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.