Things Fall Apart and Postcolonialism

Postcolonial ideas often focus on a central idea that cultures form hegemonies, which according to our postcolonial text is a culture’s “dominant values, sense of right and wrong, and sense of personal self worth.” The text continues to provide the colonization of the African culture by the Anglo-Saxon culture as an example of when two hegemonies collide. These hegemonies are ignorant in their nature, and often the superior hegemony, in this case, the white Anglo-Saxons, will try to control and convert the other hegemony that they may perceive as savage, evil, and ultimately just plain wrong. These postcolonial texts essentially argue that the creation of alternities, “whereby ‘the others’ are excluded from positions of power and viewed as different and inferior.”, kills off the culture of the “others” by forcing its hegemony on the “inferior” culture.

          This idea relates to the text specifically through the actions of the missionaries. The missionaries are creating the alternity of the Ibo culture, calling them “heathens” and causing the white colonizers to view the Ibo people as inferior. As the missionaries impose their presence upon the Ibo people, many of the Ibo are alienated by this new and strange culture and ultimately will fight against it if they must. However the white colonizers can easily suppress any threat to their beliefs. The missionaries offer their Christian culture to the Ibo but only if they reject their culture in doing so. “Unless you shave off the mark of your heathen belief I will not admit you into the church.’ Said Mr. Kiaga.” If they do decide to turn their back on their culture the Ibo will view them as traitors and treat them as outcasts. Even though they may have accepted a new culture, the converting Ibos will still be viewed as different and inferior by the Anglo-Saxons because a alternity has already been set on their people, a sort of  “a tiger can’t change its stripes” effect. As the Ibo culture is bleeding out, those who leave it themselves will still be outsiders not only from their own, but the ones they turned to, stuck in the middle with nowhere to go.

The Technopoly Theory

Accoring to Neil Postman's Technocracy to Technopoly, "[The United States] is a young Technoploly." (Postman 48). So what is a Technopoly? Well before you can understand what a Technopoly is you must know what a Technocracy is. "In a technocracy- that is, a society only loosely controlled by social custom and religious tradition and driven by the impulse to invent" (Postman 41). Postman argues that America was a technocracy in the 1900's when a multitude of inventions were created. America as a whole seemed to be fuelled by the idea of inventing new technologies. A Technopoly is the totaltarian version of a technocracy; where the impulse to progress has completely driven out social customs and religion. Postman beleives that Fredrik Winslow Taylor is the father of the technopoly theory. Postman makes reference to Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Manegement: "These include the beleifs that the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency" (Postman 51). At the expotential that technology is developing in America, I beleive, that Postman's beleif that the United States is at an infant stage of a technopoly is not far from the truth. However, religion and tradition are still prevailant and strong in America.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World embodies Postman's idea of a technoploly. The people of brave new world serve the machine and their philosophy is based off of progress and efficiency. Postman beleives that a technocracy and technopoly looks at people as consumers rather than citizens. This concept is also reflected in Brave New World; the people, through hypnopaedia, are taught to constantly consume. Also, the way the people of the new world look at death shows how they themselves beleive they are purely consumers. They don't fear death or even wonder about death but see themselves as components to the "machine" that is the world as a whole, continuing to progress further and further. Everyone is breeded to perform a specific job to keep the machine running.The use of soma reflects the focus on efficiency, the people are trained to take soma whenever an unpleasent feeling arises; this will keep them permenantly in a good mood so that they aren't distracted or prevented from working. Many of Postman's components to his "technopoly" are based off of Huxly's book. "Technopoly eliminates alternatives to itself precisley the way Aldous Huxley outlined in Brave New World." (Postman 48). By this he means that the new world does not completely prevent an alternative way of thinking, as compared to 1984, but makes it completely invisable, the people couldnt even think of a different way of living even if they tried, as shown when Bernard is in a helicopter flying over the ocean trying to look for the words for wanting something more in life than just serving the machine.

The Singularity: End of Humanity?

Raymond Kurzweil, a man of great intelligence beleives in the future humans and machines will become one, this is called the Singularity. The concept of the Singularity is based off the the beleif that computers will become so intelligent that humans will have to merge with the computers just to keep up with progress. An article published by Lev Grossman sums up Kurzweil's idea "[The computer's] rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators." (Grossman 1). So if we were to merge with the machines, would we still be human? Will these future cyborgs resemble what we see as humanity today? Will they still have human emotions, or even look like us? So the real question is how the artificial intelligence will respond to us once it gains conscienceness. "Maybe we'll merge with them to become super-intelligent cyborgs, using computers to extend our intellectual abilities the same way that cars and planes extend our physical abilities. Maybe the artificial intelligences will help us treat the effects of old age and prolong our life spans indefinitely. Maybe we'll scan our consciousnesses into computers and live inside them as software, forever, virtually. Maybe the computers will turn on humanity and annihilate us." (Grossman 1). The thought of what could happen is both exciting and frightening. However, if the result ends up a "good" one, will it really be good? Is it worth the cost of loosing our humanity? For example, "Old age is an illness like any other, and what do you do with illnesses? You cure them." (Grossman 3). Would being immortal really be a good thing? Weren't we raised to beleive that death is innevitable? Death is just one thing that makes us human, all humans die eventually, so if  we dont die, does that mean we are not human? So my question is what is more important, progress, or preserving what makes us human; is losing our identity as a species worth defying what we thought was impossible?


Rhetorical Analysis of Derek Miller's Essay on Cat's Cradle

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/512/postmodernism-in-vonneguts-cats-cradle

Miller understood the postmodern idealism perfectly, and could clearly explain how postmodernism relates to Cat's Cradle. Like 1984, Cat's Cradle is based off the same postmodern thesis that science and progress may actually not be leading to an utopia but an anti-utopia. The thesis was clearly stated and well elaborated on. I beleive that Miller understood what he was reading and that showed in his essay.

Miller uses Jim Powell, the author of Postmodernism for Beginners, as an appeal to Ethos earn credit with the audience and help explain what his thesis means. Powell is of course a perfect source for this thesis seen that he is an expert on postmodernism. Miller formats his essay to state his subject and then back up his subject with a quote from Powell. Similar to the Schaffer Format, commentary then a concrete detail, it is well organized and conveys the point with ease. He utilized the most important quote of the book, "there's no damn cat, and there's no damn cradle", not only as one of the subjects he elaborated on but also as the hook in the introductry paragraph. The entire essay flowed rather well, each paragraph wel organized according to its content.

Miller's diction was mostly simple but also had a few advanced words and I did not detect any misuse of any words or grammar errors. The language was formal and the essay seemed professional and well worded. Having read Cat's Cradle myself and my recent introduction to postmodernism I was easily able to relate to the essay and its thesis along with an understanding of the plot of the the book. I can tell Miller has a good understanding of postmodernism and for people who are completely unaware of postmodernism he uses Powell's crediblity to build ethos.

Overall Miller's essay show a good understanding of the book its based on and the thesis that it explains. The format is is neat and organized, and the diction is pretty good. I would rate it as a very good essay.