58 pages • 1 hour read
The Caves of Steel
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Themes
The Core Difference Between Robots and Humans
Isaac Asimov challenges the boundary between humans and machines by creating a world with a precariously balanced human population and robots almost indistinguishable from humans. As Lije struggles to solve the murder of Dr. Sarton, he comes face to face with the limits of his nature and the seemingly limitless possibilities for his robot partner, Daneel. The characters’ growth brings Lije, the human race, and Daneel closer to full humanity. Asimov uses this theme as an explanation of humanity’s possibilities.
In the opening chapter, Lije exemplifies the typical man and R. Sammy, the typical robot. Asimov begins the novel with this interaction between Lije and R. Sammy as a demonstration of the complicated and contentious relationship between robots and humans on planet Earth. R. Sammy takes a young man’s job, leaving him declassified and without means. R. Sammy follows the Commissioner’s orders to the letter, causing Lije to become annoyed, telling his boss that “it’s uncomfortable, Commissioner. He tells me you want me and then he stands there” (3). Lije dislikes that he must work with such an unintelligent and annoying creature. The contentious relationship is further shown by the following conversation about Lije’s new partner. He acknowledges that most men “were Medievalists in one way or another. It was easy to be when it meant looking back to a time when Earth was the world and not just one of fifty. The misfit one of fifty at that” (18). These two instances show the conflict between the two factions, pitting the Earth people against the robots and Spacers. Asimov starts from this stance, then complicates the issue with the advanced robot Daneel.
Lije meets Daneel in Spacetown and is shocked by his appearance. Asimov uses this shock to show the possibilities of similarity and commonality between the robots and the humans. Lije and Daneel face the riotous crowd, after which Daneel states, “the division between human and robot is perhaps not as significant as that between intelligence and nonintelligence” (39). This statement shows Asimov’s purpose for starting with R. Sammy. While it is true that R. Sammy could never be a detective, Daneel might be capable of such a feat. The contentious relationship between Lije, a typical human, and Daneel, a representation of machines, becomes more fraught as humanity realizes the possibilities of machines doing more and more complicated jobs. Asimov forces Lije to confront his own obsolescence in the face of the advanced machine.
The relationship between Lije and Daneel grows throughout the novel. Asimov sets up a fiercely contentious relationship and then offers an unexpected solution, the C/Fe shift. Dr. Fastolfe plants the idea in Lije’s mind, but it grows once he realizes his and Daneel’s limitations. Lije tells Clousarr of the differences between the two:
We can’t, damn it, we can’t. Not as long as we don’t understand what makes our own brains tick. Not as long as things exist that science can’t measure. What is beauty, or goodness, or art, or love, or God? We’re forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can’t be understood. It’s what makes us men. A robot’s brain must be finite or it can’t be built. It must be calculated to the final decimal place so that it has an end. Jehoshaphat, what are you afraid of? A robot can look like Daneel, he can look like a god, and be no more human than a lump of wood is (221).
Lije understands the core difference between humankind and machines by the novel’s end. He realizes that creativity and ambiguity are solely his species’ domain. He also realizes that machines can produce far greater feats of concrete analysis, computation, and labor than he could ever be. Asimov argues that humanity is best served by embracing machines to accomplish what would be impossible without them.
The Human Drive to Pioneer
Asimov’s steel caves make it possible for humans to continue to live on Earth, but he argues that those same caves make it impossible for humans to thrive indefinitely. He proposes two visions of pioneering: The Spacers, who colonize Outer Worlds, and the Medievalists, who want to return to a life on Earth rooted in nature. In both cases, Asimov argues that a central characteristic of humanity is pioneering, the need to explore new ideas and lands, even when the risks are great.
Jessie represents one version of discontent with the City’s current system. She feels isolated from her peers due to Lije’s class privileges. She enjoys the feeling of shared experience with her peers, and even concern for her family’s safety does not top her desire to live like those around her. Jessie worked for the section kitchen before Lije’s increased rank, but found herself increasingly isolated from her peers as her luxuries increased. The social pressure to conform is so great that she shuns the luxuries almost entirely. She joins the Medievalist movement to feel that sense of community again. Jessie is a follower rather than a leader, and Asimov uses Jessie to demonstrate the pull of community on the individual and how the technological optimization of the cities has made the connection to community more difficult.
It is the Spacers who offer the solution. Doctors Fastolfe and Sarton develop Daneel to bridge the gap between human and machine. They hope to create their cooperative C/Fe culture on Outer Worlds to solve the problem of overpopulation on Earth and underpopulation on the other Outer Worlds. Fastolfe explains why they need contemporary men and women:
The thing called Medievalism shows a craving for pioneering. To be sure, the direction in which that craving turns itself is toward Earth itself, which is near and which has the precedent of a great past. But the vision of worlds beyond is a similar something and the romantic can turn to it easily (243).
The Spacers know that community growth is only possible if there is space to grow, a will to do so, and a precedent for it. The Medievalists have been too nostalgic for the past and too focused on Earth as the only territory for their ideal civilization. They need to look to the future and C/Fe culture to succeed. Asimov shows that isolation could be the inevitable conclusion to technology, but only if society turns away from progress.
Tradition Versus Technology
Asimov uses the tension between the Medievalists and the Spacers to highlight the tension between tradition and technological progress. The people of Earth are rooted in thousands of years of history and tradition. Each person, as Lije states, is a bit of a Medievalist. The power of nostalgia calls the Medievalist movement back to a time when they believe life was easier. It follows that they would seek to re-establish those traditions. Conversely, the Spacers believe that progress and technology integration is the most human and best option to establish a better way of life. Asimov’s book shows that tradition and nostalgia lead to conformity while progress allows each individual to achieve a better life in a community with each other.
Lije and Daneel’s initial conflict at the shoe counter demonstrates Asimov’s disdain for mindless conformity to tradition. Tradition, he shows, beats back innovation and creativity when it is rooted in fear. After the riot at the shoe store, Daneel tells Lije that “human characteristics here among the people of Earth includes the information that, unlike the men of the Outer Worlds, they are trained from birth to accept authority” (38). This adherence to authority indicates obedience to tradition and conformity, and the authority of peer pressure over the individual. The people of Earth must live highly communal lives to sustain their population. Individualism and innovation are sacrificed for the species and the greater good. Lije even acknowledges that they have little free will. The Medievalist movement offers a possible escape, but only in a regressive way. Asimov’s solution, through the Spacers, is one of progress and imagination.
The Spacers present an entirely new option to the terrestrial population, one of growth, expansion, and progress. The Spacers select Lije to take the case, hoping to convert him to their view. They want an evangelist of their idea in the Earth population, as they know that having a Spacer or robot introducing the concept would never work. Daneel explains to Lije that “our only hope was the romantics after all, and the romantics, unfortunately, were all Medievalists, actual or potential” (242). The people capable of carrying this hope have already dedicated themselves to going backward. They dream of the past rather than of progress. This plan changes with Enderby’s arrest. He bridges the gap between tradition and progress, if only by force, and allows the species to flourish. Asimov’s central theme of conflict between tradition and progress is resolved by turning the traditionalists against tradition.
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