Children of the New World, the collection in which the short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” can be found, was published in 2016. It is a coincidence that almost verges on the remarkable. That was the year in which a little more than half the population of America woke up one day to discover that they really didn’t know a little less than half of the population of America nearly as well as they thought. Over the course of the next half-decade, that slight majority would come to question on nearly a daily basis exactly what constitutes being human in the sense that we had come to define it up to that point.
That is the question lying at the heart of “Saying Goodbye to Yang.” It turns out that merely possessing flesh, blood, bones and sharing DNA is not enough. Not by a long shot. Yang, the machine that looks and acts amazingly like an average 18-year-old boy turns out to be uncannily human in the sense that most of us want humanity to look like: smart, curious, a little mysterious, and empathetic. By way of contrast, Russ Goodman, the machine repairman who actually is gifted with the blood, bones, flesh and DNA that is supposed to define human beings is far less the portrait of humanity most of us desire. He is mean-spirited, narrow-minded, racist, xenophobic, deficient in empathy and just generally hateful. If every American had to choose between spending the day with Yang or with Russ, it seems likely a slight majority would choose Yang. And it is that “slight” part that serves to make the point of the story both clear and terrifying.
“Saying Goodbye to Yang” takes place in a not-quite-near and not-quite-distant future vision of America where lifelike androids and clones are everyday things. It is not a dystopia by any means. In fact, except for the technological innovations, it does not really seem all that different from the America of 2022. And yet, the implications being made by a likely “slight” majority preferring the company of Yang over Russ is one which predicts a rather dark if not entirely dystopic future. What is the character of humanity? We certainly want to think it is reflected in the construction of Yang. But within the context of the America of 2022, the future looks pretty dark. Because the future right now is one in which for almost every Yang that will be constructed and purchased, there will also likely be a Russ Goodman that is an almost equally big seller.
