Generation Y
Generation YWe began the class by asking if this is the world in which we wish to live in. I did not know then and I do not know now. We watched video after video and read book upon book that investigated our society. On the last day of class, you mentioned that most of the world does not get to experience this kind of privilege. This is sad. Because it is not as much factual knowledge that I take away from your class, as it is a better understanding of the world I live in.
I tried asking your original question at the only place it seems I can go to get definitive answers, Internet search engines. But they did not understand. All I got were some links to webcams and porno sites. With no clear answer to this inquiry, I guess the obvious counter question would be do I have a choice? The class centered on our relationship with the media and technology. Therefore, I have broken up this essay into two parts. First I will offer my views on technology, and then on the media. In conclusion, I will correlate the two and try to answer your question.
I believe that the literature and film presented in this class generates a despairing analysis of the present and the future. We started with Brave New World, a thought provoking work of fiction set hundreds of years in the future, but written over five decades ago. Aldous Huxley presents a world where the people do not have free will; in fact, they wouldn’t even recognize the term. These quasi-humans are unknowingly, albeit willingly, controlled by a born into biological and social caste system. When the novel was first printed, it was not widely seen as an incredibly foreshadowing piece, but rather as trivial and self- centered. It was only after the passage of time that people truly recognized its incredibly ominous theme. Technological innovation changed Huxley’s futuristic society immeasurably, so much so that individuality and religion were long forgotten. Are we on our way to doing the same thing?
Soon after reading his book, we were introduced to a real life documentary film that portrayed the glaring and embarrassing differences within Ohio’s public school system. The frightening question is: Though the book is a fictitious novel about life hundreds of years in the future, how closely does the documentary correlate with what Huxley was trying to say? Is the social caste system that he presented that far removed from the real life demographic differences that we ignore daily? I do not have the answers to these questions. But until this class, I did not know the importance of formulating them.
Formulating questions: This is what we are supposed to do now, right? This is exactly what Frank...
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