"So no one told you life (narratives) was (were) gonna be this way..."

Friends is a good example of the Presentist narrative that Rushkoff discusses in the first chapter, “narrative collapse”, in Present Shock. Friends does not truly have the traditional narrative that Rushkoff explains in the text, “there is plot-there are many plots- but there is no overarching story, no end. There are so many plots, in fact, that an ending tying everything up seems inconceivable, even beside the point” (Rushkoff 34). I recently started watching the show from the beginning, so I can relate quite easily with the point that Rushkoff makes. First of all, beginning with season one episode one of Friends, the storyline starts off in medias res. At least at the start, you don’t know who this group of ridiculous friends are and you don’t really know how they even came about to be friends in the first place. There is a point to this. The show was not made to make people ponder life or want to keep hitting “next episode” on netflix. Rather, its purpose is to entertain with a hysterical group of dorky friends when someone wishes to be amused. The “middle” of the TV series goes against Rushkoff’s traditional sense of a story arc because each friend has their own lives away from their time together in the “Central Perk” coffee shop below their apartment. Each friend has a job, dates, other friends, and other life events that do not always connect with one another. I can’t really speak of the end, since I am only on season 4, but if it’s anything like How I Met Your Mother, it will be horrible, make me cry, and leave a bunch of questions unanswered.

Nearly every episode of  Friends is the same dang thing every time, yet some how the lively  show has me totally hooked. However ,as hard as it is for me to admit it, there is no real point to the story line or the characters within it. Rather, it is the atmosphere created by both of those things that appeals to the viewers (no, it is not a hit tv show just because of Jennifer Aniston’s tendency to look like a total goddess). This atmosphere is created as one watches various episodes of the show, it is not given to you in bits rather than all at one, creating less depth to the show. Rushkoff says that the result of this rather flat tactic is that “Narrativity is replaced by something more like putting together  a puzzle by making connections and recognizing patterns” (Rushkoff 34). This puzzling technique replaces the linear storytelling. There is no mystery or other phenomena to be solved or resolved in Friends.

The show is not concerned of what will happen in the future, but rather with what is happening right at a particular moment. Rushkoff notes that there have been stories that are anticlimactic but still considered a traditional narrative. He says the difference is that the character would “always have the next day” to become wiser (Rushkoff 32) whereas in presentist narratives, time sped up and ruined that. The characters in Friends end up facing the same present shock as the creators of the television show because they just wake up in a random situation and have to figure out what is going on.

Rushkoff talks about the “CNN effect” and how it draws an immediate response from what he calls “always-on news”. I think that this can be drawn into his ideas of the narrative collapse within television shows and particularly, Friends. The show aims to get a quick and simple response from the people watching at home. As many of you know, the creators made the show to be comedic. So, the goal is not to make someone contemplate what next big thing will happen in the episodes to come, but rather to make them laugh and move on to the next episode.

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. New York: Penguin, 2013. Print.

It's the Hemingway or the Highway

          If I had to describe Hemingway’s style in one word, I would have to characterize it as “inconsistent”. He goes from using long sentences to short ones, literal language to figurative. Another inconsistency is his treatment of time in A Moveable Feast. I think that it is because of these stylistic irregularities that we read Hemingway in the first place. His unique style is what makes him such a renowned author, it obviously wasn’t the “oh so intriguing” plot my friends. Throughout the novel, Hemingway brings the reader through parts of his life with important people and places that impacted his career as a journalist and eventually an author. Often times, Hemingway wouldn’t even put these events and introductions to new people in order, simply because that is not the point he is trying to make. This tactic might seem nutty, but come on; it’s Hemingway for Pete’s sake. Because Hemingway goes about it in this way, form absolutely does not follow content. If it did, content would play an important role in how Hemingway’s form is expressed. Hemingway doesn’t want the readers to be using the content to explain the form; rather he wants us to use the form to create our own content. Hemingway’s tone of uncertainty encourages the reader to paint their own personal pictures in their heads. For example, Hemingway will leave parts of the plot for the reader’s interpretation, “It was only Zelda’s secret that she shared with me, as a hawk might share something with a man. But hawks do not share.” The reader is left unsure of the secret and is responsible for interpreting what Hemingway meant by the hawk comparison. Hemingway may seem like just a crazy guy, but that alone couldn’t have gotten him the success that he achieved. A Moveable Feast is considered a memoir but I think that it is more of a journal type genre; it was almost as if Hemingway took snippets of his life (very detail-oriented ones at that) and compiled them into one big story telling session. 

Little Eva, Big Problem.

           Schools in the twenty-first century have two very important things that the kids in the 1990s did not… cell phones and easily accessible Internet. These two prized possessions per say are what have disconnected the world on a social and educational level. Postman, throughout The End of Education, stressed through his “big 5” narratives that schooling lacks cohesion and in my opinion the taken-for-granted technological advances are responsible for that. In the past 20 years, the world and United States in particular has been introduced to so many new things. In my opinion, I think that the issue is not the advances themselves, but the way they have formed the public. Postman elaborates on his idea with his mini cautionary tale about “little Eva”, who would stay up late learning algebra. Some may think this is quite studious of little Eva, but is she really learning anything or retaining it? Before authoritative figures (teachers, parents, ect.) were the children’s main source of information, now that same information can be found in seconds with just a few clicks. Postman comments on this concept after explaining Little Eva’s story,  “At the very least, what we need to discuss about Little Eva, Young John, and McIntosh’s trios what they will lose, and what we will lose, if they enter a world in which computer technology is their chief source of motivation, authority, and, apparently, psychological sustenance.” (Postman 43). What Postman is concerned with is not how we use technology, but how IT is using US. To avoid this situation however, technology could be used as objects of inquiry (Postman 44). For the most part, students have a lazy attitude towards technology. If they can’t find an answer, they just Google it. Who wouldn’t do that when an answer pops up in milliseconds? With smart phones that have access to the Internet almost anywhere, students have “all of the answers” at hand. In my opinion this leads to less collaboration between the students themselves and less cohesion between subjects. Technology promotes almost a separate and finite answer to everything. For the most part, it’s good enough for the students to get by, but they aren’t truly learning anything without having to discuss it with classmates/teachers and put it into context within the world.

Works Cited

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

I think Huxley and Epicurus were friends...

The philosopher Epicurus stressed the importance of pleasure in nearly all of his philosophical ideas. For example, Epicurus thought, “serenity will help us endure all pain” (Gardner 122). After rereading this quote from my notes that I took on Sophie’s World, I instantly thought of a novel from AP Lit called Brave New World.

Don’t worry juniors; you’ll get the opportunity to read this book full of “forming relationships” and drugs next year. This book is your classic utopian society where all religions are prohibited by what is called the World State Government. In fact, the civilians of the society did not even know about God or religions from the past. One of the leaders, Mustafa Mond thought that religion was not compatible with scientific technology and overall happiness. In my opinion, the utopia presented in BNW sounds like Epicurus’s ideal society from his philosophies taught in Sophie’s World. The enjoyment of life was Epicurus’s primary goal in his philosophies and thought that there was a “pleasure calculation” that could weigh the pleasure with the consequences. In BNW, the people of the utopia did not question the government or dare try to rebel. Rather, when they would have conflicting feelings, they would take soma (a drug) or go to a big orgy instead. Yes juniors, an orgy! The people in the utopia did not have to face consequences, because they would just get high or “form relationships” when they felt something wasn’t going right. Epicurus would probably ask the author, Huxley, why he decided to use sex as a way to reach pleasure because Epicurus thought that pleasure did not necessarily have to come from sexual satisfaction. Also, Epicurus did not think afterlife or religion was important either. He tended to lean with Democritus’ idea about eternal particles. Since Huxley referred to the drugs as “Christianity without tears” , Epicurus might question what happens to the utopian people after life. Lastly, “epicuriean” is used in the present day to describe someone who lives only for pleasure. Epicurus may ask Huxley whether or not the people were solely living a life of self-indulgence or if the drugs/sex were just used to sway them away from uncovering what was really going on around them. However, Epicurus didn’t find the people’s intereation with politics all that important, which just makes me want to argue more about how Epicurus was philosophizing a world that is much like that of the utopia in Brave New World.

Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994. Print

9/11 Blogpost

The two most important things to consider when analyzing both Chomsky’s essay and Bush’s speech are the audience and the time at which they occurred. Bush spoke at a very fragile time, only days after the traumatic experience. So, he had to be sensitive and understanding of how America, and the world, was affected by something of such tragedy. However, Mr. President still wanted to get his point of cross, which in my opinion was that the world powers ended to rise up and fight against organization, particularly the Al Qaeda, that are going to harm innocent countries and people. It seems that Bush makes a loop with his tone and diction during his speech. He first established respect by being sympathetic with the audience, which was the United Nations, and then he addressed the issue directly. When he addressed the events of 9/11 there was a dramatic and heavy tone shift, going from hopeful to one of vengeance. To end the speech, he left off with words of encouragement just like he had started with in the beginning. With this style, Bush is able to address an issue without offending anyone, establish a good audience-speaker relationship. Chomsky takes quite a different route. When Chomsky wrote his essay 10 years later, he was not concerned with being respectful or sympathetic; he was only interested in satisfying HIS intended audience. As an MIT graduate, he was rigid and a “stick to the facts” kind of author in his essay, and that kind of worked due to the fact he was trying to address other intellectuals with similar views to himself. In my opinion, Chomsky didn’t post the essay thinking he would cause people to blame America for the terrorist attack, but to rather put us into perspective of other nations looking at the United States. Chomsky uses the example with Chile, which involved the United States overstepping some boundaries in order to get Chile to be a stable nation. He acknowledges that the U.S. probably thought that they were doing the right thing, but he points out that we can justify ourselves with anything. Exceptionalism happens in everyday life, on both small and large scales. Although I disagree with many aspects of Chomsky’s essay, I will qualify his premise of American exceptionalism. Justification is a defense mechanism and a way to rationalize decisions. Chomsky uses the term in such a harsh and inflexible way that it may mask the real truth behind what he was trying to explain to his audience. I will argue that America did the right thing since they had enough evidence to prove that Al Qaeda was behind the ruthless scheme. However, I will also say that if other countries acted in a similar way with other situations, they would have been convicted. America needed a way to cope with the traumatic experiences and stories from the terrorist attack, and justifying their response to the event was one way of doing it.