This is my blog for English 213 "Classical Foundations of Literature" with Dr. Michael Sexson.
Right now the foul demons of procrastination are in epic struggle with the muses for what gets posted on here.
Looking forward to the class. I do have one challenging dilemma though, to Dr. Sexson's assertion that "All that is past possesses our present." I'd agree that up until 50 years or so ago, maybe 70, that every theme created was inevitably linked to themes from the past. But something really big began to happen in the 20th century.
The conception of the digital era.
It's changed everything, and I was born at a time when that change was occurring. For instance, when my sister, four years older than myself, went to Helena Middle School there were no computers for her to use, to learn from, or to simply get used to. When I attended that same school we had a computer lab, terminals for general use. This technological revolution has impacted every aspect of our lives, from the ways in which we purchase items, to the ways in which we communicate, and to some extent to the way we live our lives. This blog, required by the class, would be proof enough of that.
So, my question is this: Where in the past was this radical change predicted, alluded to, or conceptualized? This is not a rhetorical question, and if anyone out there can construct a viable argument for it, I'd certainly like to learn it.
But, as of right now, I'm sure the Greeks before the common era didn't think of it.
Why would this be important to me? Do you realize for the first time in human history information is indestructible? Do you realize that copies of a work are spawned through the Internet completely independent of the original? (Stand Alone Complex)
The human condition has been changed in a way that could not of been predicted. Therefore, stories "Literature" if you will is being generated without any connection to the "classics." Things are happening that have never happened before.
If someone could prove me wrong, or provide a dialogue in opposition to this view, please feel free to post.
4 comments:
So you are saying that present day technology has changed the world. Certainly it has. Yet just because we have new ways of storing and sending information, things are still not totally new. Indeed, Lao Tzu could not write the Taoteching on his laptop. Yet what about the creation of the written word? Wasn't this a revolutional in many of the same ways all of our computers are? Don't you think people were amazed that now they could write things down and keep them for later, that to be remembered things no longer had to rely on the memory of those who learned them? That such written words were now no longer destructable do to time and failing memory? Computers put a new, faster, easier exciting twist on things, yet to employ the common saying: "nothing is new under the sun." Nothing!
I thought you wanted to have a conversation here. or are you already yelling "uncle"? :D
The computer is just a less passionate version of the brain. Besides, if you dont know every bit of history everywhere in the universe through all of time how can you know that there weren't computers or something better somewhere and somewhen else? Also there have certainly been other ways of communicating, calculating and storing information before. hmmm
like hell the computer is a version of the brain! A computer is just numbers, binary code.
And as far as saying aliens have better computers maybe....thats just a stupid and irelavant point.
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