Technology, capitalism and media in Atwood’s MaddAddam

Like any given capitalist society, profit determines the content of education and science in the world of MaddAddam, where the corporations make decision about what is to be explored. As one of its characters Toby mentions: “if you wanted a job in research, you had to work for a Corp because that was where the money was. But you’d naturally be focused on projects that interested them, not on ones that interested you” (240). Therefore, by defining what is allowed and considered useful and lucrative, corporations control anything, namely the mind of masses.

Thanks to modern industrialization, the production is adjusted towards getting more and more stocks of products at lower charges with the solitary intention of selling them as much as possible only to make the process work at an even faster pace. The market is plainly swamped with goods and the amount supply exceeds the demand in an effort to ensure more profit and revenues and preventing factory closures. What rules over the depicted society of the novel is the culture ideology of consumerism due to which as Rittenhouse perceives, “personal identity spatially and temporally discontinues and the institutions that formerly provided continuity to identity have faded in significance” (35).

In MaddAddam, Gardeners believe that the society is changing into a spend-happy colony. Thus, by facing uncontrolled crime and extreme consumerism, Gardeners built their rooftop gardens and start to avoid technology which they regard as triggering overconsumption. No wonder that mega companies like CorpSeCorps consider them “twisted fanatics who combine food extremism with bad fashion sense and a puritanical attitude toward shopping” (The Year of the Flood 35).

The trick to success for corporations in this wicked scenario is convincing people to buy yonder their financial abilities or beyond their real needs. In fact, the capitalist system eradicates the difference between need and desire to guarantee its survival. Furthermore, globalization has paved the way for capitalist thought to engage in furthest parts of the world and in this global setting international corporations govern the market. According to Steger, the main pillar of globalization is an “economic phenomenon mediated by cutting edge information and communicate technologies” (2). Hence, Atwood portrays a society in which everything is connected to the internet globally so that people can be controlled and be fed on huge amount of on line advertisement.

Nobody like Baudrillard has investigated the dark side of globalization in the late capitalism. He maintains that the most problematic side of globalization is the murder of reality by technological means and fake representation of reality. He believes that mass media works in accordance with the strategies of mega corporations that requires making all people of the world more homogeneous, so that they can sell their products more. According to him, the image being portrayed in the postmodern society is a “false representation of reality” so to serve the interests of capitalists (Simulacra and Simulation 12).

Atwood has portrayed those features of capitalism in MaddAddam. Numerous corporations such as CryoJeenyus, OrganInc, RejoovenEsense or HelthWyzer determine the fundamentals of an allegedly ideal life. These corporations have gained global credit and have hence dominated the market. They horribly shape masses’ life style including what they do, wear, eat and how they lead their personal interactions. Moreover, by the use of technology, they carry out all kinds of experiments on the population, control their clients through torrents of advertisement, exploit their weaknesses and embezzle their money. OrganInc, for instance, makes a lucrative business from organ transplants. In the OrganInc Farms, scientists conduct genetically modified projects such as Pigoon in order to create a foolproof eternal human. Since the company has spent a lot of money in this project, no part is going to be wasted, and after total exploitation, Pigoons end up typically as sandwiches and pies. Moreover, the sick people pay a lot of cash for transplants and the company takes no responsibility if the operations are not successful.

The image of beauty and perfection is deliberately broadcasted by media to distort people’s perception to sell them more products. For instance, AnooYoo, a company which preys on the phobias and void the bank accounts of the anxious and the gullible (Oryx and Crake 48), trades all types of cosmetic products, pills and workout gears to abuse individuals’ desire for tantalizing their ego. One cannot escape from their products because there are no more options and their presence has littered the map. Zeb calls for their mutual agreement as it follows: “If it hurts and you feel sick and it’s making you ugly, take this, from HelthWyzer; if you‘re ugly and it hurts and you feel sick about it, take that, from AnooYoo” (MaddAddam 187).

Corporations deliberately choose wealthy people and ignore the poor needed citizens. The manipulation of customers goes even further. Companies for instance, CryoJeenyus promises rich people that “if such a life-suspending event occurs, the client is flash-frozen immediately… for re-animation later once CryoJeenyus has developed the biotech to do that” (MaddAddam 231). Madeleine Davies in Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood stated that “ political economy seeks to consume them, convert them into consumers in turn, shrink them, neutralize them, silence them, and contain them physically or metaphorically” (60). As Baudrillard mentions, “they [people] are prey to both science and worms” (Simulacra and Simulation 9). Likewise, extremely powerful corporations such as RejoovenEsense make millions of dollars by selling products that are supposed to bring about “immortality.” In other words, it initiates global projects and convinces people that they can increase and prolong their youth by taking BlyssPluss Pill, and genetically design their future babies. As Walonen mentions, “in this society individuals are forced to make decisions based solely on the exchange value of their marketable resources” (41).

One of the things Baudrillard has considered in his investigation of capitalism is Disneyland that promises a real happy time. In this specialized theme park, people buy false reality to satisfy their imagination. Likewise, the principle image promoted by corporations in the post-apocalyptic world of MaddAddam is that of a “one big happy family, dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the betterment of humankind” (176). All staffs act like children of the principle company and have to participate in weekly barbeques and other same activities. But as people in HelthWyzer reveal, even in a family there are restrictions which cannot be violated and pseudo interaction here is many times just a formal one, a masquerade.

Unlike Marx, Baudrillard believes that it is consumption rather than production that is the main drive of capitalism. To make people consume more, the society should be divided into those who have and those who do not. Similarly, corporations do not give equal status or advantages to their employees. The personnel of these corporations are part of a well-founded hierarchy and succumbed to the prejudices driven from this situation. Although the poor from the Pleeblands are outnumbered, their life goes almost invisible for the Compounders who have a privileged position. Working as a disinfector or janitor, Zeb passes his time scrubbing toilets and carrying someone else’s trash, and going unnoticed by the busy affluent people (MaddAddam 238).

Atwood has also brought her concern about environment in the story. In MaddAddam, she combined her environmental wordiness to the way people over consume and suggest a community lifestyle after the Waterless Flood which can wipe human race. She refers to the fact that those can survive that cut loose of rat race and find nature as their home: those few survivors attempt to organize themselves and shape a constant community. They correspondingly divide all their errands and work together for the common good. Women such as Rebecca manage the kitchen, others like Ren and Amanda help to make adobe and places to sleep. Toby is also responsible for vegetables and makes traditional medicines. In the meantime, men like Manatee and Zeb, attempt to defend the community, and boys like Crozier and Zunzuncito protect the flock of sheep. Their tasks are not static like in the capitalist society they used to live. They are able to learn from each other and develop their activities. Similarly, all the crown of their labor is allocated to their common existence and not the profit of mega factories.

As we journey through Atwood’s trilogy, the heavy shadow of hyperreality is felt everywhere. She depicts a world where anything can be doctored into something which does not have any resemblance to its original as Howells points out: “In Atwood’s satirical version of a world where everything is a reproduction of a vanished original, human beings are alienated not only from their environment but also from themselves” (176). In MaddAddam, scientists have pledged to make the unthinkable happen. The long-held axiom of the capitalist society reaches its peak in the post-apocalyptic world of the novel. Mega corporations such as HealthWyzer, OrganInc and Secret Burger put their business first and entice people to consume more by their mind-bugling advertisements in which a fantacized life style is promoted. These mega corporations employ technologies to produce hybrid animals, genetically modified creatures and online simulation games in order to boost their profit. Media is penetrated by the government to show the fake representation of ideal life in order to convert them into consumers of their products. This fake ideal life promised includes perfect sexual intercourse, longevity, healthy body and desirable genetically tailored children. The situation, however, is totally changed into an uncontrollable chaos where sexual stamina products sterilize human, laboratory made viruses jeopardize humanity and hooligans disturb the society. When they start to customize their kids, “ordering up the DNA like pizza topping”, they are unaware of what disaster is waiting ahead (MaddAddam 42). The whole human race is on the brink of extinction and human-like generation called Crakers have dominated the world. Their promised paradise soon changes to Paradice Project which immortality was a fantasized unfulfilled dream. Once the process is set out, there is no way out because the engineers didn’t “code in cancel button” (42).

As Baudrillard states, the process of simulation is always imperfect and it is unmanageable to keep it entirely separate from reality. In Atwood’s dystopian vision, everything, including human beings and their human relationships, is a simulation of a vanished original. The effect of online shows and games on the boys is in repressing any sense of emotional involvement and moral responsibility and the boundaries between fiction and reality, reality and virtuality are blurred. Tolan comments on the resulting detachment: “Watching the coverage [of riots] on television, Jimmy maintains a dispassionate alienation, and Crake’s concession is seemingly supported by the inability to visually distinguish between the various dead” (2007: 280). Therefore, Jimmy who is a fragile and sensitive boy, is affected by the computer games and TV watching, and becomes apathetic.

Crakers are also fantasized creatures which are the manifestation of Crake himself. He was under the effect of those brutal scenes he saw on the internet when he was teenager. Thus, the creatures he created was mere simulation of human being except that they don’t have any greed, nor feel any jealousy but they did have sexual animalistic desire. Their physiques and their feelings or the way they think is also a distorted simulation of humans.

MaddAddam has also dealt with storytelling. The novel is a work of fiction which may not happen. Inside the main story is another story which is told by Toby and is two steps removed from reality. As we can see that the story is the mere reflection of a post-apocalyptic world which is not out there yet. In this representation of the not real world, there exist another story of Crakers’ creation. As Atwood mentions in MaddAddam “There’s the story, then there’s the real story, then there’s the story of how the story came to be told. Then there’s what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too” (51).