Maus

Hmmm... what to write about Maus? There is so much to be considered, even more so than a regular essay. Instead of trying to divine the purpose of comma placement, we all must try to gleam meaning from the art that make up the work. To focus on the word and quotes alone would be impractical since so much of the meaning lies in the comic itself. How am I going to quote a picture, though? a scanning printer may be required for this essay...
I find the pictures to be the most engaging point of this text. I will probably try to discern the true meaning in the symbolic nature of the novel , or whatnot. What part does nationality play in relation to religion, and even to identity? I'm not sure yet but I'm quite certain that it will come to me at 11:00 the eve before the essay is due. I also want to delve into the point of view of the storytelling in Maus. Because he cannot rely on any interpretation but his own, I think the author tried to emphasize that. It is not the be all and end all of Holocaust stories- just a single account retold again. The self aware nature of the novel also intrigued me. Why would you write a comic book about writing a comic book on the subject of the Holocaust? Of course, that round about reasoning seems to be a favorite of Post Modernism. I think that the visual aspect of the novel, like the architecture we looked at brings a new dimension to everything. You can look at one thing, see it the same way as everybody else, and still impose unique meaning on it. Words are a little more abstract- an apple can be imagined to look a thousand different ways- especially if it is left out for a while. When you see a picture, that's all there is to it. I will have to think on this some more.

Freedom of Thought

This society is pumping out more and more information to be consumed by the general population. Search engines make all answers a click away; even the deepest philosophical questions are addressed. Now, whenever any sort of information is needed, people can follow the discoveries of others to get their answers. This is a wonderful advancement for society, but it does have some minor side-effects. It’s amazing that there is so much access to the world around us. Societal bonds are broken down by the streams of internet processing, and people are more connected than ever before. It really is a virtual world within our own, destroying boundaries with the comfort of complete anonymity. However, this ease has the tendency to make people lazy or even lethargic in their thought processes. When all the answers are there waiting for you, why think about it for yourself? Instead of trying to explore and discover, Google it for fast and easy answers. What we have learned from Postmodernism, though, is that all retellings of a story are biased through the person telling it. So, when we rely on other’s accounts we are accepting their personal reality as a substitute for our own intuition. Our own thought process has been undermined by unconditionally accepting the biased truth of another. Perhaps Carr is right, “The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the “one best method”—the perfect algorithm—to carry out every mental movement of what we’ve come to describe as ‘knowledge work’.” It may be streamlining the thought process, but it requires the internet surfer to abdicate any and all personal truths in favor of the truths accepted by strangers. In the future our thought process may be limited to only what we can find on Google.

What does it all mean?

So What Does It All Mean? This question was asked by the video we saw in class after it bombarded us with a slew of statistics meant to astonish us with our insignificance in this rapidly growing world. So much of the world is digitalized and the exponential population growth is contributing to the future users of technology. Our world today barely resembles that of any of the past societies, but is that really a bad thing. The technologies that we marvel at today are no more astonishing to us as electricity and paper was to past generations. We marvel at these technological strides because they are so much more advanced, but we forget to put earlier inventions into context. What we are doing is not at all fundamentally different than what our predecessors were achieving. We are just pushing the boundaries of known science in the same way that Thomas Edison was, and we will continue to do so. The mass of knowledge that is being generated by these technological advances are on the same exponential growth curve that they began with. Sure, The New York Times may give us more information in a day than early man every got in a life time- but the information has just become more accessible. The questions and answers were all there before, but not easy to get too or rely on. Besides, it seems half of the information is tabloid dribble anyway. Yes, there are more people, but we aren’t really doing anything new. We are all just living, reproducing, inventing, and dying. This is nothing new to the human race, although we are doing it on a larger scale. We are just doing the usual, even if the society seems to have ‘evolved’. So, what does it all mean? Nothing much.

Cat's Cradle

There has always been an attempt to make understanding out of the world, to give meanings to things which may or may not in fact have meaning. In science, this has evolved into an ‘art’ called reductionism. Reductionism comes from breaking down things into smaller and smaller parts in order to find something that gives sense to everything that has been broken down. However, this is a never-ending process, because there is always more and more and more to be broken down into. This is the metaphor provided by cat’s cradle as well. No matter how many steps you take in order to break something down, there is always more. The same repetitive motions are taken over and over again, with no outcome at all. The only way to ‘win’ the game is to never start playing it. Postmodernism identifies the lack of meaning in these repetitive motions because all they do is set up the next stage of repetitive motions. The questions asked are meaningless if there are no answers, and as the book said, “such investigations are bound to be incomplete,” (4). Although there is no meaning in the answer, there is meaning in the process. By going through these repetitive motions, happiness can be achieved. The problems arise when people are more focused on the answer than the process of going towards it. Vonnegut states that, “Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either,” (6). Again, the process of belief gives happiness and comfort to whomever it involves whether it is true or not. Postmodernism suggests that we can never know any absolute truths for certain, if there are any absolute truths at all. But, simple belief is not a bad thing if it gives vindications to its believers.

An attempt at free writing

There is just sooooo much to talk about in Brave New World, that I don’t even know where to start- but I will try anyway. There are three major themes that I would love to explore about this novel: the definition of humanity versus the definition of a machine, the concept of happiness (whether it is its own emotion or just the lack of unhappiness), and the comparison between 1984 and Brave New World’s attempt to control the population by omitting certain emotions (one omits happiness and one omits unhappiness- is either better than the other). Taking a hint from the ‘Coming up with your topic’ section, I realize that these might be too broad for a single paper unless I am extremely careful about the structure of the essay. Dang, I just thought of another topic- the idea of science as a religion. Well, this will be difficult. I want to use the postmodernism text as a resource for any of my scientific discussions, I especially want to add the idea of, “the role of the state will weaken,” due to the scientific search for knowledge, (23). I also want to use the criticisms of David Pearce who wrote an article about engineering paradise and the moral implications of it. I now realize that to get this into a single thesis sentence may be impossible, but the article on the website said that it could be a few different sentences that all tie together.
Perhaps something like this:
Where is the line between humanity and machines? When the human emotions get watered down and the apathy consumes an entire society, new dogmas can arise to worship efficiency and perfection- two things that do not define humanity.
Or maybe not, I will have to mull over this for a while.

Knowlege!

Nobody likes to admit that they don’t know something, whether it is a scientific fact or a simple definition. In order to feel secure about the world we all live in, some people try to explain every little thing as if it gives them some sort ultimate of control over their lives. The statement ‘knowledge is power’ is taken far too literally, because knowledge only makes us aware of things we have no power over.There is this misconception that knowing something will give us an upper hand on it. Whoa gee, dogs only see in black and white- and there is nothing I can do about it. For the most part, we can’t control the processes of nature or even begin to comprehend why it all works the way it does. Science is a big believer in the power of knowledge, and tries at every turn to explain what is unknown. Everything has to be quantifiable in some way, or have some sort of pattern that allows it to fit in the ‘real’ world. But how useful is the knowledge really? Just knowing how something happens only beckons more questions- infuriating Science even more. The average person does not benefit from learning about the octet rule. I can’t force my atoms to want a full outer shell, or have any real control in the process at all. Even things such as emotions, which are instinctually understood, have to be explained through chemical processes. The major flaw is that Science in all ways must be rational, while human beings are not. Pure science does not exist because there are always human motives behind it, motives that cannot necessarily be explained by Science alone. Science gives facts, but humans provide the understanding- therefore tainting it merely by interpretation. Even Lyotard said, “Scientific knowledge is not the only kind of knowledge.”
Yes, knowledge is very cool, but it is only a mechanism in the bigger process of understanding. Science, superstition, intuition, all play a role in sculpting human understanding. Only through understanding can we use any of these mechanisms to better comprehend anything. Because Understanding is not purely scientific or intuitive, it must make use of all the mini-narratives in order to manifest and not rely solely on one meta-narrative.
So, memorize all the facts that you can, but there is no power gained through the act alone. You may know how many ridges there are on a dime (118) or be able to calculate the circumference of the Earth (40, 074.02 km), but the myth that knowledge begets power is still just a myth.p.s. here’s a cool website of random facts, because I still think they’re coolhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bingbin/

Brave new World

Brave New Familiar World

Okay, since when did authors become psychic? The self-centered pleasure-obsessed society in Brave New World is eerily similar to our own with regards to technology and social attitudes. The lack of regard for what is ‘right’ is paralleled by the love of what is ‘easiest’.
The bio-technologies that are described in the beginning of the novel are terrifying, if only because they are possible. Manipulating genes in unborn children has been a hot topic of discussion in biology for quite some time. In one aspect, genetic diseases could be eradicated before the children fully develop, but this also opens up the market for ‘designer genes’- allowing parents to choose the sex, eye-color, and other physical aspects of their child. Children would be subject to the same fashion fads that clothes go through seasonally. This technology could seem ‘cool’ at first, but is it ethical? Would it be right to change the genetic makeup of a child to conform to fads instead of leaving it up to nature? The people in Brave New World valued conformity all too much and overestimated their power, “What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder."
Even the mind-set of the population in Brave New World is familiar to our society today. People tend to have a preconceived notion that we deserve to have ultimate happiness. The people were obsessed with finding ecstasy, whether it is through the drugs they were constantly popping or the sexual promiscuity they enjoyed. All semblance of integrity was missing in personal aspects and family aspects. Those citizens did not respect themselves as individuals with individual rights, “everybody belongs to everyone else.” There is no single personality in that society, and the individual is disappearing even now where people find conformity more appealing that uniqueness. The nuclear family is even suffering, where marriages are failing at higher and higher percentages. In Brave New World the nuclear family has ceased to exist at all in favor of a system that strips all responsibility from procreation, where nobody has a family identity at all.

My thoughts on discourse

There is a shift occurring in today’s society: differing opinions are more abundant than ever, the definition of language is beginning to shift radically, and the melting pot of ideals and beliefs is beginning to boil over. Of course, who says that this is a bad thing? Our exposure to new cultures gives us wonderful opportunities to explore and the foundations of tradition continue to offer support when we need it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the treatment of the English language and the many discourses it supports.
All discourses are appropriate if used in the proper context, though it is often difficult to interchange them. For example, Slang and Proper English have always been at war, (Slang: “Take that, yo!”--- Proper English: “Please receive this unpleasant beating, sir!”), but both ultimately get the same meaning across. The whole point of language is to be able to express an idea in a verbal or written form, leaving it as an invaluable tool in our society. Therefore, as long as you can be understood in the manner you want to be- there is really no wrong way to use language. (I skimmed this website and I thought it was pretty informative: http://www.jacweb.org/Archived_volumes/Text_articles/V13_I2_Beaugrande.htm)
Recently there has been talk of catering to the different discourses, making tests according to the popular discourse in a given area and turning away from standard academic discourses. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, if no discourse is wrong, why shouldn’t we cater to the other prominent discourses in our society and give the minor languages a chance. But, would it then be fair to send these kids to college only aware of a non-academic discourse? Would we then be required to make college classes in a variety of discourses for those students? How would any student then take to the work world after he or she has only been exposed to one section of the English language? Language has the power to bring people together, but it can also cause severe rifts in society. People automatically assume that their discourse is the ‘right’ or ‘best’ one, and by separating these discourses instead of allowing them to mix would possibly cause more prejudice in language. Just like in Brave New World , people would be placed into special distinctions almost from birth without the ability to learn to correspond with the other discourses. On the other hand, we risk the complete orthodoxy of 1984 if we only accept one overall discourse.
Ultimately, our society requires that we have to move in and out of these discourses in order to coexist with one another. There is no ‘wrong’ discourse but there is no universally ‘right’ one either, meaning everybody has to be open to new ways of effectively communicating.