I swear it is not just a comic book!

When I heard we were going to be reading a graphic novel, also known as the classic comic book, for our next reading, I had a double viewpoint. On one side, I thought that comic books were very juvenile and contained no true substance behind them. And on the other, I thought maybe this will be an opportunity to learn some deep insight on a truly unique style of literature. Fortunately, my first assumption was wrong. This type of literature does not only pertain to super villains threatening to take over the world or superheroes ready to save the day. They are true forms of writing that go much further than that. They present a new gateway in expressing one’s stories or ideas which are not just bound to words. Anyways, let us begin.

The first time Mr. Dominguez mentioned the book Maus by Art Spiegelman , he told us that each nationality described in the book is based on a different type of animal. The Jews are depicted as rats, the Germans as cats, French as frogs, Polish as pigs, and Americans as dogs. Once I heard this, I automatically thought “Awesome! Now, I already have a great essay topic to write. I will support Art Spiegelman’s depiction of each nationality as a certain animal based on the characteristics they both share in reality, characteristics they have in common. Remember, this was long before I even had a copy of this book. After I had finished Maus, I did not think that I would have enough evidence to really support my first idea. Now, I really had no ideas for writing the essay, let alone an arguable thesis. But once we started to discuss further about the different concepts this novel puts forth and the characterizing struggles the author presents, it slowly started to come to me.

In the beginning of the semester, Mr. Dominguez really got us into the misguidance of history books and how it has affected our own interpretation of the past. What we believe to have happened is only what the text books have been telling us. History books only take pieces of past documents and historical accounts which they warp and put into their own words. They are not really showing readers every aspect or viewpoint of what truly happened during that time because it is nearly impossible to do so. Evidently, a pure representation of the past is almost unattainable. This is something Art Spiegelman knew since the beginning of his works. He fully understand the roadblocks which are impairing him from truly satisfying his emotional need to fulfill his father’s legacy and presents that to his readers. First, he is forced to act against his father’s wishes and wrench the story from his fragile mind. Then, he chronologically orders these events to make any comprehendible sense for his readers. And finally, it is Art himself who portrays these events through his own pictures and drawings. From changing verbal conversations into expressive words and then adding his depicting image as a compliment, there are just too many steps and variables that pollute the purity of this past event.

Ahhh!! I think I am talking too much. Actually, I am not even talking. You are just reading the words which I have typed in the past and decided to upload. What are words anyway? I should say that you are seeing pictures and connecting them to meaning which then leads to an interpretation. You have to love Scott McCloud for that one. Well, this is only one of my ideas. I have some more but I think this much will be enough for tonight. Sorry for the lengthiness friends!!

“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Google it.

Google is considered the greatest search engines ever to be bestowed upon the World Wide Web and all of its users. It can be used for almost anything related to media and information. Just type in one word, and users will subjected to over one million external web addresses, taking them from one web page to another. It truly is that simple. Many people will argue that Google is the best creation known to the Internet while others will argue that Google and the Internet together are causing negative effects on human intellectual capacities. And this is what they have to say.

I understand the complication Carr feels towards this problem about the Internet and Google changing the way humans go about thinking. He explains how “Once [he] was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now [he zips] along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” This is reflecting his thoughts about reading text coming from the Internet, rather than text coming from books. I seem to agree with what he is saying. The Internet is being used so frequent with the younger generation that books seem like a lost item. Even I see myself using the Internet to find information for my daily homework rather than using the book itself to solve the problem. I believe this is due to the convenience of “Google-ing” certain terms and coming up with the exact answer, instead of flipping through page after page, from index back to the passage, searching for one term on a page covered with thousands of words. And when I do need to use my textbook, I sometimes wish it had a “search” function that will lead me straight to what I am looking for.

There is also a quote by pathologist Bruce Friedman from the University of Michigan Medical School who admitted that “Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. [He skims] it.” Unfortunately, I must admit that I felt the exact same way when I was reading this exact article as well. It’s not only with articles either. If I am working on a long, cumbersome homework assignment, I tend to get off task and become distracted by the easiest things, especially if that assignment is done on the computer. This will eventually lead me to get on the Internet, listen to music, watch television, or anything that will get me away from actually doing my work. Sadly, this is becoming more frequent say after day of my senior year. I think it’s a disease that all seniors become infected with, coined by the term “senioritis”.

In the end, is there really a way to show that people are actually becoming “dumber” using the Internet and search engines such as Google? This article does reveal many convincing arguments supporting this theory, but who can really tell? I believe that there needs to be more evidence and supporting data before calling this theory plausible. Even though this may be just another article floating in the waters of the massive sea called World Wide Web, it holds up many convincing arguments and viewpoints trying to bring down the communication giant called the Internet. I think they are on to something…

"The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people."
~ Karl Marx

Was this a mistake?

So here goes another post for the blog. There are a bunch of topics we have been covering throughout our reading with Cat’s Cradle, but I think I tonight’s topic will be about the additional inferences about untruths in Cat’s Cradle and also the astonishing video we saw in class, Did You Know?

In my last post, I spoke mainly on the issue of non existing truth or a meaning to life. I got into the complications of scientific research, and how the research being done cannot be called purely true because there is nothing in the data that states this is so. Then, they use even more science and research as evidence to prove that it really is true. To summarize the post, I stated that there is nothing in the universe that will tell anyone anything about the absolute truth to life. The further I get into the novel, the more they emphasize on this concept of truth. But this time, I am beginning to see more often examples of what is said in the pretext about foma. It states “Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy” with foma meaning harmless untruths (Vonnegut). This can be seen in chapter 85 where John, the narrator, is searching for a term in The Books of Bokonon where he comes across the story about the solar system. It talks about Borasisi, the sun, and Pabu, the moon, creating children which were cold and did not burn, so Borasisi threw them away. They became the planets who keep their distance away from their disappointed father. But Puba decided to leave and stay with her favorite child of them all, Earth. And after this excerpt, it goes on to call it “Foma! Lie!... A pack of foma!” (Vonnegut 191) This was the story written in The Books of Bokonon. Today, people are still unsure about our endless universe and how exactly everything came into existence. The story given by Bokonon is not true, but it gives people meaning and something to believe in. Instead of just accepting that it is just there and it will always be there sort of thought process, this creates an effective way to explain things in simpler means. In postmodern terms, Bokonon’s story would fall under the concept of a local narrative.

There is also a place in the novel emphasizing this concept of truth. In this case, John meets Mona for the first time and tries to introduce himself. She responds by saying “It is not possible to make a mistake” (Vonnegut 203). This statement reveals a lot about this subject of truth and the self individual. I guess you can say that anything believed by the individual himself is subjected to be true, such as Mona’s statement with mistakes. Nothing you do can be called a mistake because an action is an action. An action becomes a mistake when the mindset of the individual, telling himself that what they did was a mistake. It is all in the perspective of the individual alone and what he believes to be true. If he believes that what he did was a mistake, then that is what it is to him. If he does not believe that what he did what he did was a mistake, then so be it. But all in all, he is the one revealing what he believes to be the actual truth. Sorry if this sounds kind of wordy and repetitive.

Well, so much for talking about the Did You Know? video. I guess I got too caught up on this subject of truths again. I did not even get to mention how I am beginning to sense another new dimension to this notion of untruths. I seem to be getting this sense of reality being more complicated than what is in front of one’s own eyes throughout Cat’s Cradle as well. This issue can wait until the next post then. Quote of the day…

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
~ Confucius

Science is such a lie.

“The first sentence in the Books of Bokonon is this: All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies... Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either” (Vonnegut 5-6). This is the author’s primary warning to the readers about the issues which his novel entails. What exactly is Vonnegut trying to say? He is stating that there is no such thing as an ultimate truth. No matter what we go through in our lifetimes, there will be no experience revealing an absolute truth about our world. As postmodernists view there is “no reason for a center”, since there is no center for pure fact (Powell 18). The novel Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, effectively demonstrates the postmodern view that life has no absolute truth.

Let’s put into account the study of science. This process is an excellent example demonstrating this concept about true things all being shameless lies. When scientific research is performed, it is based on two types of studies, qualitative and quantitative reasoning. Qualitative reasoning will give you information dealing with behaviors and cycles, and quantitative reasoning will give you information dealing with numbers and statistics. This entire time these scientists are studying and calculating, they begin creating conclusions about their findings. And in the end, after compiling all of their data and conclusive ideas, they come up with this ultimate idea depicting the truth that came out of their tireless research called a theorem. So how does science relate to this concept of truth being shameless lies? According to the website Dictionary.com, the word theorem is derived from the Greek word theorema, meaning spectacle, hence, subject for contemplation, thesis, to be proved. There is nothing in the scientist’s research saying that their data is the absolute truth. Although the information is leading to an ultimate truth, there is still nothing verifying their studies as purely true. As the definition states, there is still subject for contemplation. And how do scientists overcome such a hurdle as this? They use even more science as proof and evidence. They are using lies to prove other lies. Maybe the use of the word lies is a little harsh; even I do not like using that word to describe these concepts. Science is best described as a grand narrative, “big stories, stories of mythic proportions – that claim to be able to account for, explain, and subordinate all lesser little, local narratives.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
~ Oscar Wilde

Was this meant to be?

Here goes another blog for AP Literature class. First, I'd like to start off by saying that it is still pretty difficult for me comprehending this novel even though we are already towards the end of this whole thing. The socratic circle did help with my understanding and analysis of Brave New World, but I still can't get into the plot without some help. Well, let's being with this week's topic about possible essay topics. Since the beginning chapters, I have already been linking many of these science fiction atrocities found in their twisted society to one central theme. I would like to mention how the book stresses importance to the meaning of life. The book beings with the description of the infamous centre where all of the incoming slaves, workers, and royalty, also known as the epsilons, deltas, and alphas, are manufactured and created for the sake of their on going society. They have twisted the meaning of birth and the creation of life by developing this production line able to alter the genetic make up of babies. Babies should not be born with a predestined future. Life should not be manipulated by anyone or anything except by the person himself and his own choosing. There are many sources that can be cited for examples as well dealing with the manipulation of society and life, such as the previous novel we read 1984. This was also brought up this connection between these two novels in class during our discussion in the socratic circle. There is also a book called Relax, Your Life Is Predestined which relates to this topic. Another theme that can be discussed is the change in morality compared to our world today. The novel describes the children being taught to interact with the others on the playground while being completely naked in front of one another. This point in the novel is so insane that I do not need to further explain its atrocity. Even the actions of the adults can be subjected as being immoral and wrong. Adults are able to, actually preferred to, sleep with multiple members throughout the given month. This isn't the end of it, they also have those "meetings" where they express their worship for Ford and have special intercourse with the one they are sitting aside. Sexuality and sexual acts become increasingly bogged up and demolished. Another point brought up in our socratic discussion was the influences of the media on the morals we hold today. Movies, commercials, television, and every other form of advertisement have slowly been demoralizing our views of right and wrong. Back in the day before the whole "hippy" movement, people found the act of doing sex for joy as being completely wrong and sinful. Now, we see sex everywhere. 1984 also correlates to the use of media to influence the psychology of men. Okay, lets get to the thesis already. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the author illuminates the idea that the meaning of life and morality is easily corruptible through the influential techniques of the government and media. By the way, this is just an idea. I might not, and mostly likely, won't even use either of these two ideas in the upcoming essay. I think I can easily write a well written essay on something related to religion. That would be such a postmodernist thing to do. Now, for the quote of the day.

“Right now you are one choice away from a new beginning.”
~ Oprah Winfrey

This is my local narrative.

This week in AP Literature, we have been discussing postmodernism and its relation to society. Our main focus this week was to grasp the underlying principles and ideas of the postmodern thinker Jean-Francois Lyotard. Some of his ideas consist of the following: conscious and unconscious minds, computer technology and science, and lastly, local and metanarratives. In today’s post, I would like to stress his ideas about narratives.

According to Lyotard, there are two types of narratives, metanarratives and local narratives. Metanarratives are “big stories, stories of mythic proportions – that claim to be able to account for, explain and subordinate all lesser, little, local narratives” (Powell 29). This also explains local narratives as well. If you did not catch that, read it again!! Well if this is still a little confusing to you, a local narrative is just a small part of a bigger story of metanarratives. Metanarratives have been used throughout our past and culture to help explain the unexplainable. For instance, Native Americans use these narratives through myths, helping explain the creation of man and natural phenomena. Long ago, they did not have the math or science to fully comprehend why there are such things as seasons of drought or floods, so they used myths to explain what seems to be unexplainable. On a side note, it also scared kids into believing that their bad behavior was the reason why the entire tribe was starving of hunger that year. They honestly did not have any idea to what was truly going on in the Earth’s crust or its atmosphere, so they created tales and myths to answer the dying question “why?”

This is also true with many religions. Most religions have one main source, the metanarrative, which contains many smaller stories, the local narratives, to explain their ideas of creation, morality, and life style. These smaller stories help illuminate the major idea, or central theme, of what is trying to be conveyed by the metanarrative. These narratives also give many people a meaning to life and how they live. As I mentioned before, religion also helps people answer the unmistakable question “why?” We base our lives on a central meaning whether or not we believe in a certain religion. Believe it or not, there is a bigger picture to life which all people live towards. They say that we people are all connected one way or another, spiritually. Well, this is it for now. I hope you all enjoyed the post! It is not as long as the others, so hopefully you did not get too bored. And here is the quote of the day…

“Each spiritual journey begins with a step forward — the moment when you realize that there’s more to life than you’ve been living.”
~ Vicky Thompson

Baby-Making at its finest.

Try living in a world where all people are biologically created and born into a predestined life chosen by the government. Not only did the government create you with specific qualities, but you were only one of the hundred they were able to spawn with the same identity. In the first few chapters of Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, he describes the harsh reality of the scientific advances humanity is reaching to create a perfect world.

His depiction of the future is truly frightening. The way people are brought into life appears to be an enormous lab experiment run by those trying to keep society and social groups in check. They call this the Bokanovsky’s Process, “one of the major instruments in social stability” (Huxley 7). This is completely unethical. How can people even begin to think of creating the same identical children by the hundreds with their life predestined for them? Identity and individuality completely vanish when people are created this way. The meaning of life is destroyed as well. People have this life to experience emotions, to create friendships, and to succeed or fail. Whether their life turns out good or bad, the whole process life helps people learn by improving their judgment and decision making in the future. But this meaning of life is pointless when it becomes predestined for you and there is no possibility of changing who you are. These “people” they are creating should not even be called people but slaves who help fuel the power of those already at the top of the social pyramid.

In Huxley’s society, the main social groups are, from highest to lowest, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Throughout our history, we have the upper, middle, and lower class. The Alphas always dominated over the Epsilons by telling them what to do and by making them feel powerless and inferior. This relates to the times of slavery and discrimination. The African American was always being suppressed, from being the slave worker out in the fields to the one having to sit in the back of the bus for reasons of skin color. Do you remember the Grandfather Clause and the poll tax? These were tools of absolute manipulation by the superior “White Man,” trying to exclude African Americans from their right to vote. Those at the top will always try to hinder the ones under them to keep their power from being diminished. That is why the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where all the babies come from, is run by the Alphas, the social group that the Betas believe “[works] much harder than [they] do, because [the Alphas] are so frightfully clever” (Huxley 27). This novel grasps the troubles of our social ladder, and how that itself is the tool which degrades our humanity.

Although wrong and twisted, I do see some beneficiaries in this process of creation if ever applied in the future. We would no longer have to worry about cancer or diseases if we were able to create children with super immunities. Parents would also be able to choose the qualities of their children and their physical features. But this slowly creeps its way around moral values and the beliefs. People opposing the use of this “new technology” would say that this is against our human nature to be able to pick and choose the child we want. They would also state that the creation of life is “God’s power,” and how the human race should not interfere with such ideals. Although the picking and choosing of the perfect child may be a little extreme, I still see benefits that can come from new discoveries and technologies in DNA engineering.

Well to sum it all up, I must say I still have a hard time getting through each chapter of this book; for example, chapter three’s insane decision to jump from plot to plot after every line. Maybe it’s because I can’t pay attention very long or focus just on one subject. And I am sincerely sorry for the super, mega lectures I’ve been posting. I know that a long passage can get pretty boring at times. Anyways, I’ve decided that with every blog entry I’ll leave you guys with a little inspirational quote starting with today’s.

“Give the world the best you have and the best will come back to you.”
~ Madeline Bridges

Life... It's just another story.

The United States is facing a new dilemma, not about health care or the war in the Middle East, but a new proposition brought up by the Texas Board of Education “to further emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history” (Simon). Wait, wait, wait… Did I just say that Texas is proposing a new curriculum which goes against my rights as an American given to me by the central core of the United States called the Constitution? What happened to the idea of the enlightened thinkers who helped us realize that the separation between church and state was for the better in our country? And who gets to have the ultimatum of choosing what goes in and out of the history books? I am pretty sure our buddy John Locke would not approve of this.

Anyways, there are three reviewers who support this new proposition, appointed by social conservatives of Texas, who believe that the biblical principles of our country need to come out in the textbooks. They argue that our founding principles are biblical. This may be true, but why should the scriptures be integrated into the history books as well? This goes against the beliefs of many Americans who are non-Christians and their Constitutional rights. Many people will argue that history books should include the facts, including the fact that American History has been influenced by Christian values. This may be true, but was the creation of the United States based more on the contribution of Christian beliefs or the ideas of enlightened thinkers? What about the men whose beliefs our government is based upon, such as Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu? Even the man who penned the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, was influenced by enlightened thoughts. History books are meant to educate the public about the past events which have occurred throughout our lifetimes which have led to the society which we live in today. By keeping religious views out of the public education system, this gives everyone a chance to learn and comprehend history at their fullest potential, without being suppressed or even shameful for not believing in another person’s beliefs. So keeping religion out of the history books is good right? In our case, that is correct, but how this is done is not so truthful.

Textbooks, like all other government approved forms of writing, are to be written objectively, or without bias. This is said to be “professional” and “acceptable” by major news publishing companies, like CNN and the New York Times. Who’s to say that everything written in the history books do not reflect a certain bias? Who gets to decide what goes in and what is not acceptable for publishing in the textbooks the American children are learning from while being educated in school? The event to decide what goes in and out of history books demonstrates the human’s uncontrollable ability of being biased while believing they are objective in their course of writing. This decision to control who or what is published for everyone to read shows the capable manipulation of what the history books teach students. This is beginning to sound a lot like the quote from Orwell’s 1984 novel, “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past.” While writers decide which events go into the books and what perspective it is coming from, they should understand that everything that goes in them will be eternalized by the ones who pick up the book and decide that what they are reading is true. This means that perspective becomes a huge issue. By only stating one side of an argument, in this case historical events, people are lead to support the side they read about without knowing the wholesome truth. I would like to argue that there is no such thing as objectivity in any form of historical documentation. As long as people write, the thoughts and ideas going through their heads give them a bias that we cannot escape.

So what is the answer to all of this madness? I say the only thing that we can do to satisfy all of humanity is to publish the ultimate history book containing every major event from all cultural perspectives, with the views of all different religions described in the backs of them and how they have contributed to the world. This sounds pretty crazy, but it’s the only way we can be “objective” in a world or bias. What should we name this gargantuan of a book? I think the word “Life” suites it very well.