Thoreau

Henry Thoreau's book Walden is a great counterexample to the way we live today. He talks about going to the woods in order to live deliberately. In hopes of find what the wilderness could teach him, he made himself independent from the environment in which he had been living in. He soon began to find that his writing housed new ideas that came to him while secluded in the woods. After reading some of Thoreau's short philosophies I realized that what he decided to do could be very beneficial.

"Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion." This points out to me that they had the same problem we do today back then. We eat because we can. We do not eat because we are hungry, but because we are bored. This strikes me as a problem because this ties into the overproduction of cattle and poultry. Which ties into the use of steroids and fertilizers and how they pollute our planet. It is one giant circle of negative effects, just because we refuse to cut back on what we eat. Does this generalize us as selfish?

I was also interested in his idea of the railroad. "And if the railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads?" I tied this into consumer products today. The reason products are made is to interest us and because we will buy them. If we stop buying useless stuff we will stop the production of "waste", these things that will end up in the garbage with in days. That quote is ended by "we do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us." This helps explain how production is not something the benefits us, but benefits because of us.

I wish that our lives today were not so focused on technology and how much of something we have. We base our lives and our success off of what we make a year, or how many cars we have. When in return you’re just measuring how much time you have wasted and how much life you have lived. I am excited to take the Thoreau Challenge because maybe it will open my mind up to things that I had not once aware of.

Dumbest Generation

After watching the video by Mark Bauerlein I was offended by his remarks, but later realized that I do agree with some of his remarks. Bauerlein talks about how we are the generation that watches 2.41 hours of television a day and how we do not even know whom we allied with during WWII. This is the part that bothers me. It bothers me most because I fall within the group of people he talks about. I constantly confuse dates and names and I cannot even tell you the dates WWII was fought during. Though our generation may not know our entire history there are some explanations.

Our generation is forced to know more knowledge than the previous generations. My dad still types with his two pointer fingers, where as I learned that in school. Our curriculum is packed with more in depth stuff and we are forced to learn it at a much faster rate. I just wonder what Mark Bauerlein defense against that would be? Does he take that into consideration when he blatantly bashes our generation?

When in our groups, one of my group members brought up the fact that is it really our faults for being the dumbest generation? Think about the things that distract us from our studies or the thing that fill our minds instead of our alliances in WWII; they are all things that were created by people in the generation prior to us. Yes, we should take the initiative to learn our countries history, but why would we want to do that when the newest episode of Family Guy is on?

The world that we grow up in now is completely different than the one that Mark and his generation grew up in. We deal with so many more things and balance so much more on our plates. The part that really interests me is what would the previous generations be like if they were in our shoes now? If Mark could somehow obtain that information and compare it to our generation now, maybe I would go online a start educating myself more. However, I do not completely agree that we should be called the dumbest generation because the information that we know now is far beyond the information that previous generations needed to know. Maybe we can be considered the more diverse generation who lives in a far more complex environment.

Hooks Lectures

After watching Hook's video in class and two of her videos outside of class I soon realized that I do not agree with everything that she says. She talks about very controversial issues that she is very opinionated about. The video we watched in class ties into interpreting society, but doing so in a cultural way.

When watching the video on feminism she talked about how Madonna goes along with patriarchy. How can she say this when Madonna is the main provider for her family? Even though she was married to a man who was very domineering she was still a leader in her family.

Hook's also tied in about how she was offended by Madonna’s racist comment "...black men are the most sexist people." This can not be considered true, because there is not data for any one to establish this conclusion off of. The part that did not make sense to me was how Hook's tried to defend herself and her race by lashing out on Madonna’s husband who was accused of domestic violence. These two issues are not relatable in this scenario and hurt her defense. After listening to this I was ready to stop watching this video, but her next point is something that I can agree with.

The quote from both a male and female executive stats that "Race is not the issue, the only color that matters in society is the color of green" is something that I can agree with. She said earlier in her lecture that Madonna does a lot of the sexual stunts because she is interested in money. Even though this cannot be determined because I am sure that Hooks is not personally friends with Madonna, there is still the possibility that it is true. Money is something that makes people act differently then they would in a society where currency is not the main focus. Everything we do is done for money. The advertisements that we have been looking at in class would never be an issue if the companies that made them were not interested in only making money.

Hook's views can be tied into the book Culture Shock because of the way both authors tell us to open our eyes to how society is being run. They point out the issues that are commonly overlooked or ones that we cannot fix without a great deal of unity. Even though I do not agree whole heartedly with everything that Hooks or Lasns talk about, both authors have opened my eyes to different things in society that I once overlooked. After reading this book and listening to the visual aids in class, I feel like I am more cognizant to my environment.

Technology

In the section "Mind Disorders", in the book Culture Jam, the idea of noise is brought into play. The book talks about how noise can be seen as a mind pollutant. When we think of the noise that surrounds us in our daily lives, most of it comes from the technology that we incorporate into our schedules. Simple things like running, family time, social events are constantly filled with noise.

With new devices like mp3 players and iPods it makes it very easy for us to seclude ourselves from the world we live in. We put our headphones in to distract ourselves from our environments. Personally I use by iPod to distract myself while running and doing other cardio-vascular workouts. I have become so dependent on this technology that I often find myself refusing to do these tasks, like running or jogging, without by iPod. This concept can be tied into to the quote on page 4 “ The kid's sense have become so deadened from disuse they can't touch, taste, smell or see that they are in a marvelous place."

This marvelous place that the book refers to is the natural environment that creates our existence. With televisions being played during dinner time, video games being played while driving to church, and music systems play constantly we are ignoring our environment. We lose the interactions between eachother and we lose the congnizance of our surroundings. In return we have become "drone like" and are only affected by our modern, technology based, world.

We rarely find ourselves in a place where it is completely silent. We have moved from social events where talking was the main noise, to social events where it is awkward if music is not being played in the background. The book mentions that "silence feels foreign to us." I find this to be completely true and have a hard time thinking of a time when I was in a place that was completely silent and I allowed myself to enjoy it. When I read this, it invoked the question of, what would the world be like if more people took the time to put themselves in a silent atmosphere?

Overall our generation is changing and noise has taken a whole new meaning in the era in which we live in. We are constantly surrounded by it and our modern ways are only becoming more exaggerated. We are spacing ourselves from our natural environment and creating our own new one, with our technology. My personal goal is to detach myself from my certain technological advances and see how it impacts my life.

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I am in lit 250 and this is my blog.