Postmodernism in The Cradle

In Postmodernism for Beginners, Lyotard describes modern life as "all the world's cultures, rituals, races, databanks, myths and musical motifs are intermixing like a smorgasbord in an earthquake." Lyotard says that postmodernists' goal is to take the individual groups, cultures, or as Kurt Vonnegut would say "granfaloons" and "represent" them. Postmodernists seem to take stock in the belief that there is no central truth to life and that there is beauty within the chaos of a thousand different lifestyles. They argue that holding a central "truth" will not lead to ultimate happiness, but instead possibly the destruction of humanity, as the idea that with progress will come perfection has lead to such inventions as the atom bomb which murdered thousands of innocent people or the meaning of life, in Cat's Cradle, "protein." Vonnegut argues that finding ultimate truth either leads to useless information (as evident by "protein's" existence) or destruction (ice-9). Vonnegut's novel is a postmodern piece as evident by the fact that it contradicts its own validity; from the start of the novel, Vonnegut conveys the idea that the book is a batch of "foma" (lies) and that the philosophies presented in the novel are only one of millions present in the world. Philosophies, like "Bokononism," are simply meant to give man something to think about, another way to distract himself from the mundanity of reality. Throughout Cat's Cradle, the narrator describes the portions of Bokononism that he finds so wonderful, as if by the end of the novel he plans to lead his reader to the inevitable beautiful way of life he has adopted thanks to Bokonomism. Yet the narrator ends up in no better a position by the end of the novel than he started. Worse, actually. Two of the people he is left with on the planet are disgustingly racist, self-centered and simply dumb, the love of his life kills herself (blaming it playfully on the narrator's slow behavior) and he actually meets Bokonon. Yet he believes Bokononism to be wonderful because it allows him to escape the gross reality into which he has been thrust by the idiocy of his "karass." The religion allows him not to take himself, his religion, or life seriously and cope with the nastiness of life by simply glorifying the creative, unorthodox thoughts the human mind can produce.

One Massive Headache

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World exemplifies a social experiment put into action at full force, much like George Orwell's 1984. However, unlike the never-ending, constantly enforced regulation which the government in 1984 employs to keep its citizens in check, Brave New World's citizens are free to live as they wish, without as much government regulation upon individuals. Or so it seems. The Brave New World's citizens are raised, before birth and during the developmental stages of childhood, to enjoy life under such limited parameters that, even when they feel spontaneous and out of routine, they limit their rebelliousness by their own will. Were 1984's government to be described as totalitarian, Brave New World's could be described as contained anarchy. By separating the "savage" people such as John's kinsmen, "rebellious" anarchists such as Helmholtz and Bernard, and "happy citizens" like Linda or Lenina into different areas of the globe, untainted from one another, they are able to live out their lives as they want, while the highest tier of government control keep control with relative ease, watching for mistakes in the fabric of Earth's population and simply moving them out of harm's way.

In my Brave New World essay, I intend to explain Huxley's ultimate purpose for the novel. Theme being, that what Mustapha Mond sees as the ideal "happy" paradise of human society does not quite fit the mold of utopia for humankind. I also intend to bring in examples, with the help of outside sources such as Sir Ken Robinson's speech, of how modern society bears close resemblance to many of the institutions of Huxley's anti-paradise. I will incorporate Naomi Klein's No Logo, which explains the rising tide of commercially-driven youth generations in America. My title refers to soma. Which induces one, enormous headache. Or, may as well. Since most citizens in Brave New World have never experienced a headache, they have no frame of reference. So regular life may as well be one, long headache.

Soma Holication!

Free, public education was introduced to human society on a wide-scale when the American government was formed. Without the monetary restrictions set on students previously, the masses were allowed into school instead of merely an elite group of rich students. Although this allowed for a more intelligent working class, it has become taxing on a government which has to control a continually growing student population. A combination of population growth, technology, and what seems to be cultural paranoia have lead to a replacement of personalized teaching with standardized, more "efficient," government-mandated teaching.

In Sir Ken Robinson's statement about education, he stresses the harm of drugs and the "efficiency" of modern education. He says that schools are still built on "factory lines," and children are put in "batches," where the "date of manufacture" is the most important trait in their groupings. Contrary to this system, Robinson believes that children learn best through "collaboration."

In the context of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley paints an extreme version of what Robinson sees as a system of education which degrades students' minds, as all persons' ways of life. People are baked in "batches" on the conveyer belts of hatcheries and placed into social groups, such as Beta or Gamma, based on their date of creation. Instead of collaboration, every person is expected to be able to live on their own, without reliance on any other human being. No ideas are meant, or needed, to be shared. "Everyone belongs to everyone else." Yet, in the same way, everyone has no need for everyone else. Jobs are specific to one purpose and need no extra training or learning outside the requirements of their basic work. John's mother, for example, knows science only as that which provides the chemicals for her job and she is satisfied with that. Linda also has a book entitled The Chemical and Bacteriological Conditioning of the Embryo. Practical Instructions for Beta Embryo-Store Workers. She knows only that it provides her work description. She can follow its instructions word for word, but not explain them to her son. She much more likes to use "the reading machines [they] used to have in London." Linda also wishes to, after she enters her original society and every person she meets is disgusted by her existence, go on a "Soma" holiday. Soma is much like the ADHD pills given to students, in the way that it aesthetically deadens its victim to the world. Linda is a prime example of what the education Robinson refutes can do to a person; destroy their desire to think critically and instead be ready for only one purpose in life, a predestined role which keeps them incapable of improving society.

Proud Gears

The boys touring the human-production factory see Mustapha Mond as somewhat of a legend. Where what the director of the factory says is "straight from the horse's mouth," anything Mond has to say is basically straight from "his fordship's" mouth. Even the D.H.C. stands in awe of Mond. Therefore, when Mond says "wheels must turn steadily, but can not turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as sturdy as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment," it becomes known to the boys immediately as universal fact. And in this society, it seems to be true.

All members of society described thus far, discounting perhaps Bernard Marx, have exhibited these traits. For instance, at one point, the Assistant Predestinator notes to Henry Foster how "marvelous" the "Feelies" were and recommended them to the boy. Foster, in turn, replied with an unquestioning "I shall make a point of going." Although the Assistant Predestinator's description was brief, noting only ambiguously some "tactual effects," Foster accepts his advice, as he has been taught to rely upon the belief of his uppers as ultimate truth, regardless of facts. The touring boys' behavior also illustrates Mond's statement. Instead of responses, Huxley repeatedly describes the boys as writing "straight fro the horse's mouth into the notebook," as "it was a privilege." Obediently listening to the D.H.C. and content to accept his word as truth. Even Mond, who has borne witness to what seems, so far, to be the most "corrupting" literature, follows his words. To have read the Bible, to know of Spain and Rome and Italy, and continue on, accepting that they are merely human corruption, takes a sturdiness of mind, obedience to accepted beliefs, and a contentedness to live against one's will, in ignorance. Evidence of sanity? "'Yes. But when they do one good...' Fanny was a particularly sensible girl." Obviously, even if intravenals are to be "loathed" and make Lenina "shudder," it's sensible and expected that they be taken, since knowledgeable people like "Dr. Wells" know best about such things.

These goals influence citizens' inherent beliefs.
Such as monogamy; children are taught from early childhood to play "erotic games" so as to find experimenting with many sexual partners at once a nostalgically comfortable subject, leaving monogamy later in life to be a laughable concept.
As well as family; as children are raised in groups, without direct connection to siblings or parents, in a factory-like setting similar to their fertilization and birth; the concept of family is therefore imaginable "without the smallest success."
Along with impulse; after being told "sixty-two thousand four hundred" times "every one belongs to every one else," once a person wants another as a sexual partner, they can have that partner immediately without socially damaging implications. Impulse, where it can't be indulged in a job which must be regulated to the letter, can be fully indulged when it comes to sexual desire. Feeling is indulged only when it comes to anger, in Bernard Marx's case ("Idiots!") or Lenina Crowne in description of Marx as being someone "one would like to pet."

And the gears turn, breathing and content, conscious and well, by Mond's wise words.

In discussions of The Tempest, one controversial issue has been subtly slipped onto the table. On the one hand, Aime Cesaire argues through his rewrite of The Tempest, A Tempest, that Shakespeare's intended message was a political criticism of colonialism, religion, and race. Stephen Greenblatt argued that The Tempest "teach[es] us about forgiveness, wisdom, and social atonement." Others even maintain that Shakespeare's writing is made up of such useless blather that it is not worth mentioning in the modern pool of discussion. Yet the latter will not be used in Calvin's today blog.

However, my own view will be written as Shakespeare's own seems to have been through his text; with a much less direct attack. Shakespeare made money. Shakespeare made LOTS of money. This was partly due to the fact that he was a brilliant writer who could pour out countless amounts of plays and sonnets which not only entertained the listener, but also often held deeper, more socially-applicable meanings, as well as actor and director who could put these things onto the stage. Yet the deeper meanings, in his time, often had to be kept on, as I would say, the "down-low." Religious heretics were destroyed in his time. Colonialism ran rampant because many colonizers considered their victims to be nothing more than beasts of an untamed land. Women of intellect were still scorned; Queen Elizabeth's reign to power was an enormous and shocking leap for feminism, made successful mainly because she was such a strong ruler, and it was largely due to her support that Shakespeare's plays weren't as scorned as they could have been. Yet changes in universal thought, in a common sense, have over history come slowly, subtly. It took decades for feminists to gain the right to vote in America, and they still haven't been able to achieve the full stature of having the same rights as men. Slaves were freed, but it took decades before the overwhelming discrimination of blacks which fell like a blanket across America came to a head thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. Just as these folks had to tread carefully to induce change, so did Shakespeare not state his criticisms too blatantly in his writing. Prospero forgives his "wrongdoers" for exiling him from his country and Caliban forgives Prospero for treating him like a beast. Though Shakespeare shows within The Tempest that treating colonized peoples like animals is a disgusting and fruitless practice, he ends up revealing that the ruling power (Prospero) was ultimately right in his treatment of the people and was not all bad, for he is now allowed out of exile, just like Shakespeare wished to show the rulers of his time who advocated colonialism and sometimes disliked rulings would always come out to be the good guys. This way, Shakespeare's art could continue and the shady meanings within his plays could be subtly past out into the increasingly free generations of humans to follow.

I agree partially with Cesaire. I do agree that the overall feel of the political comments Cesaire made in his rewrite were latent in Shakespeare's original piece. Yet Cesaire's piece is exactly what it is said to be; a rewrite. It pulled from the original text ideas and then specified them to current issues, issues which Shakespeare did not himself attack. Cesaire seems to have done exactly what Shakespeare hoped later generations, or someone braver than himself, would someday do; take the wretched image that Shakespeare painted of the way Prospero treats his daughter (like an innocent, unintelligent doll), and Caliban (like a beast), and show how this treatment is wrong. Instead of showing Miranda as an innocent princess, curious about the world and in reverence of Prospero as Shakespeare showed her, Cesaire reveals the girl to be critical of her father, pointing out that he made mistakes and acting as if she were entitled to an explanation, instead of merely in want of one. Shakespeare made Caliban a dolt, who admitted to sexually desiring Miranda and seeing anyone with alcohol a God, but Cesaire made him an intelligent character capable of refuting Prospero's claims to ownership of a slave and actually angry about his position in life not simply because Prospero stole his land, but because Prospero stole his identity. Caliban of Cesaire's story considered not only the land his own property, but also his existence his property. Cesaire did not write a modern version of Shakespeare. Shakespeare is not modern or of the past, it is written in his own language and of so ambiguous of a nature that any human could sympathize with it with connection to any number of ailments. But Cesaire did write what Shakespeare seemed to have precluded and desired to inspire in his writing; an application of his writing to a personal, present problem.

Greenblatt is pointless. It seemed like he simply wanted to argue with George Will for the sake of argument. He was right when saying that The Tempest was about colonialism. But forgiveness, wisdom, and social atonement? The only person forgiven, unless another person forgiven by this man, was Prospero, who committed the heinous crime deserving of exile and sinking his fellow countrymen's ship. It was not of forgiveness, but of forgetting past misdeeds. Wisdom? All the men and girl learned was to accept Prospero as being as good as he said he was and living in blissful ignorance of his past misdeeds. Social atonement? Does this mean to say Caliban accepting his social position in the world? That's gross.

Cannibalizing Literature

Literature, as well as bringing intellectual joy to those who are lucky enough to have achieved literacy, is an art form which passes on ideas, whether they be to mould the mind of a two year old against the concept on peeing directly into carpet or enlighten a young adult about latent philosophies.
George Will of Newsweek magazine, in a seemingly bitter and resentful attack against a poor, possibly innocent woman by the name of Iannone, assails a political left which he believes "emancipates literature from the burden of esthetic standards." Will thinks most universities look at literature and end up creating "collective amnesia and deculturation" because their technique sucks away the author's original purpose and replaces it with groups of critics who instead fight for the right to say that they know what the writing is actually supposed to mean.
Stephen Greenblatt, on the other hand, advocates what Will refers to as the "political decoding" of literature by way of creating groups which see politics as the predominating function of a piece of writing, although see no one function of that piece of writing. "Poets cannot soar when their feet are stuck in social cement." Greenblatt feels that one culture should not lord over a piece of writing, should not determine its meaning, lest other cultures be stamped out and left no room for inquiry.
Yet Greenblatt's theory is plagued by holes. True, a piece of writing may not have one definitive meaning or purpose. It's audience may be far-reaching in culture and thought. But Greenblatt fails to point out that even in his argument, he advocates the idea that the writer had a definitive purpose behind his writing. "We know that Shakespeare read Montaigne; one of the characters in The Tempest quotes from "Of Cannibals." Greenblatt spends half is article convincing the reader that Shakespeare had a concrete purpose, centered around imperialism's disgusting existence, in writing the The Tempest. He points out that commentary on mysoginism, racism, and anti-semitism can be found in Shakespeare's writing. But in saying so, he agrees with Will that Shakespeare had a concrete purpose within each writing. It is wrong to stifle creativity, to push aside any thought that another way of reading or acting something out may exist, but it is not wrong to say that Shakespeare attacked the evils of imperialism in one of his plays. If it is for that reason that Shakespeare wrote it, then it cannot be argued that he wrote it for that reason. Of course, the man is dead. We can't ask him. We'll never know.
But one can deduce that The Tempest made a specific assumption. That statement can and should be questioned. But it can't change the fact that, unless Shakespeare blindly stumbled upon to the coincidental, random shaping of those words and letters and meant nothing when writing the actual script, something drove Shakespeare's pen, and that something came from the mind of William Shakespeare, not a twentieth century college professor.

Caliban of the Island People

Prospero, once Duke and now master of the seas, wields great power over the inhabitants of Shakespeare's comedy The Tempest, and after many years turns his dethroning into a new opportunity for control, manipulating the characters' environment to control each character's mental state. Miranda, for example, knows no other life outside the one Prospero tells her to live and therefore follows his advice, whim, and fancy. Ariel, Prospero's spirit-slave, knows only the torturous masterdom of Sycorax, who trapped Ariel in a tree for tweleve years before Prospero saved the poor spirit and set him unto new service, which to Ariel seems like something close to freedom after being trapped by his last master for so long. Caliban, a native of the island and bastard son of Sycorax leads a life with just as narrow a view as the others.
Caliban resents Prospero for stealing Caliban's homeland away, enslaving the poor boy, and keeping him "in this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me the rest o' th' island." The postcolonial article points out one writer whose modern views meld nicely into Shakespeare's own: Frantz Fanon "believes that as soon as the colonized were forced to speak the language of the colonizer, the colonized either accepted or were coerced into accepting the collective consciousness of the French, thereby identifying blackness with evil and sin and whiteness with purity and righteousness." Although Caliban resents Prospero for the man's dictatorial tendencies, Caliban refers to his mother's practices only as negatives, such as "plagues," and reveres to Stephano, a man of 'higher breeding'and of distant lands like Prospero, as "a brave god [who] bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him." Caliban throws himself at the feet of a man simply because of the man's physical appearance and goods. However much Caliban may despise Prospero, Shakespeare shows that Caliban is bound to make the same mistake he did with Prospero again simply because he believes that even a life of freedom holds the prerequisite of some kind of outside 'master.'

Narration

Prospero, from Shakespeare's The Tempest, seems to have secluded himself upon an island into a world of his own making. His 'daughter' Miranda washed upon the island when she was too young to remember life in any contrary surrounding and therefore is free to build a world upon whatever advice and teaching Prospero, who does remember life outside the island, chooses to give her. Prospero describes he and Miranda's arrival upon the island was due to Prospero's subjects of Milan who "So dear the love my people bore me" that they dumped Prospero and Miranda in a boat and pushed them out to sea. This story, to Miranda, is as likely as any other because she doesn't know that anything else could possibly exist. She likely also believes all that Prospero tells her, considering he is and has been her parental role model from as far back as she has memory.  Prospero also said, "here in this island we arrived, and here have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit than other princesses can that have more time for vainer hours and tutors not so careful." Since Miranda has no point of reference for what princesses could possibly be taught by their tutors, she may as well believe that Prospero's teachings are the greatest she could receive. In reference to our previous reading material, the Party also infects the minds of its subjects like Prospero does the mind of Miranda by creating a world of constant evil, which, although evil from the point of view to a happy, knowledgeable American, is simply the way of life for citizens of Oceania who have never experienced otherwise. Julia, for example, wants to rebel against the wretched absurdities of life, putting sex down as if it were a crime and then relishing it in privacy, advocating loyalty to the party and fighting against it from every angle. But she has no reference point to know how life could be any permanently different. She has no hope. She merely wants immediate change, a short bit of satisfaction. Anyway, not only can Prospero control the elements, but also his daughter's mental state and his enemy's location. Prospero, within himself and partly due to his ethereal powers, is a kind of Shakespearean Big Brother.

Writing history?

To begin with, I must note the New York Times writer's subtle anger towards the Texas Republicans. His anger was directed at the fact that Republicans were adding their bias to history, yet in the article he pointed out only points in the education reform which he found worthy of criticism, not any positives. It was a delicious bit of irony which made the article, although entertaining, hardly practical enough for me to believe the writer as a credible source of hard fact. In Chimamanda Adichie's mind, reading only this article would be insufficient, an incomplete story. It would be merely one fraction of rising action chunked out of a fully comprehensive novel on the subject of historical reform.

Through the Socratic Circle, we students, with our curious little minds, were able to get a firsthand taste of what it is like to see how stories can be incomplete and one speaker can be partial to a certain way of telling. Had both articles we read been unbiased, the discussions of each half of the class would have been the exact same. They were not because each article looked at the controversy from its own perspective.

Attacking the textbook issue is obviously no easy task; otherwise, it would have been resolved long ago. Although I may not know the right way to solve it, from the Socratic discussions, it seemed practical to me that a predominant bias cannot be cancelled out by adding an opposing bias to the mix as the Texas Republicans seemed to be attempting. Each bias seems merely to create an increasingly confusing stew of mismatched beliefs. Only bare fact, stripped of all political sway, could allow for an unarguably fair history. And of course, in the textbook, all points of view available would have to be included, no cultures shoved aside as less important or more.

But a child's attention span is short. Even into high school. Discounting a very beautiful, but miniscule population of children enthralled by facts of the past, children prefer active, exciting adventures of the present, such as video games or frisbee. Time in the classroom in which a teacher actually controls the attention of his or her students is minimal, and to increase that time, the teacher must make their subject interesting. When playing frisbee, most young children do not want to first study the various frisbee-making companies and the various types of frisbees which they could toss, but instead pick up the first frisbee they see and throw it as hard as they can. As with history, a child does not want to hear how various Native American tribes gathered food, but how Geronimo used his telepathic abilities to sneak through enemy camps without leaving a trace and could be shot through the belly without leaving any sign of a grievous wound.

History is quite expansive according to state standards. Life could go back as far as 3.5 billion years and history even further, possibly even to the beginning of time. Or, in a world like the one illustrated in 1984, could be completely based on perception and only go back as far as one individual or another chose to take it. But since we students follow along state standards, there is a lot of material to cover, and only some of it can be fed to us at school. The rest must be voluntary. Therefore, although the desire to infect ignorant children with their personal bias is great, the small amount of information we can be fed should not be corrupted by whether the Republican party of the past was awesome for helping along the Civil Rights Movement, but merely HOW it helped along the Civil Rights Movement. And possibly how the Democrats and maybe Libertarians played a role. But that might be unpatriotic. So no. Nevermind.

Freedom of Speech

Beat the cat. Skin the cat. Awful, terrible words.