quote from Lewis, a committed Christian convert. This plot, introduced into popular culture by Tolkien and Lewis, is an obvious allusion to the gospel story of Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of mankind. Here it is necessary to emphasize that the corresponding heroes live in the "best of all worlds" or, in any case, in the most "important" of them, and therefore their resurrection is a positive, good event, while death, on the contrary, is something negative and bad, and this is precisely what determines the value of sacrifice. The latter is emphasized by the fact that the characters who sacrifice themselves are strangers in the world for the sake of the inhabitants of which they die. For example, Tolkien has Gandalf sent to Middle - earth from Valinor (conventionally Paradise), maiar (which can be very roughly equated to an "angel"), sacrificing his life for the sake of his obit-

43. Doyle A. K. The whole of Sherlock Holmes. St. Petersburg: Amphora Publ., 2013, pp. 338-347, 423-247.

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telei, renounces immortality for the sake of mortals. This aspect is even more noticeable in the story of Commander Spock from the "Star Trek" universe - the only alien on a human ship who nevertheless sacrifices his life for the sake of his comrades. In general, this deeply Christian motif of "choosing the world", of voluntarily identifying with people, despite their prejudices and the need to give up their own abilities or even immortality, is very common in popular culture. The same motif is found in the story of a self-identified Superman or another Star Trek hero, the android Data, who, when he learns that he will die in the future, says with satisfaction:: "This brings me closer to becoming a human being." 44 Here we can draw a parallel with the Christian teaching about the perception of human nature by the Son of God - one of the Persons of the Trinity of God - which was the highest manifestation of divine mercy.

Another important feature of these deaths is that while the characters are driven by attachment to specific characters, they also follow a specific moral code. Spock not only saves his comrades, but also fulfills his duty as a Starfleet officer. Superman thinks again and again about the people who instilled in him the right idea of good and evil, and that is why he is ready to protect even those who are unfamiliar to him. Just as Jesus sacrificed himself, fulfilling, if we recall his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, the will of the Father, so the characters mentioned are motivated by absolutely non-selfish motives. This is most characteristic of the works of Lewis and Tolkien, authors who consciously reproduce the central plot of Christianity: both Aslan and Gandalf sacrificed themselves simultaneously for the sake of specific people, but at the same time fulfilling their duty, remaining true to their principles and their mission.

Death as Flight: The New Gnosticism of American Popular Culture?

Now let's look at a new, non-Christian understanding of the hero's death, which is spreading in the 1980s and 90s within the framework of cyberpunk. It is best illustrated by an Italian film.

44. Star Trek: The Next generation, Time's Arrow (dir. Les Landau, 1992).

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directed by Gabriele Salvatores ,Nirvana 45. The main character of this film, a programmer named Jimmy, who works for a huge corporation, realizes that the main character of the last game he created, Solo, has gained his own consciousness and free will. In the context of the topic under consideration, it is interesting to note that in this case, Solo, as is often the case in computer games, dies again and again in order to start the episode again from the same point, living in constant deja vu. The irony of Solo's position is emphasized by the fact that all his attempts to change something run into the inescapable logic of the game's world development: he meets the same people again and again, kills the same opponents, and all his efforts to realize his freedom and somehow break out of this system are obviously doomed to failure. failure. It is also worth noting that, as the main character of the game, Solo must be a positive and conditionally "good" character within its world, opposing openly "evil" bandits, like the Yakuza or "organ stealers". At the same time, in the film, these groups are not so much worthy opponents of Solo, as they are only minor obstacles in his path, even comical due to their inability to go beyond the program and interact with the hero at his level.

Although the plot of the film has clear parallels with the much better-known film "The Matrix"46, released two years later, Solo makes a decision fundamentally different from those made by the characters of the Wachowski film, who tried to raise a rebellion and destroy the very system that puts living beings in conditions of dependence on it: Solo asks Jimmy to "delete" him itself, ending its existence once and for all. It is an attempt to grant his hero ultimate peace in death that the entire film is dedicated to, during which Jimmy travels through the gloomy city of the future, gradually breaking ties with his usual reality: he loses his job in a corporation, loses all his money and finally comes to terms with the fact that he lost his beloved, who personally never once did not appears on the screen. Eventually, after deleting the game Solo, Jimmy is killed by a bullet from an unnamed security guard of his former corporation, ta-

45. Nirvana (dir. Gabriele Salvatores, 1997).

46. The Matrix ("Matrix", Lana Wachowski and Andrew Wachowski, 1993).

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thus, going into the nothingness that the hero created by him so longed for - into Nirvana.

There are obvious differences between this story and the above-described sacrifice of a person dying in order for others to live. The first and most important thing is the idea that is central to the cyberpunk genre: the world is bad, and bad to such an extent that any attempt to fix it is obviously doomed to failure. The negativity of the world is manifested not so much in cruelty and evil, which, however, is enough in it, but in tyranny, which is understood very broadly. Not only the characters of Salvatores ' film are fighting for freedom in various forms, but also the heroes of the epic Matrix, the noir Blade Runner, the expressionist Underground Mysteries, the conspiracy detectives Anthill Trilogy, and other works of this genre. The futility of this struggle invariably leads the heroes to the same conclusion: salvation lies in death, and any attempts to find it within the boundaries of the ordinary world are meaningless. Although different authors ' characters come to this conclusion in different ways and emphasize it in different ways, the refusal to fight for life or for peace is a common feature of cyberpunk, which is strikingly different from the desire to overcome any difficulties that is traditionally characteristic of other genres of science fiction.

It should be noted that in religious history there is a teaching that is characterized by the same craving for freedom and hatred of its limitations, as well as a pessimistic assessment of the possibility of overcoming these restrictions on earth. This is Gnosticism, the central idea of which is a rigid contrast between the corrupted " world of matter "and the" ideal world " that people should strive to return to. Although Gnosticism in the proper sense, which existed in parallel with Christianity, disappeared in the middle of the first millennium AD, history knows examples of its "revival" - both among the Bogomils in Bulgaria or the Cathars in southern France, and within the framework of various esoteric movements up to the XX century.

It can be assumed that the later forms of Gnosticism are connected not only and not so much with the ancient tradition, but also with the ancient world.

47. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982).

48. Eden Log (Franck Vestiel, 2007).

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This is due to the fact that Christianity itself contains a strong Gnostic motif, which sometimes manifests itself more clearly, then fades into the background, but always remains as an element of European religious and cultural "baggage". At the same time, it should be emphasized that if in historical Christianity one can see manifestations of Gnostic dualism and denial of the world, Christian Orthodoxy has always qualified them as a deviation from the true teaching, since the traditional point of view, since the time of the Ecumenical Councils, is that although "materiality", "corporeality" and "non-materialism" can be considered as a deviation from the true teaching.the world" as a whole is affected by sin, they are not evil in themselves, and after the sacral sacrifice of Christ they are included in this redemptive event. Moreover, in Modern times, the emphasis on" accepting peace " is becoming more pronounced-both in a number of Protestant denominations and in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council.

The" breeding ground " that allowed the Gnostic myth to be reborn in cyberpunk is American culture. This genre appeared and became widespread in the United States, although its own set of cult cyberpunk works is also available in Europe, as well as in Japan. The connection between Gnosticism and the American cult of freedom is clearly demonstrated in his book Technognosis by Eric Davies, 49 following in the footsteps of Harold Bloom.50 Davies points out several features that unite these phenomena: the cult of knowledge-as something that has special properties and has a liberating effect; distrust of any "external" or "earthly" forms of contact with the divine - both in the sense of material objects and in the sense of social institutions; finally, the very motive of "leaving" or "leaving" the divine. "escape" from the prison world-to the perfect world, where everything is arranged as it should be. All of this, in general, forms the drive for freedom that Bloom and Davis believe can be found in Gnosticism and which is then replicated in American Christianity.

According to Davis, this "escape" motif also has a geographical dimension in American culture. For the first Protestants, the" ideal world " was the new continent itself.-

49. Davies E. Technognosis: myth, magic and mysticism in the information age. Yekaterinburg: Ultra. Kul'tura [Culture], MOSCOW: AST MOSCOW, 2008, p. 148.

50. Bloom, H. (1993) The American Religion - the Emergence of Post-Christian Nation. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

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In a more secularized society, the "cult of the American frontier" was formed; then, in the era of mass culture, outer space began to play this role; and in recent decades, cyberspace. The latter phase is indicated, in particular, by the Hacker Manifesto, a text that proclaims the Internet as the abode of free people and the salvation of humanity, as opposed to the "old world" 51.

However, drawing parallels between" American religion " and "Gnosticism" does not mean that we are talking about direct inheritance of ideas; rather, it is a good explanatory model that allows us to see, in Bloom's opinion, a common "psychological motive"52. In this case, the term "Gnosticism" is intended to emphasize the peculiarities of the understanding of death, which differs from the concept that prevailed earlier and is associated with traditional Christian thanatology.

New Buddhism and New Gnosticism

On the other hand, it is easy to see that there are not only similarities but also differences between the "Gnostic myth" and the plot of "Nirvana". To identify these differences, it is necessary to distinguish two separate areas in cyberpunk itself, which differ precisely on the question of understanding death. One of them (which includes "Nirvana") you can call it "Buddhist". Within the framework of this direction, the emphasis is placed on the chaotic nature of the world, on its incorrigibility and banality, and death is perceived not so much as liberation, but as calm. The second direction is actually "gnostic", which is the mainstream of the genre we are considering. This direction includes the fundamental literary works for cyberpunk: "Schismatrix" 53 by Bruce Sterling and "The Anthill Trilogy" by William Gibson.

Gibson's books, which feature many references to European folklore, magic, the voodoo tradition, and Christianity, tell several intertwined stories about the world.-

51. Manifesto of the hacker / / Wikitek [Electronic resource] [http://ru.wikisource.org/wik i/%Do%9C%Do%Bo%Do%BD%Do%B8%Dl%84%Do%B5%Dl%8l%Dl%82_%Dl%8 5%Do%Bo%Do%BA%Do%B5%Dl%8o%Do%Bo (accessed 05.05.2012)].

52. Bloom, H. The American Religion, p. 303.

53. Sterling B. Schizmatrica, Moscow: AST, 1997, p. 340.

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the future world's inhabitants against the background of the" awakening " and development of the Matrix - a single global cyberspace that unites all the knowledge of humanity, which at the end of the first book finds its own mind. One of the brightest abilities of this awakened Matrix is the ability to "load" people's consciousnesses into itself, giving them immortality at the same time. It is to immortality that the negative characters of all the books of the trilogy strive, in many ways resembling the evil Demiurge of Gnostic teaching: having absolute power in the "sublunar" world, they desperately strive to conquer others or, if this fails, to prevent anyone from entering the "supralunar" world, invariably suffering defeat. At the same time, in the final of the last part, a couple of lovers achieve immortality: killed by agents of the next "demiurge", they found a new life using a device called "aleph", which allowed them to "come to life" in Matrix 54. Moreover, they did not stay in cyberspace of Earth, but went on a journey in search of another Matrix, the material carrier of which is located outside the Solar system.

This outcome, which should certainly be considered a good ending, is a logical development of the idea that permeates the entire book from the very first lines: the real world is terrible, banal, and dominated by crazy, power-obsessed people, while the disembodied virtual reality-which, curiously, is not only a place of high technology, but also a place of high technology. the refuge of the ancient Loa deities, whose images Gibson borrowed from voodoo mythology, is a space of freedom, the acquisition of which is preferable to saving your own life. Both the similarities and differences between this idea and the one offered by Nirvana are quite obvious. In both cases, death itself is not a bad thing or a terrible thing; on the contrary, we are convinced that it is the best outcome. But while" Nirvana "has a pessimistic tone to the end, that is, it does not recognize the possibility of" positive "salvation, in" The Anthill Trilogy " Gibson, quite in the spirit of his favorite postmodern game, portrays the ending in a very positive way.

Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix ends in a similar way. The action takes place in the future, when a part of humanity has left the Earth forever, moving to space stations and individual asteroids, and for the changes of this

54. Gibson, W. (1997) Mona Lisa Overdrive, p. 310. N.Y.: Spectra.

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The main character Abelard Lindsday, who has been artificially extended his life, has been observing a strange world for many decades. In the course of a conflict between two factions that profess different approaches to human development-shapers who advocate genetic experiments, and mechanists who advocate the rapprochement of humans and machines - Abelard moves from one faction to another, engages in politics and science, creates his own state and, finally, a new habitable planet as an alternative to Earth.

From time to time, tired of the struggle, he returns to it again and again, motivating this by the mutual conditionality of life and change. However, towards the end of his story, he comes to the conclusion that these two concepts, although interrelated, are not identical: "The tree draws power from light, but it is not light itself. And life, being a series of changes, is not a change. Change is more like death. " 55
This idea is confirmed during Abelard's visit to Earth, whose inhabitants, driven by the fear of change and death, have thus lost their real life: the entire planet is covered with huge memorial complexes, the population of which is exclusively engaged in maintaining their own existence and commemorating the deceased. Abelar himself, a lifelong agent of change, ends his story in the most logical way: he dies, only to be taken by a mysterious Presence - an immaterial alien who wanders the galaxy endlessly - on a journey dedicated to enjoying change in any form. Like the "Anthill Trilogy", "Schismatrix" ends with the hero leaving both life and the human-inhabited cosmos, but this is a joyful outcome that means finding final freedom.

The attraction to space as a symbol of liberation is generally very characteristic of American culture, which is obsessed with the idea of the frontier, as Eric Davis rightly puts it.56 The pathos of traveling to "lands where no man has ever set foot" is also heard in the TV series "Star Trek", a real encyclopedia of Ameri-

55. Sterling B. Schismatrix, p. 325.

56. Davies E. Technognosis: myth, magic and mysticism in the information age. Yekaterinburg: Ultra. Kul'tura [Culture], MOSCOW: AST MOSCOW, 2008, p. 120.

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kansk fiction 57. A similar motif is also present in the screen saver of another American TV series, more precisely, a collection of screen adaptations of fantastic stories - "Beyond the Possible" 58. The characteristic difference between the "gnostic" cyberpunk is that in it the hierarchy of reality, its division into the "profane" Earth and the sacred "unknown" is finally brought to its logical limit: The Earth is bad, but the unknown (space, cyberspace, etc.) is good. It is important to note that cyberspace in this case completely loses its "man-made" nature, turning simply into a mysterious "other" space. It is the rejection of the original motive of mastering the unknown in favor of" dissolving "into it that makes the stories told in cyberpunk works so personal and so"religious".

It should be noted that the " Gnostic "line is more typical for the American cyberpunk, while the" Buddhist " line is more typical for the European one. In addition to the general tendency of American culture to "gnosticism", the reason for this may also lie in the fact that American cyberpunk is much more immersed in popular culture, and, accordingly, the authors are more bound by the need to finish the story optimistically.

Here, however, it is important to emphasize two things. First, there are a number of exceptions to this principle. In the most famous cyberpunk film before "The Matrix" - the American film "Blade Runner" - we see the "Buddhist" death of one of the characters. A replicant, an artificially created human who has come to Earth in order to extend his life, which his creators limited to five years, abandons his goal and accepts death, hoping to find peace in this way 59. The image of the replicant in general is extremely interesting for understanding death in cyberpunk, as Eric Wilson rightly points out in his book "Melancholy of the Android"60. Being the embodiment of the limitations and imperfections of human existence, the need to choose between a bright and vivid life.

57. Star Trek: The Original Series (created by Gene Rodenberry, 1966 - 1967)

58. The Outer Limits (created by Leslie Stevens, 1963 - 1965).

59. Blade Runner.

60. Willson, E.G. (2006) The Melancholy Android: On the Physiology of Sacred Machines. State University of New York Press.

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with their long life and long survival, these characters especially vividly reproduce the motif of "Buddhist" death as the only way to resolve this contradiction. On the other hand, we can cite the example of the Serbian cartoon "Edith and I"61 or the French film "Immortals: War of the Worlds"62: there is the death of the "magic companion" of the main character, which, however, means only a new, more free existence, and not final death.

In addition, when talking about the differences between" Buddhist "and" Gnostic " cyberpunk, it is important to emphasize that the difference between them is a gradient rather than a clear, unambiguous boundary. Their inner unity was felt, apparently, by the authors themselves. In the first book, the already mentioned "Anthill Trilogy" main character, hacker Case, is deprived of the opportunity to enter the Matrix and seeks to return to it, which is precisely a "gnostic" impulse. The promise of being able to visit this "disembodied" world again is what drives Case throughout the story. However, during the final confrontation between him and the database security team that he was hired to break into, Case experiences a truly "Buddhist" (or rather Zen-Buddhist) enlightenment, which he gradually progressed to throughout the book: "Case achieved a mastery that exceeded all imaginable and unthinkable limits. Going beyond that, beyond personality, beyond self-awareness, he moved as one with the Quang, evading his opponents with the figures of an ancient dance, the Hideo dance, with the grace and ease bestowed on him by the body - brain interface - and the piercing, all-consuming clarity of the will to die." 63 The harmony between this and the other parts of the world is the same. passion and, it would seem, the opposite desire for eternal disembodied existence in the Matrix is achieved by the religious, transcendent motive of cyberpunk-the desire to get out of this world at any cost, as opposed to the traditionally dominant desire in popular culture to improve the world around us and defeat evil.

61. Edith and I (Edith and ja, dir. Alexa Gaich, 2009).

62. Immortal ("Immortel, Ad Vitam", dir. Enki Bilal, 2004).

63. Gibson, U. Neyromant, Moscow: AST, 2000, p. 300.

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The Moral of Cyberpunk

This brings us to the question of morality, which we discussed earlier when describing the traditional Christian concept of death - resurrection in sci-fi. Like the worldview in general, cyberpunk's understanding of morality is nihilistic. Mercenaries, criminals, fugitives and losers who are the main characters of the genre are best described by the English word misfits (people who do not fit into society). They are rarely driven by abstract ideals, all their goals are extremely specific and directed at themselves, although they are often very far from the usual understanding of selfishness: Case is ready to do anything to be able to enter the Matrix again; the main character of the film "Lawnmower" strives to achieve absolute consciousness 64; Jimmy from "Nirvana" is ready to sacrifice life for the sake of the computer game character to finally find peace. In cyberpunk, there is a motif of self-sacrifice for the sake of others, but it is primarily about taking care of extremely specific, close people, a couple or three of friends, who are opposed to the rest of the world, which is usually extremely faceless.

The lack of morality in cyberpunk is most noticeable in how the characters relate to the death of "ordinary" people. This is most acutely evident in the film "The Matrix", where the main characters do not hesitate to destroy any number of ordinary people standing in their way, which Morpheus, one of the leaders of the human resistance to the power of machines, specifically warns the main character Neo during training. But we see this attitude much earlier - for example, in "Neuromancer", where the characters without hesitation arrange a terrorist attack, just to distract attention from their goal. Unlike, for example, works of the dystopian genre (such as George Orwell's 1984), here the death of minor characters is not perceived as a tragedy, as a symbol of the brutality of the regime: it just happens, always remaining on the periphery of the perception of both the characters themselves and the readers/viewers.

В этом разделении персонажей на "категории" можно увидеть еще один гностический элемент - представление о разных типах

64 The Lawnmover Man (dir. Brett Leonard. 1992).

65. Оруэлл Д. 1984. М.: АСТ, 2009.

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людей: "духовных", для которых спасение возможно, и "телесных", лишенных такой возможности.

The immorality of cyberpunk indicates its important difference from the fiction of previous decades, primarily American. Traditionally, within the framework of this genre, fantastic elements served as metaphors that allow us to draw attention to certain social problems. Aliens reminded of racial or gender discrimination, hypothetical superweapons - about the urgent problems of human survival during the Cold War, humanoid robots-about exploitation, and the side effects of certain technologies - about environmental problems. In such a "social" perspective, the character's death was perceived as something undesirable: dying, he left society and ceased to participate in solving its problems. Against this background, the heroism of those who are ready to die in the struggle for a better future of the world looked especially vivid.

In cyberpunk, there has been a fundamental turn "inward", and the fantastic has now become not a means of allegorical discussion of social and philosophical problems, but a way to create a kind of" psychotopography " that allows you to raise questions about what human consciousness is and what is the meaning of an individual's existence. Focusing on individual death is natural here, because it is an unavoidable component of any human life that needs to be understood.

It should be noted that attention to the individual is the most important feature of a" positive", non-nihilistic cyberpunk ethic, which focuses on "loyalty to yourself" or, to use the English word, integrity. This approach, borrowed by cyberpunk from the original punk subculture, is to exalt the "self" as such, as opposed to a society that tries to use both money and violence to force people to obey its own rules.

Most precisely, this mood is expressed in the first lines of the song Rise Against: "I have my mother's dreams,\I have my father's eyes,\You can't take this away from me. \ Come on, try it" (Help is on a way: I have my mothers dreams\l have my father's eyes \ You can't take that from me \Just go ahead and try). In this attitude to society, it is not difficult to see the legacy of the hippie movement of the 1960s, which consisted of abandoning the traditional American way of life and yuppie morality in favor of a larger culture.

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"naturalness". Unlike the hippies, however, punk does not have the idea of a" natural "person and environmentalism; it extols any individuality, whatever it may be, and there is an aggression with which punks respond to any attempts to "change" them.

Although there is no metaphysical background in punk, in cyberpunk it arises and has a kind of "platonic" features: the "true" person is opposed to the "untrue" world. It is interesting to note that "flesh" in this case, as in platonism, refers more to the world: a number of cyberpunk heroes changed their own bodies beyond recognition or simply died, while maintaining integrity, loyalty to themselves and friendship with the main character. First of all, here you can point out Linda Lee and Finn from the "Anthill Trilogy", which after their physical death continued to exist in the form of programs. The characters of" Schismatrix "Ryumin and Kitsune did not survive the actual moment of death, but they changed their bodies to such an extent that they lost any resemblance to people (for example, Kitsune turned into an entire space colony with "living" walls and doors).

Finally, it is worth mentioning the relatively recently popular cyberpunk game Gemini Rue66, which brings the problem of "self" to a new level. In this story about memory change, it is argued that a person does not depend not only on his own body, but also on his own memories; personality is defined by certain elusive and indescribable "internal characteristics" that cannot be changed even by completely deleting all memories and creating new ones.

Conclusion

Thus, within the framework of cyberpunk, death is understood in a new way, in accordance with the changed era. In an extremely individualized postmodern society, the concept of "dying for something", which dates back to its traditional Christian understanding and was preserved in the culture throughout the XX century, has lost its relevance. It was replaced by the concept of "death for some reason", in which death is understood as only one of the inr-

66. Gemini Rue. Joshua Nuernberger. Wadjet Eye Games, 2011, Computer Software.

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This is another element of the"postmodern game".

It should be noted that, in addition to the already mentioned Gnostic motif, in this vision one can distinguish the influence of both Eastern teachings and Western esoteric traditions (for example, alchemy). It can be assumed that the transition described above is due to the fact that the authors of cyberpunk belong to a generation of people whose childhood was in the 1960s, that is, during a period marked by an increase in interest in mysticism of various kinds. "Metaphysical" moments in the works of the cyberpunk genre, including death, are discussed and expressed by the authors using linguistic borrowings from Buddhism, Hinduism, Hermetic and Kabbalistic magic, shamanism. One can even imagine cyberpunk as an attempt to adapt these teachings to the European artistic tradition. Gibson, Sterling, and others used elements of esoteric traditions to express their desire for maximum individualization. In this sense, they did the same as the hippies who turned to Hinduism as something that could be "contrasted" with traditional American Christianity. But this" secondary nature " of the religious component in no way detracts from its importance for cyberpunk itself, and therefore for researchers trying to understand the processes that took place in the genre of science fiction in the 1980s.

Although it is tempting to look away from religion and turn to philosophy to see cyberpunk as a kind of influence of Heidegger with his idea of "being to death" (Sein zum Tode67), it seems more correct to speak of works in the cyberpunk genre as primarily mystical, rather than philosophical. The conflicts characteristic of this genre are not the struggle of different worldviews, and the corresponding works are not a detailed dialogue, as we see in the novels and dramas of French existentialists; in cyberpunk, we are talking about a mystical path to some form of transcendence, which is often indicated by borrowing from current religious traditions. And the appearance of the "death - liberation" scheme, as opposed to the "death-resurrection" scheme, is the result of a certain transformation process associated with the return of mysticism in the original meaning of the word - as "mysterious transformations".-

67. Heidegger M. Bytiye i vremya [Being and time]. St. Petersburg: Nauka Publ., 2006, pp. 46-53.

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vany". This aspect seems to us to be a very important feature of the cyberpunk genre, which requires further study.

So, decades after religion in the West had largely retreated into the realm of private life, certain tropes and concepts inherited by Western culture from religious discourse continued to exist within the genre of science fiction. The "death - resurrection" cycle, borrowed by mass culture from religion primarily through the works of Tolkien and Lewis, has become an element of the modern cultural code, while at the same time allowing Europeans to maintain continuity with the Christian religious tradition. The spread and popularization of Eastern teachings and the search for new religious forms in the 1980s led to the fact that this continuity was temporarily disrupted: the authors began to turn to another, equally ancient, but less obvious idea of "death-liberation", which became mainstream.

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