M. T Anderson Feed Essay

M.T Anderson’s novel Feed gives readers a representation of a future dystopian world, one in which technology is not simply around us yet embedded inside our heads. Anderson gives a warning for our own society by drawing parallels between our society and the feed. As Anderson describes, "Everything's dead. Everything's dying." (Anderson 180). In this dystopian world, the environment turns into a disaster due to how rapidly technology is advancing, and this concept can relate to our society today. Indeed, society’s life has improved over the decades due to technological advances, however, it brings more damage to the earth.

Humans no longer have any real connection with nature, even the food that they consume. This is represented in the Feed,

when Titus and Violet visit a “filet mignon farm” (Anderson 142). A farm that has no domesticated animals but instead has plantations filled with synthetic meat. Later, Titus describes some parts of the farm having a “genetic coding gone wrong” (Anderson 114) which demonstrates how much unsafe and unhealthy technology can be with regards to cloning meat. The feed has eliminated natural components of the modern world. In our society today, meat has originated from animals rather than it being falsely made. However, recent articles like The Conversation, has demonstrated that within five to ten years meat will be developed in a laboratory rather than a farm.
The feed has caused the environment to collapse.

Society does not appear to be worried about how nature has vanished. Recently, most humans are only worried about the development in technology and how it benefits them. The world of the feed has become so consumed in their precious technology that oxygen factores need to produce artificial air. For example, when Violet was having a conversation with Titus father on how Jefferson Park was being destroyed to create oxygen factors, Titus father says, “it’s inefficient to have trees next to an air factory” (Anderson 125). Ironically, trees produce oxygen, yet humans are destroying trees to build oxygen factories. Trees clean the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing the oxygen that living creatures breathe in. Ever since humans learned how to utilize an a hatchet, humans constantly cut down trees without seeing the impact it has on the earth and our society. Moreover, due to society’s overpopulation humans utilize the advancement of technology to replace forests with numerous factories and skyscrapers. As Titus father describes, the trees are “nice, and it’s too bad, but like...Do you know how much real estate costs?” (Anderson 125). The earth has slowly deteriorated due to mankind abusing natural resources and transforming them into our everyday

use.
In the world of the feed, humans can no longer reproduce without any type of technological assistance.

The atmosphere remains contaminated with radiation, that humans are not permitted to reproduce children through sexual intercourse. Genes are no longer needed to reproduce a child. As a result of this, individuals are able to control the outcome of their children. As Titus’s mother describes to the geneticists when she went to the conceptionarium, “we want him with my nose and his dad’s eyes, and for the rest, we have this picture of DelGlacely Murdoch” (Anderson 116). Modern society today has different methods for having kids, through surrogates or embryos. However, technology has not reached the point where we can tell a geneticists how we want our children to look

like.
Technology, as Anderson describes, has become an “end of civilization.” Either in the world of the feed or in real life, technology has isolated humans from associating with nature. As a result, humans have become consumers instead of being the receiver. Most humans have a tendency to give back to the environment as a result of their selfish technological needs. Society needs to change their ways before nature completely disappears. Or society’s future depends on a sustainable development, where humans preserve the earth and respect all the resources it provides for us. Eventually, the worldwide populace will realize the annihilation of nature until it will be irreversible.