postmodern and cats cradle

According to Lyotard, modern life could be described as "all the world's cultures, rituals, races, databanks, myths and musical motifs are intermixing like a smorgasbord in an earthquake." Postmodernists seem to take belief in that there is no central truth and that there is a beauty in all the chaos and different lifestyles. The prople or world are driven on the idea that there is a central truth or meaning that they are trying to figure out, when really there is no such thing. With the postmodernists arguing that holding or reaching a central truth would destroy all ultimate happiness, and possibly destroy humanity. In the beginning of the story, Vonnegut claims that nothing in the book is true, rather it is a bunch of "foma" (lies). In the book Vonnegut creates a religion called "Bokononism" which is just another lie but makes all the people and follwers of the religion think. It was simply another lie to make the people think and become distracted with their meaningless lives and to keep them on the search for the central truth. Toward the end of the novel a character would start to ask "See the cat? See the cradle?" What he is really meaning is that you play the game but you never see the cat nor the cradle because its just a game that is a lie which never ends. Keeping the player distracted and off target of trying to reach the end of the game.

Brave New Wolrd

After reading the novel Brave New World, i have learned that there are so many different topics that someone can use to write about. One i would like to take note of is the individuality of Bernard from everyone else in the society. He doesnt think or act like anyone else which you are suppose to do. A person such as Bernard, who is acts the way he does is not considered "normal." But what is normal in their society? I would like to  bring in a text, an article from Postmn Technopoly, which in the article what he is trying to say is that the technological advansments in our society are occurring and happening at a supersonic speed. This can be compared with Brave New World because the advancement in technology in the novel allowed the ruler and higher people of society to control the citizens and make them believe what they wanted them to believe which is the main objective of the novel. They are also able to manipulate the morals and norms of the citizens of the society. They try and do this to try and make the people who they want them to be, not giving the people their rights or individuality because everyone is the same as everyone else. I would also consider using The Tempest to help write the essay becuase of the connections between the two books. Caliban, who is considered a saveage, is mistreated by new people who have never seen anything like him. But when the John, the savage in BNW, enters Bernard's society, he feels out of place and feels he is not treated as he should be. But that is because niether of them are like the people around them or the people that they have met. I could probably use something from 1984 also and the talk about the way the two seperate societies try to manipulate and control their citizens.
   

Video

After watching the RSA video I would like to make a couple comparisions with it to Brave New World. First off i noticed the parallel between the drugs Ritalin which are given to kids with ADHD and soma which the charatcers take in the novel. Ritalin is a drug that is given to children who have ADHD which does not allow them to focus very much in the classroom. In Brave New World soma is a pill that is provided to everyone in their society and is encouraged to be taken. It is a pill that allows you to escape from reality and take a "holiday" sort to say. When the kids can not focus the doctors proscribe drugs such as Ritalin whcih helps keep the kids attention focused on school and what they are suppose to be learning. When something is wrong they just give them a pill to fix it. This draws and exact parallel to Brave New World in which the people of the society are provided with soma. "And if anything should go wrong, there's soma." (16). In Bernard Marx's society and the world that he lives in, all the people are encouraged to take soma to always be happy. If there was an accident or something happend to you that ruined your day and you just cant quite get over it, you take a gramme or so of soma. They are encouraged to cover up all their emotions and real feelings with soma. I also really liked what Robinson was saying on teh education system and how the students are not allowed to study or take classes on the courses that they are interested strongly in. But intstead they are forced to take general classes that everyone else is forced to take and learn the same exact facts which they must spew back out for the test.

Brave New World

In Brave New World human experiences are manipulated to produce family, monogamy, impulse, feeling, and desire. The quote used on the ap lit home page is saying something along the lines of humans are produced to enjoy what they must do. In Brave New World humans are no longer made the old fashion way, but are made by man and machines. While as an embryo they are then conditioned in certain circumstances in which they will be living in when they mature. The D.H.C. trained little children to scream when ever they saw or came close to a rose or other types of plants. They did this to make the children not want to be around plants. But why would they not want them around plants? Because they dont want the children who will grow up into workers, to waste their time outside slacking off from their work. They are making them more efficent workers by making them not want to stop and take a break outside. "What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey..." (41). This quote is coming from the Mustapha mundo, hes telling all the learing students on how the world was before they worshiped Ford. The people had never been conditioned to like or enjoy the work that they would grow up and have to do. No one was ever even guranteed a job or forced into a job which they had no say in because they were given it when they were just in the beginning of creation.

Preparing to write the tempest

In the discussions of the Tempest, the main issue or debate is colonialism written in the text. There have also been various different opinions about Caliban. He has been viewed as a savage and also viewed as a person who has been taken advantage of. In the packet given to us in class with the argument about literature, George Will argues that disscussing the meaning and digging deeper for a different meaning of a text takes aaway from what the author writes about or his true meaning. He also goes on to argue that we over analyze everything we read which takes away the real meaning which the author intended us to understand. But then there is Stephen Greenblatt who believes in the exact opposite. Greenblatt argues that going deeper than just the surface meaning does not take away the meaning in which the author intended. He actually thinks that we should do just that. Greenblatt believes that we all should not just scratch the surface with the meaning but instead dig deeper and analyze the text. He thinks that analyzing the text and finding a different meaning allows us to understand the story or literature work more then just reading the surface meaning. I do have to agree with both sides though. There are various authors that write a story which leaves the meaning just in the surface of the text, but there are various authors who write a story and want you and make you analyze and overthink the meaning of the story. When an author makes a person search beneath the surface, it makes them use critical thinking to help find the true meaning that lies in the story. But then writing is a form of art because it is a way of expressing who you are or how you feel. Everyone has their own opinion and could argue their case which means no one really has the right answer. Especially when you are not the one who wrote the literature work and could not ask the author what their true meaning behind the story really is.

Article Debate

After my reading of the two seperate articles by George Will and Stephen Greenblatt, I have come to the conclusion that both views hold truth in themselves. I would like to explain both of their views that are expressed in the aticles. After reading the first article, Literary Politics, written by George Will on April 22, 1991 in an issue of Newsweek i found him to be a person who strongly believes that all literary works were influenced by some political agendas and feelings. He says, “The reductions of the study of literature to sociology, and of sociology to mere ideological assertion, has a central tenet: All literature is, whether writers are conscious of it or not, political,” (111). What he is trying to say is that everything that a writer writes, is rooted with some sort of political meaning. In Stephen Greenblatt's article The Best Way to Kill Our Literary Inheritance Is to Turn it Into a Decorous Celebration of the New World, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education on June 12, 1991, he fires back against Will's beliefs. He states "delegitimizing its founding text and ideas,” (115). What he is saying is that when professors "translate" the meaning of a text, they are corrupting or ruining the meaning and placing the authority into the hands of the critics. I feel that there is some truth in which both authors are saying. I believe that some literary works are politicaly based or has a certain amount of political inflence. But I also see the other side being that not all literature is politicaly influenced but is influenced by the culture. Various pieces or literature are based onb culture, such as 1984. The governement manipulates reality to make the Party seem perfect, and holds complete control over its citizens. I believe that every form of literature conatins a cultural influence.

Postcolonialism and Tempest

After reading the chapter we were given on Postcolonialism there were similarities that could be drawn between the chapter and the second and third acts of the Tempest. In the text of the postcolonialsim chapter its states that "Throughout this long history, the West became the colonizers and many African and Asian countries adn their peoples became the colonized." The Westerners of the world traveld to other countries to take over and establish a colony to maximize their power and regin on other people. They believed what they were doing was right and that their policies and traditions would benefit these various cultural people. In the Tempest, Caliban is talking to Prospero and tells him he wishes he had never came to the island and took control over him and became his master. Caliban showed him the important areas of the island such as where to find fresh water and pick berries or where the best places to fish are. Showing Prospero these places allowed Prsopero to utalize the natural resources needed to survive and colonize the only person living on the island which was Caliban. This was exactly what the Westerners did to the African and Asian countries. They would send their armies or officials over to take complete control of the land and make the people show them where the resources are located. Controling all the natural resources means that you control the land and the people that inhabit it. This is the same thing that happend to the Native Americans. Travlers from overseas came to North America and seized the land and the Native Americans. In the video, Native American's image was altered to look like the bad guys whom were crazy savages. They altered their image for the "better" of the white man which made the next generation of Native Americans forget their past not really know who they are.

Prospero

In the first act there are mulitple examples of ways that Prospero is able to manipulate other characters around him. Prospero goes into great detail and blows out of proportion the wrongs that were done to him to gain much sympathy from his daughter. Prospero puts himself into a light that shows him doing no wrong to anyone else and makes it look like he is always in the right. He is able to control the slave Caliban because he threatens to torture him again. "If you neglect my orders or do them grudgingly, I’ll double you up with pains and cramps, and make all your bones ache, and make you scream so loud that the wild animals will tremble when they hear you" (17). He does not allow Caliban to have an opinion or have any say what so ever in the things or various tasks he is forced to do. Prospero makes it seem like he is Ariel's savior and is in debt for life because he was the one who was able to free him from the tree which he was trapped inside of for twelve years. "It was my magic that saved you when I arrived on the island and heard you, making the pine tree open and let you out" (13). Prospero is in the right because he saved Ariel's life and freed him from the spell which Sycorax and put upon him. He is exctied to find that his daughter falls in love with Ferdinand but believes that he must stir up trouble becuase in his opinion they will never apprectiate true love "But I need to cause a little trouble between them, or else they’ll never appreciate the value of their love" (21).

Danger of a Single Story

Every where all over the world people are being taught different ideas and events of history. Even here in the United States people are not taught the same concepts of American history. After reading the two different articles in class on Thursday i have learned that people have the capability to alter the past into whatever they want it to be and teach the new generation what they think is right. The conservatives in Texas are voting on a new history book for elementary through high school that will teach the students a more conservative bias point of view of history. The conservatives are voting on a new book that will replace Thomas Jefferson with other "important" writers because Jefferson created the seperation of church and state. From what it seems like they want and are trying to bring church back into schools and preach Christianity. After being tought about the important role Thomas Jefferson played in American Independence I can not imagine finishing high school with out reading about him in our history books. Creating a history book with out any bias at all would be difficult because we would not know if the writer is describing what actually happend at that point and time or if it is tweaked into what they believe and thought what should have happend. We would not be able to know if the writers are telling a lie because if we are taught about a certain event in history from k-12 grade we are going to believe and trust what we've read and learned. How are we able to detect this is not true, especially when we were not there to witness the moment in history? Other subjects that the conservatives are trying to cut out of the books are the minorities. They voted against the Hispanics to quit  teaching about imoprtant iconic figures such as Cesar Chavez. According to one Hispanic representative they "are trying to creat a white America." The way someone teaches is not more important than the content they are teaching because what if a great teacher is teaching about a subject that never occured in history or was altered in their own opinion? How a person is taught is important, but not as crucial as the content that should be taught.

Fernando