Alan Lightman's novel, \The Diagnosis,"" is the chilling portrayal of one man's struggle for life, dignity and spirituality in the midst of the digital age. The novel lends new eyes to culture in a technologically based society, and is a rewarding close read that illustrates the human struggle for balance in today's world of moral decline, Big Business and the ""kill or be killed"" mentality.
Forty-something Bill Chalmers is, ambiguously, an ""information processor"" who is fully engaged in the competitive mentality of a city made of ""concrete and crisscrossed steel struts."" Nearly every facet of Chalmers' life is experienced through the computer, from business deals to his relationship with his son. One day, while on the subway to work, Chalmers' life turns upside down. Suddenly he has a full-throttle attack of amnesia, which he eventually recovers from'but this is not the end of his problems. He finds himself plagued by a strange, numbing affliction that causes him to be unable to perform his duties at work, rendering him ultimately useless in the eyes of those around him. As Chalmers struggles to cope with this situation, he becomes fully engaged in a struggle to reclaim his soul and humanity in a world that seems to value only his productivity.
A timely social commentary, ""The Diagnosis"" depicts scenes that are startlingly familiar to a reader who is engaged in today's digital society. One disturbing scene depicts Chalmers trying to communicate with fellow subway passengers, only to realize that no one hears him because they are listening to personal headphones. Lightman portrays a society that does not even read for leisure'when Chalmers at one point observes people carrying books, he reasons that they ""must be college students.""
At times ""The Diagnosis"" is a rather rough read, with an (albeit intentional) lack of character development, but it is equipped with sufficiently gripping scenes, familiar imagery and clever juxtapositions to keep the reader coming back for more. While Lightman is unyielding in his portrayal of today's lifestyle, his book does not leave the reader with an apathetic sense that the world has gone to shambles, as demonstrated by a character who seems to have balanced his life in the technological society with his humanity. Chalmers realizes, too late, that this is a balance he completely lacks. Chalmers feels this man ""smothering him with his kindness, mastering him with his total superiority. The ultimate insult."" Thus, ""The Diagnosis"" asserts the need for today's society to reassert its grip on the reins of technology and to embrace the truly important aspects of life, which, Lightman argues, are not written in binary code.
The Daily Cardinal had the honor of speaking with Mr. Lightman.
Being a professor of both physics and literature, how do you deal with the conflicting values of science and art?
That's a very tough question with a long answer. I don't see the values as conflicting. I see the sciences and the arts as looking at the world in different ways and both are seeking truth, but different kinds of truth. I don't see the conflict. I see the different areas as being complementary, representing different ways of being in the world and experiencing the world, both valuable in their own domain. I guess I would say I don't see a conflict. There are many differences, but the differences do not necessarily represent conflict. Red and blue are different colors that complement each other; they're not in conflict. They're just different ways of looking at the world.
What lessons does the protagonist, Bill Chalmers, offer?
Writers don't analyze their own characters. The wonderful thing about fiction, which makes it different from nonfiction, is that readers can participate in the creative process and every reader brings their own life experiences to the reading of a book and forms their own interpretation. An author's interpretation really kills the ability of readers to give their own interpretation, to experience the book in its own way, through their own life experiences. I think there are very few fiction writers who try to interpret their characters for their readers. It is much better left to the reader. The same thing goes with the meaning of the book. You won't find many fiction writers who will tell you what the meaning of their novel is.
What commentary do you have about on-line college courses?
[The book] is somewhat of a satire on the whole on-line mentality. Certainly I take it to some extremes, but I don't intend to criticize on-line college courses. It's more the on-line mentality, the fast-food mentality that I'm satirizing along with everything in the book, the idea that you can get knowledge at 39 cents a paragraph, that kind of thing.
Why do you think college students should read your book?
Books, in general, offer us other worlds. They offer us the ability to explore other minds and to travel to other places. Life is short. The human life is a very short thing and it's gone before you know it and the world is so vast. There's so many aspects of the world that we do not have time to experience with our own small place in the world and our own 100 years or however long we live, and books, I think, in effect, multiply our lifespan. They enable us to experience many more things than we could with just our own limited life and place. They create new worlds for us. Literature allows us to explore and understand a larger range of human emotions than we may experience from our own personal experience. I'm really talking about all kinds of good books, fiction and nonfiction alike.
One of the things that distinguishes us from animals is that we are able to pass down knowledge and experience from one generation to the next through books, which animals don't have the benefit of. It's one of the ways we distinguish our higher intelligence. It's a great gift to be able to read books. My house is full of books and whenever I go some place for a month or longer I take with me 20 of my favorite books. There are about 20 books that I always travel with that I cannot be separated from. They're more precious than anything. For me, college is a very precious time of life, when you are given the freedom to just study. When you are in it you may not feel like it's a freedom. You may feel like it's more of a prison. When you get old you will look on that time as when you didn't have many responsibilities. Most college students are not married; they don't have children; they don't have to worry about a job. They have all of these hours of the day when they are learning the great ideas and the great literature. It is a precious time of life that you appreciate more and more as you get older and go past that period. It's probably more than you wanted to hear from me.
You have chosen not to use e-mail, which can be inconvenient. Have you chosen not to use it as part of your personal stance?
It's personal and it's a philosophical stand. I don't condemn e-mail. I think that e-mail can be a wonderful thing. A lot of people use it in beneficial ways. I also think e-mail is often abused. It's used as part of the fast-food mentality. You send off a message carelessly. It's part of the artificial urgency of modern life. I have taken a philosophical position against it in my own life that I will not use it except in a very rare occurrence like communicating with a foreign publisher. It's one of the ways I simplify my life. I don't want to be plugged in all the time. I don't use a cell phone either. I think that having private space where a person can hear his own thoughts and have silences and time for contemplation is extremely important. The modern world in which we're plugged in all the time makes it harder and harder to have those private spaces. Refusing to use e-mail is just one small way in which I've attempted to create more private space for myself.
How do you feel about other forms of modern technology, like digital TV?
I appreciate a lot of technology and I have a lot of it myself. A lot of it has been very beneficial. What I also think is that we cannot use technology blindly. We cannot use it without thinking. We pay a price for each piece of technology that we use. We're usually giving up part of our lives for it and we need to be aware of what we're giving up. We need to be aware of the choices we make when we use any particular piece of technology. We just have to use it thoughtfully is my main point. I think that since the Industrial Revolution we've always assumed that more technology is better. If you can make something go faster, you should build it. If you can give something more bandwidth, you should build it. If you can put more pixels on your high resolution television, you should do it; that more and faster technology is progress. That has been the assumption for 250 years. We must question the assumption that all technology represents progress. We have to think more deeply about what the quality of life is and what our values are and what our priorities are and not simply assume that more technology is better. That's my position and it's not anti-technology; it's just that we need to be more thoughtful. We just can't take everything that's thrown at us and swallow it. We can't just be passive consumers.
What are your hopes and fears of the future regarding technology?
A long time ago Henry David Thoreau, the great American writer and philosopher, said, ""We don't ride the railroad, the railroad rides us."" That was his time. Today it's computers and communication devices, like cell phones. Twenty-five years from now it will be biotechnology and various devices implanted in your body. Computers will be in your refrigerator, in your stove and in your pants. My hope is that we will be able to exert some control over technology and not let it control us. My fear is that we will not be able to exhibit any control over it and just be passive consumers of technology.
