Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 27, 03 January 2024
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Technological Dystopia: Hindered Democratization of Technology in Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last
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Abstract
Margaret Atwood constructs a chaotic and disorderly dystopian society in The Heart Goes Last, where the technology is turned into a tool for manipulation, exploitation, and objectification of people. This article attempts to analyze the undemocratic use of technology depicted in the Positron project and the obstacles it poses to the development of technological democracy from the perspective of Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology. The article analyzes the undemocratic technology in the book from both the physical and mental aspects, arguing that it strengthens control and surveillance over citizens’ bodies and manipulates their mental world, severely violating citizens’ human rights. Atwood portrays the social problems resulting from the obstacles to democratization of technology in the book, revealing that undemocratic use of technology brings not well-being but deeper disasters. This rings an alarm bell in the context of rapid scientific and technological development, prompting people to reflect on how to better use technology for the benefit of humanity and promote democratization of technology.
Keywords
Margaret Atwood, The Heart Goes Last, Andrew Feenberg, Democratization of technology
References
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6. Reese, E. (2020). Attractive Oblivions: Identity, Queer Theory, and Heterotopias in Ari Aster's Midsommar and Margaret Atwood's the Heart Goes Last. Youngstown State University.
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10. Feenberg, A. (1991). Critical Theory of Technology. Oxford University Press.
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12. Atwood, M. (2015). The Heart Goes Last. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-257-2
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-258-9
- Published Date
- 03 January 2024
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/27/20232119
- Copyright
- 03 January 2024
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited