| The Last Of The Masters |
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| anarchist fiction | |
| last of the masters, the | |
| short stories by philip k. dick | |
| 1954 short stories | |
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The Last of the Masters is a 1954 Science Fiction short story by Philip K. Dick . In ''The Last Of The Masters'' Dick examines the paradoxical cast of human existence. Even as the Anarchist League glories in its two-hundred-year-old success at destroying all Government , it hears a rumour of a remnant of the old order that is still flourishing. The League goes on a search and destroy mission, an unnecessary move. The small anachronistic society is gradually breaking down of its own Entropy . Complete with a disciplined economic organization (but no market to supply) and a well-trained military (but no enemy to fight), the group exists at the will of a deteriorating pre-war Robot master. Even as the Anarchists break the robot up beyond all salvage, one of the service men pockets a memory chip "just in case the times change." Dick said of the story: "Now I show trust of a robot as leader, a robot who is the suffering servant, which is to say a form of Christ . Leader as servant of man; leader who should be dispensed with -- perhaps. An ambiguity hangs over the morality of this story. Should we have a leader or should we think for ourselves? Obviously the latter, in principle. But -- sometimes there lies a gulf between what is theoretically right and that which is practical. It's interesting that I would trust a robot and not an Android . Perhaps it's because a robot does not try to deceive you as to what it is."(1980) ''The Golden Man'' story notes by Philip K. Dick, {Ed.: Hurst} Berkley, pb, 04288 FOOTNOTES AND CITATIONS |
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