Abstract
Real men don’t fall in love with plastic dolls or operating systems, or do they? In movies such as Lars and the Real Girl and Her, as well as in the case of Davecat, a man who lives with three life-size synthetic women, inanimate objects appear to fulfill many physical as well as emotional needs. For Lars, a man with extreme social anxiety, Bianca seems to serve as a transitional object, as described by Winnicott (1971), until he orchestrates her “death” and is able to replace her with an actual woman who sings in the choir of his church. Similarly, in Her, Samantha, an operating system (OS) with artificial intelligence (AI) serves as a type of futuristic transitional phenomenon. After falling in love with Theodore, Samantha helps him overcome feelings of inadequacy associated with his divorce and then leaves with other AI systems. Davecat, by contrast, does not seem to experience his dolls as a means to an end. He does not see them as temporary substitutes for actual women. For him, his synthetic partners are the end: the end of his search for a human partner.
Do these men have a new kind of fetish, are they psychotic, or is a different way of being in the world actually emerging? In their recent book, The Age of Perversion: Desire and Technology in Psychoanalysis and Culture, Danielle Knafo and Rocco Lo Bosco have a lot to say about what they call the “crooked path” (p. 2), a way of living, often fraught with disappointment, hatred, and mistrust peppered with rebellion, that diverges from the norm. Knafo and Lo Bosco agree with Strenger (2011), who believes there is a new kind of person who lives differently in the world. He calls this type of being Homo globalis and defines him as a “deeply insecure, anxious and threatened multi-tasker who enjoys little career stability, has no coherent worldview, and often manages life’s vicissitudes with pharmaceuticals” (p. 170). Although Knafo and Lo Bosco think that the various ways in which people are attaching to technology has had a profound effect on the human psyche, serving to a large extent as a defense against the limits of being human, they also believe that scientific advancements, “especially in the areas of cognitive science, AI and computer technology, have progressively blurred the distinction between humans and machines” (p. 171).
This thought-provoking book poses many questions about the future while expanding on the meaning of perversion by defining it as much more than abnormal or deviant sexual behavior. These authors boldly predict how travelers on the “crooked path” flout societal norms as they change the landscape of human behavior. The phenomenon of attaching ourselves to smartphones and computers while counting on social media “friends” to replace our need for real human connections is raising questions about the distinction between aberrance and mere personal preference.
Danielle Knafo says she is beginning to think of this lifestyle—in which people have emotional connections with inanimate objects—much as she thinks about sexual preferences; both are choices one makes rather than abnormal behavior. While she appears to understand that Davecat has cut himself off from human female companions, she also seems to admire the creative features of this man’s personality. After listening to and observing artists for many hours—presumably her patients—she thinks of Davecat’s way of life as a performative artistic expression, a play he regularly participates in that gives him satisfaction and pleasure.
Members of a community who call themselves iDollators, consisting mostly of men who replace organic partners—real people—with synthetic ones, participate in online forums where they share various aspects of their lives with their dolls. In this group, Davecat is a spokesman who appears quite well-informed about these men. He asserts that they are part of a tightly knit group and implies that they satisfy their need for human connection by sharing their doll stories online. In a personal interview Knafo conducted in preparing the book, he told her that many of the group’s members are tired of being rejected and have found life to be more satisfying (and less unpredictable) with synthetic partners. He also said he had never been in therapy, claiming that his dolls were his therapy. In the interview, Knafo appears to understand why he hasn’t sought treatment, never challenging his assertion that he is content with his dolls and happier than he has ever been.
Another way of looking at Davecat, from a psychoanalytic perspective influenced by Melanie Klein, is to think of his behavior strictly as a defensive maneuver. In Kleinian terms, Davecat may have unconsciously split off and projected unwanted parts of his ego onto his doll family. The barren, empty, and schizoid aspects of his inner world and his inability to connect with real people could thus be seen as residing in his synthetic companions, the very embodiment of insentience and lifelessness. Once Davecat rids himself of the undesirable emptiness in his internal world, he then monitors and controls his “women,” who cannot reject him because they aren’t real people. It is of interest to note that in 1946, when Klein first described projective identification (possibly the defense mechanism used unconsciously by Davecat), she said that along with bad aspects of the self, good parts can be projected onto external objects as well and later identified with as residing in the other, in this case inanimate dolls. If, for example, positive, loving feelings were too difficult for Davecat to tolerate, fearing the inevitability of eventual loss based on early experiences, they too could have been split off and projected onto his doll family. I believe that “since Kleinian concepts have evolved to include many situations and now have wide-ranging appeal in terms of describing the human condition, . . . their application should be considered when thinking about all interactions . . . perceived as having gone awry” (Messina 2019, p. 13).
So the question remains (and I suspect it will for some time to come) whether Davecat’s arrangement is a new way of relating, resulting from the marriage of human beings and technology, along with the added benefit of advancements in AI, or whether he has suffered from a life of impoverishment and lack of a secure human attachment. In either case, I believe these authors are inviting us to look at a new reality wherein humans are being increasingly attached to inanimate objects ranging from smartphones to dolls that serve as surrogate partners.
Klein and her followers, I believe, would have characterized Davecat as deeply entrenched in the schizoid-paranoid position, with split-off aspects of his inner world having been projected onto his dolls. This appears to include loving parts that he could not tolerate or hold on to due to early loss as well as frequent rejection by real women who were uninterested in him and the love he may have offered. An illustration of this concept emerged during his interview with Knafo: “Davecat claimed that his love for the dolls is mutual and returned to him. ‘I believe I get as much love from Sidore, Elena, and Muriel as I can possibly give them, and I believe they are appreciative for it and, it’s like a feedback loop, it’s back and forth’” (p. 97).
From a Kleinian perspective, Davecat has clearly projected his unlovable qualities onto his dolls, a projection that he then identifies with after it has been transformed by his synthetic partners. I think this internal, unconscious process is possible because Davecat has given his dolls human qualities, which allows them to modify his negative, intolerable feelings, turning them into more acceptable ones. This helps Davecat feel less chaotic and more organized internally, which restores his ability to think. In this altered and more positive state of mind, he is able to take in, accept, and feel loved by his doll family.
This process is similar to Bion’s alpha function (1963), which allows a caregiver to take in unbearable and chaotic feelings experienced by an infant, metabolize them, and “give them back” to the infant in a more palatable form, which allows thinking to be restored. This process then forms the basis for self-soothing: the mother soothes the child, who observes and identifies with the process and thereafter learns to soothe him- or herself. While these exchanges seem complex, they are easy to discern when watching a mother care for an infant in a state of distress. For example, when a mother picks up a screaming baby, rocking or softly patting the child while saying reassuring things, the infant often calms down rather quickly. In this case, the mother has absorbed the baby’s stress and sense of chaos while showing that she can tolerate frightening or terrifying feelings. From this interaction the baby takes in the essence of the mother’s way of being, and eventually becomes capable of replicating internally the soothing qualities exhibited by the mother. From one vantage point, this dyadic exchange can be thought of as copying the behavior of a caring parent.
In the case of Davecat, the process is a bit more complicated, but the same theory could apply. After projecting his chaotic feelings, which more than likely are filled with the shame that accompanies rejection, the recipient surrogates then transform bad feelings into good, loving ones, since he has given them human qualities that would allow these changes to occur. While in the interview with Knafo he said he knows they are dolls, he has nonetheless given his synthetic companions the ability to have feelings. “As Davecat spoke, I thought of how much he imbued his dolls with human-like attributes” (p. 97).
Regardless of how one views the opinions of Knafo and Lo Bosco, the authors raise important questions about our future as psychoanalysts with respect to the possibility that “organics” (real people) will become increasingly attached to various aspects of technology enhanced with ever more sophisticated advances in AI. Attachment to synthetic people could give rise to issues not yet part of our worldview or theory of mind.
Could Knafo and Lo Bosco be predicting the future much as Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four did? Kaliv Leetaru (2019), writing in Forbes, poses the question: George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four turns 70 years old next month [June 2019]. Looking back on its predictions and the state of the world of today, how much did it get right in its predictions of a dystopian surveillance state? . . . It turns out Orwell’s predictions were frighteningly accurate.
Orwell felt the urge to tell his story about his views of the future and worked tirelessly, even when quite ill, to complete his book. In addition to his predictions about technological advances, his depiction of an elite society that attempts to control the world might be considered by many to reflect what is occurring today in the U.S. and other parts of the world.
Will Knafo and Lo Bosco prove to be like Orwell, some of whose “far out” predictions in Nineteen Eighty-Four have become reality? Only time will tell, but until the future is revealed, these authors have offered us a view of what we all might face in a world where inorganic “people” become part of the conversation in our consulting rooms. For their research and the risks they took in writing about our possible future with synthetics, these authors deserve a great deal of credit.
That being said, a question remains for me concerning Davecat’s life without therapy. He moved to the world of dolls because, like many men in the iDollator community, he had apparently been rejected many times, which led him to give up on the possibility of having a relationship with a real woman. But what if he had found a compassionate therapist and formed a meaningful connection? Perhaps, through the process of transference, he would have projected aspects of his fantasy world onto the therapist rather than onto his dolls. Had this happened, might he have worked through his isolation and other aspects of the presumed trauma and/or neglect he encountered first as a child and later as an adult? Might he have found a real partner had he ventured out into the real world with memories of a caring therapist who was able to contain his anxieties, setting an example he could use in learning to soothe himself? Might that experience have made a difference in his life, especially if he had been able to learn about his internal world and more effectively manage his anxieties and/or feelings of isolation with the help of another person? While I am intrigued by Davecat’s solution to his life of isolation, as I think about his compromise I am reminded of the words of Louis Cozolino, a well-known psychologist and neuroscience researcher, and wonder if this is really the most optimal state of relating Davecat could have reached.
The purpose of sharing our stories with others is to gain active participation in the co-construction of new narratives [with the help of another person]. Our own stories tend to become closed systems in need of new input. Therapists hope to teach their clients that not only can they edit their own story, but they can be authors of new stories. With the aid of self-reflection, we help clients become aware of new narrative arcs of their life story and help them understand that new story lines are possible [Cozolino 2015, p. 25].
In many ways it can be said that Davecat did, in fact, edit his old story, while coming up with a new narrative. However, for the most part it appears he did so alone, only later connecting up with the iDollators online. He did not interact with an actual person who might have been able to help him learn how to navigate in a world with real women. His compromise led to a world of plastic female figures who he claims love him. Is this as good as life can be for Davecat? Conversely, could he have rewritten his story differently, as Cozolino suggests? Through a process I have called “redactional identification,” perhaps another path could have been taken: What I am saying is that the new experience with a safe person [usually a therapist] allows for the development of something different. As a new state of mind emerges, it eventually becomes a conscious process that involves intention. A new element comes into play as the need for unconscious protection yields to awareness in the self-structure. This process one comes to know helps to solidify change. . . . More than “getting rid of” or “putting up with” or “coming to endure” an unwanted part of the self, this new intentional process involves awareness of creating a new version of an old story [Messina 2019, p. 135].
We are not likely to know the answer to this question as it relates to Davecat and his dolls, but Knafo and Lo Bosco present scenarios about the confluence of human interactions with technology that may greatly change the way people navigate their world in the future. While it currently takes the mind of a person to project fantasies onto dolls to make the world of iDollators work—especially if they are like Davecat, who believes his inanimate dolls “love” him, this could change.
In the future, as various devices are imbued with AI, one of the biggest challenges may be for psychoanalysts to interact differently with patients. That hypothesis may not be as “far out” as it sounds. According to Ray Kurzwell, a noted futurist and one of Google’s chief engineers, human beings shouldn’t be afraid of AI. While many people have a fear of being overtaken by it, he believes that AI will be a benefit to humans. In a discussion about technology at the Council on Foreign Relations on November 7, 2017, his message, as reported by Dom Galeon (2017), was clear: according to Kurzweil, there will be a melding of humans and machines as a result of the singularity and the growth of AI. . . . Kurzweil added that, aside from connecting the human brain to machines via the cloud, these neocortex technologies would also allow humans to connect to another person’s neocortex. As a result, humans would become smarter and funnier. The technological singularity, he argued, would lead to a more diverse group of thinkers and would allow for a deeper expansion into humanity’s various expertise.