AUTOMATION’S DOUBLE VICTIMS: CLASS, IDENTITY, AND DEHUMANIZATION IN VONNEGUT’S PLAYER PIANO
Keywords:
Player Piano, automation, dehumanizationAbstract
This academic paper examines how automation has a great impact on humans, both the working class and the technocratic elite, using Marx’s theory of alienated labor, Weber’s concept of the iron cage, and Seeman and Fromm’s psychological perspectives on alienation. The investigation reveals that automation replaces the working class’s labor and ability in doing tasks, which leads them to feel worthless because their lives lack purpose and meaning. Meanwhile, some of the technocratic elites feel alienated and empty from the comfort they enjoy from the machine-driven society.
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