Cyberpunk continues to fascinate. It is the most perceptible subgenre of science fiction, and many of the cyberpunk works—in literature, cinema and video games—continue to resonate with the general public.

For example, Japanese anime garnered a wider appreciation in the West only upon the release of Akira in 1988. And recently, the videogame, Cyberpunk 2077 (2020), witnessed a level of prerelease hype that is rarely seen in the industry (even if many actually found it somewhat underwhelming when they actually played it).

There are various productions that have had long-lasting impacts on pop culture which we could discuss, such as the Blade Runner movie (1982), the Japanese Ghost in the Shell anime series and the Gunnm manga.

However, the cyberpunk genre in particular seems to fascinate high-tech societies that have experimented with “development” through rapid industrialization…

So, the question is, does cyberpunk reveal something about these societies?

Technology Against Life

Like with many literary subgenres, in relation to its genealogy, we can’t trace things such as exact dates or literary founding fathers.

But there are few names which are usually associated with the birth of cyberpunk. One of these individuals is J. G. Ballard, a British sci-fi writer whose work consists principally in linking technology with death. His 1973 novel, Crash, is all about individuals who experiment with sexual arousal from crashing cars.

Unlike previous sci-fi writers, such as Jules Verne in France or H. G. Wells in the UK, there no longer remains these utopian ideals associated with technology. Instead, we have a sense of major disillusionment; a feeling of betrayal due to it not having fulfilled its grand promises; and an awakening to the horrific terrors that had been unleashed, the like of which had never been witnessed prior, such as the industrial butcheries of the two World Wars.

One of the earliest to arrive at this realization was Friedrich Georg. He was the lesser-known brother of Germany’s Ernst Jünger, one of the most widely read authors in the right-wing sphere. Many others followed thereafter, including the likes of Ludwig Klages; Heidegger; and Günther Anders. They consider technology to be something Promethean, potentially evil and often also anticipating the ecological movement.

In the US, you have an early critic of the rapidly emerging technologies in the form of the late Alvin Toffler. In his 1970 book, Future Shock, Toffler gauged that mass technology and the “information society” were evolving at a pace that was simply too fast for humankind. He posited that this would have dangerous psychological and civilizational consequences.

This sort of pessimistic attitude towards technology envelops the cyberpunk subgenre, which really begins in the ’80s with William Gibson, particularly his 1984 novel, Neuromancer, wherein we find many themes that are commonly associated with cyberpunk later on. This includes the notion of virtual reality, which he describes as the “matrix.” (The introduction of personal computers for home use had ushered in a new set of philosophical questions regarding the nature of existence itself).

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In the ’90s, Neal Stephenson continued to popularize different cyberpunk themes.

As we’ve already mentioned, what distinguishes all of these works is just how dark they are and how technology is portrayed as a major contributor in the shaping of this overall bleakness. This is something that is accentuated within Japanese animations.

In the aforementioned anime, Ghost in the Shell, which is considered to be the peak of Japanese cyberpunk, it is implied that the “ghost” here is the soul, and the “shell” is the body of some sort of post-human cyborg. Throughout the anime, the viewer is continuously pushed to seriously consider if humanity’s so-called “upgrade” through technology has actually in fact dehumanized man. Then there’s the quest for what really makes humanity what it is—the soul, the ultimate non-material essence and thus not “technologically upgradeable.”

This obviously clashes with the technological optimism of transhumanists.

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This is ubiquitous in Japanese cyberpunk animation, perhaps most apparent in a somewhat lesser-known work, Texhnolyze (2003).

It’s the same with cyberpunk. The questions are eminently of a religious nature, but they strenuously try to evade religion at all costs in the treatment of the problems.

Modern man deserves more than simply being crushed, in the dark, by a vast and endless ocean of towering skyscrapers.