Lawrence Person positions postcyberpunk as the natural and perhaps even rightful successor to cyberpunk, the thing that not only is replacing it, but deserves to replace it and should be celebrated in doing so, primarily because it is more mature in some sense — more calm and staid and optimistic, less alienated and angry and nihilistic:
Postcyberpunk uses the same immersive world-building technique, but features different characters, settings, and, most importantly, makes fundamentally different assumptions about the future. Far from being alienated loners, postcyberpunk characters are frequently integral members of society (i.e., they have jobs). They live in futures that are not necessarily dystopic (indeed, they are often suffused with an optimism that ranges from cautious to exuberant), but their everyday lives are still impacted by rapid technological change and an omnipresent computerized infrastructure.
Postcyberpunk characters frequently have families, and sometimes even children… They’re anchored in their society rather than adrift in it. They have careers, friends, obligations, responsibilities, and all the trappings of an “ordinary” life. Or, to put it another way, their social landscape is detailed as detailed and nuanced as the technological one.
Cyberpunk characters frequently seek to topple or exploit corrupt social orders. Postcyberpunk characters tend to seek ways to live in, or even strengthen, an existing social order, or help construct a better one. In cyberpunk, technology facilitates alienation from society. In postcyberpunk, technology is society.
Cyberpunk tended to be cold, detached and alienated. Postcyberpunk tends to be warm, involved, and connected.
The problem is that, looking around at the world we live in today, I don’t think that postcyberpunk is actually more relevant than cyberpunk to the sociopolitical and technological landscapes we’re facing. Maybe, to give Lawrence his due, this wasn’t true in 1999 when he wrote this essay — maybe there was more cause for optimism — but whether that was true or not there’s certainly no cause for optimism now.
For instance, millenials (and soon generation Z as well) have found themselves in a position where it is nearly impossible to get a steady career job, have kids, own a home, and become a part of the middle class like Lawrence talks about. Economic forces beyond our control have made that dream impossible for most of us, and we are doomed to forever remain to some degree on the outside of “the system” compared to the postcyberpunk protagonists that Laurence lauds as more realistic and mature. Likewise, the social isolation and atomization of our times, our lack of community and friends and real social fabric, has been extensively documented in study after study, affecting even the older generations.
Meanwhile, corporations have only extended their control over every aspect of our lives. Nearly everything we do and have is now partially owned and controlled by corporate overlords, to a degree those of the 80s and 90s could only have dreamed of, from subscription services to allow you to use your car’s full capabilities to EULAs and data collection. Not to mention how those same corporations have, with vast reptilian intelligence and depthless patience, bent our entire political and economic system to their monomaniacal will.
Postcyberpunk’s view of technology and social reform seem far less in tune with reality as we’ve experienced it in the last twenty years than cyberpunk’s as well. Postcyberpunk seems like a return to the belief that the inevitable march of technological progress will eventually bring us to a point where society has been changed — or at least can be changed — substantially for the better from within the system, by reform and liberal notions of progress. I would argue that cyberpunk’s view of technology as a fundamentally amoral, neutral force which can just as easily be put to oppressive uses as liberatory ones and which, therefore, will only serve to accentuate and hyperaccelerate whatever hierarchies and systems already exist is a far more realistic one.
Even if, for example, we eventually create the technology to enter a truly post-scarcity fully automated luxury communist world, if the systems and hierarchies that are in place when that happens are capitalist ones, then it is capitalists that will own such technological means, capitalists that will possess the intellectual property that allows you to create them, and capitalists that will own the materials, and so they will view it as just a means of reducing their production costs to nothing, while keeping their prices the same. Nothing will change radically but an increase in the centralization of power. It will take some radical leaking the intellectual property, and then a huge movement of people making such production machines and refusing to stop — even in the face of the police officer’s baton — to break capitalism’s hold. And what does this sound like?
Cyberpunk characters frequently seek to topple or exploit corrupt social orders.
We cannot dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Cyberpunk as a genre is fundamentally capable of being more radical, and sees the nature of our now more clearly, than postcyberpunk can. Postcyberpunk is a reformist, humanist, optimistic genre that is fundamentally a return to the Asimov philosophy of science fiction with the tools, but not the insight, of cyberpunk. That’s not to say that all cyberpunk is so — only that cyberpunk has more of a capacity to be, that good cyberpunk is. There’s always the derivative fluff.
I know that I’m the minority here but my favorite style of cyberpunk will be something like Serial Experiments Lain. For me the appearance of the tech has to be anachronistic otherwise it’s just sci-fi. I had to unsub from the cyberpunk subreddit for this.
Interesting! Anachronistic/retrofuturistic tech is far from essential in cyberpunk (even the aesthetic) for me, but I can certainly see why it might be for others.
I guess postcyberpunk would have to be different enough from cyberpunk to be its own genre, but at what point does it stop being cyberpunk at all? If postcyberpunk is defined by its optimism and being “warm, involved, and connected” it eventually becomes Solarpunk. If postcyberpunk is ordinary people living ordinary lives where technology is society… that’s basically where we are today.
Like you said, this was written in 1999 so the author was just using the words available to him at the time but that’s not how I would describe postcyberpunk today. I don’t think postcyberpunk should be a rejection of the things that defined cyberpunk, that’d be a different genre entirely. Instead, I think postcyerpunk should be updating the cyberpunk genre to reflect current modern societal fears. Cyberpunk was very much a product of the 1980s. The societal fears in the US revolved around rising crime rates, unchecked capitalism, Japan’s rise in influence, etc. Blade Runner perfectly encapsulates all of that. But today, 40 years later, the societal fears have changed. Personally, I think the movie Elysium is the best example of postcyberpunk. It’s still about high-tech low-lifes except the societal fears have been changed to climate change, the wealth gap, and free access to healthcare.
But really, the reason I wanted to respond to this thread is because I disagree with this statement:
Cyberpunk characters frequently seek to topple or exploit corrupt social orders.
I see that as a misunderstanding of the genre. One of cyberpunk’s major influences was the hard-boiled detective/film-noir stories where the main character gets heavily involved in a case but their life isn’t personally improved after resolving it (except maybe getting paid). Deckard in Blade Runner, Case in Neuromancer, Hiro in Snow Crash, Kovacs in Altered Carbon. All of these characters throw themselves into solving the case, but they aren’t trying to topple social orders or even improve their standing in life. They just get caught up in something larger than themselves and do their best to find resolution. And I see that as a core tenant of the cyberpunk genre. You could argue it doesn’t need to be a core tenant of postcyberpunk, but the author specifically called this cyberpunk and I think that’s wrong.
Instead, I think postcyerpunk should be updating the cyberpunk genre to reflect current modern societal fears. Cyberpunk was very much a product of the 1980s. The societal fears in the US revolved around rising crime rates, unchecked capitalism, Japan’s rise in influence, etc. Blade Runner perfectly encapsulates all of that. But today, 40 years later, the societal fears have changed. Personally, I think the movie Elysium is the best example of postcyberpunk. It’s still about high-tech low-lifes except the societal fears have been changed to climate change, the wealth gap, and free access to healthcare.
This definitely makes more sense, and sounds more interesting to me. I totally agree with you on what postcyberpunk is/should be.
Although, I don’t think either climate change nor other current concerns like the rise of right wing populism and fascism are new to the cyberpunk genre — see for instance John Shirley’s cyberpunk trilogy A Song Called Youth or the settings of Hardwired and Cyberpunk 2020. And the other new concerns you list are just epiphenomena of capitalism’s dominance of our society.
Relatedly, I do think, though, that our picture of what unchecked capitalism does and will look like in the future has changed since the 80s. Instead of corporations absent a government, or acting as broken up, haphazard governments, what we are actually seeing is a corporate-state merger, corporations taking over the state and turning it to their own ends — primarily the enforcement of property and destruction of worker power — because it’s much more profitable to use an apparatus that’s funded (via taxes) by the very people you want to defend yourself from and extract profit from, and already has a vineer of legitimacy, instead of having to do it all yourself. The ultimate form of outsourcing.
I see that as a misunderstanding of the genre. One of cyberpunk’s major influences was the hard-boiled detective/film-noir stories where the main character gets heavily involved in a case but their life isn’t personally improved after resolving it
That’s true. One of the things that I wish cyberpunk would explore more actually is the idea of actually fighting back against the system, or trying to build and defend what small positive things you can in the interstices between the megacorporations, and the process of doing those things in spite of knowing that, ultimately, you are doomed to fail — the system is far bigger than you, and nothing you or even a small group of people can do will ever really make a difference in the long run. Finding reasons to go on and keep fighting despite having no illusions that there is any hope. This is essential to why I liked Hardwired and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and yet it is surprisingly rare among cyberpunk works. Perhaps a move in this direction would indeed by post cyberpunk?
One of the things that I wish cyberpunk would explore more actually is the idea of actually fighting back against the system, or trying to build and defend what small positive things you can in the interstices between the megacorporations, and the process of doing those things
This is where I struggle with how far you can take rebellion and still call it cyberpunk. Is Hunger Games cyberpunk? Is Equilibrium cyberpunk? Like you mentioned somewhere else, the setting may be cyberpunk but is the ethos still cyberpunk?
in spite of knowing that, ultimately, you are doomed to fail — the system is far bigger than you, and nothing you or even a small group of people can do will ever really make a difference in the long run.
And this is where I’m back on track with you. The futility of it keeps it cyberpunk. Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother fit this mold. The main character wasn’t trying to overthrow society, they were trying to find their place in the world and push back where they could. I guess maybe that’s the staple of postcyberpunk; it’s still futile, but now there’s optimism/hope rather than depression.
Cyberpunk was very much a product of the 1980s. The societal fears in the US revolved around rising crime rates, unchecked capitalism, Japan’s rise in influence, etc.
I mean, replace Japan with China/Russia and this very much applies to the 2020s.
Seems like Cyberpunk and Post-Cyberpunk have a similar relationship as do Modernism and Postmodernism; at least if I’m understanding the trend here.
Both take the original premise and then invert one of the core concepts. Now, I’m not super educated on art history or art movements, so please correct me if this comparison is way off base or too generalized but: With Modernism, it seems to be a way of framing the world as a series of ideals that are met or not met, universal truths that are respected or not respected. Post-modernism instead took a look at the world and said ‘Yo, what the fuck is true tho?’ and starts from the conceptual opposite side of the spectrum as Modernism, deciding that there are no absolute moralities or ideals.
To extend: It seems ( from your description anyway ) that Post-Cyberpunk is doing the same. “High Tech, Low Life” into “High Tech, High Life”; “High Life” being the expression I’m using to show the inversion of hope, outlook, and connection to the world around them, ya? Is this the overall idea?
Thanks for sharing and starting the conversation!
This is an interesting idea!
Personally, from my study of it, I conceptualize the relationship between modernism and postmodernism a little differently — namely, modernism itself was concerned with questioning assumptions and critically analyzing dogmatic beliefs, trying to find justifications for them and discarding the ones that could not be justified. It was actually a response to the dogmatism and unquestioned assumptions and lack of proper justifications that was common in religiously-influenced philosophy and theology. It was also a revolution in epistemology, in trying to figure out how we could understand the world and justify our beliefs and know what is true in the first place. Postmodernism is thus, in my opinion, not a reversal of a key concept of modernism at all, but an acceleration of modernism — modernism taken to its natural conclusion, by applying modernism’s own desire to critically analyze assumptions and remove unjustified ones to modernism’s own assumptions about empiricism and objectivity and the existence of universal truths itself. And in many ways this was prefigured by Hume; in fact, Stirner, who is considered a proto-postmodernist by most scholars, explicitly cites Hume as a philosopher he respects — a rare thing indeed!
To the degree that postmodernism ends up inverting modernism, and having a completely different methodology than modernism, this is a result of the bringing of one of modernism’s core ideas to its logical fruition. And this naturally results in something far more radical and interesting and capable of bearing new intellectual fruit then modernism itself, because postmodernism’s benefit doesn’t merely come from blindly reversing an aspect of a previous philosophy, but from what it chooses to continue and strengthen and what it reverses as a result.
I think this differs strongly from the relationship between cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk because while post-cyberpunk does invert one of the aspects of cyberpunk, it does not do this as a result of a deeper undercurrent of philosophy or logic or ideas from the cyberpunk ethos that motivates this reversal, and so this reversal doesn’t really bear new fruit at all — it just undoes what cyberpunk did and returns to the science fiction world before cyberpunk came about. It doesn’t take the cyberpunk project and move forward to even more radical and thus fruitful new worlds further on beyond what cyberpunk could discover, which is what postmodernism does to modernism, because there’s no aspect or undercurrent of cyberpunk that it actually takes further. The reversal is actually just a reset.
This is why I have a lot less interest in postcyberpunk than cyberpunk — it feels like a genre created by those who have reached middle age and bought into the system, and so now, being comfortable and benefitting from the system, they willfully blind themselves to the need for radical critique and deconstruction and rage at it, and thus wish to return to a more reformist genre. Postmodernism would be more like postcyberpunk if it had looked at modernism and reversed the assumption that things need critique and critical analysis and decided to just return back to Catholic philosophy!
Excellent points! Thanks for providing so much.
I imagine ‘the punks got older and bought in’ idea is probably true for a significant number of people. Certainly seen it happen.
Yup, it’s basically an eternal truth at this point lol
It’d be nice if the text included references to the works they’re talking about.
The job/family thing can be integral to the story, such as Deckard’s family status in Blade Runner.
It’d be nice if the text included references to the works they’re talking about.
It does, apologies. I just quoted parts that didn’t bc I was more interested in specific things it said. Here’s the list of the works the original article is talking about:
Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age is perhaps the most popular postcyberpunk novel, though also worthy of consideration are Bruce Sterling’s Islands in the Net and Holy Fire, Ian McDonald’s Necroville (aka Terminal Cafe), Ken MacLeod’s The Star Fraction and The Stone Canal, Greg Bear’s Queen of Angels, Slant, and (parts of) Moving Mars, Raphael Carter’s The Fortunate Fall, some of Greg Egan’s work (Egan novels like Permutation City and Diaspora are so wildly extrapolative that it’s hard to fit them into any category), and the first hundred pages or so of Walter Jon Williams’ Aristoi (among others).
Thanks!
Unfortunately I’ve only read Diamond Age. But that gives me a lot to add to my reading list.
I’ve heard very good things about Ken MacLeod’s work from figures I respect and whose opinions I relatively trust (including Ian M. Banks on the writing side and Kevin Carson on the anarchist side of things ;D)
