The Caves of Steel

“The troubles of modern life come from being divorced from nature.”

Enderby argues the central Medievalist point, that mankind’s suffering originates from losing touch with its roots. Isaac Asimov sets up the central theme of Tradition Versus Technology in this moment.

“The City was the acme of efficiency, but it made demands of its inhabitants. It asked them to live in a tight routine and order their lives under a strict and scientific control. Occasionally, built-up inhibitions exploded.

He remembered the Barrier Riots.

Reasons for anti-robot rioting certainly existed. Men who found themselves faced with the prospect of the desperate minimum involved in declassification, after half a lifetime of effort, could not decide cold-bloodedly that individual robots were not to blame. Individual robots could at least be struck at.”

This early passage shows the escalating tensions between the Medievalists and the Spacers. Lije knows how quickly the crowd could turn into a riot. Asimov uses the incident at the shoe counter and the anecdote about the Barrier Riots to scaffold the themes of Tradition Versus Technology and The Core Difference Between Robots and Humans.

“The division between human and robot is perhaps not as significant as that between intelligence and nonintelligence.”

After the incident at the shoe counter, Daneel argues that the separation between the human and the robot is not that significant. This quote underscores the theme of The Core Difference Between Robots and Humans.