Postcolonialsim― a Tale of the Oppressed

            Postcolonialist believe that there are more than one side to every story, the dominant side and the often the sides that are oppressed but will never told.  We know the story of the colonizer, or also the oppressor, but the story of the colonized is often lost because they have been force to accept the ideas of the oppressors. When   Westerners "discovered" uncharted lands they did one of two things, they sought out the natives or they looked for a place of permanent and future residency.  The Westerners would then indoctrinate the savages because they came upon an ideology, "all races other than white were inferior or subhuman," (Cultural Studies 236).   

            The colonizers force their religion and their society on the inferior; any that do not agree are most likely killed.  Chapter 10 of the Cultural Studies calls it an alternity, where the inferior “are excluded from positions of power and viewed as different” (236).  They are not able to freely express themselves and are told to conform or die.  This creates an animosity within the colony where the “others” and the colonizers share a hate for each other and if one chose to reach out to the other they are shunned from their own community.  This colonization does not have to exist between races however, it is often through personal beliefs that people cannot or will not express due to the hegemony.  A hegemony is the “dominant values, sense of right and wrong, and sense of self-worth” in a society or and community.  There many that will not express themselves because they know that they are not socially accepted because of they are.  Women had to speak out to achieve their equal rights, but this did not make many people happy.  There are others that hide who they truly are because they do not fit in because they are different.

Technopoly v Technacracy

      Technopoly and technacracy, two opposites dealing with technology and the two paths they will take us as a race.  Both terms are used in Neil Postman's book Technopoly.  Technacracy is path where humans are the users of technology, where we have full control over what we use. This is describes most of the world, because our technology does not have full control over us.  But a technopoly is the idea that technology controls us, it does not necessarily have to be intelligent to take control.  An example would be Brave New World where the humans in the society live to create more humans. The people do not necessarily live for themselves but rather live to work and to make more workers who are predestined to follow the footsteps of those that helped create them.  A example of where technology is used for reasons the user wishes would be 1984 where the government uses technology to spy on its citizens.  Postman believes that America has been "pushed technocracy... into a Technopoly," we at some point have become the ones being used.
      In a technopoly the workers do not have to think, and in Brave New World there is a hierarchy  in which the bottom― Epsilons and Deltas― have no need to think in whatever menial jobs that they have.  The "technique of any kind can do our thinking for us" according to Frederick Winslow Taylor in his book The Principles of Scientific Management.  Taylor tries an experiment to create an industrial workplace based on nothing but scientific reasoning and calculations or also know as scientific management.  With this Postman concludes that humans are worth nothing compared to the machines that can replace them.  With these ideas many can come to the conclusion that there is no need for humans. In the case of Brave New World the humans are only need to perform task for the machines.  These people are not "human," some will argue because they are not naturally conceived and do not naturally die, they are artificially living because their feeling are influenced heavily on soma and die when they are supposed to.  Our future with technology looks unstable, we may be erased from reality by some form of artificial intelligence, we may not, we can only watch what will happen.

Technology Advances in Hopes of Reaching Singularity

      Singularity is a concept in which people say that technology will advance exponentially reaching the limits of infinity. There are theories that people will merge themselves with technology to try to reach immortality or even try to become all-knowing and creating artificial intelligent beings. They believe at this point technology would improve itself to curve the advancements. Many people refute these ideas for reason such as they believe it is immoral or that we could cause our own extinction. Author also believe that merging or becoming computers makes us lose our sense of humanity.

    Raymond Kurzweil has been a figurehead for Singularity, he could even be said to be a prophet when it comes to technological advances. Kurzweil created a computer that could write music in 1965 at the age of seventeen. It is easy to see why people could see Kurzweil as an able prophet due to this accomplishment. Kurzweil wants to have technology be able to help humans look for ways of elongating our life spans and even wants to go so far as keep ourselves immortal. He also wants to bring his father, who had died early due to heart problems, back to life. That seems innocent enough but if we have the ability to do that then we would have another reign of dictators responsible for wars.

        In Lev Grossman's Time magazine article "2045:The Year Man Becomes Immortal," Grossman writes about Singularity and background information such as Kruzveil's background, and the new advancements towards singularity. Grossman talks of how humans have created Intelligent computers but they are not completely intelligent, they lack something that we can associate them as humans. Grossman questions if by merging ourselves to computers are we stll human. With the question "If I can scan my consciousness into a computer, am I still me?" In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Bernard Marx, a major character, questions his society and better yet himself. He lives in a mechanical world where humans are slaves to pleasure, and more yet a drug called soma. Bernard refuses to take soma because he does feel like himself. Bernard wants to be "more on [his] own, not so completely part of something else" (Huxley 90). Bernard fights against what he sees as a chaotic society, just so he can be more human.

I will digress for a little, video games are often fictional works, in one case the games Portal and Portal 2 have an AI that pursuits "science." The game started as a puzzle based game where the player uses a gun that uses portals to solve each puzzle. The company running the test with the portals is Aperture Science Laboratories. The by an AI known as GlaDOS who seems like a human. In the game you end up fighting the AI and end up "killing" it. In Portal 2 you learn more of Aperture and learn of a man known as Cave Johnson the founder of Aperture. His ideas are not exactly sane much less what we call science but he has his ways before he dies. The games are surrounded by AI constructs, the second one especially, each turret has a personality and even has a device to simulate pain. In the second one you travel with a core that contains an AI construct that acts like a human. Point is the game surrounds you with "humans" or rather artificial humans, some may argue that is what they are because they feel and have emotions.

      So what makes a person a human, in in Huxley's novel there are plenty of humans, its their rights their beliefs and most of all their soul. But in Brave New World they all have that, all except a freedom that we have in our society. We possess a fighting will to live and a will to exists for ourselves not for some social body, we choose who we want to be or we at least have that right.

My essay analysis

            What makes great essays is there a format that students can follow or does writing essays have to come naturally? Is a narrative hook required so that we may grab the attention of our audience or are essays supposed to grab the attention of any unsuspecting bystander?  Many teachers “encourage” students to follow the Jane Shaffer format and say it is an excellent way to write essays when really they force their students to write in that format and can limit the writing potential of students.  “Hell Hath No Fury: The Relationship Between Greece's Medusa and Egypt's Wadjet” by Elizabeth R. Casto does not follow the Jane Shaffer format it is not a bad essay however.  Casto uses appeals to emotions to grab the audience’s attention particularly women’s feelings even though it does not seem to follow any format. 

The essay is about a relationship between Medusa and Wadjet, as it is obviously stated in the title of the essay. The two are powerful women of myth in which Casto points out the many similarities of the two myths. Her essay title does not cover give us any idea that it is a feminist piece and she seems unaware of it.  The essay does seems as if it should be centered more towards feminism because Casto talks of how in earlier eras powerful women could not exist.  Casto does say that “men will destroy [powerful women] or own them eventually.  The thesis for this essay is “fierce women make for interesting myths and an insight on forbidden strengths in women” yet she concludes her essay by saying that men do not like to be owned by women.  Her title and thesis do not match which in turn means that her essay does not follow either or and becomes incoherent. 

The incoherence really may be bad but the essay has more to it than its subject.  AS mentioned earlier Casto’s essay does not follow Jane Shaffer’s format.  Her paragraphs for example vary in size with paragraphs as small as three sentences or bigger than eight sentences long.  Her sentences also vary in size; they all do not take up two lines in the page.  Her quotations fit naturally with the host sentence, they are not awkwardly placed.  She switches from paraphrasing and direct quotations throughout the essay.  She may not have two commentary sentences for every concrete detail, but she does have enough of her own commentary in the essay.  Her language is formal, it does not have any slang and she does not try to impress her audience with her diction.  Her use of evidence is balanced in that it is mostly her commentary rather than allowing the facts to overrun the essay.  Her use of “in conclusion” is an acceptable way to start the beginning of the closing, but there are other ways to start the conclusion. 

To say that Elizabeth R. Casto ‘s essay is mediocre has some truth but there are some elements that put it above most essays.  Her subject, a rather interesting one, may naturally give her some help because of the feministic subject in her essay but the mediocrity comes from her incoherence.  The title may mislead any potential persons from reading something they may actually enjoy or agree but the subject in itself can retain those that would normally avoid feminist pieces. This essay is a great example of an essay that is independent of Jane Shaffer’s format for great essays.