Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick II

“You’re too close,” Mercer said. “You have to be a long way off, the way the androids are. They have better perspective.” [p.214]

This passage reminds me of No Woman Born by Moore when Harris contemplates about who has the better view of Deirdre, himself who is too far, or Maltzer who is too close. In No Woman Born, Maltzer is unable to perceive Deirdre as anything other than a collection of metal. I thought that was not unlike how the androids can only perceive the outer appearance, the superficial level of Mercerism. What the androids do not get is the social power that Mercerism has through empathetic connections and it does not matter whether or not it is real. It is like how Maltzer could not conceptualize the fact that Deirdre can be perceived as something else by others because all he has seen is her in her metallic glory.

Or maybe the passage has more to do with one’s willingness to find such things. Being “close” representing emotional attachment, one could not find faults with the system of Mercerism because they refuse to acknowledge them unless they are spelled out. Humans cannot find such things as faults because they are experiencing what Mercer is first hand; they are too busy to climb up the hill and get hit by stone to look around the surrounding and notice something wrong with it. But as Androids are detached to the situation, being unable to connect through the empathy box, they can ascertain the situation at hand more accurately, because they are objective.