‘Black Mirror’ Study Guide: Men Against Fire

This episode: technology makes dehumanization easier because it can act as an intermediary, controlling what we see, how we see it, and also: us.

‘Black Mirror’ is a satirical anthology series that examines the dark aspects of modern society, particularly as it relates to our relationship with technology. Each standalone episode presents a picture of a world that’s futuristic, yet believable; cool, yet horrifying. Each of these study guides will touch on some of the themes the episode explores.

Empathy and the Shield of Technology

As humans, one of our defining traits is empathy. Whereas sympathy is “thoughts and prayers”, empathy is “I’m sorry for your loss, I lost x person for y reason, too.” Some of us have more of it, some less, and the converse to empathy is dehumanization. Dehumanization is often how injustices are glossed over. We’re more likely to feel empathy with somebody we can identify with than we are somebody who is different, and one of the quickest ways to make somebody different is to make them less human.

Unfortunately, this is something that happens, most often as a way to justify an action (or inaction). On top of that, because modern technology often presents people to us as an avatar on a screen, dehumanization becomes far too easy. In “Men Against Fire”, we follow a soldier, Stripe, as he discovers the true nature of the war he’s fighting and the enemy he’s tasked with killing. The enemy, he’s told, is the “roaches”, sub-human beings endangering civilization. Stripe eventually discovers that these “roaches” are as human as he is and that they’ve been marked for death because of Eugenics.

We See What Technology Allows Us To See

After Stripe’s sudden disillusionment, we learn that he saw the “roaches” because of the MASS implant soldiers have. That implant allows visual information to be communicated in real-time, among other things, and also presents “enemies” as mutant-like beasts and…