Human history is replete with episodes of mass purges, genocides and tyrannies, motivated by an ideal of purity that transcends all else. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, a dystopian society recovers from radioactive fallout by moving people with desirable characteristics to the safer haven of Mars, abandoning less desirable people to face the hostilities of a ravaged and poisoned Earth . Society's fetish for purity manifests itself in a contradictory social structure that aims to discriminate against minorities, revealing humanity's desire for superiority. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay By filtering would-be immigrants based on intelligence, society practices eugenics to prevent specials from contaminating purity of the human gene pool. From the beginning of the novel, humans are divided into two distinct categories: regulars and specials. People who do not meet social standards for reproduction or intelligence are labeled “special” and cannot emigrate or marry. On the other hand, most of the regulars have already emigrated to Mars, because “loitering on Earth potentially meant suddenly finding oneself classified as biologically unacceptable, a threat to the original heredity of the race. Once considered special, a citizen, even if he accepted sterilization, was removed from history. He has in fact ceased to be part of humanity. (PKD 16). As lesser members of society, specials "have ceased [...] even to be part of humanity" – according to Sims, "people may in fact be so biologically damaged that they are no longer considered as humans, but rather as part of a human subspecies. (Sims 1). Because they do not meet the standards demanded by society, they are stripped of their humanity and “excluded from history”; society considers them so insignificant that their existence is simply omitted from history. Furthermore, the specials cannot leave Earth in order to preserve the "intact heredity of the race" on Mars, where "all who are intelligent have [already] emigrated." (PDK6). In this way, society practices eugenics by purging the gene pool of inferior special individuals, retaining only the superior genes of those deemed worthy of remaining in human history. By combing through humans, society reveals a purity fetish that mirrors other purges in history, such as the Holocaust; millions of people from minority groups were eliminated from the population to make way for supposedly superior Aryans. Likewise, this society practices eugenics to get rid of the specials – a minority group – so that the regulars can begin a new chapter of human history on Mars without contamination from inferior genes. In either case, by avoiding those with undesirable traits, society demonstrates its fetish for purity. Furthermore, the social hierarchy, supposed to affirm the superiority of humans, is contradictory; while androids are avoided due to their supposed lack of empathy, specials are avoided due to their apparent intelligence deficiency. Another minority group facing discrimination, androids "surpassed several classes of special humans in terms of intelligence [by evolving] beyond a major – but inferior – segment of humanity [...] But new scales of success, for example the Voigt-Kampff empathy test had become a criterionallowing us to judge” (30). Since humans are grouped into "several classes [...] in terms of intelligence", intellect obviously has great importance to society. However, androids – even with their “pure intellectual capacity” – are excluded because they cannot pass an “empathy test”. Here, society displays its central hypocrisy: by privileging empathy over intellect, society effectively excludes androids; However, society also demonstrates an intrinsic preference for intellect over empathy by ranking and degrading specials based solely on intelligence, ignoring whatever empathic ability they may have. In this way, only "ordinary humans are at the top of the hierarchy and are not subject to any prejudice" (Sims 1), thus asserting their superiority over androids and specials and ensuring that the core of society is made up of biologically intelligent humans and not humans. another. However, as the distinguishing factors between android and human become increasingly difficult to find, any successful test becomes a "new ladder of success." Thus, “the human/android distinction […] turns out to be constructed rather than natural” (Vint 2), rendering any boundary between the two useless. Furthermore, the belief that empathy is exclusive to humans is refuted by society's hypocritical exclusion of minority groups, revealing another flaw in the social structure and ultimately undermining the superiority of humans. Deckard, the bounty hunter, ponders the boundaries between humans and androids, ultimately justifying the idea. distinction with the conclusion that "empathy, obviously, existed only within the human community [...] The empathic faculty probably required an intact group instinct [...] For, ultimately account, the empathetic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim” (PKD 31). By reserving empathy only for humans, society once again asserts its superiority over everything else. However, humans' so-called "intact group instinct" is clearly not widespread; if it were, society's pervasive discrimination against androids and specials would not have existed. Rather, empathy would have compelled humans to include androids, animals, and specials in the collective. Therefore, because humans do not seem to empathize, they do not meet their own standards of being human. Ironically, the bounty hunter who considers himself human reflects on how "the empathetic gift [that humans possess] has blurred the lines between hunter and victim" – yet he clearly represents the hunter, suggesting that his profession of removing the androids are inhumane and conflict with empathy. Additionally, there is a parallel between Deckard and an android: as a bounty hunter, Deckard works alone to track down and kill androids, which is eerily similar to how "the humanoid robot acted as a lone predator" (31 ). The similarities challenge the boundaries between human and android; Although humans are seen as social creatures with a strong emphasis on empathy and group collectiveness, Deckard actually works alone to kill the androids – the "lone predators" he seems to mirror. On top of this, Deckard further violates the idea of ​​empathetic humans when he objects to sharing his joy with others: "'They'll have our joy,' Rick said, 'but we'll lose.' We will exchange what we feel for what they feel. Our joy will be lost. » (174). Although Deckard clearly understands how empathy works – “we will exchange what we.