Youtube and Chill?

In Rushkoff’s Present Shock, he warns about the collapse of the narrative. He begins with the premise that stories are important because they “create a sense of context” (Rushkoff 13). In fact, historically, all cultures told stories. These stories help with cognitive organization and create a feeling of comfort and relative security. For example, our knowledge of history helps us put the present in perspective and thus, comforting us. However, as technology and new inventions began to infiltrate our world further, our narratives couldn’t keep up. This phenomenon then contributed to the narrative collapse.

Traditional linear stories create a character that the audience identifies with, gives him a problem, and then has him find a solution. Classic examples include Star Wars and Dora the Explorer. With the creation of the remote control, switching channels became easier and more “worth it”, yielding television’s lost ability to tell stories. Shows, like Beavis and Butt-head, “were some of the first to speak directly to the channel surfer” (Rushkoff 23). The remote control allowed “today’s television viewer” to  “move from show to show, capturing important moments on the fly” (Rushkoff 22). As time went on this effect was only amplified.

In 2015, people often fulfill their need for entertainment through Youtube videos. These videos have come to take the place of shows. Instead of watching a “traditional” story, viewers will simply watch someone talk to them with jumpcuts to more “action” scenes. These videos lessen the sense of loneliness. Further, videos are often short, ranging from 5-25 minutes. A viewer can watch a quick video, and then move on with their life. Plus, because these videos don’t follow a tradition story arc, they can be about anything, leaving endless possibilities for content, and creating a show/channel that will continue for a long time. Also due to the lack of a traditional linear arc, a person can take up watching a channel or video at almost anytime and still understand. 

Rushkoff explains, “the new challenge for writers is to generate the sense of captivity, as well as the sensations and insights, of traditional narrative— but to do so without the luxury of a traditional storyline” (Rushkoff 31). With many Youtube videos, the audience is captured and enjoy the speed as the Youtuber jumps from one topic to another. Further, the on-demand aspect, as well as a general lack of commercials contribute to the presentism aspect of this type of narrative. People cram everything into the present into small spaces of time, and that is exactly what Youtube videos do. 

Today, it is commonplace to have stories that do not follow the linear story arcs of traditional narratives. In Latin class, our textbooks are from the Cambridge Latin Course. With these textbooks, we learn the language through a series of stories. But even these stories do not always come with a linear arc. We could be reading about Salvius and his murder plots and all of a sudden jump to the soldiers Modestus and Strythio and learn about their antics, and then go back to killing the king.
 The jumps in the stories we read and write add spontaneity to them and keep the audience interested and engaged. Although Rushkoff claims this creates the collapse of the narrative, I am not entirely sure it is all that dramatic. We continue to tell stories, but we find new ways to do so. 

Works Cited: 

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. Print.

"Paris Is Always A Good Idea."

The life of Ernest Hemingway portrayed in A Moveable Feast is something of a snapshot of a happier time in his life. In Paris, he had his beautiful wife, met beautiful people, ate and drank beautifully and wrote beautifully. However, despite the time being “happier”, Hemingway was still a man plagued by his depression. His story is narrated, some times more than others, as if he is simply a bystander in his own life. Events occur around him, and some to him, but he does not seem to react to them. An example of the disconnect between Ernest and the world, thus allowing the reader to feel the disconnect as well, occurs when Hemingway has a jar of opium thrown at him. Ernest recalls, “Monsieur Dunning…took the jar and…threw it at me. It struck me on the chest or shoulder and rolled down the stairs” (Hemingway 111). Following being hit with a jar and profane names, Ernest simply asks “you are sure you don’t need it?” (Hemingway 111). Ernest had been hit by multiple objects but he calmly walks out the door and moves on with his life. It is almost as if he just does not care enough to bother. He seems to act that way in regards to many events occurring in his life. 

A further example of Hemingway’s somberness manifests when Hadley leaves. Ernest spends all of some five lines about how the woman he loved left him. In those five lines, he does not seem angry or even upset at her. He continues to loathe himself, saying Hadley was with a better man than he could ever be. He seems very matter of fact about the whole situation. Hadley is gone. Life goes on. Ernest exudes the presence of a sad, lost, and confused puppy as he attempts to navigate through his life.

An aide to the depiction of Ernest as confused is the more haphazard organization of the book. The plot of the story does not follow any linear progression but jumps around from event to event, almost as if the memories would cross Hemingway’s mind in the future as he wrote and he simply jotted them down as they came along. He jumps around to big events in his life, but he does not go into them in detail. His affair with Pauline, Hadley leaving, or even the outcomes of the Bel Espirit. Future Hemingway does not seem to be all that devoted to his story. He is just telling whatever he feels like at the moment and then moving on. 

  Despite seeming uninterested in his own telling of his own story, Hemingway writes detailed descriptions of the characters he meets. He used intense figurative language to describe average scenes. Ernest describes the Closerie de Lilas as being “warm inside in the winter and in the spring and fall it was very fine outside with the tables under the shade of trees on the statue where Marshal Neys was, and the square, rectangular tables under the big awnings along the boulevard” (Hemingway 73). Perhaps Hemingway’s only reason for being so detailed is his background as a writer, but it seems more likely that he uses details to distract from having to think about the more difficult things such as the issues he hides details from. 

I believe we read this book in order to be exposed to writing in which the style of the novel deeply affects the meaning and audience. Hemingway’s decisions to write in a disorganized, disconnected fashion allows the reader to better understand the way Ernest feels about the world. At face value it seems to be a story of drunk artists, but at a deeper level the reader sees the complexities of life through the stylistic choices Hemingway makes.










Works Cited:

 Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964. Print.

Next!

As I write this blogpost, I am exhausted. My primary thought was to just get the post over with: answer the question, get the grade. Then, I can move on to doing other homework. This situation is applicable in schools across the board, regardless of public or private, because it has to do with the mindset schools are creating. We define ourselves as grades and scores, and in the process limit our learning to learning for grades and scores. We stop caring about knowledge and education, and instead focus on what gets us the grade, what gets us the score, and what gets us into college.
 
We have become so reliant on a system of numbers because we know of no, or are unwilling to create an, other system to test what we know. A huge issue with teaching for tests is the fact that they end up measuring not how smart a person is but, “how much smartness someone has” (Postman 183). In order to be “smart”, a student must be able to use concepts in different situations, a skill that is often lost in the need to pass basic tests. In classes like math and chemistry, when pressed for time, I will simply memorize a process for solving something instead of understanding the concept, because I need the good grade. 

Further, in this test-based society, we end up decreasing diversity in schools because we are unwilling to hear stories, and other ways of doing things. In public schools, the use of “Common Core” learning, promotes one way of doing something and one curriculum. This strict curriculum is unable to charter to the needs of different schools in different areas. Teachers will use textbooks and have students copy notes. Students can only ask a few questions because teachers are focused on getting through all the material, as well as catering to the majority of students. Postman finds textbooks to be “enemies of education”, because they promote “trivial learning” (Postman 116). Education comes down to an equation: memorize facts + take exams = good score. 

However, the question then arises, what’s the point? How does knowing these facts in anyway prepare students for the real world? Further, if a student already knows what they want to do for their future, is it necessary for them to take “required” classes they don’t need, if they demonstrate proficiency in them? Another question: how would proficiency be demonstrated? Yet another test? The twenty-first century has created a public based on quick results. People are interested in learning material to get a good score and then moving on. No one has time for the process that learning and education should be. We become so caught up in the trivial stuff, they begin to seem increasingly important. 

Works Cited: 

 Postman, Neil. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Knopf, 1995.  Print.  

A Zebra, Hyena, Orangutan, And Tiger Walk Into A Bar...

I read the book Life of Pi when I was in fifth grade, and quickly fell in love. The twist ending shocked, bewildered and fascinated me all at the same time. The story begins with Pi, a young Indian boy, trying to explain his adherence to several faiths. Our very first introduction to our protagonist shows him as a peaceful, loving, do-gooding kid. This image is very different from the ferocious tiger he becomes.

Sigmund Freud created his Personality Theory based around three central ideas: the id, ego, and superego. His “studies of the unconscious revealed that people's actions were often the result of 'animal' urges or instincts” (Gaarder). When we are active, and secure, in society, our actions and “animal instincts” are better repressed. However, in dire life and death situations, the animal within us makes an appearance. So, how did the sweet boy we are introduced to turn into Richard Parker? Perhaps the answer lies in Freud’s id, ego, and superego.

In Martel’s story, Richard Parker is the literal embodiment of the id. If you have read the book, you know Richard Parker was not an actual tiger, but a symbol of the person Pi was forced to become in order to survive. His id, unconsciously driven by his desire to survive, influenced his conscious actions that allowed him to survive. Freud believed irrational impulses can be an expression of basic drives or needs. When Pi first encounters the cook (the hyena), his superego is still present and controlling, he can only stand by and watch as his mother is murdered. However, in the second encounter, the cook isn't so fortunate. Pi’s id was ready. Richard Parker killed the hyena swiftly and terribly, and from then on our sweet little boy must deal with the belief that he has killed someone.

Pi was forced to come to terms with the loss of his father and his mother, He then witnessed the murder of a man and killed another man. All these deaths, the horrors he underwent and committed, “can be such a tremendous strain”, especially for the superego, and thus, it is repressed (Gaarder). However, “whatever is repressed in this way will try of its own accord to reenter consciousness”, and thus, the creation of Richard Parker (Gaarder).




Works Cited:

"SOPHIE'S WORLD A Novel About the History of Philosophy." Web. 17 Sept. 2015.
<http://192.184.80.244/philosophy-plain/resources/SophiesWorld.pdf>.

 Martel, Yann. Life of Pi: A Novel. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print. 

Nothing to Fear but....Ourselves?

  FDR’s “we have nothing to fear but fear itself”, is one the most well-known presidential quotes. His words acted as reassurance to a nation that had come under the paralyzing clutches of fear. At the time, the people of the United States feared losing all their savings, and rushed to withdraw their money from banks. They faced an unknown enemy and consequently, made rash decisions out of fright. Flash-forward some 60 years and a similar situation presents itself: a President attempting to console a scared and grieving nation in the wake of terror attacks that claimed the lives of almost 3,000 people. However, this president has a different approach. Instead of attempting to allay fears, he stokes them saying “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” He changes the national attitude for years to come by turning foreign nations into hostile enemies, and raising the question of whether a foe is around every corner. 

As the idiom goes, “hindsight is 20/20.” When looking back towards our actions following September 9, 2001, faults are easily found. Our change in ideal, our fear of an unknown enemy capable of the destruction witnessed on that day, caused our actions to be rash and potentially misguided. Even ten years after the incident, we continued to make decisions based on fear. Upon discovering the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, we were too fearful to risk bringing him back to the United States to have a “fair” trial (but then again, was there anything fair in the killing of 3,000 people?) Fear is a powerful motivator, especially to make hasty decisions on, and thus, leaves us with uncomfortable questions to ask ourselves.

It is uncomfortable for us to think that we could be in the wrong. It is uncomfortable for us to think that an event we feel pride in, could be an event we should feel shame over. It is uncomfortable to question whether we made a mistake so grand, that we cannot easily right it. The fact that these questions are uncomfortable make them even more important to consider. The ideals of former President Bush and MIT Professor Noam Chomsky represent two ends of a spectrum. Chomsky’s criticisms can be quite difficult to swallow but it is nonetheless vital that we ruminate over them. It is said that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”, and with a nation so powerful as the United States, it is necessary for us to check our own actions, lest we become like those we claim to oppose.

Shud i b wrried?

A Darwinian perspective of the word “evolution” refers to an organism’s fitness to the environment. This definition can also be applied to the evolution of language, and how it changes to fit our modern environment. When the question, is language evolving or devolving, is posed, the answer is that language evolves, because it adapts to our modern environment. However, the answer of evolution or degeneration does not simply lie in whether or not language is changing, but in what we lose by its changing. The author of “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, Neil Postman, explains when we move from medium to medium, something is always lost in translation. When televangelists attempt to preach on T.V., they inevitably lose a central part of their message. The use of shorthand, brief interactions, and the movement from spoken word to texting all exemplify the development of language overtime. The extent to which this development is a good or bad thing exists in considering what is lost in the move, and what it means for society.
Often, language is considered to be degenerating due to increasingly widespread use of text-speak and shorthand. However, the use of shorthand allows more information to be spread in a shorter amount of time. Nonetheless, people continue to worry that text-speak is ruining the world. Perhaps they worry so much, they overcompensate and use “pretentious words”, as George Orwell calls them. Orwell actually dislikes the overly grandiloquent ways of writing, because he finds them silly and inefficient. Writers spend so much time, and waste much of their reader’s time, by using over-used words and phrases in attempts to sound intelligent and credible, despite sometimes saying nothing of importance. On the flip side, it is important to consider whether modern society spends so much time trying to be efficient, it begins to lack depth.
We are so constantly rushing around, that our interactions are quick and only extract the bare essentials. Ray Bradbury portrays a world in which everyone is content enough to speed about with their business that they stop caring for one another. They are no longer able to have deep, meaningful conversations and are no longer interested in what they themselves think, let alone those around them! The movement from spoken word to shorthand and text-speak are not the sole culprits. Many claim that we are mixing up a technological world with reality. Or, are we living in a reality that is over infused with technology?

So, really, is language evolving or devolving?

There is no clear cut answer. As Orwell says, “language merely reflects existing social conditions”(Orwell 10). Language evolves with the times, and current times seem to demand faster paced communication. In regards to efficiency, text speak and short hand are a good development. In regards to the future of our social relations, emotional wellbeing, and our abilities to think deeply and complexly…idk.

Works Cited:
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 1953. Print.
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New  York: Viking, 1985. Print.