The Last of the Masters
The primary theme of the story is the conflict between anarchism and statism, the political and ethical dimensions of which are explored through the characters' dialogue.
The title character, Bors, a 200-year-old "government integration robot"—and the last in existence—awakens after a routine maintenance check to learn that his motor system is in a state of decline.
An artificially intelligent machine who displays a degree of emotion and even psychological complexity, he is informed by Fowler, a personal mechanic, that his body has begun to break down due to age.
His legs no longer work, his motor system will be irreparable in a matter of months, and full paralysis will take place in under a year.
Within them, he stores the last records of advanced science and technology, which he uses to guide his society at high efficiency as a benevolent dictator, operating according to utilitarian principles.
"[2] Bors is immediately established as an utterly necessary figure in his society and is quickly escorted back into service as the leader of the government by Fowler.
A personal assistant as well as mechanic to Bors, Fowler maintains a pretension of loyalty to the robot, but privately recognizes that his society is stagnant and that its leader is becoming mentally unbalanced.
He is contrasted with Peter Green, a genuinely loyal assistant to the robot, who is among the few humans trusted to oversee his body while it is unconscious for repair.
Fairfax is littered with ancient, decaying gadgets; the last remnants of the era of governments and high tech society, which none of the locals know how to fix or reproduce.
After France exists for a month free of government, millions join the by then explicitly anarchist movement to disarm the nuclear powers.
These events result in the setting of the story; a world full of anachronistic high-technology, interspersed in a pre-industrialized, agrarian culture.
Fearing that the agent will alert the world to their existence, he initiates plans for a war economy and decides to question Silvia in her hospital room.
The exact date Philip K. Dick wrote "The Last of the Masters" is unknown, but the original manuscript of the novelette was received by the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on July 15, 1953.
While celebrating several stories in the collection, and proclaiming to readers the "categorical imperative" of buying a copy, he nonetheless derided most of its contents as "turkeys", citing specifically "The Last of the Masters" as an example.
Referring to the story as "a hyperkinetic foray into hairy-chested-style hugger-mugger", Disch also mocked its "action-packed denouement" involving Edward Tolby as an example of "bogus machismo".
[9] In her 1982 review of the Golden Man collection, Hazel Pierce lauded the sophistication of the story, summarizing the theme of "The Last of the Masters" as an examination of "the paradoxical cast of human existence.
"[10] In his 1980 commentary on the story, Dick also suggested that his reasoning for making Bors sympathetic was a result of a form of trust he advanced towards robots, as opposed to androids.
Palmer proposed that Dick often created post-apocalyptic scenarios of ruined worlds which held high tech gadgets in an attempt to present a view of postmodern materialism.
Common to many of Dick's short stories were settings in which the outgrowth of modernity is a world where that which is natural is in ruin, and what is artificial is reshaped through science into a fantastically high tech form.
Palmer contended that these shared themes were "...not simply the expression of dystopian malaise, or of Luddism treacherously taking up residence in popular SF...
"[14] Suggesting that many of the philosophical and political underpinnings of the author's short stories stemmed from his views on domestic life, Palmer's focus turned to Dick's common use of sterility as a metaphor.
As Palmer noted of "The Last of the Masters", Bors can be interpreted as a symbol of infertility: "It is not clear why he does not replicate himself, or educate his human servants: it is simply a given that he is sterile.
"[15] Following an inspection of other short stories with similar references to sterility, Palmer asserts that Dick's work presented a social and existential protest.
"...it always seemed to him [Philip K. Dick] that his career was a catalogue of undeserved disappointments and the record of his published work a travesty of his true ambitions."
The personal problems which Dick struggled throughout his life provided fuel for several of the anxiety driven themes for his short stories.
These included paranoid suspicions; the dangerous hostility of "seemingly innocent entities"; and "the mechanization of the environment and the computerization of political decision-making".
In particular, Barlow compared many of the philosophical underpinnings of Neoconservatism, and its rise to prominence during the George W. Bush administration, to the philosophy of Philip K. Dick.
"[18] In his dissection of Dick's work, Barlow compared several stories in which normal humans lose some form of liberty in their society to an elite group.
In the latter story, Barlow asserts that Dick surprisingly agreed with such neoconservative theorists as Leo Strauss in the efficacy of the deception.
"[25] In a commentary made for the 1980 anthology, The Golden Man, Philip K. Dick briefly touched on several themes of the story, including the Christian allegory of the "suffering servant", manifested in the character of Bors.
