닐 스티븐슨의 나노기술 문명 서사를 통해 재생된 전통문화 담론 연구: 『다이아몬드 시대』를 중심으로

초록

This study analyzes the characters’ lives in the nanotechnology society of The Diamond Age, with particular attention to how traditional values of Confucian and Victorian cultures are reconfigured through Baudrillard’s simulation and through a techno-human poiesis that integrates technology with humanistic concerns. First, the symbolic simulacra of traditional values embodied in “Source Victoria” and in the “Atlantean memes,” which operate as implicit devices for promoting the ideals of these traditions, reflect key mechanisms of simulation. In addition, Nell’s entry into an imaginative realm through Judge Fang’s Confucian inspired legal proceedings further supports Baudrillard’s claim that “The impossibility of rediscovering an absolute level of the real is of the same order as the impossibility of staging illusion.” These simulacral representations of the traditional culture in Stephenson’s narrative suggest that, although the outward forms of morality change over time, the essential ethical values rooted in these traditions remain constant. Next, set in an era in which technological innovations such as nanobots and nanosites circulate, are absorbed into the human body, and move through it, The Diamond Age focuses on the possibility that nanotechnology can serve as a bridge for fostering moral growth and pursuing education, depending on how and by whom it is used. To sum up, this novel ultimately reveals Stephenson’s profound philosophical vision that the moral values of traditional culture can serve as a positive force in what we now describe as the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

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