Okay so I’m getting started on this blog a little late and am really tried. But I really enjoyed reading Maus, it was a type of novel then I’ve ever read before. The idea of a graphic novel was not very exciting at the beginning, but the pictures added another aspect to the story. One thing I would like to explore in my essay is the fact that different races are displayed as different animals in the pictures. The metaphor of Jews as mice is taken directly from Nazi propaganda, which portrayed the Jews as a kind of vermin to be exterminated. This metaphor seems rather simplistic but I think there is a deeper meaning. The quote from the German newspaper article at the beginning of the book could also add to my essay, “Mickey Mouse is the most miserable ideal ever revealed...Healthy emotions tell every independent young man and every honorable youth that the dirty and filfth-covered vermin, the greatest bacteria carrier in the animal kingdom, cannot be the ideal type of animal...Away with Jewish brutalization of the people! Down with Mickey Mouse! Wear the Swastika Cross!” I think beyond the simple metaphor, the importance of race is evident when illustrating the life in World War II-era Poland. We see this struggle clearly in Valdek’s recount of his memories. When Art asks his father whether the man was really a German, Vladek replies, "who knows...it was German prisoners in there also...But for the Germans this guy was Jewish." I think most important of all, however, is the fact that Vladek (who survived the horrors of the Holocaust) is himself a racist.
So here is the start of my thesis:
In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, issues of race and class figure heavily in the plot, themes, and structure. Not only is this apparent in the grand scale of the Holocaust, but also through a metaphor graphically as Spiegelman tries to portray the issues of racism to the reader.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Goodbye Weekend :(
Can you imagine life without the internet? Having the internet as a resource has changed the way people of this world will function forever. We have become dependent on it in everyday activities and relied on it for school work and entertainment. I can remember back to the time we had dial up, where I would sit there for 10 minutes just waiting for one page to load. Now the internet is becoming more accessible and is growing to contain more and more information. Google is the most widely used way to access this seemingly infinite amount of information. At first seeing the title, Is Google Making Us Stupid I would have answered of course not. I mean how can having so much information at the tip of our fingertips make us stupid? I would think that it is only making our lives easier and actually improving the amount of knowledge we obtain cause we are constantly exposed.
Carr argues that the internet is shortening the attention span of users, “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text.” I guess I can agree with this idea.. But what about other means of technology? Television, radio, just any electronic is constantly giving us stimulus. We are always busy with something and so when we sit down to read a book of course we are going to have a short attention span. Google is not the only thing shortening our attention span, but I do believe it is training us to discover information in a specific way. Carr hits on this saying, “And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” Although this maybe true, I don’t think I would want to go back to the days of researching through books in the library. Our world moves so fast pace that we need something like the internet that can search, analyze, and summarize information.
Carr argues that the internet is shortening the attention span of users, “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text.” I guess I can agree with this idea.. But what about other means of technology? Television, radio, just any electronic is constantly giving us stimulus. We are always busy with something and so when we sit down to read a book of course we are going to have a short attention span. Google is not the only thing shortening our attention span, but I do believe it is training us to discover information in a specific way. Carr hits on this saying, “And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.” Although this maybe true, I don’t think I would want to go back to the days of researching through books in the library. Our world moves so fast pace that we need something like the internet that can search, analyze, and summarize information.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Done
Okay so I really don’t know which topic to write about so I might be a little unorganized. The video we watched on Friday was pretty crazy to think about. It listed a number of statistics, including one of my favorites, “by the year 2049 there will be a $1,000 computer that will exceed the knowledge of the whole entire human race”. So this brings up the questions, why do we need all this technology? What does it mean to our lives.. and the lives of future generations?
This can be explained by the idea that we have started a new era, an era of post-postmodernism. But does this mean were headed towards a world described in 1984 and Brave New World? I sure hope not. According to Dr. Alan Kirby this new era is called Pseudo-modernism. His article states that, “In postmodernism, one read, watched, listened, as before. In pseudo-modernism one phones, clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves, downloads”. The lifestyle of Americans has changed drastically. It has evolved into a technologically centered world, and now everyone is pretty much dependent on electronics. I mean I know for me I could survive without my computer, phone, and internet. But I definitely wouldn’t want to. The amount of information and stimulus we receive is almost overwhelming. Dr. Kirby talks about how this shift in our culture, “I believe there is more to this shift than a simple change in cultural fashion. The terms by which authority, knowledge, selfhood, reality and time are conceived have been altered, suddenly and forever”.
I’m not sure if this progression is good for society, especially if were going to end up in a Brave New World state. But overall I think the growth of technology is inevitable. No one is going to be able to stop the research and development of new things so we have to continue to adapt and change culture.
This can be explained by the idea that we have started a new era, an era of post-postmodernism. But does this mean were headed towards a world described in 1984 and Brave New World? I sure hope not. According to Dr. Alan Kirby this new era is called Pseudo-modernism. His article states that, “In postmodernism, one read, watched, listened, as before. In pseudo-modernism one phones, clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves, downloads”. The lifestyle of Americans has changed drastically. It has evolved into a technologically centered world, and now everyone is pretty much dependent on electronics. I mean I know for me I could survive without my computer, phone, and internet. But I definitely wouldn’t want to. The amount of information and stimulus we receive is almost overwhelming. Dr. Kirby talks about how this shift in our culture, “I believe there is more to this shift than a simple change in cultural fashion. The terms by which authority, knowledge, selfhood, reality and time are conceived have been altered, suddenly and forever”.
I’m not sure if this progression is good for society, especially if were going to end up in a Brave New World state. But overall I think the growth of technology is inevitable. No one is going to be able to stop the research and development of new things so we have to continue to adapt and change culture.
Monday, November 2, 2009
I always spell Cradle wrong
So far I think Cat’s Cradle seems to be a very interesting book, different from that of 1984 and Brave New World. Both of the other books we have read describe a futuristic society noticeably different from our world today. Cat’s Cradle however seems to be written closely after the atomic bombs being dropped, and has a viewpoint into the past.
Despite a different setting, Cat’s Cradle still exhibits many postmodernist themes and views. One thing that quickly caught my attention was the idea that people are arranged into different social groups, which in Cat’s Cradle is called a Karass. The author says, “We bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a Karass..." This goes along with the idea that we join a group or faction based on who we are most alike and feel comfortable with.
Also, the part I found most important, was Dr. Hoenikker's phrase towards the end of chapter six, which he follows his invention of the atomic bomb with "Science now knows sin," and then goes on to ask "what is sin?" Hoenikker seems to have no moral concerns, and shows a lack of interest in the reason for why he is doing it. They go onto explain that he was allowed to do pure research, “We’re on the few companies that actually hires men to do pure research.. men are paid to increase, to work toward no end but that.” This is a very postmodernist idea and goes along with the thought that science does not unravel a universal truth, but is just part of narratives. Overall, Cat’s Cradle shows a lot of postmodernist ideas and I am looking forward to reading more.
Despite a different setting, Cat’s Cradle still exhibits many postmodernist themes and views. One thing that quickly caught my attention was the idea that people are arranged into different social groups, which in Cat’s Cradle is called a Karass. The author says, “We bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a Karass..." This goes along with the idea that we join a group or faction based on who we are most alike and feel comfortable with.
Also, the part I found most important, was Dr. Hoenikker's phrase towards the end of chapter six, which he follows his invention of the atomic bomb with "Science now knows sin," and then goes on to ask "what is sin?" Hoenikker seems to have no moral concerns, and shows a lack of interest in the reason for why he is doing it. They go onto explain that he was allowed to do pure research, “We’re on the few companies that actually hires men to do pure research.. men are paid to increase, to work toward no end but that.” This is a very postmodernist idea and goes along with the thought that science does not unravel a universal truth, but is just part of narratives. Overall, Cat’s Cradle shows a lot of postmodernist ideas and I am looking forward to reading more.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
The New World's Characters
Okay so this week we’re supposed to write our blogs on ideas for our thesis for Brave New World. The more and more I thought about what I wanted to write about the more I got writers block.. Go figure. But anyways I think usually we are assigned a specific prompt centered on one idea. The teacher usually does all the thinking and limits us to one topic, guiding us to what we should write about. Even if we do not like the chosen topic, it at least provides some direction for our writing.
So after thinking about all the things I could incorporate in my essay for Brave New World, the subject I kept coming back to was the characters. The characters are what make Brave New World so interesting and different from our world today. I mean babies are being manufactured on an assembly line, people are more worried about productivity then individuality, and then most children spend their childhood being conditioned. The question I kept asking myself was, “how could Aldous Huxley come up with these characters in 1931?”. Even our world today, in my opinion, is not as corrupt and messed up as the world described by Huxley. How Huxley imagined this “Brave New World”, a dystopia, with characters so vivid and varied seems like an interesting topic to explore.
Reading the information form Dartmouth’s Writing Program provide a lot of help. They’re information about the “Thesis” provided for a clear understanding of how important it is for writing an essay, “And with good reason: the thesis sentence is typically that ONE sentence in the paper that asserts, controls, and structures the entire argument.”
So here’s my thesis statement.. It could definitely be improved and more specific but I have still not read the entire book yet.
In Huxley’s Brave New World, despite the character’s conditioning and impulses toward uniformity, there is something profoundly human about them.
So after thinking about all the things I could incorporate in my essay for Brave New World, the subject I kept coming back to was the characters. The characters are what make Brave New World so interesting and different from our world today. I mean babies are being manufactured on an assembly line, people are more worried about productivity then individuality, and then most children spend their childhood being conditioned. The question I kept asking myself was, “how could Aldous Huxley come up with these characters in 1931?”. Even our world today, in my opinion, is not as corrupt and messed up as the world described by Huxley. How Huxley imagined this “Brave New World”, a dystopia, with characters so vivid and varied seems like an interesting topic to explore.
Reading the information form Dartmouth’s Writing Program provide a lot of help. They’re information about the “Thesis” provided for a clear understanding of how important it is for writing an essay, “And with good reason: the thesis sentence is typically that ONE sentence in the paper that asserts, controls, and structures the entire argument.”
So here’s my thesis statement.. It could definitely be improved and more specific but I have still not read the entire book yet.
In Huxley’s Brave New World, despite the character’s conditioning and impulses toward uniformity, there is something profoundly human about them.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Story of My Life
So I would like to start off by saying Postmodernism for Beginners is not doing much for me. I mean you would think something that is supposedly supposed to be for “beginners” would be relatively simple and easy to read, but I constantly find myself confused or lost. But as it is obliviously these Postmodernism ideas are pretty advanced and complicated so they are interesting to learn about.
Usually when we hear myth or legend we think of a fictitious story, maybe something to do with tradition, that concerns some hero or even. In reality though, these myths can be describing a true event, and be used as an oral history, to tell how something has happened.. To explain history. Postmodernism talks about the idea of “Grand Narratives”. Lyotard claims a Grand Narrative is composed of numerous little stories instead of just one big one. This is an abstract idea that is thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. As Lyotard says, “'and not one of these little stories can dominate or explain the rest”. Basically, what were talking about is a story about a story, bringing it altogether to create a bigger picture.
Having a grand narrative like this can lead to a dystopia like that in 1984 and A Brave New World. Especially if its power ends up in the corrupt hands of the wrong people or government. A good example of the results in a Brave New World would be how scared the people are of the idea of Mothers and Fathers, or even having a child. Another thing I found interesting while reading this week was the idea of the savages and what is said of them, “[They] still preserve their repulsive habits and customs… marriage, families no conditioning, monstrous superstitions… Christianity and totemism and ancestor worship.. extinct languages..” These “savages” are how we live today.
Usually when we hear myth or legend we think of a fictitious story, maybe something to do with tradition, that concerns some hero or even. In reality though, these myths can be describing a true event, and be used as an oral history, to tell how something has happened.. To explain history. Postmodernism talks about the idea of “Grand Narratives”. Lyotard claims a Grand Narrative is composed of numerous little stories instead of just one big one. This is an abstract idea that is thought to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. As Lyotard says, “'and not one of these little stories can dominate or explain the rest”. Basically, what were talking about is a story about a story, bringing it altogether to create a bigger picture.
Having a grand narrative like this can lead to a dystopia like that in 1984 and A Brave New World. Especially if its power ends up in the corrupt hands of the wrong people or government. A good example of the results in a Brave New World would be how scared the people are of the idea of Mothers and Fathers, or even having a child. Another thing I found interesting while reading this week was the idea of the savages and what is said of them, “[They] still preserve their repulsive habits and customs… marriage, families no conditioning, monstrous superstitions… Christianity and totemism and ancestor worship.. extinct languages..” These “savages” are how we live today.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
I'm not good with Titles
Brave New World is like nothing I’ve ever read before. It is hard for me to comprehend what living under the extreme circumstances described in the book would really be like. I mean it is even more sick and twisted than the world we live in today. Also, the sudden shift in points of view, or the quick jumps from idea to idea on every line made the book confusing and hard to read.
One thing I would like to talk about is how life is taken for granted. Not really that it is taken for granted so much, but really how a person’s individuality is of no importance at all. Sure, it talks about how people are identified in groups, “Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines! You really know where you are. For the first time in history. Community, Identity, Stability.” In the novel, people are mass produced on an assembly line and then biologically engineered to have characteristics predestined by the government. Really, the government might as well just create robots to do jobs around the world. The entire process of an assembly line creating people, a life without family or personal choice completely goes against my beliefs. I believe that everyone is made in God’s image. In Genesis 1:27 the bible says, “So God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. It is not any human’s job to control life in the way described in the book. Life should be something special, something that comes from a man and a woman. Increased productivity is supposedly the reason the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre controls life the way they do? In reality I think all the process does is takes away the meaning of life. Having a world where humans can’t really think or make decisions for themselves because of “hypnopaedia” is completely unrealistic and wrong. Teaching moral education this way is corrupting and unethical.
So basically I think this book is pretty much crazy and has some views I think couldn’t (well definitely shouldn’t) ever happen. The controversial ideas provide a lot to write about, and I actually find it pretty easy. I’m looking forward to continuing reading and discussing the rest of this Brave New World.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Knowlege is Power
Joseph Stalin stated, “Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” Many people say “knowledge is power” so therefore education is powerful. With such a universal tool as education a commonly debated question is what should be taught in our schools. Our government is constantly being manipulated and changed to fit the standards of what our board of education believes we should learn. But should our government really be deciding what we learn?
As we see in 1984, government control of history is an incredibly terrifying idea. Aside from memories, humans only have knowledge of information they are taught; whether it’s through teachers or printed material. The Party is able to keep the population brainwashed through the idea, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past. Although our government is supposed to be a representation of the people, it is easy to believe that a politician can become corrupt or bias and influence our education in a negative manner. Also, it is impracticable to believe everyone is going to agree on the information that should be taught. A good example of this is the Wall Street Journal article we read in class which talked about, “emphasizing the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. There is no doubt that the Christian faith influenced our constitution and development of our country, however it may not be included in education because it may offend some people’s beliefs. This is wrong; history should include the facts, even if it deals with a religious or controversial subject. But not every fact can be included, and therefore people will argue on which facts are most important.
This leads to the thought that no matter what curriculum is decided to be taught in schools, all curriculum should be taught in a way that is objective as possible. However, it is extremely difficult to be objective when teaching about certain subjects. Everyone holds a personal opinion about a subject and naturally their view impacts the way they teach. A good example of this would be government teachers. Most likely by the end of the school year you will be able to recognize whether your teacher is a republican or democrat.
Education will continue to be a controversial subject because as Stalin said it is powerful. Everyone is a student at one time, making the curriculum taught extremely influential. It is important that both the information and teachers stay as objective as possible.
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