Essay #10 Doctorow: Little Brother

This is my last essay for Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, and I have to say how much I've enjoyed Professor Rabkin's unit. I think the texts chosen really offered a good cross section of both genres (and nearly all at no cost to access), and the short essay format really forced me to write leaner, meaner analysis. The increase in availability of such free and high quality education is something I'm really excited by as someone who's made a lifelong commitment to study, and I appreciate the efforts of all involved in making this course.

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Little Brother and the Technologically Informed Electorate

Little Brother is a response to the threat of constant government surveillance augured

George Orwell's 1984. In 1984 surveillance technology was used as a tool by the government led by the dictatorial “Big Brother” to control the citizenry:

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” (Orwell 1949)

Little Brother makes a counter-argument to this; that technology can empower citizens with the ability defend their liberty from tyranny. This argument is closely woven with the theme of democracy.

Thomas Jefferson argued that a well informed electorate was the most important component of democracy (Blair 1997); and in Little Brother it's the citizens informed by technology who are ultimately able defend democracy. In Little Brother technology is not just a means of oppression, but a weapon and a shield in the hands of the well informed electorate:

“My technology was working for me, serving me, protecting me. It wasn't spying on me. This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.”

While the constant surveillance from a tyrannical government is still a major threat to private citizens, technology itself can empower citizens to organize the resistance, and subvert the surveillance. Winning freedom is a function of an electorate specifically informed in the technologies used against them; and Little Brother introduces specific tools for inform readers in such subversion. 1984 is a dire warning about a government controlling its citizens with technology, and Little Brother is a delineation for defending freedom, and democracy under similar circumstances.

References

Blair, P. 1997. The Evolving Role of Government in Science and Technology.

http://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/EngineeringEvolving/TheEvolvingRoleofGovernmentinScienceandTechnology.aspx (accessed April 9, 2013).

Orwell, G. 1949. 1984. London: Penguin Books.

Studies in Complements #2

So it seems like the final assignment of Gender Through Comic Books will be to produce a comic on a theme related to gender. I'm working on an idea already, but it remains to be seen as to if this will pan out or not.

Gender Through Comic Books #1

It seems like I've accidentally wandered my way into another MOOC: Gender Through Comic Books, by Christina Blanch of Ball State University. In my defence, it's only six weeks long and how can anyone read that course description and pass it up?

Virtual Habitats and the Value of Nature #1: An Introduction to the Perils of a PhD

Starting this PhD is for me like getting a package in the mail, probably one filled with apple trees, and thus covered with quarantine labels, heavy duty tape, and straps; along with the presence of sundry icons across the package providing somewhat conflicting advice as to which end is up, and where I should open it. I have the certainty that something good is inside, I just fear ruining it by opening it the wrong way.

There are several things you might conclude from this prologue:

I am weak at sentence and paragraph structure, and just may be the most appalling PhD student ever have an enormous potential to improve.

I think the conventional way to do a PhD is to draft up the chapters, then start writing, and then after some tens of thousands of words; begin revising. That seems a little incongruous to my natural inclinations, so I'm going to apply the same formula to my PhD that was used for the unit I'm currently finishing through Coursera,  Fantasy and Science Fiction:The Human Mind, Our Modern World by Professor Eric Rabkin from the University of Michigan, which required one 270-320 word essay every week, though I've decided to bump the word count up by 50 words to a wordcount of 320-370, to allow me some extra room to provide evidence to my argument. Assuming this PhD takes 4 years (given that for this year at least I'll be part-time), and assuming that I write an average of 345 words a week, that's 71, 760 words. Which will allow me some left-over words with which to connect these piecemeal parts out, and all the extra words that seem to sneak in during the revision process.

Having a solid structure to this thing doubtlessly will allow me to unpack my argument with a little more direction. The working title is Virtual Habitats and the Value of Nature: Is there a value to digital habitat dioramas? And I'll be explaining a little more what it's about every week. 

Prisms of Phantasm #2

Occasionally I engage in fits of denial; like the idea that I could make a mural of fantastic creatures without the inclusion of Pegasus. Clearly my ability to resist drawing mythical equines was also just a fantasy.

Essay #9: Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness

The Left Hand of Darkness as an Examination of Culturally Established Ideas of Gender Binaries

The Left Hand of Darkness examines culturally constructed ideas of gender-linked character traits, by showing the gender neutral Gethenian society through the perception of individuals from a familiar gender binary culture. This tactic calls attention to the lens of culturally constructed ideas of (perceived) gender-linked behaviours in our culture. Gendered human characters from either side of this constructed gender binary struggle when attempting to interpret behavioural traits outside of a gendered society.

Male viewpoint character Genly Ai's persistent attributions of characteristics as either masculine and feminine demonstrates this cultural fixation of attributing characteristics in gender-linked binary. Genly perceived his 'landlady' as feminine based on the presence of qualities attributed as feminine within his (and our) own culture, but the premise that these characteristics are gender-linked is questioned when it is revealed that the 'landlady' has, if anything, experiences (fatherhood, rather than motherhood) that are more biologically masculine. This examination shows flaws in ascribing behaviours to gender; rather than the characteristics of an individual, or the behaviour they have been raised by their culture to exhibit.

Female investigator Ong Tot Oppong similarly finds that the Gethenians challenge what she knows are the accepted expectations of socio-sexual relations within her own culture.

“A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated... On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.”

The veiled sarcasm of her report hints at a deprecatory attitude towards the way people within her own society are valued and perceived based on gender, and her viewpoint provides a more direct criticism of entrenched ideas about gender than the fallacy less explicitly revealed by Genly's narrative. The Left Hand of Darkness challenges the validity of ideas entrenched in our culture's gender binary by presenting gender as a flawed lens for perceiving the value and characteristics of individuals.

Essay #8 Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles

Rockets as a Dichotomous Motif for Advancement, and Destruction, in The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles features the motif of rockets as a possibility of both discovery and destruction. Rockets simultaneously represent the grandeur of scientific advancement, and a history of violence and destruction. The rocketry technology for space exploration originates from war; and in particular the V-2 rocket, developed in 1944 in Nazi Germany (The Guardian 2012), which was the first long range ballistic missile (NASA Spacelink System n.d.). The design of this rocket of war is credited as a major influence to the development of space exploration as after the war, the United States and U.S.S.R. utilised the technology and its developers in their own programs, transitioning rockets from purely destructive purposes, into instruments of discovery for scientific progress, which would eventually allow for further exploration into our solar system (Ibid.).

In Bradbury's experience, rocketry technology is a double edged sword capable of eithers advancing our society; or destroying it. The rocket motif is used to introduce this dichotomy into the chronicles from the onset, to challenge that the idea that the advancements made possible by scientific breakthroughs will better the the lives of people:

“'Science ran too far ahead of us too quickly, and the people got lost in a mechanical wilderness... emphasizing machines instead of how to run the machines. Wars got bigger and bigger and finally killed Earth...We were lucky. There aren't any more rockets left.. Earth is gone. Interplanetary travel won't be back for centuries, maybe never. But that way of life proved itself wrong and strangled itself with its own hands. You're young. I'll tell you this again every day until it sinks in.'” (“The Million Year Picnic”).

Scientific advancements can lead to positive outcomes, but as The Martian Chronicles explores, if we don't know how to use technology with wisdom, and for peace, everyone (Earthling or Martian) will suffer in the end.

References

NASA Spacelink System. n.d. A Brief History of Rocketry.
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/rocket-history.htm
(accessed March 26, 2013).

The Guardian. 2012. V2 rocket: engine of war and discovery – video.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2012/aug/04/v2-rocket-engine-war-discovery-video
(accessed March 26, 2013).