The Ghost in the Machine: Automation Anxiety and the Crisis of Human Subjectivity in Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62051/ijsspa.v10n3.10Keywords:
Kurt Vonnegut, Automation Anxiety, Technological Dystopia, Existential Crisis, Technocracy, Post-Industrial SocietyAbstract
Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano (1952) interrogates an ontological crisis where technocratic systems equate human value with functional efficiency. This study analyzes how total automation supplants both manual and cognitive labor, precipitating a survival redundancy characterized by the disappearance of meaningful work and the paradox of enforced leisure. By examining the erosion of human subjectivity through post-industrial labor theory and existential philosophy, the article demonstrates that the failure of the Ghost Shirt Rebellion reveals the deep internalization of efficiency-oriented logic. Ultimately, the novel gestures toward an alternative ethical framework grounded in non-utilitarian relationality and human imperfection, providing a foundational critique for the contemporary era of algorithmic governance.
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