Cat's Cradlelllllll!!!!

Cat’s Cradle focuses on nuclear bombs, and the technology used to make them. People concentrate their time and efforts into discovering new truths that will lead them to more great discoveries. Everything involving science and discovering is seen as a great tribute to mankind. For example, a compound is discovered that could potentially turn all the water in the world to ice, "...suppose, young man, that one Marine had with him a tiny capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle...? The puddle would freeze? I guessed. And all the muck around the puddle? It would freeze? And all the puddles in the frozen muck? They would freeze? And the pools and the streams in the frozen muck? They would freeze? You bet they would !" He cried. "And the United States Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!" Although this molecule has the potential to dehydrate and kill everyone and everything in the world, people think it is amazing, and great because we know more about the world.
Kurt Vonnegut satirizes the use of science to find a grand narrative in human life. By giving us examples like ice nine he shows us that truths do not always lead to a utopian world, rather that they lead to the opposite. He gives examples that show that finding truth leads to more chaos and more questions to be answered. He shows that he believes that not everything revolves around scientific discoveries, but rather your own morals and what you do with what you know. Vonnegut rejects the enlightenment ideas that finding out all the answers and secrets to life will result in happiness and global well being. He has a post modern outlook on life and relates this throughout his novel.

Frankenfood and Techno Sapiens

In the novel, Brave New World, we are faced with a world where people are almost no longer people. They are controlled through different techniques that are used on the fetuses of the unborn. They become a new type of human, “techno sapiens.” With breakthroughs in genetic engineering happening so quickly it is possible the society in Brave New World can become reality today.
Professor Ronald M. Green is one man who intelligently disagrees with a lot of the ideas this book presents. He fears these “enhancements” we are placing on children might not work out in the future. It is said that it is a natural feeling for human beings to want to change and better things we have. He asks if it is responsible, ethical, and right to change the human genome itself. Brave New World shows how people do take on this God like persona and change what shouldn’t be touched. What the people see as enhancements really disintegrate what is truly beautiful about human life. Because technology is available does not mean it should be used. Green states that people are using genetic enhancements of their offspring to meet “status quo.” Scarily similar to Brave New World, this statement seems to set the stage for how this science could destroy feeling and create a technopoly full of genetically modified robots.
In an academic journal by Phifer and Wolfenbarger, it is stated that neither the pros nor cons of GMOs, Genetically Modified Organisms, are fully measurable. They also state that” Our capacity to predict ecological impacts of introduced species… is imprecise.” This means that even if people are highly educated on the subject, which the majority of our population is not, they still cannot predict how these changes will affect our future. The uneducated people do not even know they are using or consuming these “frakenfoods.” In Brave New World, the people were forced to listen to hypnopedia and were taught to consume things and produce things and live a certain way, no questions asked. We are doing this to ourselves. We are changing things that should never be altered, and the affects could be devastating.

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Sir Ken Robinson’s ideas were so similar to the society in Brave New World that it really made me think that today’s society is not far off from theirs. Without making the changes he suggests, we will end up just like them.
One parallel that really caught my attention was the ADHD reference. It is evident that kids today are being medicated for literally everything. Kids are too hyper, not perky enough, too sad, too quiet, or just too “weird.” We are ruining the great minds of tomorrow by trying to manipulate children into being little educated robots. Some of these drugs are abused all the time and can be severely addictive. They also have side effects that seem worse than the initial problem. So why do this to the future people that will run our world? It’s all for progress. This is totally in congruency with Brave New World. In the book someone states, “What you need is a gramme of soma.” This is simply because Bernard looks a little unhappy. Because he is different, society says he should be medicated and anesthetized.
This also makes me think of the hypnopedia in the book. Robinson shows how students are put into a zombie like state and are almost forced to pay attention to “boring” teachers and learn in a not stimulating environment. They are being turned into living text books that are not able to think as creative or critically. It’s like students almost do not even realize what they are learning, they just know it’s true. This is similar to the sleep teachings because people are unaware of what they are learning and taking in but they believe it to be true.
Obviously there are even more parallels with the video and Brave New World. The goal should be to avoid the dystopia, stifling world state.

Brave New World

In the Brave New World society, values and morals can be perceived as being upside down or flip flopped from what is typical today. They do almost everything opposite of us and think that that is “right.” I believe that this does not mean that their morals are off. They simply have a different set of morals taught to them when they are young. The director states, “the last child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too-all his life.” It is clear that they have strictly implicated ideas in the minds of very young people, and these ideas are remembered through adulthood. Although their morals may seem off to us, they are no better or worse, just different.
The morals set on the people are different than ours in the sense that they are encouraged to never have relationships, feel pain, be unhappy, or be different. All of these facts seem to help further industrialize their society. They are only encouraged to consume or produce and nothing in between. Babies are manufactured to either be stupid or smart. That way everyone is happy. They are trained to like and dislike certain things, all so that the machine of society an keep turning smoothly.
Family is one thing that is greatly manipulated to keep society “growing.” There is not family. The people cringe at the words mother and romance. They do not have their own children or parents. This way there is less sadness, pain, and people are more likely to concentrate on work. Monogamy is also highly frowned upon. People are beyond encouraged to date as many people as possible. This helps keep the family out of their society. With out family and relationships feelings go out the window. Simple desires are still recognized, but there ultimately is not kind of stress put on the people because they have nothing worth stressing about.

Tempest Conversation!

In discussions of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare, one controversial issue has been the theme of colonialism within the text. Also, there have been many different opinions on the portrayal of Caliban and viewing him as a savage or viewing him as an “other” who was taken advantage of. On the one hand, Will argues that analyzing these statements takes away from the original meaning of the text. He thinks that we are trying to talk about the politics of the text and we are missing the major points. He believes that we over analyze everything and we are missing the artistic work that the author intended to be read. On the other hand, Greenblatt contends the opposite of Will. Greenblatt states that digging for deeper meaning does not distract from the original meaning of the text, but it instead deepens the readers understanding. He thinks that texts should be taught this way. However, my own view is that both ideas are right. I think that both people have valid points. Will's argument makes sense because sometimes texts are analyzed until the original meaning is lost. Or the things that we are analyzing seem like small unimportant details that are only there to describe setting or characters. Sometimes I feel that the things we analyze make the text more confusing and warp was the author wanted to get across. But, on the other hand, I think that analyzing text to an extent is very important. It helps us read better and think critically. I also think that it is important for all of us to interpret texts the way we want. Our different opinions spur so many interesting conversations. As long as the original meaning of the text is recognized, I think it is ok to look for deeper, hidden meanings.

Will Vs. Greenblatt

Ok, so to be honest I was a little confused with the two articles, but I think I got the most part of them. The debate going on within the two authors essays is about analyzing texts and finding politics within them. For example, Will explains that he views hidden messages in Shakespeare’s works, such as feminism and colonialism, as unimportant and taking away from the original text. Greenblatt thinks the exact opposite. He sees these messages and thinks they enrich the readers experience and should be analyzed in classrooms. He believes that if we do not realize these hidden politics and analyze them we face “the risk that we might turn our artistic inheritance into a simple, reassuring, soporific life.” Will’s views contradict Greenblatt’s ideas that we should dissect texts to find inner meaning. He uses examples like, “Emily Dickenson’s poetic references to peas and flower buds are encoded messages of feminist rage.” Will believes analyzing these little details until there is nothing left to analyze takes away from the original meaning of the text.


I find all of this pretty interesting. I have actually been thinking about this a lot in class. Will’s opinions make sense to me. When we read “Reunion”, I felt like we were seriously dissecting every part of the short story until what the author was probably trying to say was lost in minor details that were merely there to describe setting or feeling. Obviously there were details that meant something more than their surface meaning, but sometimes I think we dig deeper than necessary. On the other hand, I love the way works like “The Tempest” can be viewed so many ways. There really are a million different ways to view Caliban. I think my conclusion is that sometimes we do dig way deeper than necessary, and sometimes that is not what the author intended or meant to say, but who says that’s bad. Some things that are simply written with no underlying meaning can mean something to one person and something completely different to another person. That’s the beauty of opinion and individuality. Most writers would probably love to hear all the intellectual conversations their simple thought spurred.

Caliban and Post Colonialism

I think that the article we read definitely had some concepts that could be applied to The Tempest, specifically Caliban. Caliban states, “As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island.” He is saying he was living peacefully on the island first and was enslaved by someone who got there after him. I think he is very comparable to a Native Americans when our country was being colonized. Both were forced into slavery and had their customs and culture erased and replaced with someone else’s ideas of how people should live. In the article, the author states, “The message sent to these ‘others’ by the dominant culture has been clear and consistent-conform and be quiet; deny yourself and all will be well.” Caliban is forced to do this to avoid getting punished by his master. He is seen as an other, or monster, and that scares people. I do not think Shakespeare wanted to justify colonialism by writing this. In my opinion he was trying to do the opposite. He includes information that causes you to feel sympathy for Caliban. He keeps getting changed by other people and it is obvious that he was enslaved by people who were on the island after himself. Shakespeare makes it easy to see both sides of the situation, but I do not think he was trying to justify superiority of the white man in writing this.
I think there are a few parallels between Caliban and the Native Americans in the video. Caliban was seen as a monster; similarly, the Indians were all seen as savages. They were portrayed as monsters and killers when that is not historically true. When Caliban was discovered under his cloak, the men are scared of him and think he is some horrible creature. After they get to know him they realize he is actually harmless. It just shows how people think of others who are different than themselves.

Tempesttttt

Obviously Prospero is manipulating reality. He has a servant who can make things happen when he wants them too, such as the storm. He can make things happen that seem real to everyone else. Prospero is very influential. He can manipulate people around him by twisting the connotation of stories to get the reaction he wants, for example, Prospero states, “By foul play, as thou sayst, were we heaved thence.” He is saying that evil things were done to him. He does not state the other half of the story. He only says he was pushed out of power by an evil force. This sways Miranda’s way of thinking. She thinks of him as a wonderful man that was treated poorly, but she does not know all the facts. Miranda states, “Oh, my heart bleeds to think o' th' teen that I have turned you to, which is from my remembrance!” Miranda is explaining how Prospero’s story makes her feel. She expresses pain and sorrow for him and idolizes him for going through that. Just by choosing his words carefully, Prospero can totally change Miranda’s feelings towards him. Another good example of Prospero’s manipulative personality is when he causes trouble between Miranda and Ferdinand. Prospero says, “They are both in either’s powers, but this swift business I must uneasy make lest too light winning make the prize light.” He is explaining how he needs to cause trouble or they won’t appreciate their love. He makes up lies about Ferdinand so that the couple will have to go through turmoil. He puts Miranda in a situation where she has to choose between Ferdinand and her father because Prospero believes this will make their relationship better. He uses lying as his tool to get the desired results from Miranda. He uses language and magic to change reality around him.

"Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change"

This week we had discussions about two articles. The one I was assigned to was “Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change” by James C. McKinley Jr. The article talked about a select group of people in Texas who wanted to exclude Thomas Jefferson from the textbooks in schools. Most people in our group thought this was wrong, but there was a counter argument.


I guess I think the best solution would be to have an objective textbook. Everyone who was important should be included and nothing they said or did should be changed. But it would be hard to determine what should stay and what should be left out. People would have to decide, making the book subjective. What is in the book definatly matters, but what stays in matters differently to everyone. It would be impossible to create an objective book unless everything that has ever happened in the world was included, and that would be difficult.

I do agree that history could be taught fairly and more effectively. Everyone would have to have an open mind though. There are things that a lot of people do not want to learn about such as the holocaust or African American racism, but both were huge in history. If everything is taught to everyone its fair. When emotions are left out it creates a more objective learning environment.

I think that the way things are presented would change history. If Hitler is portrayed as a hero, people will want to recreate the things he did. This is why its important that history is taught in the most objective way possible.

Obviously there are a lot of 1984 parallels with this topic. The changing of history is a big one. To me it shows how the society in 1984 started. Little things like taking out Jefferson kept happening until everything was changed completely.

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I love Daniel Tosh :)