Class,
As we discussed last week, we have been invited to participate in an amazing collaborative project called Book Traces. On Wednesday, October 8th, at 2pm we will meet at Columbia University in the Studio@Butler in Butler Library: http://library.columbia.edu/locations/butler.html. Butler Library is the main humanities library and is the large columned neo-classical building to your right as you walk into the campus from Broadway at 116th Street, not the domed classical building (that says Library) to your left. The easiest way to get to Columbia Morningside campus is to take the 1 to 116th St.
Before we go, I would like you to read the post about the event, this article from The Atlantic on the project, and the article by Dr. Andrew Stauffer which is listed under “Readings (password protected).”
Expect to be there for at least a full hour, and know that you are invited to stay until the 4pm closing event. I will meet you at the Studio with Dr. Stauffer. Class will be cancelled that evening.
For those that can make it, please RSVP in the comments with your full name. Each of you will be expected to post a short reflection about what you learned/discovered after the event (due Monday).
For those who cannot attend, I have an alternative assignment we will discuss in class. Please email me for details.
I found ‘The Machine Stops’ by E.M. Forster an extremely interesting short story and it’s left me with a lot to think about. I’m often very critical of science fiction as I think sometimes the authors excitement to express scientific ideas takes away from the actual narration of the story but I found this story extremely enjoyable both as a work of fiction and a work of science fiction and human observation.
While I found Forster’s argument about the danger of decadence extremely persuasive I can’t help thinking that it was all a bit too simple. The story was set under the assumption that the large majority of human beings had been entirely accepting of all the changes in their lives and had let themselves get to the point where the machine ran their lives and they no longer had any choice in anything they did. I think, looking back over the history of human behaviour, that this is not a very realistic situation. It is not in human nature to be complacent. We have countless examples of revolutions, uprisings, the entire structure of democracy, of fighting to make the world a better place. What sets human beings aside from animals is that we don’t let ourselves be pushed around, we fight and when society notices something that is bringing it down it rebels against it. I think it’s unrealistic to think that everyone just sat by while the machine took over, that no one tried to fight against it.
I think most of us read this story and feared that the world could potentially be headed in the direction that Forster predicted, but it is precisely that fear that is going to save human kind from the future he foresaw.
I don’t have many thoughts about The Machine Stops that went unaddressed in class, but I didn’t get to discuss juxtaposition in the way I had wanted.
Forster uses opposites in a few interesting ways in The Machine Stops. Mostly, he uses traditional dichotomies to create tension or enforce a point, but something I noticed was that at the end of the first section, he almost severely placed the natural world next to people worshipping the Machine. While the contrast between the Himalayas and the Machine is striking, the most interesting part of this is the idea that praise of the Machine is just as unnatural as the subject of their prayer. One idea surrounding this comparison is that religion is a thing that was, at the time, considered almost exclusively a natural and just thing, and this juxtaposition serves to highlight their religion as different and evil. Modern conceptions of religion are less supportive of this theory, but given the context for its being written, it seems reasonable.
There’s a lot to think about after reading such a short story, but what comes to the forefront after going through The Machine Stops again is this blaring emphasis on the necessity of a direct, firsthand human experience. Of course there were many other themes I could explore, such as those regarding the strength of faith as it consistently survives along with the human race, but I keep coming back to the prior point. With the loss of physical space and resultant loss of physical experience and prowess, the human society grew quite idle in Vashti’s world. Convenience in living area transferred to convenience in thought with the creation and ubiquity of the Machine, something already happening in our modern day world. The horrifying reality is that without self-discovery (whether it’s truly original or not), everything in the world loses meaning, including language and ideas that come with an alarming lack of emotional response because the people legitimately don’t know what to feel. My best example is when Kuno first predicts that “the Machine stops”, Vashti simply cannot comprehend what this could mean. As we later find out, she begins to slowly be consumed by fear when his prophecy rings true and their world collapses. It’s incredibly depressing to me that the only thing Vashti really experienced was the apocalypse, but it’s also a wake up call. Our worlds are almost frighteningly similar. I live in a very small space (my dorm), I am constantly trusting technological sources to retain all the non-essential knowledge, and I sometimes lack the primary experiences I wish to understand. It’s surely not the dreary and disgustingly immobile world we observe in Forster’s story, but the themes still apply.
Each of us learned to read and write using a variety of tools which have transformed the way we interact with the world. Using tiki-toki as your platform (advanced users may try TimelineJS), create a timeline that showcases your digital literacy journey. To do this:
- On paper, list all of the moments in your life where reading and/or writing played an important role. Then list the tools you used, and describe how you were introduced and learned to use those tools.
- Select the 15-20 most significant moments and arrange them chronologically. Fill in the details of those moments, giving your audience a clear sense of why they are important in your personal journey.
- Research the dates associated with the tools you are highlighting – when where they invented, by whom, what date were they released to the public, at what price, etc.
- Set up a free account on tiki-toki and experiment placing your events on the timeline. Include pictures, videos, and quotes when appropriate.
- Create a blog post that showcases your timeline and includes the text of your digital literacy narrative.
- Prepare a 5 minute presentation of your digital literacy narrative. Time yourself! Practice! You will be evaluated by me, your classmates, and your special guest.
Remember:
- This text should be aimed to a general audience of your peers, but please edit carefully and think of this as an academic presentation.
- I would not expect this to be longer than 5 paragraphs. The writing is a chance to expand and explain the timeline itself.
- Please reflect on what you learned through the process of creating the timeline, and include this in your post.
- Categorize this as “Reflections” and tag it as “timeline.”
Post the draft by Friday, September 19th (by 11:59pm), and comment on at least 3 of your classmates projects by Sunday night. You will present the finished projects on Monday the 22nd.
Today I will be presenting this condensed overview of media history in preparation for your next set of readings, and you next assignment.
Timeline
I think what The Machine Stops illustrates best is the idea that as we as humans become increasingly technologically advance, we lose sight of the attributes and values that make us human. Recently, the film “Her” by Spike Jonze tackles this same subject matter and dilemma, and like The Machine Stops, is extremely foresightful in what the future can or will hold for us. One similarity between the two bodies of work is the level of intimacy in the relationships between humans and technology. For instance, in “Her” the main character falls in love with the artificial intelligence present in his technological devices, while in The Machine Stops, Vashti worships and feels an intense degree of warmth toward technological body that is “The Machine”. Both support the idea of a correlation that as humans become increasingly attached to and devoted to the usage of technological devices they in turn become more isolated and less intimate with their human counterparts. At the end of the day both pieces of work point to a tradeoff; although we may be more knowledgable and efficient through the usage of technological devices, we lose the drive to have and share personal interactions and intimacy with other humans.
Amidst an extremely gripping short story, Forster illuminates a very real conundrum that our society could one day face. The people living in the world of the Machine are deprived of human interaction, an experience they do not seem to miss. Forster describes this world where each individual lives in a honeycomb shaped cubicle where all interaction is done through the Machine. Vashti has complied with all the beliefs that the Machine has instilled onto the people, agreeing that public gatherings are “clumsy” preferring they be replaced by the functions of the Machine. The Machine is filling the void of human connection as described when Kuno isolates himself by leaving his conversation with Vashti. After this Vashti was lonely and needed to see “the light, and the sight of her room, [that] flooded with radiance and [was] studded with electric buttons, [to] revive her.” What I was not able to express in our class discussion was the prominent lack of desire to interact with other humans. Overall, I found that the lack of human interaction in this short story to be hauntingly accurate to the world we live in. Today, some are satisfied by their 500 Facebook friends and do not care for the five real friends they have in their life. As the lack of interest in a physical friendship or connection was clear throughout the short story, I found the ending to be even more touching when Kuno kisses Vashti. Even though this lack of contact is a reality we are living in, the kiss shows that we still long for some sense of personal connection.
‘The Machine Stops’ is a chilling story about the dangers of technology. One of the aspects of the short story I found most compelling and simultaneously frightening, was the scene in which Vashti’s room is described: “There were buttons and switches everywhere…she cared for in the world.” Forster’s repetition of the word “button” grabbed my attention because it emphasizes the extent to which life has been modified by technology. It illustrates the danger of human life completely relying on technology, so much so that they cannot survive without it. Moreover, I was also captivated by this scene because it is so akin to a scene from Wall-E in which humans spend their whole lives sitting on a chair that carries them everywhere – they don’t have to move a muscle because they live in a civilization in which technology is “bringing things to people”.
NYU Gallatin First-Year Writing Seminar, Fall 2014